Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot - Week 131

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

Three more days of work next week and then it's my Christmas vacation! I know it's not even December yet, but I didn't have much time off this year (and we have more vacation days than some countries) so I could have this long timeout that I'm really looking forward to. It will go by quickly enough, I'm afraid.
For now I have a long list of things I want to do, though. Well, some of them are things I don't really want to do, but should, for example checking what's lurking in the depths of my wardrobe. You know, that dark corner where clothes go to die.
The others, though, should be enjoyable. Working on my fan wall portrait, for example, which I mentioned the other day. Working on a Dawn doll would be nice. I found something that I have made for one of them ages ago, but I never got around to make the actual outfit. Just those two should take some time including the necessary breaks. I miss the beads!
Of course, I have also planned a lot of cozy time, cuddling up under a blanket, with the cats on top. Reading, playing, watching movies, oh, and sleeping in (hope dies last although I know my feline overlords usually take turns in waking me up early).
Just three more workdays ...

Are you ready for the weekend now?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week, our spotlight is on Midlife and Beyond.

Alison from "Midlife and Beyond" says "I began to write my blog, "Midlife and Beyond" in 2018. The timing was right for me. I had worked from sixteen years old - mostly within Human Resources, then, more recently, for our local university, which I enjoyed.
I wanted to devote time to something I had always wanted to do. And, my blog allows me to indulge in writing, photography, fashion and beauty. The IT side and marketing, are still a "work in progress" to me and can be baffling. This covers the ever changing world of social media, plug in's, web hosts and SEO. It would simply be too expensive to outsource all of this.
My blog is a wonderful way to reflect on life changes i.e., work commitments, getting older, children leaving the nest.... (then, returning, ha-ha), and relationships - the list goes on. My writing style is authentic and down-to-earth, probably my North East of England roots."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Gail tells us a tale of two wedding dresses.

I love black velvet! See how Kathrine uses her latest find.

Do you like bread pudding? Melynda shares her Everyday Bread Pudding recipe with us!

Have you ever heard of a gourzucumpkin? Neither had I, but Sandi has a story to tell.

A trip always meant three things for us - Zoological Garden, Botanical Garden, museums! I love a good post about a museum and Moois has one for us. Bonus point - cat painting!



Let's link up!

You can add links to specific blog posts of yours, but not just to your blog itself. The posts can be new or older and cover any topic you can think of - books, movies, fashion, crafting, thrifting, travel, art ... but only family friendly, please!
Have a look around, visit some of the other blogs and leave a few comments. You might discover something new and exciting!
Thank you for linking up with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - Troubles of a Grass Widower

Yet another short today, I'm sorry to say. Pre-hibernation, among other things, has rather messed up my time management in some areas including the blog.
Looking for a fun short, however, has introduced me to Max Linder for the first time, in this case in "Troubles of a Grass Widower" from 1908.
Max Linder was a French film pioneer and an international superstar inspiring other comedians, for example Charlie Chaplin who called him his professor.
He was known for his "Max" figure in tails and top hat.

Here's the plot of this little domestic comedy.

Max and his wife are sitting at the dinner table, Max refusing to stop hiding behind his newspaper. When his wife tells him angrily that she'll go back to her mother, Max is so overjoyed that he's doing a little dance.

Enjoy it while you can, Max.

Then he realizes he has to deal with the household by himself now, from washing dishes ...

So much easier with the hose than with the
brush, but of course he drops everything trying
to take it back to the kitchen.

... to grocery shopping and cooking ...

It's hard enough to keep control of the groceries without a lad trying to steal them.
And too much pepper in a dish can make you sneeze and lose your pan
(which is lucky in this case because shoe cleaning fluid doesn't make a good gravy).

... cleaning the house and making the bed ...

Max is trying his best, but without much success.

... but the worst of all is finding that darn tie!

It must be in one of those many closets!

Wife and mother find Max in deep despair - think he's going to be nicer to her from now on (especially after she has cleared up the chaos he left for her)?

Help!

Of course, this is a comedy about gender roles and the helpless man trying to tackle a household is not new to us, we know it as a plot in sitcoms and movies, but you have to keep in mind that this is from 1908 ... 117 years old (I'll never get over the age of those films)!
And Max Linder's performance of a husband going from overconfident to desperate is really charming.

