Clark Griswold Pfundtner and Getting Ready for Christmas

Three little elves stopped by to give us a hand the other day. It was time to start getting ready for Christmas. We store all of our red and green supply totes stacked up out in the garage. So these little elves started carrying things out of the garage, and around to the front of the house. Some of them are outdoor decorations and some of them are indoor. It was up to me to check each tote and see where it had to go. How wonderful to have these little elves haul everything out for us? The biggest helper elf Chelsea helped commandeer the loads.

Little Clayton elf decided it was better to haul the really heavy things on the red wagon. Since all of our snow melted last week, he was still able to roll the wagon around and down the sidewalk. I suppose if there had been snow on the ground, he would have grabbed a sled. "Work smarter not harder" he says!

Littlest elf Claire was very excited about hauling the snowman. Because they are lightweight, she could handle those on her own. Then oldest elf Chelsea trudged back and forth hauling the heavier items and was really appreciated as being the organizer of the activity.

Little Claire found Rudolph. Even though he was kind of a large for her, she managed to bring him all the way from the garage and up the stairs to the front porch.  This is a newer holiday acquisition, so he needed a special new spot for the outside decoration. She got to decide where he needs to go.

Now came the biggest project! The tree! 

Last year we had seen a Pinterest idea to wrap your entire decorated Christmas tree (lights ornaments and all) with wide pallet strapping plastic. Round and round and round we went. Then we were able to carry it out the door in one complete piece and store it the garage for the entire year. The only problem was that it takes up a lot of valuable space in the garage. Instead of being disassembled in individual totes, and undecorated like normal, we stored it that way all summer long. But it was in the way of Steve's other workshop projects.  I don't think we'll do that again this year. I think we will reduce things back to their original totes and packaging. But it was a good idea and we thought we would try it.

All three of the little elves helped Grandpa carry the bound up tree around from the garage, down the driveway, across the sidewalk, and up the front steps. I held the door open and whoosh, and it came!!!

The grandkids were wondering how the Grinch did it so easily by pushing a full tree up the chimney? This was a really tough job to carry a full tree into the house. They were exhausted!!!

I had to revive them with the promise of hot cocoa. They jumped back into action and started to carefully cut away the plastic from around the tree, without cutting any important lighting wires or ornaments underneath the plastic.

Before the plastic was even completely removed, Clayton got right to work underneath the tree, finding the cord and plugging it in.  Our LED lights are on a remote control with 8 different variations of lights, changing colors, or all white, flashing or not.  They love to play with the remotes and change it from time to time.  So does Steve. It's his "thing". 

The other problem with wrapping up the tree is that all the ends of the branches get bent and curved inwards. It took quite a while to push and pull and rearrange each of the branches to point outwards again. Then of course we had to rearrange the ornaments so they would hang decently. I think it was just as much work to redo the tree as it was to originally decorate it from scratch. So I don't think we will do this method again at the end of this season. 

We also corralled up all of my little horsey ornaments and arranged them across the mantle with some matching lit up garland.  These are some of my favorite and most memorable ornaments. 

So far, the inside of the house is pretty well decorated except for the Christmas village. The grandkids are going to come back and do that because we ran out of time, and plain and simple, it was Grandma and Grandpa who both ran out of energy!

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Even though it was pretty cold and windy out last Sunday, we decided to decorate the front of the house and get up all of our exterior decorations and lights. We figured we might as well get it done before the snow flies. Even though it was the very end of November, we usually wait until December to do this. But we happened to have one good day to "git 'er dun". 

This year we went one step further and permanently installed some nice white rubber coated metal hooks across the entire front porch. Now we can put the same garlands of lights in the same spots every year and not have to mess with staples or nails or wire ties. It will be much easier to decorate in future years. We had done this on the house in Chilton too, and it sure made it easy. Because they are small and white, the hooks are not really noticeable throughout the summer months.

We unpacked the totes and started our outside décor.  

I enjoy wrapping all of the porch columns like great big peppermint sticks! Three years ago the grandkids helped me make these great stars out of cheap plastic Dollar Tree hangers and a hot glue gun with some pretty sparkly sequins. Later on, I also tied them down at the bottom to the railing so they don't blow around too much in the upcoming gusting winter winds.

here is how to make them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW9m-6mSntc

So here's the front of the house pretty well decorated for the winter. It's the same way we've done it the last two christmases. And I kind of like it. I also added more peppermint stripe ribbons to the stair railings and also to the entrance over by the pergola to the she shed, not in this photo.

Now that we got all the decorating done, 

it's time for "Clark Griswold Pfundtner" 

 to take over...

