It's beginning to look...

a lot like Christmas!  There's no grand tree in the living room, but I'm making use of my small trees and my little Longaberger sleigh baskets.  These bears were hibernating in the basket with those miniature cats and they've decided to take a sleigh ride for the Christmas holidays.  I can't remember any more who the teddy bear artists are, but they are still a delight to me.  Muffy VanderBear has lent them her New England Christmas tree.

What's left of my Santa collection (everything got downsized!) has taken up residence on the shelf in the entry way with a couple of miniature trees and a cute wooden Happy Holidays sign.  I love the figure on the right which has Santa offering Frosty a steaming cup of hot cocoa.

I wonder how that will work out...

And welcoming guests is my Noah's Ark cross stitch which I made years and years ago - I still have to find the stocking I made to match.  I love this thing and I'd leave it up year round if I weren't afraid people would think I was crazy!

I love Etsy...

I was looking for a unique handmade gift for a friend and happened upon these lovely (and inexpensive!) glass tile pendants.  Well, I ended up getting a free one because of a holiday weekend sale - who knew? - and the little bear who keeps me company at my desk has decided to wear it.

Keep calm and carry on.

I need to be reminded of that sometimes.

Odds and ends...

First, a tale of three bears.  I have had these artist bears by LoriAnn Corelis  for years.  Aren't they cute?  Well, I discovered when I was packing to move that one of the cats had been very naughty on these bears and if you have cats, you know how hard it is to get rid of that smell.  Anyhow, I was faced with the prospect of having to throw them away - Febreze was not working.  So I decided to put them in the washing machine and hope for the best.  And here they are!  None the worse for wear, with all their eyes and paws and buttons and smelling like little bears ought to smell.  There is a lot to be said for handcrafted things!

I'm still rummaging through the stuff from storage, trying to get ready for the flea market (and making some cash!)  this weekend.  I ran across my two crazy Mary Engelbreit dolls and decided they looked pretty good on the bed with my prized Mary Engelbreit embroidered quilt.  Are you sensing a theme here?  I rearranged some pictures on the bedroom wall - adding some, you guessed it, ME prints that I always liked.  The three of them make a neat little vignette (there's a two-dollar word): the top one has a boy giving a girl his heart (Open it! Open it!), the middle one shows a couple looking at one another (I said Yes! Yes!) and the bottom one shows an older couple sitting together (Grow old with me - the best is yet to be).  You can see why I like them, even if we don't all live happily every after.

During all my free time for rumination (there's a three-dollar word) this weekend, which was good and bad, I tried to focus on positive thoughts and how letting go of stuff was good - and I am trying to think of this as an opportunity to unclutter my life.  I looked around and realized that I am surrounded already by my favorite things.  The stuff I'm trying to figure out what to do with is just extra stuff.  Some of the things that really make me happy are very simple:

One of my grandmother's surviving Bauer ringware bowls filled with Scrabble tiles...

Oddball stuff grouped together on the wall and a basket of bears...

The other surviving bowl (which actually has a lid!) that makes a great jewelry keeper...

More bears basking in the fluorescent glow of a tiffany lamp...

More Mary Engelbreit prints and three teddy bear friends.  They are sitting on top of the empty cabinet where I am planning to put the one set of dishes (ME, of course!) I am rescuing from storage.  The rest of the dishes are going to the flea market.  I am sure someone is looking for a set of vintage Hull brown dinnerware - with every serving bowl and plate known to man.  Priced to move - cheap!

The Lesson...

I was casting about for something to write today. My weekend was completely unexciting: I worked for a bit on Saturday as I had a client coming in (he wanted to miss as little work as possible - can't blame him for that!) and I spent Saturday night and Sunday reading and watching movies. I didn't finish my book, but I watched some old favorites: The Blues Brothers, The Ladykillers and All of Me. I also spent a fair amount of time yesterday thinking and moping, overanalyzing my existence and everything that's going on in my life that is seemingly beyond my control. I had a hard time sleeping last night and woke up quite early this morning. More time to think and ponder and after a quick stop at WalMart for ibuprofen and packing tape, I came to the office. I have been sorting out stuff from storage to either donate or sell and the other day I came across a box I had forgotten about. During my collecting heyday, I was mad for Boyd's Bear figures and Tim had once gotten me a lovely piece (back in 1997!) called The Lesson. As you can see, it's a family of angel bears teaching the baby bear how to fly. The cats had broken the original I had (lots of my things met an untimely demise that way) and I had found an inexpensive replacement a couple of years ago on eBay - but I guess I never took it out of the box. No place to put it, I guess. Well, the other day, I liberated the bears from their box and here they are, demonstrating for me how to fly. Trite as it sounds, maybe the lesson I need to learn right now is how to fly solo again. I try to think of something positive to write about every day - who wants to read a downer sort of blog? - and these little bears reminded me of happier times. The box in the center of the piece says "Heavenly Home Flight Training Kit - The ONLY Way to Fly." Not a bad lesson for a Monday.

Mary Engelbreit never fails to lift my spirits, either. I went to her blog today and here was the picture above: "The world is full of cactus but you don't have to sit on it." Definitely a positive affirmation. And a good laugh!