What I did on my Christmas Vacation

Four weeks off from school! Hurrah!! Hurrah! I had so many great projects to work on like making a book for you folks, completing my Kickstarter promises, finishing the book I started this summer... hanging out with my kids (hadn't seen my college kid in ages!), and maybe even... GASP... getting some sleep.

Not so much.

I spent the four weeks moving stuff around, squishing large boxes into small places, emptying spaces then filling them with stuff from other spaces.

First, I had to put away all the boxes of stuff I had dumped at my house in August in an attempt to clear out my shop and studio:

Which is now empty and waiting for someone to please rent the space and do something wonderful and creative within!

Then, I needed to empty out our Playroom (Music Room) - which, ironically, was my first studio - to create a space for my mom to move in with us.


Here's Mom and Mickey, soon to be permanent residents of our household.

Here's John (my fireman) and Minou, who helped me move everything out of the Playroom and to all the far reaches of my house, attic, barn, and other previously unknown areas of Warner. Actually, Minou didn't help much at all. But she is devoted to John.

I had to make a lot of sacrifices, like my giant Playmobil man. Goodbye gentle sir. (The room being emptied is behind him).

I even put my bow front, antique china cabinet for sale to make room in the dining room for my Lego town. As I said, sacrifices needed to be made.

When all that was done, I moved on to my barn studio. The dumping ground. I'd avoided this space for months. Ugh. Stress in piles.

But it only took me a few days to straighten it out once I finally got started...

Oh, what a beautiful floor. I had completely forgotten!

Then I decided I needed to take back my treehouse (it was filled with an enormous Playmobil castle, dragons, etc.) and create a private refuge for when I was home from school. The fireman helped me clean it out and move in a futon. I added a TV for watching Netflix too. It's very quiet up there.

Lilah loved the "new" studio. I had set up my easel again and found a giant canvas so I could make a painting to fill the big empty wall of my apartment at school. I never got to work on it...

Lilah decided that she loves mixing paint and working big...

There's still a lot to do, but it's a great start, I have to take some more pics of the progress when I get back home again...

One thing I DID accomplish from my original To-Do list - I did get to spend some time with my kids and my friends. (Happy Birthday Debbee!)

And I got to see a couple of movies. Can you tell which one was Minou's favorite?

And, a bit random, but there have been some really beautiful skies this month...