A Lost Christmas Tradition

Now that it's finally November, we are getting really excited about decorating for Christmas. It's tempting to go ahead and get started on the festivities, but we know it's still way too early, so we are just sitting here twiddling our thumbs, waiting for the time to arrive. I figured that to help occupy my time while I wait, I would tell you all a Christmas decorating story.

When I was growing up, part of the Christmas decor was a big clothespin reindeer. It's probably about 2 1/2 feet tall, and it sat near the front door to greet us when we got home. After my husband and I got married, we inherited the reindeer to help spread the holiday cheer in our new home. There was a catch, though. Mr. Reindeer was in need of a serious facelift. This is where a Christmas tradition was born.

Our first Christmas, we set him out and said "We will fix him up soon." Sadly for Mr. Reindeer, we never got around to fixing him up. At the end of the season, we put him away, vowing that the next holiday season, we would fix him up as soon as we got him out. How sad he must have been when we got him out the next year and he had to spend the whole season in his sad and saggy state. This happened for a few more years as well. We joked that it was a Christmas tradition to pretend that we were going to fix up the sad clothespin reindeer, and we couldn't actually fix it because that would mean we would miss out on a fun Christmas tradition. It was pretty sad, really, because we had this poor dilapidated clothespin reindeer sitting there to greet our visitors, and every time someone came in, we had to explain our peculiar Christmas tradition of not fixing it up so they wouldn't think we were weird for having it there. Well, they probably still thought we were weird, but at least they had the background story for this particular weirdness.

Last Christmas, Mr. Reindeer's day finally came. I like to think that when I got home with the bag of supplies his poor droopy little ears perked up a little with anticipation of the fun that was to come.


Here is what he looked like before. He really was in a sad state of affairs.



























As I began dismantling him, I found proof that he is indeed a boy reindeer. Not only is his nose red, his "parts" are red too!


















































After lots of work, here is Mr. Reindeer, totally refurbished.
























Sure, we lost a Christmas tradition, but he really looks smashing, don't you think?

Princess Zoey the Scaredy-Dog

That's Zoey. Isn't she cute? Well let me tell you a story about her. Before I begin the story, I must let you know that she is afraid of thunder. At the faintest rumble of thunder, she turns into a quivering mess and glues herself to us until all signs of thunder are gone. When it storms at night, Zoey wanders around the bed and pokes us. She shakes and acts pitiful, and if we try to go back to sleep she just wakes us up again.

Well, a couple of mornings ago, we had a thunderstorm. Zoey first woke us to let us know her distress at 5:00 AM. I looked at the radar and it looked like the storm was just about gone. I waited a little while, and when the storm didn't let up I checked again. This was no ordinary storm. You see, this was one of those continuous storms that keeps developing at the back as it moves. Boy were we in for a treat!

When my alarm went off at 7:00, I had not gotten to go back to sleep and I was pretty sleepy. The storm was still going, though, so I figured I might as well go ahead and get up. As I got ready for my morning students that day, Zoey stayed right at my feet, tripping me as she whined about the thunder. By about 9:30, the storm stopped and the thunder finally went away. Zoey was a happy camper and went off to take a nap. Poor little thing - She was just tuckered from the trauma of the thunderstorm! After my morning students, I had a couple of hours to kill before my afternoon students. I sat down on the couch to knit, but I could just barely keep my eyes open. I had been up since 5:00AM after staying up after midnight the night before watching the Olympics. This would be the perfect time for a nap.

I went back in the bedroom and got the alarm all set so I wouldn't miss my afternoon lessons. I laid down on the bed and closed my eyes, and what did I hear? RUMBLE RUMBLE... That's right - Another storm was coming! The little princess came running down the hall and jumped up on the bed, where she proceeded to climb all over me like I was a jungle gym. I finally got hold of her and tried to hold her down so I could try to get a little rest. Guess who showed up then? Mr Blue Jay! He was squeaking and squawking out in the back yard, and Bob decided to answer. He said "SQUEAK! SQUEAK!" over and over... That was fun. I never did get my nap that day.

The Closet

I have a fun story. One day a while back I noticed a weird little cluster of bug poo on the floor near our bedroom closet. That's a neat story, huh? Haha Ok, so that's not the whole story - It's just the beginning. Well after I saw it, I looked around for bugs and couldn't find any sign of them except the weird poo cluster. I cleaned it up and that was that. Or so I thought.