Actually, thinking of it now some of it reminds me of Mr. Bean who is full of ingenious plans and good intentions, but usually messes up in the end, only that Max looks a lot less goofy.

This short definitely whetted my appetite for more of Max Linder who has more to offer than just a tad of slapstick from what I read.

By the way, in German we would call a person who is temporarily separated from their spouse (due to a trip for example) a "Strohwitwe/r" = "straw widow/er".


Sources:

1. Fritzi Kramer: Troubles of a Grass Widower (1908) - A silent movie review. On: Movies Silently, October 14, 2018
2. Marius Nobach: Chaplins Professor - Max Linder. Eine Würdigung von Max Linder, dem ersten Komiker-Star der Kinogeschichte, zum 100. Todestag am 1. November 2025. On: Filmdienst, November 17, 2025 (in German)

From my children's book cabinet - Hans Christian Andersens Märchen

"Since I was a child, I loved Andersen's fairy tale about the little mermaid. Of course I always had to swallow my tears when I came to the end. Many of his tales are so bittersweet and I myself am really drawn to happy endings, if not in life, then at least in stories.
I make an exception for Andersen, though."

"Andersen's fairy tales - it was a gift from my godmother. It doesn't contain all of his fairy tales, but the ones I love most (maybe because they were the first for me?). I see the illustrations before my inner eye when thinking of these tales. I wonder why my favorites are all the sad ones ..."

"... maybe magic flowers that can heal, or dancing and talking flowers like the ones in Andersen's fairy tale "Little Ida's Flowers" which I love very much, but now I could have told Ida how to make her flower friends last a little longer ..."

"Have you ever wondered what mermaids are doing all day? ... Andersen's tale is one of my favorites."

"A mermaid - and I just can't help thinking mermaid when thinking of ocean, probably because Andersen's fairy tale has been a (sad) favorite of mine since childhood - could well wear long earrings in her flowing hair."

These are all quotes from my blog. Wow. I guess I love Andersen's fairy tales?
This is the book I got from my godmother about 55 years ago. As you can tell, it was not a book that was kept on the shelf, but one that was read - a LOT. I also have an English edition which contains more tales, but when I need some Andersen, this is the one I grab from my shelf.

Hard to see, especially in that
light, but it's blue. You should see
the spine and the cut edges.

I loved the tales and I loved the beautiful illustrations by the Polish artist Janusz Grabiański. I don't see Arielle when I think of the little mermaid, I see this picture of her as a wonderfully ethereal daughter of the air at the end.

This post was inspired by another book, by the way. During storytime at a bookshop, the main character reads "The Little Match Girl" to the children. If you don't know the tale, after having beautiful visions the little match girl freezes to death in the end and her soul goes to Heaven where her grandmother is and she is found in the morning with a happy smile on her face.

The children totally lose it as do their mothers, but one girl stays behind saying it was very sad, but she liked it, so her mother buys the book for her.
That made me wonder how I reacted to it when I was a child. I mean I have always been a pro at crying, and I'm sure I didn't just do it over the little mermaid.

Now there are of course loads of interpretations for and about fairy tales. They were warnings for children, they are supposed to teach children about emotions, about the world, about relationships, about right and wrong and consequences, they stimulate children's fantasy and their identifying with others, and much more.
That's not what I want to talk about, though.
I want to know why are all the sad ones my favorites? Okay, I also love some of those with a happy ending. Thumbelina, for example. The Snow Queen. The Ugly Duckling. But what about ...

... The Steadfast Tin Soldier?

"The next day, when a servant took up the ashes she found him in the shape of a little tin heart. But of the pretty dancer nothing was left except her spangle, and it was burned as black as a coal."

... The Fir Tree?

"Then a lad came and chopped the tree into small pieces, till a large bundle lay in a heap on the ground. The pieces were placed in a fire under the copper, and they quickly blazed up brightly, while the tree sighed so deeply that each sigh was like a pistol-shot."

... The Angel?

"Every time a good child dies, an angel of God comes down to Earth. He takes the child in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies with it all over the places the child loved on Earth."

... The Red Shoes?

"The bright warm sunshine streamed through the window in the pew where Karen sat, and her heart became so filled with it, so filled with peace and joy that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunbeams to Heaven, and no one was there who asked after the red shoes."

