Tag Archives: mailbox decorations

October 1, 2025 · 3:13 am

Happy October 2025

Happy October 2025! I miss being able to drive down with a mailbox decoration from the shop and my husband and I changing out the one there for the new one twice a month. It was particularly wonderful when someone would start to drive by, stop, and get out of the car to tell us what a kick they got out of our decorations. Several people told us they drove by often just to see if we had changed the decoration yet. How wonderful is that! 🤗

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This morning I was up at 1am wringing out towels from my leaking windows with a hard storm from Typhoon Regasa. I got back to sleep, back up again at 5 in order to check the towels again and get ready for the gym. I had to wring them out again, but that has been it for the day. I got the towels on my drying rack out on the balcony, and everything is almost dry now. I have rolled up towels in the window sills again, in case we’re not finished with the remnants of the typhoon, but hopefully, it has passed us now.

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This is the latest painted sketch.

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We went to visit Harvey at the nursing home this morning. This is a 3 hour round trip we make three times a week to show him we love him and make sure he’s getting the care he needs. At first we thought he wasn’t going to talk to us at all. I had almost given up after about 25 minutes of our asking questions or making statements with no reaction from him at all when he suddenly said, “I’m trying to remember where I got your engagement ring. I want to get you a “better” wedding ring.” I sat there with tears running down my face.

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Today has turned out to be a beautiful day with lots of sunshine. Dark clouds are looming, but they haven’t won yet. I’ll take it! 👍

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When we got home, Brian walked me to my door. A couple of minutes later he was back with a small package in his hand that had arrived downstairs. I opened it and found two new squeeze balls! When he ordered the original for Harvey, two came in the package. He gave one to Harvey and the other to me. I have to admit I keep it on my computer desk, reaching for it and squeezing it whenever I’m here. It’s mesmerizing. Sadly, about 3 weeks ago I punctured mine inadvertently with a fingernail. I told Harvey about it when I was handing him the ball, encouraging him to practice with his weaker left hand. Brian quietly ordered another set. I’m thrilled! I have my toy back! We’ll take the other one to swap out for the original one the next time we visit Harvey. This new one is actually better than the old one.

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I hope your day/evening is filled with giggles and grins..

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Tagged as family, fiction, Happy October 2025, latest sketch, leaking windows, life, love, mailbox decorations, squeeze ball, Typhoon Regasa, visit to the nursing home, writing

December 12, 2024 · 9:27 am

Driveway Tour

As you come to visit, there is a decoration we made attached to the mailbox at the bottom of our driveway. Right now, it’s Yosemite Sam. We have made 34 decorations in our shop, choosing favorite cartoon characters and holiday decorations.

Our robot welcomes you, doffing his hat and grinning. You can see one of the owls behind him. (We have one on either side of the driveway.)

Here’s a close-up of them.

About halfway up the driveway, our flying pig hung from a strong line over the driveway. The huge branch AND the pig came down in a storm. The pig is now in our shop, waiting for me to refurbish him. We’ll bolt him to one of the big boulders beside the driveway, so it looks like he’s about to take flight.

Meet our guard dog. He’s ready to defend us from harm.

This crow is on the other side, at about the same level as the guard dog, watching everyone who drives up.

Toward the top of the driveway is our sun face. He weighs a LOT and was really hard to attach to the tree.

Below the sun face on the same side is our turkey, made from an old propane bottle and scrap metal.

This turtle sits beside the turkey. We didn’t make this, but I painted his shell.

And there you have it. You have almost reached the house. You might have missed the signs on trees, “Is there life after death? Trespass here and find out,” “Trespassers Will Be Shot. Survivors Will Be Shot Again,” and “Trespassers will be composted.”

Welcome to the Lewises! We’ll continue introducing you to other ‘critters’ another time.

