Though we all had a wonderful Thanksgiving (Karen, Timothy, and Clara with family in Virginia, me with family in Maine), the big news is Clara's various accomplishments over the last three weeks or so.

A day or two before leaving with her Mama and brother for New York and Virginia, she walked three steps with no help. She rested on her laurels for about a week, and then took a few steps several times over Thanksgiving weekend. Once she returned last Monday, Clara really began walking with great purpose: she now will walk five or six steps independently several times each day.

On the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, Clara was watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas at her Aunt Michelle and Uncle Karl's house. When the Grinch's dog Max jumped onto the sleigh and started wagging his tail, Clara got very excited -- and finally burst out, "Doggie!" Her first word. Since her return, she has several times crowed "kitty!" at our longsuffering Klipsi. These are the first two words that she has unambiguously used, so of course we're looking forward to a smashing career in zoology or some such....

Karen, in the meantime, has just embarked on her first paying gig as a professional ASL interpreter. I'd include a link to the Times Argus article about it, but it didn't seem to make the on-line version of the paper. So, here it is from Saturday's paper:

ASL signed Eucharist to be offered in Barre

Karen Mueller-Harder, an ASL interpreter from Cabot, will provide interpretation in American Sign Language for Deaf people during the 10 a.m. Eucharist at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, 43 Washington St., Barre, on each of the four Sundays of Advent (Dec. 2, 9, 16 and 23). The Rev. Jean Staffeld Jersey will celebrate the Eucharist.

Karen first became interested in ASL when she was five and a Deaf boy joined her Sunday school class. The children were taught the manual alphabet to begin with and gradually learned some signs from their classmate.

Growing up in Rochester, N.Y., the home of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Karen was able to take classes and attend theater events in ASL during the 1980s, but she did not decide to become an interpreter until 10 years later while she worked at the library at MIT. In 1994, she began taking evening classes at Northeastern University. She was surprised and delighted to discover that the teacher of her first Deaf culture class was the same friend from Sunday school whom she had not seen for 15 years. She finished her interpreter training last year and moved to Cabot this summer to work as an ASL interpreter.

All people who are interested are welcome to attend the services as well as the coffee hour, which follows in the fellowship hall.

For information call 476-3929.

This last week, I began rehearsing with the Vermont Philharmonic and members of various local choruses for two performances of Handel's Messiah. On Friday evening, we performed at St. Augustine's church in Montpelier; Sunday afternoon's performance was at the Barre Opera House. It was my first time on a stage of any sort for any reason since 1994 -- I hadn't realized how much I missed singing! There are numerous choruses in the area; one of them might end up with an extra second bass soon....

There's not much to report on the house front. Our carpenters took a (planned) vacation for the past two weeks; they should be finished with the current project before Christmas (just). The plumber has had a family emergency, so, though the radiators are all installed, the boiler is still in its crate in the cellar; the system should be completely installed by the end of the week, though. We're still trying to line somebody up to finish the floor in the living room; everyone seems to be booked up. The designer and builder of our masonry stove had been slated to repair it for a week in December; however, he's lost two of his workers and is now suddenly saying "sometime in the spring"; his brother, though, who's worked with him extensively, may be able to squeeze our work in on weekends in January. Fortunately, we had arranged for the plumber to add a large radiator in the kitchen.

Yesterday, our plumber, John, came to do the final assembly and installation of our new Buderus boiler. He's gotten (as usual) extremely booked up before the holidays and more-or-less expects to work weekends this time of year. What none of us expected was that he'd work clear through until 3:30 a.m.! By the time he left, though, we had heat throughout the first floor of the older cape part of the house, in the large upstairs bathroom, and in the front of the kitchen. Later (January), we'll add another heating panel in the back of the living room and an old radiator in the garage (through which the water will run on its return trip to the boiler).