The outdoor garland lights end up being plugged into three different timers so that way we are avoiding having any cords crossing the walking areas to create a tripping hazard. Now it's time for Clark to get all the lights functioning and repair any burnt out sections or fuses, he also needs to get these timers set correctly. It really bugs him if one section of lights goes on or off before the others. At the magic hour of 4:30 p.m. as it is dusk, he wants them all to go on with a flourish... at the same time!

Steve is even wearing the same gloves and hat as Clark! 

With some tweaking and fiddling over the next few days, he finally has them synchronized to go on perfectly and also light up the two little snowmen out in the front by the bird bath. Yes, my Clark Griswold Pfundtner has the Christmas Spirit deep in his heart. Awwwwww.

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During this past week, I've added a few other things here and there throughout the house, including the little Family fiber optic tree. It's a Family Tree because there's an ornament on there for every member of our extended family. It's fun when they come to visit to search and hunt around until they find their name.

It's pretty cool at night

right in front of the dining room windows. 

My little wooden toy soldier is on guard by the front door. Along with the ring of Jingle Bells on the doorknob. I got this soldier many years ago from a co-worker when I sold real estate in Green Bay. He was also a woodworker and made it for me for a Christmas present in our Holiday Office Exchange. It's one of those precious things that I hang on to year after year. 

The bells give  a familiar festive chiming sound

each time the door is opened.

I line up these adorable old-fashioned jumping jacks on magnets for the grandkids to play with. They are stuck to the side of the refrigerator. That way they can play with them and line them up and rearrange them. One year I tried hanging them on the tree and they couldn't pull on the bottom strings to make them jump without upsetting the tree. It worked out much better for inquisitive little munchkins to play with them in an easily accessible area.

I just love old fashioned type ornaments and silly play things for the kids.

This creative little tree in my kitchen is metal and the ornaments are magnetic. They can be rearranged and it is strung with little tiny LED seed lights that flash and glow in alternating patterns. The grandkids have dubbed this the Grinch Tree because it looks like something right out of Dr Seuss. It's one of those trees that they can play with or rearrange every time they come over to visit. One year, some of the grandkids gave me the cute little sign hanging overhead. That makes sense doesn't it?

We put the silly little Charlie Brown Tree in the middle of the table in the kitchen. It's something that they can rearrange the ornaments and play with. They laugh about it, because it's so spindly and awkward and ugly, but cute in its own way.

After my mom passed away last year, I asked my stepdad to pick out a couple little things that were mom's holiday favorites to send to me that I could keep for year after year. He sent me a whole bunch of her Nutcracker collection. I distributed them among all of the grandchildren so everybody got a large nutcracker. I kept these six little tiny ones for myself. I line them up to stand guard in this window sill. I smile every time I see them and think of my mom.

Sitting next to the fireplace is our holiday story bear in his sleigh with all of the Christmas books. It's great to cuddle up with a couple grandkids at a time and read Christmas stories--- especially the vintage ones from Little Golden Books like Rudolph and Jingle Bells. Of course we always read the traditional Night Before Christmas too.

20 plus some years ago a fellow fiber friend in my spinning guild made me this cut out fret work paper tree in the middle of my dining room table. It is of the Twelve Days of Christmas! She made it herself with an exacto blade and cut it out from sturdy cardstock. The top of course is the partridge, the next row down has two turtle doves, three french hens, etc. I carefully fold it up and put it away each year. It's been on the center of my dining table every year since she made it for me. I also found the wonderful peppermint stick striped candles this year when shopping with my friend Vicky. We will burn them during special meals throughout the holiday season, and maybe put them out year after year depending on how far down they get burnt.

Besides needing the kids to assemble the Christmas Village inside of my china hutch, I think I am pretty much done. We have completed most of our Christmas shopping and I just have a little bit more wrapping to do. I'm still not quite feeling up to snuff yet.  I am feeling pretty good so far recovering from whatever this long illness has been.  Next we can work on Christmas cards and making cookies.  But for now, we can sit back and enjoy the season...

And if you are in the area, stop on in! 

