T Stands for Light Show

     Hi everyone. This is my last post for 2024. Holy cow. I still don't understand where 2024 vanished to, but it was basically a good year overall for me. Politics aside, I hope 2025 is the same for everyone. 

    It will be a quiet New Years Eve at my house. Sometimes we go out for Chinese food, but I'm not sure we'll even do that. I have chilled a bottle of prosecco,  but I will probably be toasting well before midnight. 😏 Is anyone doing anything exciting? 

      It's time for T over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog  again. Last year my husband and I visited a local family farm in Elliot, Maine that had a Christmas light walk, and we liked it so much we went back again this year. I thought before the holidays are over I'd share some festive lights and also my hot cocoa drink that we bought when we were there.

Let me start with my hot cocoa ticket for T Day. It's a little fuzzy,but you can still see it. And then we're onto this flower patch. I love all the little bee lights too.

The walk takes about an hour, and it is an easy mile(ish). Or about 1.6 km. They also limit tickets for each entry time so although there are people, they do a great job at keeping it from being too congested.

I really like this next photo. It looks like I digitally played around with it, but I didn't.

Since we came last year, we were curious how much the light show had changed. Some things had changed, and some had not. But it was still quite fun to walk around.

The light tunnels are always fun.

As are the lighted trees. These small ones are actually not even real trees.

But these tall ones are.

I like the lighted campfire but it definitely wasn't very warm. 😏

And this might be next year's Christmas card.

More lighted deer, then a snippet of a lobster trap tree and well as present made out of painted lobster buoys.  All appropriate since the farm is on the tidal Piscataqua (Pis-ca-ta-qua) River (which you might have seen if you ever saw any of my boating photos).

And a few more photos to finish off our walk.

Wishing everyone a happy T day, a wonderful rest of 2024 and a great start to the new year 2025 on Wednesday. 

Wrapping Up December Art

    Hi everyone. Can you believe it's December 29th? I'm wrapping up a fun holiday weekend. My husband and I are heading off to Portland, Maine today to get together with some college friends. Then the 4 of us are heading to  a hockey game for our college team, which many of you know we like to follow. This year has been especially exciting because we ended the first half of the season in 4th place nationally. All I can say is Go Blue/Go Black Bears. Let's hope the second half of the season is as good as the first half was.

    Today I have some art to share. First I want to share my final piece for Sharon's Snow challenge at Art Journal Journey. Thank you Sharon for hosting. Snow was the perfect theme for December. I love making snowy winter pages, especially in December . And thank you everyone who joined Sharon at AJJ also. 

  I thought I would finish the month by sharing something festive for this holiday season. 

    I'm not sure if this gentleman is dressed for a New Year's Party or a very formal family Christmas dinner. I'm guessing the party, but I suppose it could be either. All I can say is with the evening stars he is definitely going out for the night.

    I made my page by using 2 halves of some brown paper. I stamped the stars and added some sequin style snowflakes. I also left the bottom of the page white since there is some snow on the ground. I added the brown velvet ribbon to break up the vertical page and added Mr. Ready-to-Party. The ribbon also makes a good place for him to stand. 

    I finish my page by adding the quotes and also a light bulb since it is night and he needs to be able to see where he is going. 😏

     I also want to share one final tag for Tag Tuesday for this year, This time Michele is hosting and her challenge is Winter Holidays. Here's my tag for this challenge.

     You can probably guess I went with New Years for my tag.  I stamped some clocks in blue and black ink. Then I used a die cut champagne glass that happened to be sitting on my work table. I filled the glass with some white sparkles, and I used a punch to make all the silver stars. Finally I pulled out an old Artistic Outpost New Years set and stamped the rubber that had an image and the quote. I cut out the quote and added it to my tag. 

    I'm also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

   That's all for me in this post. Have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week ahead. 

I Hope Everyone Had a Great Holiday

     Hi everyone. I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a wonderful holiday. With my husband off from work, it's been a relaxing and also a busy few days since Christmas.  I took a little blog break so if I wasn't by your blog that's why.

     This year my daughter and my son-in-law arrived mid-morning on Christmas day, and instead of Christmas dinner we decided to do a big brunch around noontime instead. 

    We had a lot of food starting with cinnamon rolls, fresh fruit salad, eggs, bacon, sausage, and French toast as well as mimosas.  Later in the day we had light snack food. I had given my son-in-law a bar-tending book, so he made us a drink called an After 5, which was Bailey's, Kahlua and peppermint schnapps. He picked a drink of things he could find in our liquor cabinet, and it was actually quite good. The peppermint made it perfect for the holiday.

     My makeshift table was this large box which was my gift from my daughter, a much needed new suitcase since mine other one has a big hole in it. I've no big trips planned right now, but I guess it's time to start thinking about one. 😏 The funniest part is back in October, after we got home from our Canada trip, I mentioned I needed a new suitcase. She said she'd get me one for Christmas. We even spent some time with me measuring my old one because she had found some that fit the bill on sale. I even knew which one she bought for me.  But did I remember that she had got me the suitcase? Nope. Not until I opened it and saw the suitcase and then it all came back to me. Of course I got a big eye roll from her. Grin.

