A Busy Day Completing Projects

It took me all week, but I've finished the cleaning, culling, and reorganizing of my model horse collection! 

Having finished the shelves in the horse room, I moved into the sewing room early in the afternoon. I was determined to wrap up this project and move on to organizing and photographing all the sales models I'd sorted out.

Just as I did in the office, I left one shelf open. The shelf underneath it has three shelf eaters, models I like to keep close to the sewing table. I use them to ensure that my XLT (extra long traditional) haversacks will fit the models they are intended for.

I always keep a shelf open in my office directly behind my desk chair, too. I use it to photograph sales models (such as the Chevaliere on the left), setting up scenes like the Mini Whinny Advent Calendar, etc. Via Latte is only there temporarily. I will be moving her into the sewing room where she will go with the other three shelf eaters that are used for fitting haversacks.

Craig helped me put some finishing touches to the horse room and the sewing room.

He hung this Christmas gift from my friend Kathy over the door of the office. I can sit here at my computer and see it every time I look up.

This painting of Mary, Joseph, and the boy Jesus, a gift from Local Son Curt and Vanessa, was hung on the wall between his office door and mine. 

And then he hung this clock, a gift from him, over the windows in my sewing room so that all I have to do to tell the time is to glance up.  (I much prefer a clock to a watch or using my phone. Often my hands are full of fabric and pins and a glance up is much easier.)

Of course, yet again I had a little help from my friends. The girls followed me back and forth from the horse room to the sewing room all day as I worked. (Nash did the same with Craig.) Despite Mama's propensity for heavy shedding, I relented and let her stay while I worked. She just wanted to be with me and I didn't have the heart to make her leave.

One last thing I got done yesterday was that, believe it or not, I finally took our Christmas tree down. The ornaments have been put away for weeks; I just hadn't disassembled the tree and put it into its box, a ten minute job at most. Why had I left it on display? Well, I love its colored lights, and have been plugging them in as soon as I got up in the morning and leaving them on until I went to bed. They are cheery during these drab winter days, so why not leave the tree out?

I do still have my mother's Nativity to put away. That's a different story - it big, it's breakable, and it's heavy. I am definitely procrastinating this job. And while Craig would help me in a heartbeat, because it is so fragile, I prefer to do it myself. I've got lots of experience packing china models and since this Nativity means so much to me, I want to pack it up myself.

A little help from your friends is good, but there are some things you just need to do yourself.

A Tree? This Early??

Yesterday, Teacher Daughter Lisa invited us to go to Cassens' Christmas Tree Farm and help her pick out her Christmas tree. We were happy to go, but we did not intend to get one for ourselves - we usually to wait until the week before Christmas or so.

Cassens have one of the most beautiful barns in the county on their property.

And, one of the most beautiful old homes, too. Their farm is just down the road from the barn and depending on the route I take, I drive past them when I head out to visit Abby.

We found a pre-cut tree in the sales barn that Lisa really liked, but she still wanted to walk through the fields and see what was available in the cut-your-own sections.

We took a couple of the obligatory family photos.

Sometimes you find some interesting things when you part the branches of the pine trees - this one was stuffed full of pine cones!

And this one had hosted paper wasps over the summer.

At last Lisa found the perfect tree and we all agreed, it was nicer than the one in the barn.

Lisa got down on the ground with the saw and began cutting

and then James finished up the very last bit.

They carried the tree back up to the sales barn

where it was shaken to remove loose needles and then wrapped in netting for transport.

While I was checking out the antique sleigh,

Craig slipped back into the sales barn

and now we have our own Christmas tree! It's the earliest we have ever bought one, but we don't mind - our kids are coming home for Christmas and we have a lot to do to get ready. It made sense to get ours since we were already out there and had found one that we liked.

Check that off the to-do list and only a million and one more things to do to get ready! LOL

Don't forget the Breyer holiday blanket giveaway! Two lucky winners will be drawn and announced Monday or Tuesday. To enter, comment on any blog post from today or yesterday. (There were two yesterday, so you can comment on both.) Commenting closes at 11:59 PM EST tonight.