Mish-Mash, Jibber Jabber…boy have I been busy!

I know I’ve not had much to blog about.  I’ve been SO busy these past few weeks.  I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  I know I did.  Followed by late Thursday all through black Friday shopping.  I was delirious by time I got home late Friday night, but I got a majority of my shopping done and scored some great deals.  Now I just hope that I can sit back and enjoy the season without the hustle of trying to buy presents. 
There are a few big things in the works for us.  I’ve been trying to decorate my house (which I’m convinced a majority of my decorations have seen their life span go by!), craving to a chance to get into my craft room, and doing the regular mom things with my kids (Pierce’s wrestling starts tomorrow twice a week, and Camryn still has gymnastics once a week.  I need one more thing on my plate before it will topple!)
Yesterday my husband picked up our new wood stove.  It’s a Vermont Castings Defiant.  Living in this big house in the country, we don’t have access to natural gas unless we get propane.  We got a small tank a couple years ago when we switched to a gas cooktop due to my propensity to break the electric glass top ones.  But when we built the house we went with Geothermal heating.  Now I love the geo, the air conditioning works great and it’s far more efficient all year round than a standard electric furnace would be.  However.  There have been times when the electric bill has been on the high side of $400 a month.  Once there was a bill that was $650.  I almost cried, but it was a series of bad events that lead to a bill that high, it’s a long story. 
So we bought this pretty thing:

Obviously that’s not the permanent install, but it weighs over 500 pounds so we put it on these casters to get it moved around to lay out where it will go.  This weekend, a friend of ours is coming to lay a stamped concrete hearth which will also go about 5 feet up the wall on both sides. I then can put a mantel in above that, which I’m very excited about decorating. 
With this stove we also bought a new log splitter to get us plenty of wood in hopes of lowering the winter time electric bills significantly.  So the next few weeks will be busy trying to get this thing up and going since today was our first accumulating snow fall and it’s COLD! 
I have hopes for a few crafty projects in the next few days to finish up my decorating in the living room.  I’m not sure if I have the energy to decorate for Christmas, but I do plan on hitting the stores up after Christmas in hopes of getting some new décor for next year. 
So here’s to hoping I can find some time for some serious crafting.  I’m getting antsy and need to use the creative side of my brain soon before it melts!