Hi everyone! I hope you are well.
This year, particularly this fall, has been a crazy whirlwind of (mostly) positive energy! My Breyer luck has been among the greatest beneficiaries. Last year, I think my favorite new additions ended up being a huge Stablemate grail and my twin palomino Hamiltons. I have quite a few from this year, enough that a Top 10 rather than a Top 5 may be warranted. I'll do my wrap up post between Christmas and New years, if I get the chance, because there is still more to come before then.
In my last blog post, I talked about my newest-arrived grail, the purple rocking horse! There happens to be one more spot left in my cabinet...which will be filled next month! I couldn't believe it when I posted photos of the purple lady and her friends to a flockie appreciation group, I mentioned that my final flockie grail is the white & pink SR and I hope to get one someday. Y'all, I was offered one right there in the comments! I cannot stress enough that these flockies rarely come up for sale, so the odds of finding that last one right away are rather incredible. I decided to do a couple of time payments rather than paying the full balance now, though. Even though my BF generously offered to gift me the funds to pay for the purple one as my Christmas present, I still did not want to go too hog-wild. (This paid off, as I'll mention later!) The final pretty lady will be home next month, instead. Which honestly will make me feel better anyway, as she'll have a lower chance of getting damaged after the holiday shipping rush.
Since then, Breyer has hit us with some of the last "surprises" of the year, including the Winter Web Special, Zugspritze (I won!!) and now the CC Appreciation which will take place in about an hour, at the time I'm beginning this blog post.
Zugspritze is the second Web Special I've been drawn for this year, but the first one I've won for myself since 2016. (I won Crane for a very appreciative friend who loves the mold back in the spring!) Funny enough, the last WS I won and kept was Avalanche, also a silver filigree. Zug is very special to me, because 10 years ago, I also won the Filigree web special, Mont Tremblant. That ended up being a split gift between my parents and my Grandpy, and it was his last gift to me as he passed away on Christmas that year. After realizing I'd won, paying for him and the Stablemate Club stuff, I sat around for about half an hour in shock and tears. I don't know how but I just got this feeling that somehow, Grandpy had a hand in guiding this horse to me. I'm not religious, I do have some semblance of spirituality, I guess, at least thinking there's something intangible out there that can affect us perhaps, and that our family who have passed on can still let us know they're watching to some degree. But I'd rather not get too into that stuff here, because it's not heavily important to my life, just pops in every once in a while like this. And I'm ok with it and absolutely not interested in considering anything else. Thanks for respecting that.
There have been so many cool moments in my Breyer journey this year!
-Volunteering for the BreyerFest Photo show as a steward and having a great experience- my first time volunteering for BF, a check off my bucket list
-Adding 3, almost 4 rocking horses to my collection this year, including 2 (almost 3) grails (the white/pink one is currently half paid for)
-Getting my first pick in the SM Club Gambler's choice
-Visiting KHP with my BF the weekend before BreyerFest on our way home from vacation, so he could see it without all the crowds (I doubt I'll ever get him to go to actual Breyerfest, which is fine), and I could stop in and get part of that experience, albeit not the same as "normal"
-Being able to attend a few small gatherings with friends, including a local swap meet and a BreyerFest party!
-Attending my first ever collectibility based show, having a blast despite running myself ragged, and winning an overall top 5 with one of my new rocking horses
-Winning a chance to participate in the BF Second Chance leftovers sale, then getting the one I wanted (Gran Cavallo), and THEN having him arrive ON MY BIRTHDAY oh and he's the variation. Like WHAT how does that even happen?
-Winning Zugspritze
-Having the ability to be in the right place at the right time to purchase first come first served runs like Lafayette (well, I got lucky that mine shipped ight away and wasn't sent to back order), Brunhilde, and the Christmas blind bag Clydesdales (and for that one, an awesome friend to help me get 4!)
-Starting this blog AND actually making more than one entry! My ADHD makes it tough to continue with projects, no matter how much I care about them. Just posting is honestly an accomplishment, I don't think I'll ever get to the point of having an official schedule
It's currently 10 of 2, so I'm just sitting here waiting for the CC Appreciation to drop...I really thought it wasn't going to happen this year. BUT since there's a glossy Hamilton involved, I am all in. While I *like* a lot of the other runs and wouldn't mind them in glossy, I probably would have been fine sitting it out otherwise. Marc of Charm would be my other trigger to participate no matter what, but he's still too new.
*****
WELL. That was one of the most stressful things I've experienced recently, that's Breyer related. I had my cart ready to go ahead of time, so that I'd just need to add the CC glossy and go into the cart. I never got past the first page of checkout with the Chrome browser, no matter how many times I re-loaded the page or opened new tabs. I decided to try building a new cart in Firefox instead, which was very risky- when I'm under tremendous stress like that, it takes way more effort to think straight and accomplish everything, so I feel like I can't navigate quickly enough. I managed to get the two Traditionals I'd planned (Winx & KB Omega), and the puzzle which I really wanted, but I skipped the socks and went for a bunch of one blind bag instead of a couple of 3 different ones to save time. After a few tries my cart finally loaded and I was able to complete the checkout, at 2:14 PM (EST).
Now to cross everything and hope I end up with a pretty palomino- or that I'm able to find someone to trade with! This is my third year doing the CC Appreciation event and so far, I've had to trade every time. In 2019, I wanted Seamus and got Latigo Dun It, but thankfully that was an easy swap since LDI was more popular. In 2020, I wanted Buckeye or the Sable Island Pony and got the Mixer QH...I probably could have traded for the mule but I was trying to hold out for the Croi, and that failed. I ended up trading for a Sugarloaf instead, which was just as good, IMO.
Hamilton, like the Clydesdale Stallion, is a *main conga* for me (technically, Croi kind of is too, but since I got Sugarloaf I'm not that bothered by it), so this should be interesting.
Hopefully, the new arrivals will have made their way here (at least some of them) by the time I post again. The Deluxe CC Stablemate "order" is also showing up on accounts, but currently sits at Unfulfilled. So he may or may not also arrive before the end of the year! That's *3* packages arriving from Breyer in the next 1-2 weeks (Unless it takes longer for Chalice to ship). I am very much hoping that my streak of not wanting the Christmas Day specials enough to log on and buy them continues to hold! While a couple of them are pretty (I like that florentine Shermie and the zebras are kind of neat), nothing has ever called to me to buy immediately. I am definitely tapped out for this year at this point!
Good luck to everyone else who was able to order a glossy, as well!
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