This and... that...

A little bit of fun ...

with the Title borrowed from Sandra's blog. After all, it was a This and That sort of day.

I took my Mini-me and Mini-Charlie along with me on our hike on Thursday. I thought it would be fun to show us looking for Fall colors.

Well, Charlie loves to investigate what I am doing. This time he photo-bombed the shot. I didn't mind, he was just checking things out.

I finally did get the shot.

In between cleaning the pasture and other mundane chores, I stopped to do a Halloween photo with my creepy doll head and a Lego Pizza Zombie.

After all, I have to stop once in a while and have a bit of creative fun.

This morning I went to the Farmer's Market. It was the last one for the season. I'll have to wait for May now to get all the goodies I used to get.

I got to see Ruth, she is a Mennonite who has a bake shop in a town about an hour away. Rich used to send me each week for some of her cinnamon rolls and pie. He loved his pie. Her pies are not super sweet but are absolutely delicious. Last year I purchased enough of her fruit pies to get us through the winter so Rich could have his pie!

Ruth was so happy to see me and asked how I was and how Rich was. I hadn't been to the Market most of this year.

I told her that Rich was gone. She stopped packing up the Apple Pie I was going to purchase ... she came around her table with tears in her eyes.

I got one of the longest hugs in the world.

Her hug was real. By that I mean it was long and it felt more than a pat on the back. There was true emotion and feeling behind it. She has never met my husband, but knew what he loved from her bakery. It was all I could do not to start sobbing when she did that.

I pulled out my wallet to pay when she finished putting the pie in a bag. She waved my money away and said it was a gift. She understands loss as one of her sons passed away last summer. She sighed and handed me the pie. I will treasure each bite.

Another vendor is a woman I used to work with as a Security Officer. We've known each other for many years. I purchased some of her wild looking gourds. We've had a booming year for squash, gourds, pumpkins, and anything from that veggie family. She bagged my gourds and then proceeded to add some more to my bag with a wink.

Things that are different now that I no longer feed the Meat and Potato man. My supper consisted of fresh squash along with beautiful yellow cauliflower, red onion, pea pods, kale, little turnips, and other veggies tossed in. I just have a taste for all the vegetables these days. Toss the veggies in a pan and sauté everything then put it over something else. Tomorrow I'll add some bacon to the mix to get my protein. 

The rest of my day included picking up logs and piling them to burn along with cleaning up more garden debris. 

The mules sorted through the garden debris and ate what they wanted from it. They are my garden recyclers.

Tomorrow looks like a nicer day than today. Charlie says he wants to go hiking. I guess we will take care of that. 

Here are a couple pictures of the really cute and gnarly gourds.

They are so pretty and interesting.

Tomorrow morning I may try and take a few shots of them lit up with candle light.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with some of the ornaments Ariel and I did last weekend. I finally got some acrylic glossy spray for them and ... Viola!

They are so pretty!

 

Fun fotos...

Just because...it is after Christmas and I have a bunch of fun fotos from the month of December.

Santa's Relief Driver????

My all time favorite
ornament!

...I collect horsey ornaments. This may be
the most photographed ornament I've ever had.
I've had it for over 30 years. 
It was a cheap plastic one I picked up in
some second hand store so 
many 
years ago!

A much newer addition to my collection...

My tiny Button jointed Teddy Bears I made

years ago. Still up to no good!

Even Dragons celebrate Christmas?

I can't help it.

I think Dragons are cool.
New addition to the dragons!
A Baby Lego Dragon!

And then there was Mini-me
and Charlie doing last 

minute errands in the Village...

Little Bear and his wooden friends gather on

Christmas Eve at the Chair.

[These are old toys gifted to me

over the years.]

My ever changing toy display next to

the Christmas Chair.
It is made up of Vintage Boxes 

and

an old nesting box for hens.

I really didn't want to take down my cheery fun 'display'. I've had so much fun with it this year. 

But eventually the party ends, right?

I took down the Christmas Chair, the North Pole, and the Christmas Village and traded out the Lego buildings for the Medieval Village. I wanted to take a break from Lego so...

...before the rains hit, I grabbed some of my of my action figures and headed out. 

Ailie and Rabbit came out to play. I added the snow in post.

Time for a change up...

Finally. Christmas Tree Chair

 

Here it is as it is lit up and decorated. I have some ornaments on it. But really didn't put tons on it this year. I used up most of the red colored ornaments I had for some color. 

