Working with a heavy heart

 it's been a tough week here

while work continues on the house and projects (more about that further down in this post), we are constantly mindful of the struggles this young family is dealing with

I have been very close friends with the grandmother of the young woman in this picture since before she was born, I consider them family

in August they went to China so she could teach English there

right now her husband is in the ICU of a hospital there in China and is not doing well, she has been told to be prepared for him not to make it

they need help
 
you can read the full story about what is happening here:  http://www.thelittlefigs.com/

if you can help them in any way, I believe you will be blessed

all of the cabinet doors from the kitchen are ready and waiting to go back in

yesterday we returned all of the drawers to their places -- fresh paint, new contact paper liners -- looking good

the little blue room is ready -- the carpet has been shampooed, the glass mirror closet doors cleaned, and just these two pieces of furniture in the room -- there are no ceiling fixtures, so in order to light the rooms I'm putting a lamp in each one -- it's the best I can do 

it took me several days to finally get the edge work done on this piece -- now I'm (slowly!) working on the necklace

 

and work continues on this shed door -- the last one

I have a lot of other art I want to work on, but the heavy physical work in the house must get done first -- the living room/dining room carpet gets professionally cleaned tomorrow, we meet with the real estate agents on Tuesday

we hope to have the house on the market by the end of the week -- we'll need all the help we can get