   Somehow I didn't manage to get any photos of my husband at Christmas. 😒 But he was there and having fun with us.  

     Even the dogs got into the Christmas spirit. They each have their own stockings. They each got a new toy, a new collar, a new flea collar and of course some treats.  

       The rest of us get lots of treats in our stockings too. 😏

      And right before Christmas I made some pepparkakor (the Swedish name for gingersnaps) and some thin crispy sugar cookies. Not only does the family like these, but they remind me of my childhood. My aunt always made the pepparkakor  and my mother the sugar cookies.

Now my family would be disappointed if I didn't make them. 

It's a good thing I didn't eat too much food this holiday-ha ha ha. 😇😈😏

       In this post I also want to share another page Sharon's Snow challenge at Art Journal Journey. The month is quickly wrapping up, and it will be 2025 in the blink of an eye.

     I created this happy mixed media scene  using some older rubber stamps, light blue acrylic paint, white acrylic paint, inks some paper lace, a big snowflake die cut  as well as some blue washi tape. 

    That's it for me. I hope everyone enjoys this last weekend of 2024. 

    

    

      

T Stands for a Toast for Season's Greetings

      Hi everyone. Welcome to the T day folks and everyone else who stops by. This will be my holiday post as I won't be posting again until the end of the week. 

    Tonight we're due for some light snow, so it looks like we might or should be having a white Christmas. My daughter and my son-in-law are coming for Christmas day, and then my husband is on vacation for the rest of the week. I'm looking forward to some relaxing and fun family time.

     For T day over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog this week I have a drink filled post. Last was a busy drink filled week.

    In the above photo you can see my beer and also my glass of water. This past Saturday we went to visit my mother-in-law at her memory-care assisted living, and it was a really tough visit. She's losing her conversation ability, and I'm not exactly certain she knew who we were; I actually should say she had lost her conversation ability that day. It was a huge decline from when we saw her at Thanksgiving last month.  Whether it was because she was  very tired or because of having a couple of incidents in the past few weeks I can't say.

   After our visit we went and had a pizza for lunch and decided a beer would taste good with it. 😏

   We also had my husband's office holiday get together one night at a brewery in a nearby town. The party was at the Garrison City Brewery which is a microbrewery, and for my beer I had a pale stout. It definitely tasted like a stout, but was pale in color which I found very interesting.

     I looked up how they make stout beer, and I found some interesting info. Stout originally meant brave but then it took on the connotation of strength, and because this beer has such a strong flavor, it is called stout. I read that technically any beer can be called a stout as long as it has a strong flavor, so that might explain why my pale stout is a stout. 

    Stout is made by heating the ferment, and it is dark only if you use black patent malt while making it (like they use when they make Guinness in Ireland). But you can get lighter stouts by not using the black patent malt. I also read that the distinction between a porter beer and a stout beer is only that stouts have a stronger taste, which is why porters and stouts are often together on menus or in writing about beer.

     We also did a Yankee Swap at my husband's party.  I don't know if the term Yankee Swap is universal, and often there are different "rules:, so let me explain the rules we used as I explain what a Yankee Swap is. Everyone who brought a gift picks a number and all the wrapped gifts are laid out on the floor or on a table. People go in order of their numbers and pick gifts. Then they open them and  they can either keep their gift or  they can switch gifts with anyone else who has already opened a gift.

     Since the first person has no one to switch gifts with they get to do their switch at the very end. The worst number to get is #2, because you only have the first person to switch with. That is what I had, but I liked my gift so I kept it, at least until  someone else who opened  their gift later did too and I lost it when they switched. However, my husband had the last number, so he switched what he got so I could get my gift back. There was a Starbucks gift card, which I will pass on because I never go to Starbucks, and there were some fun little rubber ducks.  My childlike self really liked the holiday rubber ducks in the bag

so now I am the owner of 6 holiday rubber ducks. 😏 Grin.

    Here's 4 of them.

Smile.

    I also went out to 2 holiday lunches with some friends last week. However I was so busy talking that I forgot to take any photos. 😒

I'll  continue my drink post with this photo I took while shopping. I've never seen bottles of milk marked just for Santa.

    Coming from a house where we drink a lot of milk (and I know not everyone does) it makes me wonder if there is niche for this product so that kids can leave Santa some cookies and milk on Christmas Eve. Or if this is just a ploy for getting you  to spend money on this holiday bottle. And if you aren't aware, the tradition here in the US and maybe elsewhere too is that you leave Santa a little snack when he delivers your gifts.

    And finally a cup of afternoon hot cocoa in my Grinch mug. One side is naughty

and the other side is nice.

I won't ask which one you are. Grin.

Time to wrap up my post. Let me wish everyone who stops by a wonderful holiday season.

and/or

 

Weekend Post

     Hi everyone. Happy weekend. It's very very cold at my house this morning. And there's wind, making it even chillier. They say it feels around 5 degrees F/ -15 degrees C. I think it's a good day to run the woodstove, sit besides it and read as well as running the oven to finish baking some cookies ❤

     Today I have a page for Sharon's Snow theme over at Art Journal Journey. I'm also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.  You can see the snow on the house image I used on my page.

