Last Saturday Bracken and I stayed home so I could get caught up on some things around here, while Jeff went to market that day. Jeff had made a bunch of ornaments for us to paint and Bracken and I really enjoyed painting them together. We’ve offered wooden ornaments during the holidays for quite a few years now, but painted ornaments are new this year. Our whole family loves to paint them and Jeff can hardly make them fast enough because we all want to paint them. Maybe it’s the fact that this time of year is so incredibly busy and taking some time to sit and paint feels especially relaxing and peaceful. Or maybe it’s just the fact that painting ornaments is fun.
Back to last Saturday. It’s been pouring here, we’ve been getting so much rain, making up for what a dry year it was here. Saturday night was rainy and while Jeff was driving home from market, his windshield wipers stopped working! He was able to get home safely, thank goodness, but it was very nerve wracking. We certainly wouldn’t recommend driving at night in the rain without windshield wipers. He was able to follow the lights of the car in front of him and crank up the heat which made the water glide off the windshield more quickly.
On Sunday, Bracken and I joined Jeff at market. No mechanics were open on Sunday to fix our windshield wipers, unfortunately. Jeff did stop by the auto parts store and sprayed something on our windshield that made the rain run off. It worked amazingly and it got us there and back safely that day. Jeff ordered the part to fix our windshield wipers and then had to wait until Tuesday for it to arrive. Tuesday morning our mechanic got it all fixed. We are really happy to have working windshield wipers again!
This week I got the flu again. Boo hoo! Not long ago a friend asked if we got sick very often and I said no, not really, but that we always seemed to get sick once during Holiday Market each year. But twice? Getting the flu once per season is plenty! Getting it a second time just felt cruel. Each flu had different symptoms, but they were both unpleasant, which goes without saying. Jeff remained flu-free both times and Bracken only got it the first time around. It’s hard to be less functional when there’s so much that needs doing all around you. My family lives all over and I need to send gifts out ahead of time, so not only was I trying to keep up with mailing out orders for our business, but I also needed to get all our Christmas gifts mailed out as well. It was a scramble, but I officially mailed out all the Christmas gifts. Yay!
Jeff and I both wished we had ourselves organized enough that we could have offered ornaments online this year. We didn’t, but we’d like to next year. We do, however, have many beautiful ornaments at our Holiday Market booth. (By the way, there’s five days left: Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday. We’re in booth 216.) We have our favorite ornament that Jeff designed last year that we refer to as “the hobbit door ornament.” It has a little door with a doorknob that opens and closes. And some of them have sparkles. (I brought one out in the garden and hung it in a blueberry bush to get a picture, the rest were taken near the window.) We have some designs from doodles I’ve done, some folk art angels I fell in love with, and even a vintage santa. We’ve been having a lot of fun with ornaments this year and it makes me want the holidays to last longer so I can keep painting them.
If you have any leftovers, I would love the joy ornament with the star in the center, and the joy to the world one. Our tree is almost entirely covered in handmade ornaments, mostly made by us, and these would fit right in. Let me know! Merry Christmas!
Melissa,
I will let you know what we have after Christmas. Thanks for appreciating our ornaments! 🙂 We’d be honored to have some of ours next to your special handmade ones.
Merry Christmas to you too!
Love,
Taryn
Yearning for one of those hobbit door ornaments. Hope you will sell them online.
Happy Holidays. Shirley
Hello Shirley, I will make them available online after Christmas. 🙂
Those look beautiful! We absolutely love our hobbit door from last year. It’s up on tree right now. Sorry about the flu!
The ornaments are just beautiful. I was going to say that I liked the painted ones best, but the others are so lovely and intricate. It would be hard to choose just one.
Love the hobbit door ones!!! I think you should keep painting for a while, that way you will be ready to sell online next year!!! So sorry you were sick twice, hope the rest of your winter is illness free!!
Excellent idea! If I keep painting now I will have loads of ornaments ready for next year. 🙂