I also don't always hang my special ornaments, but use them on the chair seat like this:

I'll keep changing what is on the chair or around the chair almost daily. To keep the horses from falling over, I used the string of beads. This chair seat IS flat so they shouldn't fall over, but I liked adding color with beads and ribbons.

I finally got my North Pole Village out and as I arranged things, I started to 'play'. 

I mean, this time of the year gives me a great excuse for more play, right?

Our weather is unbelievable! We went from way below frozen to 50 F yesterday. It will last through the weekend through Monday. I still am contemplating doing a Charlie photo. You know, the one where I make the dog sit in front of the tree and pose. 

LOL. He hates it but will do it for cookies!

Enjoy.

Okay back to the fun things...

 What a bummer to read my melancholy thoughts. But that stuff happens in the dreary overcast days of December. The days rush to be darker and more bleak, depressing, dismal, dull, drab, unexciting, insipid, and well...frankly uninteresting.

That is why we have candles and pretty lights this time of the year. This is why some of us may decorate and add life to our homes. 

I personally like winter. But I get why not everyone enjoys it. I can see both sides of the coin.

So back to some fun I go....

Who doesn't think dinosaurs should join the ornaments? I think this one adds a bit of curiosity to all the little horses that reside in the tree. This is a nod to my oldest son who loves dinosaurs.

I haven't asked the unicorns and other horses how they felt about sharing a living area with a dinosaur!

This is a fairly old ornament that I found years ago. It had a tag on it that I took off. I like horses and who doesn't love a Pegasus? I always wanted to have one to ride as a little girl.

Not all dragons under the tree are ferocious. This one seems quite happy. Perhaps it is because it got the gold beads!

This Angel horse was given to me 30 years ago by one of my 4H students. We joked and named this Cheyanne after my mare I owned at the time. Cheyanne was not an angel, but she sure was something else. This stuffed ornament did have her coloring, but not her attitude.

This is the first ornament I ever purchased for myself. It is a cheap plastic rocking horse. I have treasured it for 30 years. I've always liked how the light shines through it.

Once upon a time I had a pony mare called Lily. She had a flaxen mane and tail and was half Halflinger and Arab. She was a tough little 13.5 hand horse with attitude and a great brain. She rode, she drove on a cart and she was purely fearless. We used her to sort cattle and team pen.

She looked exactly like this ornament..

A friend of ours from South Dakota needed a good replacement mount for their 80 yr old mom who'd lost her aged riding and driving mount. We sold her. She served many years for this lady who would ride Lily across the countryside to go to town. Apparently it was shorter than driving there!
When I hang up this ornament, I wonder what adventures Lily and the elder lady had together.

The Grumpy Dragon apparently has made a new friend! She presents him with a gift under the Christmas Chair. [Personally, I think she looks a bit frightful but I suppose they are a match in attitude.]

And...

If anyone was wondering how the Brother's Odd were doing....

I saw Yeti and Big Foot walking down by the creek yesterday. I don't know what they were up to....

But their brother Chewie was watching from a distance.

I just wish they'd help each other out. What on Earth is Chewie waiting for???

If you need your spirits lifted on these wintery bleh days, I will leave you with this photo of Charlie.

Here he is getting ready for colder weather.....

It's Friday. Hug someone.

The Chair and Creative Play

When I get into the Christmas/Holidays Funk, I read what I wrote last year which was a Satirical Holiday get together for a family much like mine called Unrealistic Expectations totally made up!

I can't help but chuckle when I read it. 

In 2013 I used an old chair combined with a partial Christmas Tree in order to decorate our tiny cottage. This was before the remodel in 2016. The first time I took photos of it was in 2014 when I did it a second time. 

Even a small fake tree just took up too much room in our home. I improvised and found that it was much more fun doing something out of the norm.

This year I am changing things up a bit again. I have to admit that each year when I decorate an old chair it ends up being quite fun and never the same two times in a row. That is probably a good thing for me. The chair gives me a flat spot to continuously change up what is going on. I can walk by it and take a tiny Santa Claus and have him conversing with a dinosaur or perhaps a unicorn.

That old table that I brought in from the porch turned into a Legoland Table. Why not? Rich and I had so much fun over the past month or so building these 3 D puzzles that I decided to use them much like others would use a collection of Christmas Village houses.

The Wood Cabin build was really tough and very detailed.

The Lego Lady Contractor
shows off the Cabin Kitchen

Some of the build was extremely frustrating as the lights and wires really were difficult to work with. We found that we were missing a few pieces and the quality control was sucky at times. 

