2025 December: Church Bazaar

 

Swimming behind our boat

3 December 2025

Every day the wildlife that takes ownership of the pool seems to change. Today a long, green iguana was hanging out on the tiled "beach".

I decided that I would go to St. Columba this afternoon to see what I could do to help them prepare for their Christmas bazaar happening this weekend. But first, I had a large pile of laundry to take care of as it has been piling up since before we left Pompano Beach. The woman dockmaster remembered that last season I did my laundry on Wednesdays (how she remembered that was a shock to me), and she was happy to get me back on that same schedule - thus the wait until today to tackle it.

I grabbed a quick lunch after laundry and then pulled out my bike to ride down to the church to lend a hand. Uh oh! The tire Clark worked on so diligently was flat! He offered two alternatives - borrow one of Marlin Bay's loner bikes or take his bike. I took his bike as it is near identical to mine that I am used to. 

My original plan, until Clark's autopilot analysis changed it, was to go to the church on Monday afternoon to help them pull the Christmas items destined for the bazaar out of storage. I missed that opportunity and wasn't sure what the state of the work would be when I arrived this afternoon - two days later. 

They had tables set up and items on display, but it was pure chaos. Most tables were a random assortment of items with no rhyme nor reason as to placement. 

The person in charge, Jodi, gave me an assignment to go around the tables and collect up coffee cups to place them together on a table that had room for more items. After I completed that job, she brought over a crate with the intent of having me empty the crate onto a table. The crate she picked had a dismantled fake Christmas tree inside. It was a tangled mess of Christmas lights wrapped around the various piece parts of the tree with decorations thrown in as well. 

Of all the tasks I could be asked to perform, this one was perfect for me. It took me well over an hour to go from "box of parts" to an assembled tree.

Each limb of the tree was labeled to get it into the right level of the tree - 5 levels of limbs on the base.

After I got the limbs separated from the tangle of lights and decorations, I started to put the base of the tree together. Jodi and I joked that even Charlie Brown would be depressed by the looks of this one.

Base of the tree being assembled
looks bedraggled!

At least the top of the tree came assembled. It was hard to know just how large this tree would be when fully built. 

Top of tree

The tree was taller than me when done - probably about 6 foot high or a bit more. The crate was full of silver-toned decorations including balls, ribbons, and streamers. I decided to reuse the silver balls and the ribbons. Everyone was happy with the end result. The pastor said, "This will sell quickly because it's very "Keyzie"."

People strolled in and out while we were busy setting up the bazaar. Some came to get a sneak preview of the goodies to be available; some came in a picked out items to buy; others came to help with setup. One woman helping with setup came up to me to ask where I was born. Turns out we were practically neighbors as she was from Elmira, New York - just over the border from my Pennsylvania hometown of Wellsboro. We shopped at the same mall! Small world!

Every year they set up a train set for the holiday. It was only partially set up today, but I noticed a nice boat that I don't remember seeing as part of the display last year.

When I got back to the boat, I worked with Clark to look into the flat tire on my bike yet again. Since we were eaten by gnats last night, Clark decided we should work on the bike inside the salon. He took the tube out of the tire and covered it with a soapy solution that revealed a pinhole in the tube. As the leak was near the valve, it had felt like the valve had a problem. Luckily, with it being a hole in the tube itself, Clark could patch it. 

The glue with the patch kit had dried up years ago by the looks of it, so Clark borrowed glue from the dinghy repair kit. He applied the patch. The tube already had one patch from years ago. He pumped it up, and it looked good so he installed it back on the bike.

Today's big news, however, was that a granddaughter in Idaho turned 9 today! We spent about an hour on a video chat with her. She explained that the "Elf on the Shelf" (in the photo below) took it upon herself (female elf) to put up the decorations that were intended for the birthday party planned for the weekend. Naughty or Nice elf??

