After a busy summer of landscaping, growing food and doing our best to enjoy the yard when the temperatures were manageable, I flew into a fall full of shop work in preparation for our first craft fair. Since the craft fair, I have taken a little bit of a break, which unfortunately, also resulted in a bit of a lull in the blog.

As we entered into December, we have been enjoying the winter weather that has finally arrived, coating the yard in snow. The holiday lights look so much better surrounded by crisp white snow. The dogs have been enjoying the frozen yard. Although she doesn’t like the cold, Basil does enjoy eating snow, and has been happily finding snowballs and chunks of snow in the yard to crunch up. Ellie on the other hand is doing her usual perimeter checks and regularly checking to see if any rodents have trespassed into the yard.

Now that we are finally getting some snow, we are excited to get out on the cross-country ski trails. Unfortunately, one of the places we go will be a while before their trails are set. The warmer weather has made it difficult to get a base set, but with some recent social media posts comes some positive news. The snow has been dumping up there, so hopefully we will be able to get up there soon. They have a great dog loop that is 5 km that we like to take the dogs on after work. The other location that we take them has some of their cross-country trails open but we have heard that the trails are still in a bit of an early-season state. I think we will wait another week and then head up there. Lots of snow in the forecast, so hopefully they see some more inches added to their base. Soon though, we will be enjoying the huff and puff and beauty of the winter forests.

So what have we been up to the last week? Chillin. Reading books. Enjoying some downtime with family. We have added a nice recliner couch to our rec-room and have found ourselves enjoying the crackle of a fire in our wood stove, with a Christmas tree lit up in the corner, and a movie on the TV, it is the perfect location for a warm, lazy day. I added lights again to the large cedars in the backyard, so we open the curtains on the rec-room sliding door and get a glow of holiday lights reflecting on the snow-covered yard, which makes the room feel so much cozier. I imagine we will be spending a lot more time downstairs in the rec room, watching holiday movies over the next few weeks.

My lazy days however, are going to need to be cut back a bit. I am beginning to get antsy to get back out to the shop to play with some more designs and projects. I have at least one Christmas present to make, with a few “possible” gifts on my list if I have time. I also would like to re-stock some more lazy susan’s in our shop as I am almost sold out now. I only have one 20″ one left. I will have to do a few different sizes so that there is a good variety to choose from. There is still time for some of our shop items to make it under the tree for Christmas, so I want to make sure that we have a good selection to choose from.

I may also get a head-start on a new-year project. In January, I plan to make 20 advent calendar frames for my mother-in-law to spend the year decorating in preparation for next winter. I usually make them in the fall, when I am also trying to make a bunch of other woodwork items for the holiday shopping season, and now craft-fair season. I think getting it done in the new year will be nice for both of us as it will feel less rushed and less pressure to get them done in time for the demand.

I hope you are all taking some lazy days to sit back and enjoy the holiday season. I should have some more exciting posts coming soon with some of the new shop builds.