We love the Buderus boiler! It's efficient anyway, but we've added a computer controller (on the boiler's top in the picture) which is supposed to increase its efficiency by 30%, taking into account the current outdoor temperature, whether it's "day" or "night" (by our own definitions), and so on. So far, the boiler temperature has needed to be only about 130°, rather than the more conventional 180°!

John will return in a few days to connect the hot water tank -- so we'll finally stop using the electric water heater.

The carpenters will be building a temporary wall in the next couple of days right across the middle of our kitchen, to protect us from cold and dust while they remove the wall between the kitchen and the living room and replace the five casement windows with four double-hung ones to match those in the living room. Here a couple of last pictures of "before."

Last week, the carpenters finished trimming the windows in the living room and our bedroom. We're very pleased with their work. They've put the bronze hardware on the French doors and they've put together the "pocket door" for the closet off our living room alcove (what used to be the outhouse).

The real excitement today was when the insulation people finally came to blow sticky cellulose over the foam insulation in the cellar. We knew this was going to be a sticky mess -- and the insulation guys properly covered everything in the basement with plastic sheets. What no one expected, however, was the immense quantity of dust; that is, the insulation guys expected it, but assumed it would stay in the basement. Had we expected it, we could have told them it would instantly and enthusiastically spread throughout the entire downstairs of our house, as happened on Hallowe'en.

They were, typically, unimpressed when we told them about the problem as it was happening. However, we called them in the evening and they said they'd come over in the morning to thoroughly dust and vacuum everything.

It's tan, so the cellar seems quite a bit darker than it did with the foam. It will take several days for the adhesive to cure, by which time it will look a good bit lighter. When it's finished drying, it's supposed to be virtually "unflakable." We hope. It does provide some extra insulation over the foam, of course. The real reason we put it in, though, is that it provides a thermal barrier (read "flame retardance") for the foam, which is somewhat flammable.

The carpenters have put up the temporary wall (diagonally) across the back of the kitchen. More exciting, they've taken down the wall between the kitchen and the living room! You can see our new living room ceiling lights in some of these pictures. Finally, too, you can see "before" and "after" windows in the kitchen and living room at the same time. They'll all match soon!

We love it with the wall down! Thought I'd also include some morning outdoor shots: we've been so distracted by all that's going on here that sometimes we have to make ourselves stop and remember why it is we're here in the first place.

The plumber returned yesterday to install the hot water tank, which gets heated from the Buderus boiler. The boiler knows exactly what temperature the water in the tank is and sends water through a coil running down the tank's center whenever necessary. By default, the boiler doesn't heat the water during the hours we define as "night," and brings it back up to temperature 1/2 hour before "day." Works great!

Last month -- right before his trip to New York and Virginia, Timothy wrote a song. I'd meant to post it here, but it got buried in a pile and I unearthed it only today. Here it is:

Eating Crispy Lettucen, Lully-Lou

Upon further inquiry, we've found at least two formative influences upon this song: "Here We Go Loobie-Lou" and "All the Little Bunnies." Still, sometimes the inspiration is in the combination.

Timothy and Karen put together this beautiful gingerbread house today. Karen's sister Susan sent it as a kit. Timothy was the architect and foreman; Karen performed the actual assembly. Now we're all enjoying eating it....

One of our carpenters completely disassembled the upstairs "plaid" bathroom yesterday, opening up the old stairs; today he cut two of its surrounding walls down to one-third their former height. We can now go from the living room to our bedroom very quickly, instead of travelling through the kitchen and playroom to the other side of the house, ascending the stairs there, and wending our way slowly through the second-floor labyrinth. Further, much of that second-floor maze is considerably more pleasant now since it's lit by the old "bathroom" window at the top of the stairs and you can see through over the walls. Later (spring or summer), we'll replace the lower walls with real railings and add a banister to the stairs -- as well as patch the holes, strip the wallpaper, remove the carpeting, and paint -- but for now we're thrilled by the new-found convenience, by the light coming down the stairway to the kitchen entry, and by the heat coming upstairs to warm us.

