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Stefanie standing at the threshold…

Be careful what you wish for, as they say. That didn’t stop us from wishing for a piece of land in the hopes of building a house here in San Miguel. All came true in due course. And now our wall is going up around the property, looking enough like it belongs on some grand estate to make me wonder who we are. Indeed, that’s probably what our neighbors wonder.

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Mixing cement by hand

Another part of our dream, another wish really, is to have a home base in Paducah, Kentucky, all the better for staging our art business to parts far and near around the country. We sent our proposal to the Urban Renewal Board last week for their February meeting. If we’ve crossed all our T’s and dotted all our I’s then we’ll have deed in hand for the empty lot we’ve requested. And we’ll have the right to build our second house. The first being our cozy casita down here in San Miguel, scheduled for construction to start within the next month. So what that means is that at some point this year, most likely the midpoint, we’ll have two separate constructions going on simultaneously. The gods must be crazy. Perhaps this is a test of our mettle or maybe it’s meant to be a comparison of the two processes. In San Miguel we’ll be our own contractors, a way of saving money and entirely do-able, we’ve learned, from building the wall. We hope to continue with our crew of five locals from our village of Alcocer when the casita begins. They’re steady, dependable workers and skilled craftsmen to boot. Paducah will be a different story, requiring a builder to do the honors of coordination and running the regulation/inspection gauntlet. We’ve already found our man, an easy-going but businesslike kind of guy who’s not intimidated by long distances and communicating his progress to us via e-mail. This will definitely be the year of the house.

Building the rock foundation for the wall

In the meantime, we continue our preparations for art fairs in Florida during the months of February and March. This is our introduction into the Florida art scene and we’re filled with anticipation, though it requires another very long road trip north. Our confirmed schedule to date is as follows:

February 22 – 23, Marco Island Arts & Crafts Fair at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church – Stefanie;
February 25 – 26, The 16th Old Hyde Park Art Festival, Tampa, FL – Dave;
March 11 – 12, Springfest Festival of Fine Arts & Fine Crafts, Holmes Beach, FL – Stefanie

Dave takes the weekly orders for supplies

Stefanie enjoys the progress of the project

We’re still waiting for confirmation for fairs on the weekends of February 18 – 19 and March 4 – 5. Look for an update of our confirmed schedule on our website homepage.

The corner castillo being formed

Both the art business and our home building will require a magnitude of planning in this new year. We’re hoping for smooth sailing but know better than to believe that all will fit so neatly into our plans as scheduled. But we’re crazy enough to give it our best shot and wise enough, we hope, to build a wide margin of flexibility. Stay tuned for more high-flying adventures!