A week or so later, we were all ready to go to sleep, when we heard a rustling. This rustling brought the poo cluster to mind, and I told my husband about it. We figured that these two things might very well be related. After alot of looking around, we still couldn't find any bugs. It was quite a mystery, what was going on in our closet! We only heard this noise at night, so we figured it must be some sort of nocturnal creature. Haha Nevermind the fact that we really are only in there for an extended period of time at night, so it could have been rustling its little heart out all day and we never would have known! We were afraid it might be a mouse or something, even though the poos had looked way too small to be from a mouse. My husband suggested that we might catch this creature in the humane trap, so he brought it in and got it armed with peanut butter and set it out to hopefully catch the critter. It sat there for more than a week, and nothing happened. The dog didn't even bother it - Maybe I shouldn't buy that brand of peanut butter again.

Anyway, we gave up after a while. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be creeped out in our own bedroom by a rustling creature that had a knack for rustling just as we were dozing off. A couple of months went by. During this time, I found poo clusters a couple of times and we were serenaded by the rustling on a nightly basis. It was very frustrating. Yeah, we could have called an exterminator, but that would have taken all the mystery out of it! Besides, we never actually saw any bugs!

Well, last night I was getting ready for the bed. I was standing right at the closet and I heard the rustling. It wasn't coming from the closet, it was coming from the closet door! I thought I must be crazy. When my husband got out of the shower, I told him of this discovery and he set out to investigate. He went over to the door and it happened again. He tapped on the door and it happened a couple more times. You know what? There were ants in our closet door!

Here's my theory. A while back we were going to hang a mirror on the door and drilled holes in the wrong place. We never filled in the holes, so I figure they went in the holes and decided they liked it. We didn't like it, though, so hubby took the door off and carried it out to the garage. He plans to saw it open and see what's going on in there. We will be getting a new closet door at some point. There's not one there right now, but no door at all is better than a door that keeps us up at night!

What to do, What to do...

I have alot of hobbies. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I think "Hey, I want to sew today!" Sometimes I wake up and I think "Hey, I want to make jewelry today!" Well, sometimes there are days like today. I woke up today rarin' to go, wanting to craft all day. The problem is, I want to knit and make jewelry. Obviously, I can't do both at the same time, so I have been sitting here all day trying to make a decision on which I will choose. It is now 3:30 PM, and I have made no progress towards reaching this decision. I listed a few items in my shop while I pondered, but for the most part I have nothing to show for my day. Just watch - Late tonight, I will figure out exactly what I want to craft, and by then it will be time to go to bed! In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy the Lifetime Movie Network.

How Frustrating!

I worked hard last week and over the weekend to get a bunch of stuff made to list in my Etsy shop. My big plan was to take pictures of all of it this morning, then spend the afternoon cropping and editing photos and listing things. So... I took a ton of pictures, then I uploaded them. I looked through them to find out which things didn't come out very well so I could reshoot them. I got all those items gathered up and was all ready to start the final batch of pictures when the batteries in the camera went dead. And wouldn't you know it - All the other ones were dead too! Now I have to wait hours until some of them get charged up so I can finish. Oh well.

Who's That Bird?

In case you don't know me in real life, I should introduce you to my feathered friend. That lovely gray cocaktiel featured on my blog is our little Bob. He's a fun little guy. As you can see, he is not a fan of the camera. He was in mid squawk when I took that picture. He is usually much more friendly than the picture would lead you to believe. At the moment though, Bob is in the process is pretty-birding me to death. He doesn't actually say the words, but he squeaks it out in cockatiel speak. He has been doing this for the last couple of hours. About every three seconds or so he squeaks out his lovely rendition of pretty-bird. Sometimes I tell him that if he doesn't stop I will put him in the closet, but he knows me better than that. He seems to have figured out that the more he squeaks, the more treats I will give him to try to shut him up. Hahaha I guess I better go get him some before he makes my ears burst!

What a Nice Surprise

Ok, a while back I made some fun fabric Christmas ornaments. I had a whole box of them all made up and ready to sell. I figured that August would be a good time to start listing Christmas items in my Etsy shop, so yesterday, I went in search of the box of ornaments. Hmm... Where did I put it? Oh, no! I think we put it out with the pile of stuff for charity when we were trying to get rid of some of our piles of stuff to make room for more piles of stuff! Well, I figured that it was no big deal - I can always make more. So I went to my fabric stash this morning to get the Christmas fabric out to make more fun ornaments, and do you know what I found? A stack of Christmas fabric, all cut out to make ornaments with! What could be better than that? I'll tell you what - Most of them were already sewn up and ready to finish! What a fun surprise!

Well, here I am!

I see you found my blog. It is rather sad and empty right now, but hopefully soon it will be filled with interesting (and probably some not so interesting) tidbits from my corner of the world. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law have inspired me to start a blog, but unfortunately, now that I have one I don't have anything interesting to tell you about. Check back, though - I'm sure I will have plenty to say later!