HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE - THIS AND THAT AND WHAT WE DID ON 8-15-25

A bit of a ramble today.

We left the house relatively early, for us (Friday 8/15/25). Getting out before noon is 'relatively early', and a little before 10.00 a.m. today, which was our aim. We were heading to Chateau de Chantilly, deciding to forego tomorrow’s weekly Saturday donut from the local supermarket and my coffee from the coffee shop next door, to go to what is now our favorite breakfast stop. It's not that far a drive away and we were there in 15 minutes. Traffic was light by that time, and we were lucky to find a parking spot in front. 

Not a weekly event but not that long ago either. We just felt like it today. Last time we said our visits would be once every month or so, but if wishes were horses as the old saying goes. We actually met a sweet little dog (on the 4th). I asked the two ladies at an outside table (restaurant next door) if I could take a photo of her. She finds her voice for dogs. They were only too happy to oblige and no one else was there. This little sweetie was sitting on a seat next to them but as I walked by, she surprised me by hopping up onto the tabletop, walking across for a bit of a fuss and immediately started nuzzling my hand. Say hello to Misha! I could have stayed with her for longer, but I quickly took my photo, thanked the ladies and moved on. When I looked back she was off the tabletop and once again had settled back into her chair.

Chateau de Chantilly isn't as fancy as its name implies, but it is what you might call a trendy place, more than any we normally go to. I love their high ceilings with the hanging lights. Very popular but midweek seems to be a good time to go, busy but we have always been lucky getting a table. Weekends is a different matter. The coffee is excellent. I ordered a vanilla latté, my usual go to. Below is a photo of Gregg waiting in line, which was quite long.  

Both coffee and croissant, and my dear other half's pastry, was a welcome treat. His looked on the plainer side but he said it tasted decadent, a word he doesn't use very often when describing desserts. It had cream cheese baked inside. Mine was a Dubai Chocolate/Nutella stuffed croissant, and it was excellent! I ordered this the last time.

Here's a closer look at my bakery treat. I think that coating is shredded coconut. It might have been something I would pass by without a second thought, but it was recommended to me by our son and daughter-in-law and I was curious as they never steer us wrong. All pastries are at this link.

The only photo I took when we were going back to our car was something Gregg pointed out. It was the restaurant next door on the other side. He said I should take a photo. I'm glad he did because all I could think of was getting back to the car and out of the heat. 

So that was the outing this morning. 

A few days ago, dear other half was sorting out the boxes in the garage, and came across an old navy teddy bear I painted in 1988 (I would always date them on the back, put my first name above the year, all in tiny letters, with a little red heart over the ‘i’ just like I do on my signatures for the blog). The bear is a reminder of the small cottage industry I used to have, which I kept going for 14 years. I had paper to draw ideas down, pencils, paint brushes, paints, a jigsaw to cut my designs out and a standalone sander, along with ear protectors and safety glasses. There were also squares of sandpaper that I used to finish. When everything was nice and smooth, it was time for the next step. This small business of mine would cause me to wake up in the middle of the night, with a design of an ornament in my head, to be drawn immediately before I forgot. 

Our garage turned into a workshop where I cut out the ornaments while everyone was at work, and quite often when neighbors came home from work, invariably someone would bring a bottle of wine over with a couple of glasses, plus camp chairs, and it was time to stop until husbands came home. That was my sign to stop, brush the sawdust off my clothes, sit down and join them. They were wonderful neighbors. 

We had all moved in at the same time and met while getting our gardens in order. (There was no landscaping done by the builders.) Sometimes husbands joined us, and the kids played in the cul-de-sac in front of us. We lived at the top of the cul-de-sac and it was a safe area for them to play, especially as we parents all had our eyes on them. The kids ranged from five to 10 years of age, and everyone took care of each other. If parents were late for any reason, they knew that we would all look out for their offspring until they were able to get home. All they had to do was knock on our door. It was a great neighborhood.

I have told this story on here before, but it’s been a while. I sold everything I made at Christmas craft shows, some of them on navy bases as you might guess from the teddy below. I got my ideas from everywhere, even from a person walking down the street. No, I didn't stalk them - big smile here - but occasionally an interesting person would walk by in an interesting outfit, and I took note, turned them into elves or fairies or Santa Clauses. I worked around the family’s hours, saw they were well taken care of and as soon as they left for work/school or wherever, I would do a few chores and start cutting out or painting. Usually I made several stacks of ornaments and turned them out on fold-up tables in the garage, painting each part until they dried and start on another part until they were finished. I also painted in the evenings when all was quiet, up until midnight sometimes. It was a fun time, and I wish I had taken count of the thousands of various shapes I made and painted over the years. I met all kinds of lovely people and enjoyed selling my ornaments to them.

With my navy ornaments wives would bring their husbands uniforms. First it was navy and, being a navy wife, I pretty much knew what they were all about. But then wives from the other services got word and could I do theirs? When I explained I really didn't know about those, wives offered to bring me their husband's uniforms. They explained about the ribbons and could I do them in order, even parachute insignia was fair game. It was all a wonderful challenge to do them. Gregg used to joke that I must have had a paintbrush with two hairs to do those. That first time when he came home, I remember how shocked he was to see half a dozen or so different service uniforms on hangers over every door. We still have a chuckle when we remember those days. I would copy them on my tracing notepad, take photos, cut the ornaments out and sand them (not always teddy bears but little toy soldiers for the most part). The doorbell rang a lot, and the uniforms kept being hung on the closet doors as the word was passed from one person to another. My ornaments were rudimentary, but people seemed to enjoy them and that was enough for me. 

And then as I got older my fingers gave out and they screamed very loudly that I needed to find something else to do. I was very sad but it was time to put all my things away as the warnings came from the doctors when they found out what I did. My neighbors still turned up at our garage where we would sit in a circle and chat for a while. We did that quite a lot during the week until Gregg left the navy, and we moved into the civilian world, all the way across country. 

As for my ornaments, I retired and Gregg was relieved. He never liked me using a jigsaw to cut these shapes out, always fearing for my fingers but I never cut things out unless I was totally alert. We gave the jigsaw and sander to our handyman soon after. 

I was very happy he found this navy teddy the other day. It was my only copy left of that design and a total surprise to have it back, and of course the memories started rolling. It will be joining the others on our Christmas Tree come December.

Anyhow, I think I have done enough blathering for today but I wanted to leave you this. I just found it on Pinterest and it tickled my funny bone.

Sorry, I can't come to work tomorrow.

 I've got to teach my facial expressions 

how to use their inside voice.

Thanks for looking and I hope 

your day is great.

My blog originally started out as a journal of photos and memories for our son. I forget now how I found out about blogging, but it seemed a great idea to use it for this. I didn’t know much about settings so was shocked when that first comment appeared. A new world opened up.  I keep a lot private, which will be for son’s eyes only (Gregg writes too about his side of the family.  We both said how wonderful it would have been if we knew more about our own parents, asked more questions, but this is something as young people that we didn’t think of.) My mother told me lots of stories about her life, and my father did too. I have passed these stories down to our son. I share memories and moments for him on here now, even the boring stuff.