I think it's time to crank up the Christmas music,

 sit back with a cup of cocoa and tiny marshmallows 

and take a little break.

~~~Bring on the holidays~~~

90 Years Old!

Sorry I haven't blogged recently. Been totally under the weather.  Got sick right before Thanksgiving with a horrible head cold. I took 3 covid tests, all negative. Just a nasty bug I think. Then the week after I ended up with a bad run of I think RSV or else a strain of covid that don't show up on the home tests.  So about 15 days worth, ugh. 

Finally feeling better and up to a blog.... 

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was a pretty important day.  I am glad I was feeling good enough, but kept more than arm's length distance and no hugging, just to be sure.  

It was Steve's Dad's

  NINTIETH BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!! 

Yes, what a fine thing to reach the ripe old age of 90!  Paul is doing very well, still lives on his own, manages everything and has the company of his dear lady friend Sandy, who is an angel. She does most the driving now when Paul wants to get around, and she keeps him busy for sure.  Little doggie Millie is his constant companion when Sandy is occupied with her family and functions too.  

Sandy helped Paul plan his 90th birthday party. They rented the hall at the local church, and contracted with a caterer and arranged the church ladies for serving and cleaning up after the party. 

The Birthday Boy and his special lady, Sandy. 

He had a HUGE turnout of over 80 people attend, 

and in lieu of gifts, he did a fundraiser for the church.

Sis-in-law Cindy scooted around and snapped pics of each table, trying to catch all of the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, cousins and friends in attendance. Some traveled as far from Milwaukee, Wild Rose, Clintonville and Belgium (Wisconsin) to honor this wonderful old gentleman on his special day. 

Lots of fun stories, laughter and cheer were included.

Some folks were local friends and neighbors too.

It was great to see so many happy people there to celebrate. 

Steve's older sister Wendy is standing up next to our table, 

with Milwaukee cousins Julie and Greg and Todd enjoying the day.

It was good to see so many faces, 

some of whom we haven't seen for years. 

What a table full of mischief here....  Steves' oldest brother Mark has FIVE grandsons, all close in age. Missed a pic of the 5th, I think that is his arm on the far right coming back to table.  Sometimes Mark and his wife Anne take ALL FIVE for overnights at their house on the lake. What fun!!!

Cindy tried her best to take pics without people chewing mouths full of food.  About the only guy that got caught chewing was her husband, Pete on the right. Sorry Pete! Pete is Steve's younger brother.  Oldest brother Mark and wife Ann also sat with the birthday boy. 

Sister Lynn and her family all traveled up from the 

Sheboygan area to be here for the special day. 

Lynn, who is a talented musician as well as a piano teacher, kept us entertained with holiday music from the church piano. 

Sandys' family also drove up to partake in the day. 

Her grandchildren were a welcome addition to the bunch.

Our grandson Clayton helped me with clearing tables and learning how to be polite and ask if people were finished to take their plates before cake was served. It is nice to teach them to help out. All of the grandkids were on their special behavior and so polite and happy.

Clayton also discovered a section of old log wall 

with chinking in a display in the church hall.

 

It was preserved to show the original building from where the new hall was added on.  It was so cool that the kids could touch logs that were erected in 1893!!!!

The littlest one there was tiny Beckhem,

the 1 year old great grandson of the birthday boy. 

He made his laps of the church and hall, keeping his parents on their toes.

Steve was singled out by a gentleman whose wife was working the in the kitchen crew. He said he recognized how Steve held his head. It turns out he was Steve's high school shop teacher!!!!  Mr. Tony Patroney  was significantly instrumental in helping Steve achieve skills and lessons in shop. HE was the "ONE" teacher who made a difference in Steve's life. Steve has a form of dyslexia and had a hard time with reading, writing, etc.  The rest of the classes Steve never did so well,  but vocational shop class is where he EXCELLED, of course.  

These two could have talked for hours and hours.  Mr. Patroney remembered so many of things Steve worked on, and Steve helping HIM with extra things after class.  It was great that Steve, after all these years, was able to tell that teacher what a difference he made in Steve's life.  I think all teachers love to hear that from former students. Especially memorable ones like Steve. 

It was a great day for the birthday boy, and he went home with a smile on his face and love in his heart.

He is facing some upcoming health challenges again and needed to have a good day with family and friends around him.  We love you, Pops Pfundtner! 

I Am Not A Fan Of Ceiling Fans

I am not a fan of ceiling fans. 

I never have been. They don't appeal to me in the least. The very worst is laying in the bedroom looking straight up at a ceiling fan rotating over the bed. It makes me nauseous. Even a ceiling fan out of the corner of my eye, in my peripheral vision, can make my stomach upset.

The only reason I agreed to a ceiling fan in my She Shed is because it's mostly positioned up over my shoulder, out of my line of sight. With the 14 ft tall ceiling, we need to push the hot air down and need circulation in the room. I know that. When we created the She Shed we added this 56-in industrial ceiling fan. It works quite well and has a rheostat type wall switch that you can run it on any speed. On the highest speed it is zooming like an airplane ready to take off! We usually kept it down as low as possible just to move the air around. But, it only goes in one direction and it pushes the air straight down on us. The outer walls still feel cold, and the corners are really chilly. Not bad in the summer, but in the winter months I just don't like the feeling of the air pushing down. Also, the industrial ceiling fan does not have a light on it.

