Just About Ready!

"Spring is coming!"

My mother and grandmother would call each other on the Winter Solstice and say that with glee. The tradition continued with my mother and me, and I think of it when the day rolls around each December.

Winter Solstice is today's Yuletide prompt. I was looking for a hardy looking pony, maybe wearing a blanket. I was reaching for Mittens, the 2023 Pony for Christmas, when I spied this piece among my Mistys.

Wish from the 2018 Wish and Wonder set. Perfect!

I've shown her as a Canadian Rustic Pony and as a Eriskay Pony, and she has a NAN card.

A base coat chalky, she looks like a pony that could survive during the depths of winter with her shaggy coat and windswept mane and tail.

Speaking of winds, this was yesterday morning. I was glad I was in my warm home!

So, everyone, spring is coming! The days are getting longer! Soon all the snow and blow and ice and chills will be over. Although we do have to get through January first... But it's on the way!

Yesterday I was busy working on Christmas until the evening hours.

In my embroidery stash, I had a set of 8 red dinner napkins. I've always wanted to make some holiday napkins for Christmas dinner, so I pulled them out, found a design, uploaded it to my embroidery machine, and got started.

I wanted something simple and classic, so of course I chose sleigh bells.

Our family gathering will be smaller this year, but still, ten people are coming. I was two napkins short. But, I also had a set of white dinner napkins in my stash, so I took two of those and embroidered them in red to match the other set.

I embroidered them, I washed them to remove the stabilizer, and then I ironed them.

I am really pleased with how they turned out and can't wait to see how they look on the table Christmas Day.

The rest of Saturday was spent in Christmas Central (aka our bedroom) wrapping gifts. I wrapped, and I wrapped, and I wrapped. (Principle of three!)

I tell my kids I will wrap their dad's gifts if they send them to me and usually I have a few of those to do, too.

I laughed at Jessica's note to her dad on the address label! And so did he!

Of course, the girl who thinks I need guiding was with me the entire time. (Her favorite guiding job? Guiding me to her food tub!) 

Tammo started out with us, but I sort things into piles as I go, and whenever a box was tossed over to the recycling pile, it made him uncomfortable.

Despite my reassurances and that Pepper was with him, he finally got up and went out to his bed in the living room where no boxes were randomly flying across the room.

I put a few things under the tree, broke down the boxes and put them in the recycling tub in the garage, and finally collapsed into my reading chair for the night.

My back had become painful after doing all that standing, reaching, lifting, bending, and carrying. (The injection I had in November is clearly wearing off.) Craig cooked dinner and offered to bring me a plate, sweet guy, but I was able to get up and get it myself. 

I have one last gift to do - Kathy and I are going to take something over to Tsao, our pedicurist, on Monday or Tuesday, but other than that, I'm ready for Christmas!

Ho! Ho! Ho! (Principle of three! LOL)

 

Short & Sweet

First Post of the Day

I am not refering to the candy cane Fjords that came out a few weeks ago with that title. It's just another phrase for "mish mosh" or "hodge podge."

The 2026 Vintage Club Releases 

I am thrilled with the sneak peeks we have seen of the 2026 Vintage Club! 

A flocked Stablemate Circus Pony? Yes!! And is the Traditional sized Fighting Stallion next to it part of the offering? Fingers crossed!

That old red roan coloring is a favorite, but I may like the blue roan even better. This is a gamble's choice - collectors will receive one or the other foal with the Running Stallion. I will be happy with either, and how happy I am to see the Scratching Foal in a new release! It was last seen sixteen years ago in 2009 as a Fun Foal Surprise piece. 

The Running Foal was most recently offered in 2022 in the Birds of a Feather set called Robin and Nestling. Five hundred sets were made. Prior to that, the Running Foal was last seen in 2014 as Blitzen and paired with Vixen (the Running Mare) and wearing a holiday blanket.

My guess is that the Scratching Foal will be the most sought after of the two since it has been so long since the mold was last used. I will be happy with either, although I may do a search for the one I do not get.

I cannot wait to see the rest of what is planned for the club!

Don't Mess with this Cake!

This seems like an innocuous  holiday cake. The gingerbread folks on top are festively decorated and it looks delicious! A snickerdoodle cake that a friend of Vanessa's had made for a fundraiser, Vanessa bought it and brought it to dinner Sunday night.

However, it is not as innocent as it looks. A quick glance at the sides tell a different story.

Ninja gingerbread people! All in grouchy moods and ready to go after you if you dare cut into their cake.

Well, we dared - those ninjas were no match for hungry Isenbargers. Why were the ninjas added? No idea. Maybe it's taken from a movie or something. Or, maybe it was just because it was humorous. But whatever it was, it was fun discovering the little guards on the cake!

Are Proper Nouns Allowed?

I thought the game of Scrabble had to have nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, or any part of speech EXCEPT for proper nouns.

I wouldn't be able to use this word in the game, but I sure do like having it as a Christmas ornament!

They were sitting on our places when we sat down for dinner Sunday night and are now hanging on our tree.

Getting Ready Trying to Wrap

Pepper is my constant companion. Wherever I am working, she's nearby. Seeing Eye Guide Dog protocol is that she should go under the desk or the table while I work, but I let her wait for me where she wants to wait.

Which can make it a little tough when you are wrapping gifts and had intended to use the entire bed as you sorted through the unwrapped presents. Ah, well, I can put things on the floor if need be. No worries, sweetie! 