     I covered my page with some printed architectural paper. The house is from a Stamperia chipboard set. There's other ephemera on my page like the old postage stamps, the TH girl and word box, an AALL and Create little puppy and old number sticker as well as some red fabric ric-rac trim along the bottom. I  stamped the postmarks around the old stamps.

   Not much else for today's post, so it's going to be a very short one. Have a super rest of your weekend and start to this holiday week.

 

Friday Again

  Hi everyone. Today is the last day of autumn,  unless of course you go by meteorological seasons and for that that autumn ended on November 30. It hasn't felt like autumn for several weeks at my house, although we still keep getting these warmer days thrown in-between the cold.  And this weekend is going to be very cold.

   Since it is Friday I am linking up today to Nicole's Friday Face Off and also to Gillena's Friday Lunch Break. Today I want to share the first Lego set I ever made. I made it just the other day, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

     I get Lego emails because my daughter and son-in-law are Lego fanatics, and a couple of times I have gotten them Legos  for Christmas. This year I got an email for a set that just screamed my husband. He's not a Lego fanatic, but he is talking about retiring later in 2025, so I thought I would splurge and get him this set for Christmas.  I thought it would be a good activity for him when he retires. (And if he wants to build  it sooner, then more power to him.)

    Anyhow, the hubby got the same email about the set and was telling me how nice it was, so I'm glad I ordered it for him.  This particular set was released on Black Friday, so I ordered it and received 3 free sets as their Black Friday special. One set goes with my husband's Christmas gift so he's getting that, one set looks like something my son-in-law would like so he's getting that, and the third free set was this holiday train. I decided I would keep it for myself and see if I enjoyed making it.

     I spent part of an afternoon making it, and I had such fun I think I need to start building Legos rather than making puzzles. The only problem(s) with that is Legos take up a lot of space once they are made and they are a lot pricier than puzzles. So we shall see about Legos in my future.

    And just a note, if you ever go to order directly from Lego when they release a new set, order early. That was the advice from my daughter when I had mentioned this set I bought my husband. She told me to order it as soon as I got up, because they sell out quickly.  I didn't even wait that long. When I got up in the night for a potty run, I ordered it on my phone. I am glad I did because by 7:30 in the morning, when I finally got onto the computer, it was already on back order.

     I think my little train looks great with my Snoop display. The 2 smaller pieces are hand-me downs from my daughter. She collects Snoopy village pieces and ended up being gifted some doubles. The big Snoopy and Woodstock are something I found at Costco a couple of years ago that I thought would work great with the little pieces.  And I like how they work with my train too.

     The Snoopy and Woodstock faces are my link up to Nicole's Friday Face Off.

     That's all for me today. For those you who I only visited on Friday's, have a wonderful holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah. And I hope everyone has a great weekend.

   

   

Snowy Night

     Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week to you. I wrote this post yesterday, and I'm hoping this morning will be a more peaceful morning than yesterday was. We thought a battery in one of our household smoke detectors was beeping, but then when we did the battery replacement, we still had the beeping. Waking up to beeping and not being able to find the source is very annoying. 😒 Never mind it was scaring Mr. Pete. In fact, it wasn't the beeping that woke me up but the fact that he jumped into bed and was panting voraciously in fear. Maybe voraciously isn't quite the right word, but it reminded me of a dog scoffing down some food. His panting activity was shaking the bed so much that I knew something wasn't right. Turned out there was a carbon monoxide detector on the bureau in the spare bedroom that was beeping. No,(thankfully), we didn't have a carbon monoxide problem, but I don't know when or how the detector was put there. I didn't even know we had one there. Anyhow, I plugged the detector in, it gave one loud final beep, and then turned green for good to go and the noise stopped. That took about an hour of tracking down the beep. And about an hour later Pete finally stopped panting.  Now, it's kind of funny, but yesterday first thing in the morning before the sun even came up it wasn't such a good time. 

 Today I have an art journal page to share  for Sharon's Snow challenge over at Art Journal Journey.

    I started by using a very old set of swirl stamps from Autumn Leaves. Remember them? They've been out of business for a very long time. I used 2 stamps from this clear set and stamped them using blue ink. I then painted the bottom of my page white for snow  To finish off the background I used  some Dina Wakely blue paint spray.

    Once that dried,  I glued down this punch out tree image and also fussy cut out the owl. I stamped the postage mark ( from another very old stamp set) and also the quote, which I don't know who made it because it's another oldie. And to finish my page, I took some blue sequins and glued them down on my page.

    Last weekend we had some pretty chilly weather. Sunday my husband and I took a ride up to his Mom's house to check that everything was OK. There was ice on the pond, not thick enough to walk on, but it sparkled in the sunlight. 

     Even though we've had some wet weather as of late, we'd been in a drought all fall. You can tell because they let some of the water out of the dam in September (a normal thing they do every few years so they can do damn repairs and people can make waterfront repairs), and the water level still hasn't come all the way back up. I wonder when the ice goes out in the spring if that will bring the water level back up. I certainly hope it will.

     That's all for me. Have a great rest of your day.