T Stands for Wrapping up One Year and Staring Another

     Hi everyone. Happy start to the first full week of 2025. Has anyone else written 2024  when you meant to write 2025? 😏

     It's also  time for the first T day of 2025 over at BLeubeard's and Elizabeth's blog. I thought I'd write this first T day post for the new year about how I wrapped up 2024  and started 2025. 2024 ended first with a college hockey game in Portland, Maine  on the Sunday before New Years. Sadly our team lost. But I do have a hockey game drink photo for T day.

    Here's my husband and myself with 2 of our college friends. My friend Jennie is who I'm sitting next to, and we were talking about how we've known each other for over 40 years now. Boy time flies.

  On the last day of 2024, we had some beautiful spring-like weather (way different from the cold temperatures this week), so I managed to squeeze in one long walk with the dogs.

     I was in Portsmouth so we walked along the Seacoast Greenway trail which, when completed, will allow you to walk the entire New Hampshire seacoast. It's not right along the ocean, and that distance may sound more impressive than it actually is, since New Hampshire only has 18 miles of seacoast. But the trail will connect 8 seacoast communities and has become one of my favorite places to walk. It will connect to the East Coast Greenway trail that will be over 3,000 miles too once this section is completed.

     Another thing my husband and I have both been doing is building Legos. You might remember me mentioning in a post a few weeks back that I built my first Lego set. I had gotten it as a freebie when I ordered a set for my husband  for Christmas. The set I bought him was of the Endurance, a ship that sailed under Ernest Shackleton out of England back in 1914. Their trip was to the Antarctic, and once they arrived and winter set in,  the ship became frozen into and then destroyed by the ice. Shackleton and his men traveled a harrowing journey thousands of miles/ km over ice and open water by lifeboat until eventually they reached a whaling station on South Georgia Island and were rescued. It's one of those almost unbelievable stories, and the  amazing thing is not 1 man died. If you aren't familiar with the story and want to know more, you can read about it here: Shackleton and the Endurance.

     My husband could tell you this story much better than I can as he is fascinated by it and by other Arctic and Antarctic adventures. When I saw that Lego was making a set of this ship, I knew I had to get it for him. In fact, he told me he had thought about buying it for himself, but of course it was better for him to get it as a Christmas gift. (grin) Since I bought the Endurance Lego set on Black Friday I received this free Shackleton's lifeboat set, which he has built.

    Eventually he'll get around to building the Endurance, which is over 3,000 pieces. I know he's been planning out this build, but I'm not sure how soon he'll start it.

     And you might have heard that the actual ship was located in Antarctic waters in 2022. There's a great show about that discovery which I believe here in the US is on the National Geographic TV channel. I'm not sure where it can be watch  elsewhere.

    Getting back to Legos, I built one of the other freebies I received when I bought my husband this set, and I had so much fun building it I bought 2 other Lego sets for myself. I am very interested in the flower Legos they make. These, like the Endurance, are not little kid Legos. Right before Christmas I happened to see that Target had  the 2 flower sets they released for Asian New Year on sale, and somehow I managed to have a $15 credit, so I decided to get them. It was a good buy because with the sale price and my credit  it ended up  being as if it was a buy 1 and get one free. 😏

      I built one of the sets, the plum blossom, the other day. Notice how good it looks next to my yellow tea pot, so I guess that makes this T day photo number 2.

Up close it looks like Legos, but when you walk back after steps it doesn't look quite so much like a Lego.

    And finally, I had an exciting New Year’s Eve playing a card game called cribbage with my husband. If you aren’t familiar with the game,  to play cribbage you need a peg board as you move your pegs along as you get points from your card combinations. We had a lot of fun playing on New Year’s Eve,  and most nights since then we've been playing a game or two.

    

    And don't you love this aircraft carrier cribbage board? Decades ago I found it at a crafts fair, and I gave it to him  as a  Christmas gift that year. The top actually opens so you can store cards and your pegs inside. 

   That's what has been going on with me besides doing some January start the new cleaning. Cleaning isn't exciting but it does feel good to get it done.

                                     Wishing everyone a happy T day and week ahead.