It has been such a long time since I wrote anything here. Life has been a bit crazy, just to say the least. With Covid only adding to the craziness. Working full time through all of this in a role where I face the public every day has been a challenge. I had a lot of fear in the beginning. At this point I’ve just become used to it. Hopefully I’ll be eligible for a vaccine later this spring. Wearing masks all day has become routine.

In the mean time here’s a portion of what’s been happening with me.

Last summer we began looking for a contractor to finish our basement. After 16 years in our house, we decided it was time to take the plunge and just do it. We spent a good deal of time cleaning out all of the junk in our basement and preparing it to be ready if and/or when we hired a contractor. We had a couple of contractors look at it. One of the bids came in at like twice our budget, so that was a bit disheartening. The second person that came and looked at the job never got back to us at all. We finally got another referral for someone we had never heard of. When he came and looked at the project, we liked him right away. His bid came in just a little bit over our budget, but enough that it was manageable. We signed the contract back around Thanksgiving and work began the first week of January. We are just a little bit past midway in the project at this point and things have gone really pretty smoothly. They just finished mudding, taping and texturing the walls this week. Painting will begin on Monday. We are adding a 3/4 bath, a third “bedroom” which Jason will use for an office. He gets to move out of the lower part of the basement, the area referred to as “The Hovel”. The other end of the basement will be a new sewing area for me (YAY!) and a decent sized storage closet. Sam, our contractor, has been wonderful to work with. If you are needing work done and you are in the St. Cloud area, I highly recommend him. I’ll post before and after pictures once it is all complete in a few weeks.

In the creative realm, I have spent the last year working on my watercolor skills. I added a page on my site where you can order prints if you wish. I’ll try and keep adding them as I do more paintings and have time to scan them.

I also dove into the world of surface pattern design. I plan on expanding this content on my site, but for now I have a link to my new Spoonflower shop. I plan to expand what I have available for sale there as I upload designs and have it in the budget to order proofs. In order to offer them for sale, they must be proofed first. If you see something you like in the public designs that is not for sale, contact me and I will see what I can do about getting it proofed and making it available to you. This does take a bit of time, but if you have time to wait on it, then we can make it happen.

I also began work on the latest Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt. I went completely rogue with the color scheme this year and I’m loving the results. More on that in another post.

I just thought I would write a bit of a catch up post as I plan to try and write more regularly. We will see how that goes. I always start with good intentions but I’m not always the best with follow through in my writing.