Howard Meets Mabel, and Dinosaurs Visit Bethlehem

It's coming on dusk this cloudy Sunday afternoon.
Our Christmas lights are gone from the fence and the grape arbor, but I
asked Howard to leave the lights and pine roping around the front door.

For a little while.

C'mon in, take a look around.

Inside That Old House, it is still Epiphany, and the Three Wisemen are visiting Bethlehem.

So is a Dinosaur.

Yes, we know that humans and dinosaurs did not roam the Earth at the same time,

but with the Lord -- for whom time and space are all laid out as one -- anything is possible.

A few years ago, Anne fashioned a model dinosaur for her sister Alida, who was beginning to study

for a Ph.D. in Philosophy in California.  Anne glued all the little fiddly wood bits together,

and then covered the Dinosaur with philosophical quotes.  Dozens of them.

She added an academic stole and a mortarboard for good measure.

I'm not sure who first put the Quotasaurus in the Creche -- it might have been me --

but it's a fixture now.  Until it finally goes to live with its rightful owner.

********************************

On Saturday, Howard removed the lights and ornaments

from the Fraser Fir Christmas tree in the sunroom.

Dion supervised.

This tree held up remarkably well, stayed perky all through the season,

and shed very few needles even as it was being dragged out the door to its doom.

It is still sad to see a beloved Christmas tree tossed to the curb.

I hope its evergreen friends who are still planted aren't taunting it.

So . . . 

this is why I wanted the door lights to stay up, and lit, just a little while longer.

I didn't have any pictures of the whole house.

Once again, I tied up the Christmas tree trimmings with red ribbon, and used that instead of a wreath

on the front door.  Because wreaths cost money, and I am (sometimes) thrifty.

The people who sold us That Old House live behind us now, in a bigger house they had built.

I still think ours is the Queen, even if only because of her age.

She does need her shutters back, though, doesn't she?

I dragged my poor husband all over creation today, buying old furniture to sell,

and a corner cupboard to use for display, for my booth at Somerville Center Antiques.

Howard is Mr. Patience, thank goodness.

He stayed calm when meeting Mabel, the giant German Shepherd, at one house way up in the hills;

Mabel didn't take kindly to strangers, let's just leave it at that.

(From the sound of her deep voice, I think ol' Mabel may have a bit of a hormone problem.)

Plus, that corner cupboard for the booth had to be carried down 3 staircases.  Or was it four?

That's it for today!  Nothing exciting.  Just a little slice of life at That Old House,

where Christmas is getting tucked back into its boxes, and we are ready for the rest of Winter.

Not.

Resolution?  Keep following the Star, with or without a Dinosaur at my side.  -- Cass