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Filed under Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations, Lewis projects, Lewis yard art

Tagged as art, decor, diy, driveway, Lewis critters, Lewis yard art, mailbox decorations, metal art, scrap metal art, Tour of our driveway

April 30, 2024 · 9:47 am

Tuesday Thoughts 4-30-2024

My husband fell on the ice at the bottom of the driveway in January, breaking his collarbone. The recovery period was 10-12 weeks. He was functional well before that, but changing the mailbox decoration, where he has to get up on a ladder to get a decoration from off a hook in the shop, maneuver the heavy metal decoration down, carry it out to the truck, then get the current one off the mailbox and the new one on, and then store the now unused decoration was more than I wanted to THINK about, much less DO.

The decision was reinforced when our dog, Amber, pulled him down while she was on the leash, making him fall headlong into one of our brick planters, slashing the back of his ear and dislocating his little finger almost exactly one month ago. His ear is still healing from the injury and the 8 stitches needed to stop the bleeding.

Yesterday he brought up the subject of changing the mailbox decoration.

He chose this one to put up – Wile E. Coyote, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the Roadrunner, with Sonic accepting money from Wile E. for catching the Roadrunner and giving him to the coyote.

This decoration was fun and challenging for us. It was the first time we tried to do a more 3-D decoration, with the legs of the Roadrunner made from rebar. You can see on the back of this piece where I tried to blend the support piece into the painting of the figures.

My husband spent some time out in the shop after we put up the decoration yesterday. When he came in, he said he had a really bad time trying to put the Happy New Year decoration back up on its hook in the shop, and decided it was really too big and heavy and unwieldy to use again.

As we age, we’re trying to make some decisions as to what is important and what isn’t in the grand scheme of things. We like putting up the decorations on our mailbox, but will now stop putting up ones that are too difficult and might result in one or both of us getting hurt. The Happy New Year one is the first on the list not to use again. We do have another decoration of Calvin and Hobbes where they are hugging each other, that we can use in place of the Happy New Year one.

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Tagged as aging decisions, husband's falls, mailbox decorations, Tuesday thoughts 4-30-2024

July 28, 2023 · 9:52 am

Yea, It’s Friday 7-28-2023

We actually don’t have “Hot Man” on the mailbox because it has been TOO HOT for us to make the effort. AND the forecast is for “Hotter temperatures the next 10 days.” The website shows 100+ for nine of the next ten days and little to no chance for rain. My husband is hopeful that the grass will become his favorite ‘brown and crunchy’ so he won’t have to mow. I can’t blame him. I’m more than grateful our a/c is functional.

We haven’t changed the mailbox decoration in some time, basically due to laziness and having other priorities. Since school will be starting here in August, I talked to my husband about it. We agreed that we’ll change from

“Sylvester and Tweetie Pie”

“Yosemite Sam”

just in case the school bus kids (or someone else) watches what we put up.

We have a totally different traffic pattern in front of our house now with the bridge between us and town being rebuilt, so it will be interesting to see if we get any comments. (Oh, update on the bridge – we drove down to the site yesterday. They have finished two of the three supports needed for the bridge. Things have gone slower than the workers would like because the sporadic heavy rains we’ve been having fill the area with water that has to be pumped out in order to proceed. )

Journal – “Ship’s Wheel” Spiral Bound Hard Cover Hand-Painted with 3D Wooden Wheel – 5-1/2 x 7 hard cover spiral bound journal. 10 manila ‘envelope’ pockets inside. $17.99 with FREE SHIPPING to the contiguous U.S. Questions: lindawlewis1@gmail.com Link to item on HandmadeHavenByLinda

We’re leaving soon to get our mail, see if anyone else is there for Lunch Bunch, and shop for a few groceries before coming home.

I hope this day is a good one for you.

