Holly Baby has been in my life for 44 years.  I got her when I was two years old.  My parents were in a Coast to Coast hardware store when I latched on to her and wouldn't let her go.  My parents each told the other "I'm not going to take it away from her.  You do it."  Neither of them took her away and I still have her.  She is a 1968 Vogue doll.  She has a cloth body and plastic arms, legs and head.  She has gone through countless body replacements.  She traveled with me EVERYWHERE.

There was one incident when we had gone out to eat.  My mom had taken me to the bathroom and my dad paid the bill and was heading to the car.  He picked Holly up by her head and threw her under his arm, like a football.  Some lady ran after him accusing him of child abuse.  Imagine her embarrassment when she realized it was a baby doll.  My dad still gets a chuckle from that one!
Miss C has started playing with Holly.  I also have a bedraggled suitcase full of baby clothes for Holly most of which were mine (some were my brothers).  The suitcase was mine too.  So it's all ancient... or at least 40-something years old.
Sometimes I worry about how fragile Holly is and that something will happen to her.  Miss C does try to be careful of her though.  Although, I"m sure I can find another doll repair hospital if I needed to!

skiing at Winter Park!

I don't usually make New Years resolutions because they are rarely kept.  And aren't resolutions usually like lose weight and make more money?  This year I tried to come up with things that I think I can accomplish!  (I hope...)

*  live simply.  purchase only needs and not wants.  pay with cash.  don't live beyond my (our) means.
   
*  exercise more.  that includes walking the dogs.  start running again even it is slow and short.

*  budget better.  pay off some debt.  work my plexus business.  be a more consistent blogger.

*  have more patience with home and work.

*  finish current knitting projects before starting new ones.   finish crafting projects too.

*  read 100 books according to my goodreads goal.  that includes audiobooks.

*  learn another language.  relearn spanish too.

That's it in a nutshell.  I'll let you know how I do.

 The nice thing about thinning the trees is the abundance of wildflowers that have been popping up.
 After a "hard day on the mountain" we are relaxing by dipping our feet in the cold creek water.  My brother and I used to play in this creek just about daily every summer until it would dry up.  Good times!
 Some beautiful flowers and grasses along the creek.
 After a hard day of work and play we went to Nederland for lunch.  On the way we stopped at the Carousel of Happiness for a ride.  Or five.  The carousel is a restored 1910 carousel with all hand carved animals.   The carousel is the result of a vision one man and he is the one who carved the animals, it is staffed by volunteers and the proceeds are donated to charity.
 She rode a donkey (twice), a St. Bernard, a camel, and a dolphin!  There are 56 hand carved animals.  Don't they look amazing?!
 I just had to tuck this one along.  Doesn't every town have a town cat?  Fred the Cat or Freddy the Freeloader was a big orange tom cat that lived on First Street.  He would sit on the newspaper box that sat right next to the door of the small grocery store and everyone would pet him as they walked in or out of the store.  The store employees fed him on top of his newspaper box.  The town vet gave him his shots and took care of him.  One day Fred didn't show up for his breakfast.  He was found in a garage on First Street.  If I remember correctly he had a front page obit in the town paper.  And this gravestone is in the lawn of town hall.   Fred was just one of the characters in the wonderful little hippie town where I grew up!
Wow.  We had a very busy day.  And I hope you enjoyed this short little tour of my hometown.

Almost a month ago, Colleen at Five Little Homesteaders tagged me to do the 5 Random Things about myself.  I completely spaced it out.  Then last week Sarah at Sezza Knits also tagged me for the same thing.  Ooops.  That was when I remembered.  I blame a lot of things on mama brain, this being one of them.

Here it is, the 5 random things...

1.  When I was in my 20's, I had a lot of issues.  Food issues.  Commitment issues.  Self-Esteem issues. I'm in a much better place now than I was then.

2.  I got my Masters Degree in Gerontology.  I used that degree for approximately six months.  I was a social worker in an Alzheimer's facility.  It was a temporary job to begin with (I was covering a maternity leave).  The day I was hired at the airline, she gave her notice and they offered me the job.  Ugh.  What to do?  I'm still paying for that degree, but I love my airline job.

3.  I learned to knit when I was 5 or 6 and in 4H.  I made a poncho in 70's gold.  It won a ribbon at the county fair.  (I'll have to see if I can find it in my "life in a box" at mom's house).

4.  I have always owned a Volkswagon.

5.  I am a huge believer in Karma.  What goes around, comes around.  And I try to live my life accordingly.

Well, that was harder than I thought it would be to come up with 5 random things.  But there you have it.  Five things that are a part of what makes me who I am!

Solstice Soup Party.  Or End of the World Soup Consumption Extravaganza.  However you want to look at it, we are celebrating the Solstice with soup.

Bryan has been busy stringing lights on the gazebo frame.  The plan is to put the fire pit in the middle of the patio.  We are going to have hot drinks- hot spiced wine and hot cocoa with schnapps (maybe some hot buttered rum).  Everyone who is coming will bring a pot of their favorite soup.  We will have mugs to eat from so people can sample all the different offerings.  I'm making cream of broccoli and some sort of biscuit.

We wanted a low key evening to celebrate the solstice with family and friends.  The kids can play in the snow or in the basement.  The peeps can take a break from their last minute shopping.  Or in my case from the rush of starting to shop.  And for a bit of fun we thought why not go out with a bang with those we love most.  Who knows? This could be the start of a long and wonderful tradition.

