Thanksgiving to Christmas 2020

 We've been watching the Mandalorian and really loving it. So I downloaded a Mandalorian blaster file and printed it out.

Megan has been orginizing dance parties and fashion shows in which she offers themes and then judges us on our participation. In this picture there is a great deal of debate about the fire theme. David is playing a fire song and fully cheating in my opinion. hahah

Taking the 3D printing class has taught me a good bit about post processing prints so for this blaster I did the full sanding and priming. It takes a long time to sand all the parts and then a few days for the priming and drying step. I'm using a Wallmart fill and prime spray can and it works well. I know some people use an airbrush for small things but this works fine for me.

It finally got clod and dark enough to send the figs into a funk.

I have the cold weather cooking bug pretty bad. This is mashed rutabaga and one pot pasta and tahini sweet potato.

Once the paint was dry I laied everything out end to end and discovered I was missing a part. So I went back and printed that then primed and sanded some more.

The original pistol this was modeled off of is a very dark iron sort of color so I painted everything black first for a base coat.

Thanksgiving came and I made my rehydrated apple pie.

We had just the 5 of us and then Lore and Opa on the zoom so we could sort of eat together. We had enough food for 10!

Check out this massive zucchini from his garden this year.

After thanksgiving we got immediately into the Christmas spirit.

We took out decorations early this year because 2020 has been a dirty rat and we wanted to be cozy and cheerful. 

I glued and painted the blaster. In addition to paint I also tried using some rub-n-buff which is a wax that is often used to give wooden objects like mirror frames a metallic look. YouTube is so useful for this sort of thing. I had never heard of rub-n-buff but it worked beautifully.

I did discover a little bend on once side where the printed had cooled too quickly and come off of the bed. I don't think its noticeable by anyone other than me but I surly cant unsee it.

 I let that dry for a few days.

We worked up the nerve to submit intent to promote forms for Kung Fu. This form means we would like to test into the beginner class. So far we have been in the Foundations class. This is a class where you learn names of stances and the history of the style and how to do basic things like punches and kicks. Unfortunately the test was on my birthday.

December came and we all dove into our advent calendars. The kids and chocolate.

We had glorious cheese.

I spent about half a day ageing and distressing the blaster. I especially like the worn metal look on the trigger guard and around the grip. I also tried to paint a woodgrain in. I was less successful with that but it looks better than it did.

Megan and I finished our giant paint by numbers and then Kiernan photobombed the demo.

I took the kids and mom to Harpers Ferry for a hike and a look at an historical candy shop.

We climbed around in the old church ruins.

We saw the Jefferson table.

We investigated the candy shop. Please click that link. The shop is so neat.  

I thought about how I was going to hike the Appalachian trail and then didn't because I couldn't be away from David for a week let alone 6 month. I still want to do that hike. It's a shame that he is not nature boy or maybe a shame that I am nature girl. It will work out.

Harpers Ferry is cool and beautiful but it was cold and we only took a very small hike.

The great Christmas cookie baking began. Little did we know that everyone and their brother was starting Christmas cookies at this time as well.

I finished up the last parts of my chess set.

I got some really great pictures and texts about Dad and Mary harvesting their coffee.

I primed the completed chess set.

The first 5 types of cookies done and the kids and mom got to decorating. Mom looked up a thing on the potential hazards of home made cookies and Covid-19 transmissions. I warned my friends and crossed my fingers for my neighbors. Apparently we did the right stuff as far as it goes and to the best of my knowledge all went well.

Our neighbors brought us cookies and my friends gave us cookies and moms friends gave us cookies and the cookie plate was constantly refreshed throughout the season.

I hit a snag with my decorating. I took out the bushes last summer and the rosemary and lavender are still small so, suddenly, there was nowhere for my lights.

I remembered the tomato cages under the deck and put them in. I took a few more cages and evened it out after this picture but overall was super pleased to have not lost  my front lights.

In more exciting Hawaii news they got a Guarapo press. I love love love Guarapo!

It is a sugarcane drink and you should read about it here .

I am looking forward to going to visit for many reasons but for sure this is a big one.

I sat down and painted the chess set,

The plants are pretty much green and the bugs are pretty much orange.

Plants

Bugs (I'm pretty happy with the eyes here.

Let the garden battle commence!

We moved the stretching machine and the drum machine out of the living room. I have a goal of gettin my splits back for 2021. David is already getting great progress on that end.

The kids emptied out their toy chest and got rid of broken/unused toys in preparation for Christmas.

Look at that beautiful empty cedar chest!

I got some small bins from Walmart and had them put everything away in categories to help control the mess of digging through everything to find whatever toy they want.

We went and got our tree. We had been hearing that trees were short this year. It was true. Three of the places we usually go to were either out or never even opened. We headed over to Gavers and found some really nice ones though.