... and of course "Little Ida's Flowers"?

"Ida first kissed the flowers, and then she closed the box and laid it in the earth. Adolph and Jonas shot their crossbows over the grave, for they had no guns or cannons".

And now we could also talk about Andersen and why he wrote so many sad stories. We could talk about his childhood, about his social awkwardness, his difficult personality, his queerness and unrequited love, but this post is not about that, either.

So, why do children also need sad and scary stories? The world IS sad and scary and happy and surprising. Fiction reflects that and allows children to learn how to cope with that in a safer space.
Fairy tales are very good at being sad and scary. I read a lot of fairy tales as a child - I loved the big shelf at the library with the collection of international fairy tales whose volumes had such pretty spines and beautifully patterned covers - and those weren't the "cleaned up" versions that we often see today. Compared to some of those, the ones I read were ... ugh, I'm fighting it, but I can't resist ... very grim(m). Ouch. I'm sorry.
It's true, though.
And some of them also traumatized me more than Andersen's stories.

So if you excuse me now ... I think I'm going to grab my fairy tale book and get a bit sad.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot - Week 130

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

Mmm, I feel like having some gingerbread.
"Gingerbread, now, are you crazy?"
No, I'm not. It's not even the first one I had this year. Until a few years ago, we had a kind of unwritten rule in the family. No gingerbread before December. No decorating before December.
But you know what? The world today is hard enough to give me anxiety and every, now and then I need to do myself something good.
If I want gingerbread, I'm going to have it. If I want to decorate in November (I haven't done it, but the month isn't over yet), I'm going to do that. If I want to listen to Christmas carols which for some weird reason make me go fuzzy and warm, but also make me cry sometimes, I'm going to go to my favorite playlists on YouTube or even listen to my old CDs.
Don't mention Thanksgiving. There is a Protestant kind of harvest Thanksgiving in Germany and there may even be some people who like the idea of a family gathering with turkey and introduce the American tradition into their lives - after all traditions travel sometimes 😊 - but I don't know anyone who does it. I'm not bound by the turkey.
Please excuse me for a few minutes while I prepare myself some tea.
Now, isn't that cozy?

Soooo ... are you ready for the weekend now?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week, our spotlight is on Bemused and Bookish.

Olivia from "Bemused and Bookish" says "I’m an American expat who lives in Shëngjin, Albania with my exceptional husband, and a 7 pound chiweenie who rules the household. (I swear he was a cat in another life.) I love walking on the beach, sunsets, learning about my new country, interacting with blogging community, and of course books!

I will read most genres. Mystery and science fiction are my favorites. I tend to avoid romances. My all time favorite books are Project Hail Mary and the Murderbot series.

I add books to my to-be-read list almost daily and it is long enough to last me the rest of my life."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Penny tells us about her trips to museums in London, but also to the skin clinic.

Argyle yes or no? Jill explains why the classic Argyle pattern is back again this fall.

Esmé has a quick puff pastry and cheese recipe for us. Quick AND cheese, I'm in!

Sally is showing us the purr-fectly whimsical jewelry she created for the Style Imitating Art challenge!

Laura shares beautiful pictures of their trip to the North Shore of Lake Superior.



Let's link up!

You can add links to specific blog posts of yours, but not just to your blog itself. The posts can be new or older and cover any topic you can think of - books, movies, fashion, crafting, thrifting, travel, art ... but only family friendly, please!
Have a look around, visit some of the other blogs and leave a few comments. You might discover something new and exciting!
Thank you for linking up with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - Sure-Mike!

After last week's short, the plan had been a longer film again this week, but I kept falling asleep before even making it to the chosen one.
Then my favorite silent movie blogger wrote about a one-reeler - "Sure-Mike!" from 1925.

First, the plot (with spoilers).

Vermuda is a shop girl in a department store. 
Mike who does deliveries with his motorcycle has a crush on her, but she pines for the new manager. When he calls her into his office, she's excited, but he only wants her to deliver some parcels.
Coming back to his office, she's so shocked to see him surrounded by his wife and children that she falls out of a window just to land on Mike's motorcyle! Fate?

I really liked Martha Sleeper in "Mum's the Word", so this sounded like it was just what I needed, and it was.
The film was a fun bit of slapstick and Sleeper was hilarious as Vermuda (what a wonderful name).
We first see her rollerskating trying to make up for being late for work - a whole day!