A Teaching Life Reminder

Every now and then I get a reminder that I used to do educational research and publish papers in professional education journals. (If you haven't noticed, I love to write. Hah!) A notice arrived that one of my papers is being cited in another researcher's paper.

To receive this notice from ResearchGate and see my name in the cited researchers' synopsis makes me feel good. I was and am passionate about children and their education, and teaching was not just a job to me. To know that my research is still considered valuable and relevant makes me very, very happy.

Stay 'tooned for more! 

Final Blitz

It's a big day today for our family - with the exception of Frank, all our family is arriving! (It's also got some sadness coupled with it as we remember our James. You just never know, do you?)

When our kids and their families are all here, it will truly be CHRISTMAS!! And I cannot wait.

Yesterday was jam packed as I did the final wrap up (literally) of Christmas preparations. I am waiting on six gifts to arrive, but I'm not too worried about them - I think they will be here in time. If not, I can make some "Stay 'tooned" coupons for the recipients.

Yesterday, we had FIVE different stops by delivery trucks.

This was the fifth and final delivery that arrived late in the afternoon. My heart sank when I saw it - I'd already been busy wrapping everything else that had arrived that day. But as I began carrying the boxes in, I discovered that almost all of them were to go straight to the spa tub! Yeeha!!

I don't have to open, wrap, and break down the boxes for any of these! I did wrap all the pet gifts in the box that is perched on the edge of the tub. Those gift bags smell VERY interesting to Pepper and Tammo, and so I decided to remove the temptation and put it where they did not have to smell it. 

There are 75 gifts wrapped, ready to go, and (mostly) sorted into family groups running alongside the wall in our bedroom. I can barely get to my side of the bed, there is so much stuff in there!

In between wrapping sessions yesterday, I started hanging ornaments on the tree in earnest. I got all those that had family photos up along with my Breyer and other horse ornaments, but it seemed that I was barely making a dent in the pile that was spread out across the dining room table. I decided to change tactics.

I'd delegate.  My family loved these ornaments and would be happy to help. I'd just sort them into piles, giving each child ones that I knew they loved, had given me or made, etc. and they and their families could hang those when they got here.

Bingo! It was a great solution.

Craig's ornaments. Note they are heavy on football (just as mine are heavy on horses.) All but two of them are football related.

Sarah's ornaments.

Jessica's ornaments.

 Kyle's pile.

Lisa's pieces.

Curt's group.

and Cole's.

I can't wait to see how the tree looks when these are all hung. (Maybe I'll bring some more down, now that I have some help... )

Please Note: My office will have people staying in it for the next week. If I can, I will bring my desktop downstairs so I can still write. If blog posts are sporadic or missing, that's why. I'll do what I can.

Only a few more hours and all my family will be here!  Squeee!!

Keeping Busy & the December Give Away

Second Post of the Day

Benefits of having a big family? Lots of presents. Drawbacks of having a big family? Lots of presents. Christmas preparations continue to run apace!

Yesterday I wrapped 28 gifts and I'm only about 2/3s done. Our bedroom functions as the Christmas wrapping station and right now you can barely walk through it. Mama is timid by nature and yesterday she was too overwhelmed to even come in to borrow Pepper's bed. (Don't worry about Pepper. She was borrowing mine.) Mama went back to her own bed in the living room.

The spa tub is filling up with packages that our out of town family is sending and will wrap when they get here, but it isn't too bad yet. In fact, I used it yesterday to hold boxes that I'd broken down for recycling from my own wrapping blitz.

Lisa's health and work schedule finally allowed her to spend some time putting out my mother's Nativity with me.

It's been a tradition for nearly 20 years that we do that together and one that I cherish. 

My mother poured and cleaned the greenware, painted it, and then fired it, doing a couple of pieces a year until she had finished them all.

Remember the card Kate sent me last year that made me cry on Christmas Day?

Susie sent us an electronic one yesterday with singing snowman and then wrote a sweet note to accompany it. I've lost count of how many times I've watched that card. Thank you, Susie!

Craig enjoyed watching it in my office accompanied by Nash (who is very attached to Craig.) That's Pepper sitting on my feet. The four dogs enjoyed a day together, playing, eating, and sleeping hard despite all the things scattered on the floors and around our home.

We managed to squeeze in time for our monthly volunteering down in Indianapolis this week. While down there, we spent some time at what has become my favorite outdoor Nativity.

Getting there was interesting. We took a different route than usual to avoid traffic. Take a look at how we went:

That's 14 roundabouts. 14!!  And that wasn't all of them! They don't call Carmel, Indiana the home of the roundabout for no reason!

Carmel has more that 150 roundabouts, more than any city in the United States. (If you are prone to dizziness, you might want to skip Carmel.)

Feeling a bit like we'd just ridden an extended merry go round ride, we made it to the Nativity. I've been visiting it for over the past ten years, and it has become a place of joy, happiness, and peace. It also provided a place of solace when James died just before Christmas in 2022.

Simple, quiet, and without fanfare, I love this scene. (And that donkey.)

I pulled out my embroidery machine and have been making gifts for family members. This Nativity is a new pattern for me and is made in a technique called "Sketch."

I made two hand towels to give as gifts.

Now we just have the tree to put up, and Craig and I are determined that today is the day. (Wish us luck - it's 11 degrees out!)