However, if I hadn't built previous Lego 'Expert' builds [The Gingerbread House], I would have given up. The roof bows and won't fit tight...but I learned a lesson. Lego Bricks Rule. I will probably dismantle parts and re make the house eventually.

The Sasquatch Family has no issues with it at all. They love it. They celebrated Thanksgiving in it before the roof was attached!

The Happy Sasquatch Family

They were so pleased when they got moved into the Lego Village.

Then the serious stuff started. Ol' Man Rich decided to take his ornament Champion Cruiser and find some Christmas Trees.

[When I told Rich that this Lego Person was him, he actually started to enjoy it. He really digs this car ornament and even pushed it around the kitchen table. He checks on what the Ol' Man Rich is doing each day. He denies enjoying it of course. But the smile on his face tells me otherwise.]

And by golly he did! He talked other friends into hauling them to the village!

Even the strange snowperson and the Polar Bears were pleased....

Having Christmas Trees in the Village would be awesome!

And every one rejoiced. I think the Lego

lady with the hair in a bun

was imbibing a bit too much?

Oh it looks like silly play doesn't it? Wasted time. But think about it. When a person decorates for any Holiday they are using their brain to create something beautiful, right? Create. That is play.

When a person knits or crochets, paints, draws, photographs, or does anything creative...they are playing. It keeps their minds active and engaged.

Play is good for the mind and soul.

Now.

If I can only think of cooking and baking as Creative Play. 

meh....

More fun indoors

Maybe this is why I enjoy this time of the year. It isn't so much the big holiday or the Christmas Spirit, but more or less the fact that I can drag things around the house and do Still Life photos without having to explain the why of it.

I really like the lights and would love to keep those happy white lights glowing throughout the winter this year. I wonder. Can I make the Christmas Chair into a ... just lighted chair for comfort and warmth on cold winter nights?

Why not? A bit of cheery light to stare at while the cold winds whistle outside?

The unicorns like it. The Teddy Bear's are waiting their turn to play on it.

Meanwhile, while waiting for the other half to wake up, I imagined some 'scenes' just for fun and brain work. Experimenting with all white was really quite fun.

I do love the Enesco ornaments. Here are two of my favorite ones.

The unicorn is this year's addition. They are almost too beautiful to be left on the Christmas chair/tree. They get lost. I'm like a kid. I like to handle them and set them down so I can admire them on their own.

Strange right?

Heavy edit and shot

for High Key.

And of course. Something fun and odd.

These figures don't generally mix ...

but imagine my surprise when they all seemed as if they were getting along....

...

and then I finally got outside for a hike...

but that is for another time....

November

Now I think I realize why people decorate indoors with lights and bright colors this time of the year.

It is dull and dreary outside. Well, at least in the Midwestern Climates it is. Dull with no snow, no leaves on the trees, no flowers blossoming...grey ... everything is slowly turning colorless...

However, once in a while at dawn or sunset, the sky will light up with color. But mostly.
Dull.
Boring.
Oppressive.

Sounds awful doesn't it?

So we try to find something pretty about November. I see stalks of old flowers in my flower bed. The Juncos like the seeds in them so I leave it messy.
The moles are having a field day in the yard that is going from green to brown...

By Thanksgiving I am tired of fall colors and orange. Really tired of orange. Blaze Orange in particular. It seems that the 9 day deer gun season drags on forever. I'm tired of orange so I take down all the fall decorations I put up which aren't very many.
I start to eye the living room up and think about some nice pretty lights to combat the dark evenings.

I sneak out during the day wearing that awful orange to hike down in the woods along the creek. My husband says I need to stay OUT of the woods during gun season.
I go crazy when stuck inside 4 walls all day. Especially after I've cleaned all the walls. I could do windows I suppose. I should do the windows.

Nah.
I'm going to sneak out and walk the creek bottom.

I take my teddy bear 'ornament' and clip the band off from his hat. This little teddy bear doesn't want to hang on a tree. Nope.
He wants to be out in the woods.

I stop hiking in the middle of my walk and sit down. As usual, I've brought all the gear necessary to take a little water 'fall' photo.
And I do....

It sort of turns out bland also.

I finally turn and walk slowly up the trail. I have to go back and make sure the mules have water. And then go back in the house to play cribbage. [I still don't understand that game at all, but Rich loves it.]

I hear bluejays and a woodpecker, I hear the water tumbling over rocks below me.
The sky is grey and yes...very dreary.

But it is okay because when I get home I can turn the lights on and be cheered. Even after it gets dark.

I may even take the rest of the day and do something 'crafty'.