Meredith Mansfield, Author

The Voice of Prophecy is living up to my dreams for it, so far. Thank you, all my wonderful readers.

Meanwhile, I’m squeezing work on Book 3, Beyond the Prophecy in with the final Christmas preparations. There’s still a lot to do. Handmade gifts that still need to be finished. And I haven’t even started the baking, yet.

And, of course, there’ve been more than the usual number of Christmas fails.

Top of that list has to be the tree that I’d set up in my office. I really enjoyed having my own little Christmas tree in here while I write. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of that tree, either before–or after. But it was basically like this one, but red rather than silver:

Except, of course, it was decorated differently. This one had all the dog and cat ornaments and a handful of hummingbird ornaments on it. Yes, I said had. Thursday–one week before Christmas–I came home to find that tree on the floor. It had been set up on the auxiliary desk, which now looks like this:

(Having already cleared the space for it, I combed the Christmas closet for something else seasonal to put there after the disaster.)

Apparently, the base of the tree had cracked and wasn’t able to support the weight. Fortunately, only one hummingbird appears to be terminal–unless the other wing turns up somewhere, anyway.

Meanwhile, the projects. I’ve still got one of these to finish embroidering–and put that and another set of ornaments together.

That’s doable. I’ve been putting together some little chain mail ornaments as a back up, just in case.

The one that’s giving me real trouble is this one, which I’d intended as a gift. The problem is: it’s a non-standard size, so I haven’t been able to find a frame for it. I wasn’t worried. There is–or was–a very good art supply store in town. I figured I could always swing by and pick up some stretcher bars and make a frame. I’ve done it before. Only that store has recently moved–into a place that’s almost impossible to find at the back of an industrial park. (What were they thinking?) And they reduced their stock before the move. So . . . no stretcher bars. I may, possibly, be able to put it together as a throw pillow, if there’s time.

On the subject of Christmas fails, I thought I’d throw these two up, too, even though they’re from a couple of decades ago.

My own designs. They probably don’t look bad enough to be called fails–until I tell you that “the softball” is about five inches in diameter and the “chinese lantern” is seven inches long. Yeah, they don’t really quite work on a Christmas tree.

Back to work.