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Filed under HandmadeHavenByLinda on Etsy, Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations, Thoughts on a ________

Tagged as Friday thoughts 7-28-2023, Hand painted journal "Ship's Wheel", HandmadeHavenByLinda on Etsy, Hot Man, Lewis Art, mailbox decorations, Sylvester and Tweetie Pie, Yosemite Sam

November 12, 2021 · 9:16 am

Cold, Wet, and Blustery

One of the first things my husband and I did on waking this morning was to congratulate each other on doing our grocery shopping yesterday while the weather was nice. This morning we have 45 degrees F., rain, gloom, and blustery winds.

We will meet our friends for Lunch Bunch, but we won’t do anything else outside.

Cliff Harden, of Safe Elite Transformations 479-849-0520 safeelitetransformations@gmail.com called and then came to look at my porch yesterday afternoon. He made us a new ceiling, repaired damage, and then repainted our porch last year. One trim board had fallen down and needs to be reinstalled.

After I got a wonderful hug and he looked at the porch, he said he would be here sometime next week to fix it. When we met, I was his first customer after he used the pandemic lock-down to get his builder’s license and start his company after working for others for several years. Now he has three full crews working for him and is scrambling to keep up with the business. When you’re good, you stay busy. :0)

We got our Covid booster shots Wednesday. My husband and I are in the high-risk group. Even though my husband tends to think everything is a conspiracy, he agreed to the shots, and finally to the booster. Thankfully, neither of us had a bad reaction to the booster. Our son, who lives in Thailand, is in the group that has had bad reactions with heart problems. He is healthy, so has decided not to get the shots or be tested. Since our government has now decided that you MUST have been vaccinated or present a negative test in order to fly, he won’t be able to come home for any reason until the order is changed. We will be on our own until the world rights itself again.

I finished the re-painting of the back of Wonder Wart-Hog. We will hang up the mailbox decoration with the others in the shop now. Monday, weather permitting, we are planning to put up Sylvester and Tweetie Pie.

I have the paint, tape, and stepping stool ready to start the refurbishment of the greeter robot at the bottom of the driveway when the weather permits.

Since our weather is so unfriendly today, after Lunch Bunch I will clean a few things and then do a combination of playing in my art room, reading, and listening to YouTube compilations of “The Voice” auditions. All that talent just fills my heart and makes me feel good about the world!

Happy Friday!

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Filed under Friendship, Great Companies Who Deserve Your Business, Housekeeping - Maintenance, Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox Decorations, Thoughts on a ________

Tagged as Cliff Harden - Safe Elite Transformations, fixing the porch, Great companies deserving your business, Lewis Art, mailbox decorations, thoughts on a Friday 11-12-2021

April 1, 2020 · 8:56 am

Easter Mailbox Decoration

I’m of two minds about putting up decorations on our mailbox these days.

One of the school buses comes right by our house, and used to stop at our driveway years ago when our son was attending school here. I think about the kids seeing what we have put up twice each month, hoping they get a kick out of the decorations.

Since the schools are closed, maybe through the end of the school year due to the threat of COVID-19, it may be like throwing a bottle in the ocean. Maybe no one sees our decorations but us and our good mailman.

Now we put them up in a spirit of hope that the world will soon get through this awful time.

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Tagged as Easter, Easter Rabbit and Easter Egg, holidays, Lewis Art, Lewis Mailbox decorations, mailbox decorations, metal art

May 17, 2018 · 12:17 pm

“I’m A-Warning You, Stranger!”

We just finished getting our mail and changing our mailbox decoration from “Catbert” from Dilbert to “Yosemite Sam.” He’s one of our favorite cartoon characters from growing up. I can hear his voice warning people off before he blasts them. :0)

This decoration is cut out of sheet metal with our computer-guided CNC set up. My husband converted a drawing we found on the net into the code needed to talk to the computer. The program then directs the torch to cut out the design. We clean up the metal edges, weld it onto the bar that attaches it to the mailbox, and then use the overhead projector and a transparency from our printer to mark the metal so that I can paint the design on both sides. We then spray the finished decoration with clear protective spray to make the paint last as long as possible.

“I’m a-warning you, Stranger!!!!”