Steve suggested we put a household type ceiling fan up there with a remote control. Then we can reverse the direction, control the speed, and have the light on dimmer to create whatever level we want of illumination. So he hopped up on his ladder and disabled the one that was up there. We will list that on Marketplace and sell it because it's a perfectly good fan. It just doesn't have all of the features that we wanted like the household one does.

It has only 3 blades and was unobtrusive up there, kinda out of sight, outta mind for me.

We ran up to the big box home improvement store Menards in Marinette. There they had this 52-in fan, which is a little smaller. But it did have the reversibility and also the light kit with the dimmer and the remote control.

Hop skip jump like a bunny, here's my Steveio assembling the new fan and putting it up. I read the directions and handed him the parts, while he took care of the wiring and the mounting brackets.  He just loves fiddling with stuff and getting it set right. 

Soon he had it all together and tested, turned the power back on, and it works just fine. Now we can control the amount of circulation in the room much easier with the touch of a remote.  It will push the warm air down along the walls and take care of excess condensation on the tall french doors and windows too.  We noticed a drastic improvement in just an hour of use.  The room feels more "even temp" with the better circulation. 

I do want to add this stained glass lamp shade to the bottom of the fixture to match the other stained glass lights in the She Shed and the rest of the house. The only problem is the threaded rod that came with the kit is only long enough for the white shade that was included. Steve put the white one up for now, but as soon as we get back to a hardware store he can get the longer threaded rod. 

We had added stained glass shades like this to the ceiling fans in the house in Chilton and it makes them at least tolerable in appearance to me. Even though I still don't like the blades moving if I can help it.  Now I can walk in the room and hit the button on the remote to turn it off when Steve isn't looking.  LOL

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While we were at Menards, we took the time to pick up an extra gallon of paint to work on the newest antique door that he found on Marketplace. It's written about in the blog prior to this.  He is sanding it first, and then I will paint it before installing it on the laundry room/ half bath doorway. 

At the same time we had another thought in mind. Since we bought this house three and a half years ago we really hadn't painted any of the rooms (other than a couple crazy deep mauve accent walls), and we did paint the bedroom when we redid the ceiling. 

The rest of the walls in the entire house are almost a pinkish beige hue called Bermuda Sand. We are considering maybe lightning brightening and changing the tone so we grabbed a bunch of paint chips to decide what we're going to do. Since all of the trim and doors are painted in the String of Pearls color we need to find something that coordinates without looking too pinky. So here were some of our choices:

We will think about that a bit and make a decision later. But we can paint room by room, wall by wall, and take our time. I do enjoy painting and it can be a winter time project. Just doing a little bit at a time. 

On our run up to Marinette and back was an absolutely beautiful day with vivid blue sky. It has stayed cold enough here that the snow is still clinging to the branches of the trees everywhere. 

The wind chills were in the 10 degree range, 

but falling lower by the weekend.

I know in the Eastern states they are getting hammered this weekend with four or five feet of snow. Right now we just have an inch or two on the ground and that is fine. It brightens everything up and looks so clean, Much better than the dull browns and greys after the autumn leaves came off the trees. 

We are staying in this weekend and not doing much of anything. I may start on this next quilt project which is for my friend Vicky. It's in memory of her mom, it's a quilt kit that her mom had bought and never got around to working on. It will be a wall hanging.  I will do the cutting, piecing and quilting while she will do the stitching around the appliqued birds and the little branches they are sitting on.

When we work on it, Vicky has decided she would like all four birds going in the same direction. On this sample photo from the kit, it looks like they are crooked not placed properly. I hope our version will look better than this! 

So that's it for a comfy Snuggly Saturday morning. I am fighting off a little bit of sinus and a sore throat. Not enough to be really sick, but enough to not want to go anywhere either. Good excuse to stay home and play with my She-Shed stuff.

Casters, Snow and Another "A-Door-Able Door"??

It sure is a good thing that they built a Jo-Ann's Fabric and Craft store right next to the Harbor Freight store in Marinette Wisconsin! While Steve was busy digging around in Harbor Freight for a few special items, I had the opportunity to go next door to Jo-Ann's. I grabbed some extra backing fabric for my quilt and a new spool of the variegated thread that I wanted.  I was still waiting in the parking lot while he was shopping, and he had the keys in his pocket.  So I had time to snap this pic,  Great ideas of the developers to put these stores side by side. On second thought, I should have gone back in JoAnn's. 