As you can imagine, the way to work can be difficult
on rollerskates, for example if you catch your hand in
a dog leash and get pulled along the sidewalk
while felling people to the left and right. Luckily,
 she lands on Mike's motorcycle for a ride to work.

 

Sleeper is so good at the physical comedy and the faces she pulls crack me up.
To avoid the wrath of the floorwalker and the new manager, Vermuda manages to get to her counter by riding a zip line for clothes hidden by coats, and she fakes a sales talk by dressing up a mannequin (without legs).

The new manager is one of those guys who put perfume
on their eyebrows, what's not to love about him?
Unfortunately, distracted Vermuda packs up something using
the string of the balloon belonging to the customer's kid.
Yup, the parcel flies off.

No rollerskates for the delivery, but a more than full streetcar leads to more problems. I laughed through the whole scene, from Vermuda trying to find a spot to sit safely holding on to the pants of the men already holding on to the streetcar themselves and accidentally swallowing the coin for the fare to being attacked by a horse from behind.
 

The worst shock, however, is seeing the manager on his wife's lap feeding his baby.
After falling right on Mikes delivery storage box, she asks him to take her home.
She's really not lucky with her commute, though, as she loses Mike halfway without noticing it at first.

Oh no! Vermuda on the road all by herself.

No worries, Mike follows her in a car and tells her to jump into his arms at the corner.

Mike to the rescue!
Looks like he might be the right one after all.

Slapstick in high speed can get overwhelming for me, but not this one. I loved every minute, especially Sleeper, and I can only recommend this short.
I'm really late writing this post, so this time I can't go into her interesting career...s - yes, more than one, and so cool.
But she'll be back on here for sure and I'm looking forward to it!

P.S. By the way, one of Vermuda's catty co-workers is Fay Wray of King Kong fame (the one on the right)!

Sources:

1. The Silent Comedy Watch Party ep. 38 on YouTube (the film starts at 17:28)
2. Fritzi Kramer: Sure-Mike! (1925) - A Silent Film Review. On: Movies Silently, November 9, 2025

With a little help from my friend

I couldn't resist the title even if George Harrison neither wrote nor sang the song, yes, and there is an s missing, but Gundel stayed out of this one completely while der Dekan was eager to help.

Are we playing again?

Although I had planned more WIP posts of my Lego Art set, I finished it more quickly than expected.
Please meet the colorful George Harrison!
It is a cool piece of pixel art, but it wasn't as much fun as a regular Lego project. In fact, in the end it felt more like a chore that had to get finished so I could take it off a to do list.
As I mentioned in replies to comments on the original post, it could be fun to try and make a design of my own, but 1. I don't feel like ripping all the studs out despite the included brick separator (which I wish I had had as a kid), 2. designing it would be the fun, the actual bricking might feel like a chore as well, 3. I still have a pattern for another fan wall portrait waiting to be bead loomed which is a lot more fun (if I could only muster the courage to finally try out the muffin tray solution, but I put it at the top on my Christmas vacation list now).
There are studs left over, though, so maybe I can get myself a plate and try out something small on it.

I left the picture small because
it brings out the pixel art better.
Click on the picture for more detail.

George Harrison didn't end up on my wall, it would feel weird to have just him up there and also I don't want to give up wall space for this. He's on a shelf behind my big Steiff Leo now and the box - real Lego collectors may want to skip the end of this sentence - will go into the recycling after der Dekan is done with it.
I always invited him to brick with me, but a few of the sessions ended without him. He was quite good at the beginning, but mid-session he lost all patience with me not being faster and not letting him play with the contents of the box.
Some of the baggies were hidden under cardboard with an opening, for example, so you could see something was in there.
As much as I didn't want the brat to get in there and maybe escape with an open plastic bag, I couldn't be mad at him for following his natural instinct of investigating the "mousehole". My attempt at distracting him with head kisses was only partially successful because he started kneading while sitting on the box and ended up in the opening with one foot which immediately reminded him of his mission again.

