Like many of you, this holiday season found us at home and making the hard decision to not gather with our families to be safe for everyone during the pandemic. We really missed everyone but knew we were making the best decision for everyone. I hope that all of you were able to have safe and peaceful holiday. 

I had a huge moment of bad judgement of safety in making gifts this season. I have been doing wood work for about 12 years and have been very fortunate not to have had any accidents until a couple weeks ago. I had decided that I wanted to make some candle holders so we could light a candle together on Christmas Eve since we could not be together. I went out into the woods and gathered a cedar log and was going to make into individual holders. When I went to create the holes in the wood to hold the tealight candles, I did this unsafe hack of holding the wood with my feet while I use my forstner bit. Unfortunately it was a small piece and really hard wood that I was not use to working with and it slipped and I came down on my toes with the bit. 

I was very lucky that my husband was home to help stop the bleeding and drive me to urgent care for irrigation and stitches. Over two weeks later, the healing is still pretty intense. I am finally wearing regular shoes and doing small walking outings. This is my public service announcement for not taking short cuts and compromising safety! I won't show you all the graphic pics; but this is where the healing is today.

I was able to complete the candle holders safely, and also made some little wood fish ornaments from some found wood that we found that my father in law had in his garage. My father in law passed away last year and we have spent this past year helping my mother in law with the properties and when I saw this piece of wood I knew I wanted to make a little something for everyone to remember him by. He loved to fish, a love handed down to other family members.

I was inspired this week by both the candle holders and found wood pieces to make some more simple wood candle holders that will be going into the shop the help hold onto the light during the upcoming dark months. A shop update will be coming up on Saturday.

Wish you all a safe New Year!