One of the things that Steve added to his shopping cart at Harbor Freight were four heavy duty locking casters. I have been kind of prodding him to think about getting them for quite a while. He has this really wonderful HEAVY workbench island situation in the garage. But every time he wants to move it, he has to drag this very heavy island across the cement floor. The screeching and scraping sound is AWFUL! Not only that, I can't drag it myself if I want to move it! So I had suggested a set of good heavy duty casters on the bottom, ones that could be locked into place.

Now it can be moved around with ease or rolled out of the way if we're working on something on the floor. I like having this open workbench island space in the middle of the room to work on projects. The heavy metal top was originally a steel door that was used during a construction phase on his brother's home. It makes an excellent worktop for his workbench island. The sturdy steel legs came out of a bulk item trash day rescue. So all together, it didn't cost much for the island itself, so the investment of 4 casters seemed to make sense.

Plus I got to shop and oogle fabrics. 

In my last blog I was showing how we added beadboard to the rest of the walls in the bathroom. Now it's finally complete. It looks so much better.  Covering up those portions of the walls kind of makes the room feel bigger.  This is a wide angle shot with the cell phone to get it all in. 

It lightened and brightened it up as well. I really like the look of the beadboard slats and it seems to fit with The Farmhouse motif. I am so pleased with how it turned out.  I have a few little spots here and there to dab paint on. Spots that we filled in the holes from the finishing nail gun on the quarter round trim around the baseboard.

Just one more of our projects finished that we can tick off the list.

Wednesday morning we woke up to absolutely beautiful white snow covering on the ground. Our first snowfall of the season. The temperatures have dropped now and the ground has stayed cold enough that the snow is hanging around.

We let little Binney out into her potty yard and she had to dash around and bark and snuffle around in the snow a little bit. I think from year to year dogs forget what snow was like. So the first time out again in the snowfall is exciting. Just like kids.  She is so funny.  She had to wait and see if the neighbor dogs were coming out.  Then she barks at them to tell them off, and prances back into the house. 

After my painting was done, I spent Wednesday morning sitting back with my feet up in front of the fireplace. The sun was shining outside but a few flakes every now and then came glistening down as they twirled to the ground. Steve went into town for a haircut and I had a peaceful relaxing morning to myself with a cup of coffee, some soft music, a good book from my sister, and the company of Binney.

When Steve got back from his haircut, he insisted that we had to hop into the Saturn and go check out something that he had located on Facebook Marketplace. 

Here we go again! 

It's another "A-door-able Door"!

If you look a few blogs back, I had mentioned about an antique door that Steve had located. He worked really hard to clean it all up, strip it all off and get it in place for our master bedroom. When our house was remodeled back about 6 years ago, some of the doors were changed to modern hollow core ones. Others were left as original with the five horizontal panels. So we have been trying to locate old wooden doors to replace the newer modern ones. Steve found another!

Soooooo for another $20 (same price as the last one) we drove down to Green Bay to pick up the door. It was exactly what he was looking for and it came home in the same manner the last one did. Wedged between us in the Saturn. Much better than hauling it laying flat on the trailer, driving through the slush and the snow. He looks so determined to get this door home, doesn't he?

I am just along for the ride, laughing at him and his eagerness to restore these doors and get rid of the modern ones. He doesn't like them at all and he said that they bug him. They are kind of MDF white plastic fake chipboard whatever stuff. Nothing can beat a good solid wooden door, in his mind.

I did get him to swing by the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Green Bay. I think he was hoping to find another door! We walked around and I managed to spy an additional light fixture with my same stained glass lights that I have in the home. This one is a pendant. I got the whole thing for $6. I don't even have a spot for it. But it was worth it to pick it up in case I ever need the shade, or if one of our others breaks. Who knows, maybe I will find a spot for it. But in the meantime, it's good to have an extra on hand. At that price, it was a bargain.  It retails for $39.99 new. 

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So that was about it for yesterday. Today is starting out slow and easy and relaxed. We did bring the grand puppies over to the groomers so it was one less thing for the kids to do.  We picked them up a few minutes ago.  They are now minus a bunch of big bushy coats, and have their nails trimmed and we can see their eyes again.  This is Biscuit and Ewok. 

This afternoon we have an appointment with our local Health Insurance specialists to talk to Steve about his Medicare Part B Supplement stuff. He's only a couple months away from that. So it's good to get the paperwork in order and figure out what he's doing.

It looks like the Midwest and the Great Lakes are due for some very cold windy weather with wind chills down below zero in the next few days. Brrrrrrrrr

There's a Packer game tonight at Lambeau in Green Bay, and the wind chills might get down in the low numbers too. We hope they play as well as they did last Sunday!