Happy Friday.  Happy Solstice.  Happy Winter.  Have a great weekend.

Chickens and Bees!  I don't have either.  I want both.  I've got room for both.  I've got a site to place bees all picked out.  I think it would be perfect.  I'm considering a site for chickens.  Both would make my little homesteading in the city a bit easier.

I fully expect to have bees next spring.  Chickens are a whole other story.

I just read Keeping Chickens by Ashley English.  And we recently visited a friend of my parents who has chickens.  Corrine could hear the chickens as we walked through the backyard, but the look on her face as we walked through the chicken coop was priceless.  Too bad I was carrying her and didn't have my camera out.

I have a list in my head of pros and cons of keeping chickens.  The top of my list of course is eating eggs that I know exactly where they came from.  And the eggs don't get any fresher than walking out the back door and gathering them.  I like the idea of being self sufficient (although we aren't nor will we be), but this is a step in that direction.  Actually if I am honest eating fresh eggs is the only pro on my list.

There are two cons on my list and they are equally big ones.   We have two big dogs.  As Bryan questioned what would I do if Buffett got to the chickens?  He said (and probably true) I'd cry like a baby.  The other important consideration to take in is my  job.  Who's going to take care of my chickies when I'm on an overnight trip?  And we do love to travel.  It's one thing to have a pet sitter for the fur kids, but would she take care of the feathered ones as well?

I've given the care issue a little thought.  A type of chicken co-op.  I think work in exchange for eggs is a good deal.  Corrine's babysitter grew up on a farm and is familiar with that type of work.   I should discuss it with her first before I go ahead making plans.    That leaves the dog issue.

In the meantime we are getting fresh eggs from a co-worker of Bryan's.

There are 54 14'ers in Colorado.  A 14'er is a mountain peak that is 14,000 feet or higher.  Last Thursday we set out to hike LaPlata Peak.  LaPlata is the 5th highest peak and is 14,336 feet.  One of the most important rules when climbing a 14'er is to start early, summit and be off the peak by noonish.  It's a good rule of thumb.  Generally thunderstorms build over the Rockies in the early afternoon.  The last place you want to be in a thunderstorm is above treeline.  You know what they say about lightening striking the highest point...above treeline a person IS the highest point.
We did not get an early start.  We were on the trail by 8:30.  Our plan was to be there by 7:30.  We keep forgetting it is so much harder to get anywhere with a kid.  Then I misread the trailhead directions and instead of taking us to the FWD parking, I directed us to the lower parking area.  That added an extra mile in each direction.  We were finally on the trail at 9:30.  It was a beautiful hike.
This is in the valley floor about 12,000 feet, looking up at the climb we are about to do.
A close up view of what we just hiked.  This part of the hike was full of loose gravely rock and dirt.  It made for a very difficult climb to the ridge.  We made it the top of this climb and saw clouds forming to the west.  We made the difficult (and adult) decision to turn around at this point.  Bryan wanted to take his time on the descent because he was carrying the kiddo.  And if weather was coming in, we didn't want to hurry.  I was very bummed about turning around.  It wasn't the first time we've been turned around before the summit and it won't be the last either.  You can see how dark the clouds were by the time we got back to the base of the climb.
This is the view from the ridge line.  Beautiful little valley floor.
Mama carried Corrine on the flat part of the trail.  She was a trooper.  We haven't done that long of a hike (7 miles) since she was about six months old.  She wasn't walking yet, she weighed less and she slept more then.  I was a bit concerned that she would be bored and impatient in her backpack, but she only fussed a couple of times so we stopped and let her out.  We also took the dogs with us.  It may be the last long, high altitude hike for Henley (the Newf).  He was worked and he doesn't recover as fast.  He did enjoy the cooler weather.  But we can't take Buffett if we don't take Henley, so for long hikes like that the boys will stay home.  That is very disappointing.

Even though we didn't summit it was a very good day.

Our plan for Saturday was to head up to the mountains to attend Frozen Dead Guy Days (FDGD) and have chili dinner at a friends house.   FDGD's is a quirky little festival to celebrate Grandpa Bredo frozen in the Tuff Shed until he can be brought back to life.  Not kidding.  If you check out the above link there is an "About" page and it explains the whole kit and kaboddle.  They have a parade, coffin races, a polar plunge, music tents, and of course a tour of the Tuff Shed.

I happened to grow up in this quirky, offbeat, odd, beautiful, hippie community called Nederland.   I was living in Western Massachusetts 20 years ago when I read an article in The Boston Globe about Grandpa in the Tuff Shed.  I immediately called my mother to get an explanation about this embarrassing event in my home town.  News that had made it all the way to the East Coast.  I was mortified.  I was young.  Now I embrace this odd little community because growing up there formed me to who I am today.

Anyhoo, back to the plan for Saturday.  I was giving Corrine her morning bottle while watching the news.   Breaking news..."FDGD's outside events postponed until Sunday due to wind."  The wind was blowing (like it always does) with gusts over 45MPH and up to 60MPH.  The beer and music tents were destroyed.  The decision was made on the side of caution.  Disappointing.  But not the end of the world.

We still made the trek to our friends house for chili.  Dee-lish.  And perfect for a cold, windy afternoon.  It was good to see friends.  Some we see every week, others not as often as we would like.