4 December 2025

Thursday is the day our dock has our holding tanks pumped out by marina staff, so that was the start of our day today. After that Clark did more research on fittings for the hydraulic pump for the autopilot. Getting a replacement pump is all well and good, but if the hoses can't connect to it, it is a large paperweight. He continues to work through the details necessary to get the autopilot working again.

For fun this afternoon, I pulled out my art supplies and made some hand-crafted Christmas cards to send to my grandchildren. The birthday girl really likes foxes, so I did some research looking for a good fox picture to put in my card for her. I will attempt to draw the fox from the picture.

found via Google Image search

Clark said I should take my bike for a test ride to be sure that it worked well after last night's surgery. Before getting on the bike, I felt the tire and I could squeeze it with my fingers! Clark said, "I don't want to hear it!" 

He pulled out his bike pumps (two of them) to compare how the pressure compares between the two of them. One said 29 psi while the other said 40 - not very similar results.

He pumped up the tire to about 80 psi, did not feel any air escaping, and told me to take the bike for a spin around the marina. Fortunately, it seemed to be holding air, and everything worked as expected i.e. brakes, shifting, etc. Phew!

5 December 2025

This morning I had "Art in the Park" with a bunch of women that I met through art at the library. Today instead of meeting somewhere near me, the group decided to meet at Key Colony Beach. One of the women offered to drive me there if I met her at Marathon City Park (across Route 1 from our marina), and another woman offered to drive me back after the get together. Yay! KCB is just too far to bike to especially carrying art supplies. 

Everyone chats and does their own thing. I did a Christmas card in colored pencils . Someone else had a step-by-step instruction book on watercolor and painted a picture of a bird. Others did freehand watercolor pictures. 

After art I had lunch with Clark on the boat. Turns out he had spent at least part of the morning playing Christmas tunes on his guitar. I had no specific plans for the afternoon, and wondering what was happening with the Christmas bazaar, decided that now my bike is in working order I should take a ride down there to help. Tonight is the "early bird" event, so everything had to be ready. For a $5 entry fee, anyone who is interested could come tonight to get first look at the goodies available for sale. 

When I arrived, I asked Jodi how I could help. Knowing I enjoyed building the Christmas tree, she said she had another assembly job for me. Someone (or ones) had donated metal reindeer for the yard. They needed to be assembled to be put on display. There were six of them to put together.

This ...

Became this!

As I was working on the reindeer, Pastor Deb came by, pointed to a lump of greenery, and asked me to dig into it to see if there was a "tree in there". It was an absurd collection of bird's nests, feathers, and a variety of who knows what all tied up with strings of lights wrapped tightly around the outside! 

When I approached the tree to disassemble it, a woman from the church walked by and said, "What a beautiful tree!" She wasn't joking. At that, I talked to the pastor to verify I had heard correctly and I was supposed to tear it apart. She gave a very definitive yes to that! 

After I had all the paraphernalia pulled off of it and had fluffed up the limbs, it did not look half bad. Christmas trees sell well. People buy them for the holidays and then some return them to the church afterwards to be sold again the next year. 

I did the assembly and dis-assembly work outside. It was hot work with temps in the 80s and the humidity extremely high today. When I went to the restroom to clean off the perspiration, I got a shock looking in the mirror. I had green tree parts on my arms and on my face. I was wearing the Christmas tree! 

After my fight with the tree, I asked if they had other tasks for me. I helped for a while organizing a table but then decided it was time to head back to the boat. Before leaving I asked the pastor what had happened to the white tree I built the other day. I looked in all the rooms and could not find it anywhere. She said, "We sold it!" Wow! That was fast. She said it would go in a hurry, and she was spot on!

Organized and ready for the sale to begin!

Between walking to the park for art this morning and biking to and from the church for the bazaar, I was tuckered out. I barely had energy to make dinner. Thankfully I had a full meal's worth of leftovers in the fridge making it the least-effort meal possible. 

I dozed off for a bit late this afternoon. Clark said I missed the sunset. I went out for a look and saw some interesting cloud colors leftover from the sunset.