Jim and I are notorious for our late New Years Greetings – one notable year our message arrived on Valentines Day. Look at me now – five days early! I wrote the letter yesterday (not mailed yet, as this is Christmas Day). So, for all of you who follow my intermittent blog, I have posted a copy of my newsletter here, and add you to the list of “Family and Friends”. Blessings to you as well.

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s Christmas Eve Day, 2009, and snow is forecast here in Round Top. That, and the fact that I am not at the torch making glass beads makes today unusual.

As I type at the computer, Jim sits at his workbench pounding away on a piece of silver jewelry he is forging. We are both enjoying our fabulous workshop/ studio in our new barndominium, which we moved into in June after a long planning and building period. (I’ve just about learned which switch turns on what group of lights.) We love our larger space, our generous well designed studio, and all the glass throughout the house that affords us views of fields, oak and cedar forests, and wildlife. Our 20 acres is home to deer, red fox, bobcats, possum, raccoons, and armadillos. We love to grab our binoculars to watch them. Many bird species travel through as well, including roadrunners and wild turkeys.,

Jim at his workbench

Our old house, the one we built six years ago is for sale. Not good timing I suppose as far as the press goes on the economy, however, lots of potential customers have looked at it, and we know it will sell soon.

When we are not in our studio creating jewelry, we are most likely out selling it. (This newsletter sounds similar to last years. Well, not much has changed.) We drove across Texas and New Mexico to assorted shows, and used the Internet and the galleries that we supply with jewelry to boost our sales as well. I was awarded three Best of Category in Glass, and one Best of Category in Jewelry. I also won an honorable mention in Bead Star 2009, a national magazine on the stands now. (The winners were voted on by over 26,000 bead lovers across the U.S.A. – sort of an American Idol for jewelry designers).

Jim gets kudos as Best Supporting Actor for all the work he puts into the entire process. Parkinson’s has slowed him down a bit more this year though, and a nasty virus he battled for over six weeks gave him vertigo. Not easy for a guy whose balance is already compromised. He beat the virus though, and has rejoined me in a daily routine of walking two miles each morning.

Chica, the cat who lounges in the warm bead studio, is still with us. She’s eleven years old now – that is a venerable 60 year old in human terms. Well, Jim and I are not jumping as high as we used to either. I am planning my “Welcome to Medicare and Social Security” party in January. That said, our point of view is young, our love of life is huge, and we welcome another year on the planet. Jim and I wish the same joy of living for you, and send you love and blessings.

Happy New Year!

Here’s a few quick shots of our new house and studio. I’ll get the rest of them up on Flcker soon, I promise.

First, the great room with Jim resting before the next job to do.

and a couple of shots of the new studio. More later.

Almost a year ago we signed a contract with a builder to construct us a metal barn. The time since then has included both excitement and anxiety. But this morning we did the "Punch-out" walk through with the builder, Jason Hahn. After Jason finishes some tiny details Monday morning, the house and barn exterior structures will be complete – at last. Meanwhile, the interior of the house is about 70% done as well. The cabinet maker has framed most of the cabinets, the plumbing is hooked up, the septic done, the wiring is in and waiting, the ac/heat crew  are only holding back for the painter, who will be working as soon as the interior doors and trim are done. Our general contractor, Rudy Engstrom is doing a great job managing all of it.

I’ve been biting my nails, because of course almost everything has cost more than we expected. It will be a wonderful house, and we will make it through this (my manta – we will make it through this, we will, really) with enough money to pay everyone AND get the kitchen counter I want (silestone).

Lampworking has fallen by the wayside though, since most every morning I’m up at the house site checking on details. I’d planned to enter a contest being put on by the International Society of Glass Beadmakers and Bead and Button magazine, but just don’t think I can get it together by February 1st, and keep all the house bits and pieces juggling as well.

In spite of all distractions from my own job, I have managed to create one spectacular necklace recently.

During our sail from Seward to Yakutat, Alaska both of us sat out in the cold windy cockpit almost one full night spellbound by an Aurora Borealis. For some reason I remembered that night while sitting at the torch, and did the best I could to capture in some beads the flash of those incredible lights  reflecting along with the starlight on the smokey, cold, gray green waters of the Gulf of Alaska. Here’s result —————

I haven’t posted since November 2008. No excuses, just what happened. I did get out a snail mail letter to friends. I haven’t really looked back at my 2008 goals though, so let’s see what happened to my list: :