We thought it must have been left in South Hampton, but at long last Karen found my salt-and-pepper hat. Particularly important to me, since Karen gave it to me on our honeymoon in Newfoundland. Yea! Clara really likes it, too.

A house in Cabot village, ready for Christmas

We haven't written anything about the living room renovation since the 11th, partly because we've been so frantically busy that we haven't posted anything at all. Nonetheless, first the carpenters and then the floor finishers have been working overtime to ready the living room for us. Success! The carpenters finished everything that needed to be done before the floor was refinished on Tuesday morning. The floor finishers came Tuesday to sand and returned Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to stain and urethane (a mix of both each time). By Saturday morning, we were able to start putting furniture (with soft feet) into the room. HOORAY!! Yesterday and today we've been busy assembling audio cabinets, harvesting, hauling, raising, and bedecking Christmas trees, illuminating windows, and admonishing children for using sandpaper on the new floor (yes, really). The carpenters will be installing baseboards and trim around the French doors, and will box the wood posts. There is also still some patching to do with paint, and the window sashes and trim need to be painted. All of this will be after Christmas, however! Our piano will go in the southwest corner (behind Karen in the first picture) once the floor is a little bit harder. Finally, we'll also be able to put down a rug soon, once the finish is utterly dry.

Clara's fifth word is by far her favorite. She says it over and over and over, pointing at each and every Christmas candle, at the Christmas tree, at our overhead and floor lamps, and at the moon: "light!" Lights have clearly been bringing her much joy in the past couple of weeks.

We too are pleased by lights lately, including this Tiffany-style lamp we purchased for the living room.

Karen has continued her interpreting at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Barre and has really been enjoying it. We've been warmly welcomed as temporary members of the congregation. Timothy has been in the small Sunday School and is slated to appear this evening as an angel in the Christmas Pageant. Yesterday he was the only child in Sunday School and so not only lit all the candles in the Advent wreath, but also read the prayer for the lighting of the wreath with no rehearsal. He asked only about the word "patient," reading the rest, including the word "remembering," with confidence.

We wish you all a very happy Christmas and a New Year filled with peace and joy!

Merry Christmas!

We had a quiet and happy Christmas morning in our new living room. All the "outside" pictures here were taken from living room windows. We're very grateful to have been able to celebrate Christmas in this finished, calm environment!

After lunch, we hopped into the car and drove to my folks' house in Maine. We had a lovely Christmas evening with them and lots of good cheese fondue.

On the day after Christmas, the rest of the Harders came to visit my folks, too. We had a wonderful dinner and exchanged gifts. It was fun watching the cousins play together.

Our friends Beth and Scott (and their daughter Amanda) came to visit and celebrate the new year with us. It snowed on the 30th, and since we were going to be in town for New Year's Eve itself, we thought we'd light the burnable scrap pile the carpenters had left us with from all the renovation and have ourselves a bonfire.

I'm disappointed that the photos in no way show the size and scope of the fire. Because of the snow on top of the pile, the snow all around it, and the snow coming down the fire never threatened to grow out of control; the pile itself, though, was a full six or seven feet high (with the snow then on top of that). So the flames you can see in the second picture here are a good nine or ten feet high -- the photos were taken from the windows of our living room, about fifteen feet above ground level, so we're looking down at the flames. It was fairly cold (15° F), yet we could feel the intense heat from the fire when we opened the window. We had a good time watching our junk pile disappear into smoke!

We took pictures of our good times with Beth and Scott on January 1; they'll be posted soon....

Nothing left of our burn pile today but some ashes and nails, quickly getting covered with new-fallen snow. Very good to start the year off with a clean slate!

We went with our guests to First Night in Montpelier. What a nice scale it was! Nothing was too crowded. The events were close together.... We watched very nice fireworks from the State House lawn.