T Stands for Gingerbread

   Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And hello to everyone who stops by for T over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

   It's been another cold and windy week in my area. Especially today, Monday, the 15th. With wind chills our temperatures  felt like they are in the single digits (degrees F)  or somewhere in the negative teens (degrees C). Brrrr. Thankfully we are lucky to have a woodstove on the first floor that helps keep the house nice and toasty. 

   One day last week I went out with a friend. We ended up in downtown Portsmouth (New Hampshire) where the historical society was putting on a gingerbread house show. This show was open to anyone who wanted to join, and they had different categories you could enter. Those categories included youth (12 and under), teen (12-17), adult, business related, professional (for profession bakers) and multi-age. 

   Some of these houses were amazing, and some of them, although not houses, were creative gingerbread sculptures. I thought I'd share a few photos today. It was a great way to enjoy some holiday spirit.

First up, for those of you who like color.

   And here's one of several Grinch themed pieces.

The ski chalet,

 the garden house,

some Asian inspired  design,

  and I really wanted to break off a chocolate moose and eat him when I saw the next scene. (But of course I didn't. 😏)

  

   These next 2 photos show the winning creation  of the teen category with another Grinch scene. 

  This one is based on the Disney movie Encanto (which I haven't seen but this is a gorgeous gingerbread book.)

Then we had a gingerbread basket.

  I'm not sure if this is a village view or a church, but it's still a pretty winter scene.

    And lastly for this post, this one  built by a local candy store.

   I have a few more photos to share, but for the sake of not making this post too long, I'll save those for another day.

     After we left we needed lunch, so we checked out a newer restaurant downtown called Cheese Louise. They only serve grilled cheese sandwiches, plus some soup and other things to have with your sandwich.

   I had a traditional Vermont style grilled cheese (just cheese in my sandwich) meal, which came with a drink (I had ice tea) and a side. I went for their tomato soup. The photo  at the order counter showed the side as a small cup but mine came as a huge bowl. The other drink on the table is my friend's lemonade.  It made a delicious warm lunch on a chilly day.

   That's all for me this week. Stay warm if it's cold where you are. Wishing everyone a happy T day and week ahead. 

Weekend Post

    Hi everyone. Happy second half of the weekend to you. Today I have an art journal page for Sharon's Winter theme over at Art Journal Journey. I also have a few photos. I'll  be linking  up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

  But before I forget,  let me wish everyone who celebrates a very Happy Hanukkah.

    Here's my journal page.

    I started my page by tearing up and gluing down some various scraps of paper. After several different background attempts, I ended up using white gesso and a paper towel to make the background white with just a hint of the paper showing through.

   The big ornament in the middle started as a blank red ornament. Last year I found this package of these colored blank ornaments for like 25 cents after the holiday. I glued this one on my page and then cut the scene out from a sheet of paper. After gluing the scene down, I outlined the ornament with a black Sharpie and then used a gold marker to color in the ornament top, color in around the scene and put some gold dots around the scene. I also use a white paint pen to add a few white dots to the gold. 

   The 2 bigger stars were cut out of paper. I outlined them with black Sharpie and also with a gold paint pen Then I filled the centers with red glitter. The small stars are punched out of some gold paper. The truck is an old holiday gift tag (if you pulled it off the page and looked on the back you can see who it was to and from). Then I stamped  the word December at the bottom,  and added a few small word stickers.

   I was out in Portsmouth, New Hampshire the other day, and here's a few holiday views I took photos of.

And I loved these dogs in a toy shop window. 

    This next toy dog looked like Pete, but the light wasn't very good when I snapped this photo. (You can tell by the reflection.)

   If it wasn't so cold I would have taken more photos, but it was too chilly to keep taking my gloves off. 😏

   Have a super rest of your weekend and start to the new week ahead.

Friday's Here-Winter Views

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Today I'm linking up  to Nicole's  Friday Face Off  and Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

    It's been a mostly cold week at my house, and even though we did get a tiny bit of rain on Wednesday, it still looks a lot like winter. Today I'm sharing some of those winter views, mostly from around my yard.

    From this angle my greenhouse looks cold and empty.

    But the inside is actually a disaster zone. 😈 I moved a few things in here to store them for the winter and a few of the plants I was keeping in here have since died. As expected. But I did get basil to last into November which was great since if you're familiar with this plant, it is very susceptible to cold.  On the ground you can see some kale that needed a bit of water and is still hanging on, as well as some garlic. I hope I can get both of them through the winter since they're very hardy plants. (But time will tell.)

And the frost made some cool patterns on the "window" panels.

    The bees are all snug in their hive for the winter. We put up  a frame protective structure around them to help keep the wind off of them, wind being far worse than snow on them since with wind they can't maintain the high hive temperature they need to survive.

    And so far so good. The other day I found they had done a bit of hive cleaning and whisked out some dead bees onto the snow.  (As they should on warmer days.)

    And here's some faces for Friday Face Off. My daughter took this photo and sent it to us. Here's her husband (my son-in-law) and the Godzilla snowman he made. I love how he added claws and teeth to it.

    Then a couple days later she sent along this photo. The deer didn't know what to make of Godzilla.

