well and truly done

We are well and truly done with the mountain wall. The four panels are cleaned, covered with protective film, and stacked waiting for pick up. With the holidays and businesses having days off and the end of year madness, Henry, from the glass company, and I decided to put off pick up and installation til the first week of January. Whew! I can't be available for the installation til then anyway.

After my last post I kept the composite picture of the mountain on my computer screen all weekend, pausing to look at it with a less critical eye every time I passed it. By the time it was time for us to head back in to the city to do the last touch-up, I was happy with the overall piece. I think it's going to look really good. I still don't like installations, but at least I don't have to deal with that til next year.

We actually finished everything up last Tuesday. Wednesday I was in the best mood. It didn't hurt that it was a beautiful temperate day. I took advantage of it and did what little holiday shopping I intended to do. Well, except for the three grandgirls. The twins are getting new mattresses and the youngest is getting cash. We'll do that when we go in on the 28^th for our gift giving.

Whenever we work on big projects like these two walls that have kept us busy for the last 4½ months, I tend to lose my grip on all other activities. It doesn't happen all at once, gradually letting things slip. My posting has gone way down, my reading of blogs and commenting as well. I am single minded, focused on the work. I expected to do a new post when we returned home Wednesday evening but now, here it is Friday and I'm just now composing.

Well, that's not entirely true. I was working on a post about the latest shootings and the whole gun proliferation thing in this country, about how we worship violence but to tell you the truth, I'm sick of it. I've read so many really excellent essays on the subject, the knee-jerk 'more guns is the answer' responses that display so much ignorance of what it is really like to be in the middle of a situation like that. Perhaps I will still publish it down the road though it needs a lot of work.

So now, the end of the world has come and gone, once again. And I still feel fine. Another blog post that didn't get written. Or the one on christmas trees.

The good thing is that now the time of the long nights is over. Even though the winter solstice marks the beginning of winter and we will have our coldest days in the coming months, those days will be growing longer and the nights shorter.

We are dog-sitting for the next week while my sister visits her daughter and grandchildren in Albuquerque. It will be a quiet week with no demands on me. A week in which I get to putter around, doing or not doing whatever I want. Resting. After the new year it will be back to work on the three jobs we have waiting with another confirmed and another possible. So it looks like next year will be business as usual at least for the first 6 months.

That's about all.

I'm still here.