By now many of you have gotten our latest eNewsletter announcing our new fabric collection, Daisies & Dots. If you're not on the newsletter list, be sure to visit our home page and jump from there to see what's new. There's a new pincushion video, there is a new free pattern, there's all sorts of fun stuff!

In other news, it snowed in north Texas yesterday! Steve did not jump in the pool. His plan is to jump in at least once a month and he's already been in twice since January 1. It may be the end of February before he braves the cold water again. Those of you who live where it snows a lot will laugh, but this snowfall has shut down most of north Texas, at least for Monday morning. Yet another excuse not to go to the gym.

I am not a wine connoisseur. I'll admit right here that there is a lot of cheap red wine that tastes just dandy to me.

Since there are a lot of inexpensive wines on the shelf I often resort to buying wine by how cute the label is. Friends (thank you, Carol and David!) gave us this bottle of Bubo.

The label makes me want to draw! And I love the shade of green on the foil/plastic around the top of the bottle. Wouldn't that be pretty in fabric?

And, because enquiring minds might want to know, Bubo is tasty!

See a close-up of the label below. I may have to begin soaking off and saving the best labels!

Some years ago I organized our good family photos into albums. I am not by nature a scrapbooker so my albums are pretty plain. They live in a cabinet and I rarely think of them. However, on Saturday, Jeff’s last day here, I pulled out the albums and we had a really good time going over them. Here are a few:

That’s my mom holding me in 1956! As I was filling in this sort of detail, I realized that I should have written a lot of it IN THE ALBUM! I can see I’m going to have to go back and do that.

These are my grandparents, Mabel and Dan Eckroat, on their honeymoon. They travelled often in their lives.

This is a Christmas picture with my dad, his sister, Helen, and my grandparents. I remember most of that furniture.

Here’s Jeff when he was 6 or 7. He was on a hike with Steve and Christopher. He has his tough guy face on!

And that’s Jeff on the right, sailing in Boston harbor. We took him for a week of sailing lessons when he was in high school instead of him going on the class trip to Europe that he had no interest in.

You know what else I realized on Saturday? I quit printing pictures just as our grandchildren came on the scene. I have lots of digital images but really, it’s not the same. I’m going to have to bite the bullet and make some more albums. I may have them printed in books (I know I can do that) or not. Either way, I have a new thing on the to do list.

The dining room table is in the dining just in time for our family Christmas/New Year's Eve dinner and party!

I am so very excited! Steve, with some help from Jeff, did a magnificent job. This table will probably be in this room until we are blasted out of the house.

Of course a new table brings with it the need for 4 more chairs. I'd love to find chairs similar to the ones you see here in the blue upholstery. We got these 30 years ago at a Danish furniture store. If any of you happen to know where I might find something similar (used is fine!) please let me know. Until then we'll fill in with our wood folding chairs and the arm chairs that really don't fit but are pretty anyway.

Here you see the table set for eleven (the kids have smaller, colored plates). Dinner is in a couple of hours and we'll be opening presents before that. And the guys are going to jump in the pool! I hope your New Year's Eve is as festive as ours!

We read an article in Dwell magazine several months ago about Solatubes. These are small skylights made in Australia that are easy to install and that bring in an incredible amount of light. We found a distributor in the US and got one ordered so that the boys could help Steve install it. That's Jeff, Steve, and Chris (L to R) sorting out the pieces and doing some pre-assembly.

Holes had to be cut through the bathroom ceiling and – gasp! – through the roof of the house. I was in the garage doing a different chore so I didn't get a photo of the holes being cut. There's Steve, below, putting the bottom piece up through the ceiling. The boys are in the attic joining pieces and screwing them in place.

There is an amazing amount of light coming through the Solatube!

The unit came with flashing and instructions for how to nestle the outside part in the shingles. Steve is a big believer in asphalt caulk so to prevent roof leaks so he got back on the roof and sealed all the seams.

The dome is a hard, thick, clear plastic. The only thing that I'm concerned about is how it will hold up to golf ball or larger-sized hail. I may order a spare dome.

It's hard to get a good photo of this bathroom but that bright circle in the ceiling is the end of the Solatube and it is providing the only light in the room. Today is a cloudy day – it will be brighter on sunny days! I hope to order at least one more of these next year for our other interior bathroom.

Steve, with help from Jeff, got almost all the paint off of the porch posts and got them sanded smooth. Notice that they are hollow.

Steve got a 4″ x 4″ post and ripped boards to fit the hollow center of the posts. He and Jeff glued the perfectly cut pieces into the center of each table leg to make them stronger.

They cut the ends to make them smooth.

I got home from shopping in Dallas and stained these lovely table legs.

They don’t take the stain as well as the table top but that’s OK with me and Steve. In fact I almost wish the table top had the same pickled finish – but it doesn’t. Here’s a nice close-up…

The square part of the legs are the top, the turned parts will be nearer the floor. Look close and you’ll see that they are in ‘pairs’. The top of the porch post was one pattern, and the bottom was a different turned pattern. I love it!