     Speaking of deer, this one was eating some bird food I scattered on the ground the other day. I'm just glad he didn't reach up and pull the feeders down. And excuse the darkness, but it was later in the day and getting dark when I noticed him.

     And the other day these 2 decided my lunch smelled delicious. 

   That's it for me. Have a super Friday and weekend ahead. 

Thursday Art

   Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. This week, like all the others lately, is buzzing right by. And they predict today will be a bit warmer; perhaps even warm enough for a nice afternoon walk. 😏 (I hope...)

  Today I have some art to share for a couple of challenges.  First  I have a page for Sharon's Winter challenge at Art Journal Journey. This time my link to winter is the grey sky background, as one thing about winter is that it's much darker more of the time. 

  I used my new Kuratake Gansai Tami Graphite watercolors to color the background. Then I used an older TH die to cut out the street lamp. I filled in the glass dome of the lamp with gold paint and then drew in the lighted candle.  The 2 crows are on some clear washi tape that I have.

  I also die cut the trim that I used on both the top and bottom using an old Cheery Lynn die. The flowers are a heavy duty paper image that I received as a freebie when I ordered something earlier in the fall. Finally, I stamped the quote from a Paper Artsy Sara Naumann set. 

   I also have another tag to share over at Tag Along (and ATCs). This month Lynn is hosting, and even though you can always join with an anything goes tag. Lynn is requesting reed and green. My tag has lots of red and green, and even a little bit of blue too.

   The background is inked with some green Versafine Clair ink. Once that dried I used a bit of turquoise ink over it. I added a bit of washi tape ( from an  older TH set) and then I added a 49 and Market punch out twig with berries. Finally I finished by stamping the Joy to the World text. This stamp is ancient and has no markings on it. The little holly next to it is part of the stamp, and I colored in the leaves and berries. 

   That's all for me today.  Enjoy your day too. 

The Fortress of Louisbourg- Part 1

    Hi everyone. Happy mid-week to you. We have a mix of snow and rain in the forecast, and maybe even a couple of new inches of snow accumulating-at least that's what the weather people are saying.  And not quite so cold. I am  ready for this bitterly cold weather to disappear because I really want to get back out walking again. I tried the other day but after 10 minutes I couldn't feel my nose, so it wasn't much of a walk. 😖

    Today we're heading back to Nova Scotia, and instead of lots of beautiful nature views, I'm taking you to a living history museum on Cape Breton Island. You might remember me mentioning that we switched up our trip a bit and went on to learn  about some local history. 

    The Fortress of Louisbourg is the reconstruction of a fort and trading center that was built by the French starting in 1713. It represents French life in the fortress and the town with the same name during the years 1713 through 1758. In 1758 Louisbourg was besieged by the British  and after that time the buildings went into decay  or were destroyed. In the 1960's this historic reconstruction began. I  discovered this is the largest reconstructed living history museum in North America, which after taking us all day to visit (and it was a very good all day visit), I can believe it. 

    First here's the map of Cape Breton. If you look down in the bottom right corner just above the title of the map you can see where Louisbourg is. 

   And here's the view from the road as we approached. You can see the sun we had the day before when we visited Cape Breton Highlands National Park was gone.

   We started by walking around the town area and visiting the businesses and homes that were a part of it. We did go into most of the buildings that were open, and we even had an interesting lunch. I'll save those photos and stories for another post since this one is a bit long. In this post I'm just sharing  the views from our walk.

   We were lucky that day as it wasn't super crowded so we could actually interact with most of the people who were dressed and acting in character.

It was September when we visited; there were still some plants growing in the gardens.

    After we finished visiting the town,  we walked over to the fortress.  There we learned a lot  about the military history of the area and what it was like to be a French soldier in the garrison. Again, for the sake of brevity I'll share more about that in another post.

   This is one part of North American history that I never really learned much about. This glimpse into early to mid-eighteenth century life was fascinating. Even though  the King of France technically owned this town and fort, the people living here at this time didn't live lives all that different from those down in my home area of New England.  Even though the French didn't  ever really control New England, the British did.   New England  belonged to the King of England, with New France not that far away. I believe the border between these 2 nation's colonies was a bit different back in the early to mid-1700's also, being more of a fluid line, but after the 1758 battles  including here at Louisbourg, the British border moved further east and north.

  History is fascinating, but not being a historian I was struck by  how, during this time period when there was no United States nor a Canada,  we shared this colonial history. I also learned later in the trip that at the time of the American Revolution, 50% of Nova Scotia's population was made up of New Englanders. The British worried that when the rebels in New England (and elsewhere in the colonies) decided to rise up against the British, Nova Scotia would become the 14th colony to rebel. Did you know that? I was really surprised to read that since I always think of Canada and the US as being 2 separate nations, with Canada being where all the loyal British subjects were,  but then my  historical knowledge of that time is pretty vague . 

   And as a sort of aside, have any of you in the US watched or been watching the latest Ken Burns series on the American Revolution? It's another well done film series, and I'm learning a lot about how the US broke away from being a colony to being a country. Now I'd like to see an even earlier film series, one that takes the viewers back to even earlier colonial times, including the story of Louisbourg. 

   I learned a lot that day, and next time I do a Novas Scotia post I'll write more about this place.