1. Finish building our new house by July, 2008 – The house is still under construction.
2. Move into our new house by August,2008  We hope to be in by March, 2009.
3. Sell the house we are living in now by December 2008 . We’re getting our old house ready to sell. I bought the paint to touch up the front door,  cleaned the flower beds, planted some new flowers,washed the roof, and we’re fixing all of those little wear and tear things inside that we’ve let slide over the past 6 years.
4. Be accepted into the rest of the art shows I have applied to for 2008  I did get into most of the shows I applied for in 2008!
5. Meet my sales goals for 2008 I exceeded my sales goals – what a surprise, especially in view of all the doom and gloom on the news.
6. Finish re-writing my book, Go Anyway, A Memoir, by March 2008 Oh, man, this one really didn’t happen. I barely worked on the re-writing at all. On a positive note, I did re-write 8 of the 30 odd chapters, so at least something got done on it.
7. Publish my book Go Anyway before the end of 2008  This didn’t exactly happen either, but Chapter One was published in the Round Top Register, and got a lot of favorable response.
8. Fix the hot tub so that it works, and I can enjoy using it everyday. Yes, yes, thank you Jim for doing this. Love my soaks in the hot tub. Helps my disposition, and my sometimes aching back.
9. Have  daily quiet time with Jim Well, maybe we didn’t have a daily quiet time, but we did manage several times a week.
10. Do one thing every week  day just for me I really slacked off on being good to myself. I did read and work through The Artists Way, and on most days wrote my morning pages. I should have left the goal as weekly, which I mostly managed.
11. Visit Marfa, Texas  Yes, it was great – see this post.
12. Go on a vacation in a warm place with a beach and nice water for swimming Didn’t even get close, other than downloading the papers to renew our expired passports.
13. Maintain my weight at 125 pounds Today I am up to 127 – generally I hovered at 125 all year.
14. Develop one new successful venue for selling my lampwork creations. Hey, yeah, my jewelry is now selling through the Asher Gallery at the Houston Center for Contemporary Crafts.
15. Make 75 beads that I am happy with each week. Yes I did. Here are some of them.
16. Create 10 items of jewelry that I am satisfied with each week  Yes, I did.
17. Take at least one entire afternoon each week off work to do something totally unrelated to lampworking and jewelry making. I didn’t manage this one. Maybe once every month or so. I’m close to being a work-a holic. This relates to #10. I know I need to care for myself more and/or better.
18. Each week tell someone in my life that I love them, and thank you Hmm -difficult to assess. I know I did express my love more frequently to some of the dear people in my life.I intend to renew this goal for 2009.
19. Tell Jim every day thank you, and that I love him  Yes I did
20. Double the amount of money we have in savings. Nope, unless you count some of the value of our new home as "savings" – oh, can’t cheat, that’s not what I meant, so the answer is it didn’t happen.
21. Plant a vegetable garden. Yes I did, although some type of greedy insect ate more squash than we did!
22. Plant a flower garden. Yes, and my flowers were brilliant, especially the zinnys!
23. Landscape our new house. We started on New Years Eve – does that count?. Our friend Chris Berg , a landscape designer from Oakland, Ca. flew out for a working vacation. He’s done a fabulous job. Thank you, Chris. We’ll plant soon.
24. Build and put up a bat house. Jim did this one
25. Win a contest I didn’t win an actual contest, but I did get several awards for my lampworking
26. Play scrabble with my sister once a month Once a month didn’t happen, but we did start an on-going Scrabble tournament, turned it into a pot-luck dinner evening, and have been enjoying this one fairly frequently. The three of us are only about 75 points apart on the overall score, so we’re evenly matched and will continue playing.
27. Learn something new I learned how to play Sudoku, and taught myself a new beadmaking technique from a tutorial I bought.

Overall, a lot of my goals were accomplished. Jim and I will sit down soon, and envision 2009. Belated New’s Years joy and prosperity to all who are in my world!

Our new house is finally well underway. Two years ago we bought 20 acres next door to where we live now.  We spent ages deciding where on the 20 acres we wanted  to put the house and then more time settling on a plan. We decided to build a SIP (Structured Insulated Panel) house, but struggled to find a builder. After we did find  a builder, and got quotes on building a SIP, we discovered we didn’t have enough money – it was going to cost WAY more than we thought. OK  -we scrapped that idea,  and started over from scratch.

Then one night we went over to visit some new friends at their home, and were introduced to what Texans around here call a "Bardominium" – basically a large metal barn building, with a  "stick frame" house inside. We learned about terrific barn building benefits: They’re sturdy, have low insurance rates, are safer from hurricanes than stick houses, are sustainable, energy efficient,  very affordable, and have fairly fast construction times (once the work is started).

But best of all, since the barn/house  framing is all metal, there are no load bearing interior walls. That meant that we could put  walls, or no walls, anywhere we wanted on the inside. And we wanted big open spaces, high ceilings, and an industrial, modern, minimalist feel. We’re getting it all, and with 30% more floor space for less that the price of the smaller SIP panel or traditional wood frame house would have cost us. A total win in our books.

We’ve only had one problem since choosing to build a bardominium: Our metal barn builder has had so much work that we had to wait, and then wait, and then wait some more. But our number on his list at last came up, and the metal construction started on August 27th. As of today, October 3rd, the barn itself is almost finished! Wall framing materials for the interior were delivered yesterday, and Rudy, our interior contractor, will begin his part starting Monday. Whoopee!

We’ll have a "Studio/Office Wing" with a separate entrance – and are building in other things we didn’t know we’d need or want when we first moved off the sailboat. I’ve posted some pictures of what’s happened so far over on Flickr. Follow the side panel badge link , and let me know what you think!