Megan found a nice one she wanted to cut but she got out voted so next year she gets to pick.

Our tree was great. We got it a little earlier than we normally would due to Covid compensation and the shortage.

The house felt warm and cozy and festive.

Kathryn started Karate at the same time (pretty much) that we started Kung Fu and they had their Yellow Belt test in Dec. 

The way they do it over there is that once your instructor feels you are ready to test you pay a fee and go to a place where many schools test together. They had a full day of it as the adult classes test separately from the kids classes and then they stayed later still to support some other people from their school.

They did great.

I love how Erena looks here. She's got real focus and her form is good too.

They passed and are now Yellow belts.

More cookies happened

We even got fancy German cookies from Martin.

Look at the lights. Oh man I love Christmas!

We have all been getting so much from Kung Fu but Megan had this sort of physical eureka moment this month. Suddenly she got pushups. She isn't going all the way down but she's keeping her back straight and suddenly can do just tons of them . She and Kiernan have been having contests. This led to the fulfillment of a promise made years ago. 

I told the kids when they were toddlers that if they could get all the way across the monkey bars I would buy them a chocolate bar. It took quite awhile but they got there eventually. They wanted to know what's next so I gave them a challenge ...maybe 5-7 years ago that if they could do a pull up (a real from arms straight pull up) I would get them or make them a cake of their choice.

So Megan is pumping out the pushups and then runs into the garage where we have a pull up bar and says watch this.

Behold Megan's red velvet cake of pull up wonder.

In other exciting Megan news she has both of her expanders out. She lost a tooth so needed to be measured for a new one on the bottom and the top one did it work and she will be ready for braces in a few weeks.

She says it feels weird to be able to eat normally.

I made a cool stand for the blaster. It says this is the way in mandalorian.

We got a real snow. Meg got to try out her new ski suit.

It was beautiful and cold and I got an extra work from home day.

It iced at the end of the snow which made clearing the driveway a bear.

Megan made Christmas slime.

My birthday came and I was sick as a dog. I got up early that morning with an earache. By sunrise I was deeply nauseous and had bad vertigo. I spent the early to mid day portions of the day in bed being miserable. 

This was a double whammy because our Kung Fu test was scheduled for my birthday.

I got up in the early afternoon and watched Megan do hers and heard from Kiernan and David about theirs. I was sad and sick and proud.

Later in the afternoon I opened my gifts.

I got such thoughtful elegant wonderful gifts this year.

Look at the art and the warmth and the historical wonder.

The next day I felt woozy but fine and rescheduled my test.

I also invented the ginger snap peppermint ice cream sandwhich. 

I cooked. I made mince pies.

The shortest day came. I am always so please to see that day come. We went out to see the great conjunction. It was spectacular. We saw it 3 different nights and Kiernan, whose eyes are much better than mine said he could see Saturn's rings.

We read this wonderful poem by one of my favorite writers.

We went and picked up soup and sandwiches form Kiernan's favorite sandwich shop.

He loves their bathroom sign and asked me to get a picture of it.

Hilarious. 

On a quiet day of cup stacking and sledding I took my make up Kung Fu test.

This test is to move us out of the foundation level. This level, wherein you learn basic terms and kicks and punches, is called foundation and is fairly analogous to the white belt level that Kathryn and the Mori's were in.

I was digging through some stuff to see if I could find any of my old Kung Fu testing certs and found 2.

Here is one from 1996.

Here are two. One from my current pass (YAY) and another from an earlier (1992) test and class. 

It feels really good to be back in Kung Fu. It feels really great to be doing it with my family. I am so happy about all of this. Jow Ga people across the board have been kind and humble and so competent in martial arts. Its a great place to be. 2020 brought us a great thing despite being such a rough year.

I dragged the family down to the canal in Frederick to see the lights just before Christmas. It was a rough time to do it as everyone was settled at home and had a long day beforehand but they were forecasting ice again and I wanted to see things before Christmas. It was worth it but you can see how tired David and I were here.

 

Christmas eve came and we opened our presents. The smash hit for the kids was Kiernan's Lightsaber. Megan immediately used her Christmas money to order one for herself.

We got some great books and games and have been doing board games together and enjoying quiet Christmas tree gazing with a book.

I got money for my birthday that I used to invent an entire shelf of important to read young adult books. Thank you to Dad and Mary for that.

They have a new raised bed for leafy greens and celebrated Christmas in the way that people who hate Christmas love to. They were in Hawaii not being cold or hearing 1000 Christmas songs.

Our plan had been to spend Christmas with Opa in California and then to all fly out to Hawaii for New Years. Covid said no.

We are still looking forward to that trip. maybe 2021 post vaccination we will get to traveling. Cross your fingers.

I also got a great cookbook and have been trying out cook new recipes. Here is a white misso ramen with asparagus, edamame and tofu. It was really good!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.

Good bye 2020