Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dead end!

OK, this picture requires a couple explanations. That's Conall, the ten-month-old, and he's "walking" around the kitchen, pushing this stool in front of him, sticking his tongue out to crack me up at the same time. Funny little man. Sister Bella didn't walk until 15 months, so this is really a surprise! We're thinking he might be walking by Christmas (he'll be almost 1 at Christmas). That would certainly make ski season a lot easier for us...

The other part of the explanation is about the stool itself, which has a neat little backstory. My big brother Tim is the head librarian at theTown of Oxford Free Public Library, in Massachusetts. What a great job, huh? He also really loves woodworking, and has made all sorts of fantastic furniture for my Mum. (Trying to talk him into looking into Etsy, but I don't think it's going to happen.)

A couple years ago, the town of Oxford voted to expand his library dramatically, and in the process they replaced a lot of the old shelves (the original library building is reasonably old by U.S. standards, from the early 1900s, IIRC, and they found all sorts of neat historical documents - including a time capsule - during the renovation).

At any rate, Tim salvaged the shelves and made everyone these fantastic little footstools out of them! I actually have two. :) One is down behind my big loom - I sit on it while threading heddles.

This one has gotten kind of beat up over the years... Stickers put on it by Bella, paint dripped on it by me, cat prints tracked across it by Madeline. But we use it every day! Bella uses it to reach the computer, I use it to reach things stored way up high in the kitchen, Conall loves to push it around. Great present. Hooray for big brother Tim. :)

Thanksgiving is about family, after all, right?

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