There were other temptations as well, though.
I took photos during just one of our bricking sessions and thought I'd share them with you.
Der Dekan was purring the whole time, by the way, don't let his look deceive you.
It made me laugh and tell him how much I love him, but also yell "stop" and "no" and "you little devil" a lot. A video would have been great fun for you to watch, no doubt, but I would have needed a lot more arms for that!
And if you need to know, he did actually get "thrown out" after that last picture because he went for my desk then which I'm afraid to say has a few unstable piles on it at the moment and of course those are the ones der Dekan choses for his shenanigans. It's my own fault, I know, but I have to say that he has been obsessed with my desk since he was a kitten and even then was always on the lookout for stuff to knock over or down - including my laptop - although it was really organized at that time. Since then he has been using my desk for pressuring me into getting what he wants - playing, food, snacks, mere attention - or simply for letting me know he's miffed with me.

Is this thing edible?

I have to take a closer look.

What do you mean, don't destroy the instructions before you're done?
I'm good, I'm good, gee, Mom!

Maybe just a little claw action ...

You never let me have ANY fun!

Exhibit A to prove der Dekan never gets to have any fun.

You know what? You can do this thing alone if you wanna be like that, Mom.

I am not affiliated with Lego in any way, except playing with it every, now and then.

Running under the stars

 Are you still waiting for part 2 of the dress saga or the big hug? Yeah, so am I. If you have been around for a while, you know the reason, so don't be afraid, no whining today.
Let me just say that there is hope because actually one of them "only" needs a chain - "only" because that's something I have always struggled with. I even had necklaces, bracelets or earrings around for years which were missing a clasp or earwires, nothing more. That's really not something I want in this case, but I'm still caught in a sea of indecisiveness at the moment.
Would you like to see the already finished focal or would you rather wait for the completed piece?

The dresses are a different story, that's more because I need a good kick in the butt. Any volunteers?

The problem is that my creative motivation is at a low point. The ideas are piling up in my head, but the execution ... sigh.
My last experiment failed. It was not terrible, but it definitely wasn't good enough.
That's not unusual for my experiments at all. Making mistakes is how I teach myself to do it better (or sometimes give up on an idea). It used to be easier for me to deal with that when I felt I had endless creative time, but these days it feels like wasted time.
So I decided to do what I have always done when running out of motivation, turn to a trusted design. Usually that would be my miniature wire crochet baskets, but my hands wouldn't tolerate those right now, so I went back to the beaded 3D stars instead.

Some of the stars I made as Christmas
decorations in 2022

The ex was an early bird. An early, early bird. And although I'm very much a night owl I got up at hours when I would usually just fall asleep to take advantage of the ride he'd give me to work. A five minute detour for him, but saving me forty minutes every day compared to the train ride.
Anyhow, I got used to it - not saying I was ever really awake when I arrived at work, though - and in fact I loved the campus at that time. Okay, so it could be a bit spooky being very empty so early, even more so if there was fog - it always made me think of Jack the Ripper - and it's not my favorite kind of architecture, but it gave me the feeling I belonged there.
The best, however, were the little visitors. There's a forest next to the campus, and in the early morning some of the critters come out sitting in the grass between all those big concrete buildings ... mostly rabbits, hares, hedgehogs. There have been fox sightings, but I had never been that lucky.

Picture via pxhere

That memory inspired a pair of earrings.
Let me introduce Nitta who's a ceramic and jewelry artist from Finland.
She first tried ceramics in the 80s in her teens, then forgot it, but started again about eight years ago. A few years later, it became her passion and job and her happy place.
Nature and forest animals are close to Nitta's heart and she thinks that the Finnish forests are probably her biggest inspiration.
Although she doesn't just make adorable critters, with molds or handshaped, they are my favorites, foxes, birds, moths, cat heads (you may remember my cat moth with the little fangs), and more. 
I'm really trying to hold back buying supplies now that I'm thinking of giving up selling completely, but I couldn't resist Nitta's little hares - or maybe two pairs of them in different colors 😇 They make me think of Watership Down, too (even if those weren't hares, but bunnies).

First, I thought about using more than one color, but then I saw just two hares running along in the shine of golden stars.
The next decision was to use either the hares on the brown or on the greyish-blue background. That was more difficult, but as you see I went for the natural tone in tone look with just a bit of contrast in the loops from beads with one of my favorite coatings (Czech).
I think the hares don't need any more to shine and I'm really happy with them!