A set of charms from the Lascaux Caves in France. They are what led to my journey into the world of making jewelry which has literally changed my life.

Battery-operated candles and strings of lights. They are made so much better now days being on timers and the batteries last much longer.

Barbie was never too out of control in our house (two girls, now grown). Playmobil was a different story. It started out with a simple family. They needed a school, a store, a hospital, cars, a garbage truck, a zoo.......

Now my nephew is 7 and the story continues...

Lego. Lego. Lego. Star Wars. Star Wars. Star Wars. Then, our worst nightmare come true: Star Wars Legos. Sigh. Oh well, made shopping easy for several years.

The Legos has continued long past the "toy" stage to the Architecture sets. We have several on display; I'd love to get a proper glass cabinet for them, they are becoming a bother to dust. Oh, and they are just the right size for adding tiny Star Wars and other figures into the nooks and crannies. My boys are now college and beyond!

the IP that I just bought and received last week. It comes with an inner SS pot, but there's also a ceramic inner pot you can buy. and it looks like I'll need to buy a wooden spoon to scape the bottom of the inner pot. And a lifter contraption to lift an even smaller inner pot (for PIP cooking) into the larger inner pot and back out again. It can be metal or silicone. And that 'even smaller inner pot/dish' if you don't already have something that can be used for this (I do already have 2 of those). And a tiny cake pan if one wants to make cheese cake. and a divided silicone thing to make egg bites... and a separate glass lid for when not pressure cooking (like making yogurt) and a silicone lid for storing food in it in the fridge. a little chimney like thing to put over the vent (to direct steam in a particular direction). A trivet specific to hold eggs while cooking them.

and then there are decals for the outside of it and 'wraps' for around the outside to decorate it - it's removable and you can get them to change with the seasons, add color to it - basically decorate the cook pot!

the list of add ons is long. I'll start with the wooden spoon. Will check W the next time I'm there. I have littler inner pots I can use and 2 glass lids I think might fit it. I did pick up a 'silicone sling' on sale for $4.00 this past week. I saw it on another site this past week (while ordering something not IP related). and of course all of these are not necessary to cook in the IP.

I am not sure who was most crazy about the American Girl doll, my niece or my sister. Anyway, on holiday season gift givers were presented with a list of American Girl accessories to consider buying for said niece.

Not toys, but when I was about 10, I had an aquarium. We went on a field trip to the zoo, and just before leaving, I pinched a water waterlily bloom from the lily pond that was right inside the Houston zoo. I haven't been there in years, so don't know if it is still there. I took the bloom home and floated it in my aquarium, where it opened and closed for a couple of days before it finally quit. It was a white, tropical lily that I later found out was Mrs. George H. Pring.

When I got married, at 19, we bought our first place, which was an old dairy farm. It had several large concrete troughs. A friend had goldfish in hers, so I went to a bait shop and bought some goldfish for a nickel apiece. Then I looked around for waterlilies. I found the man who had furnished the lilies for the zoo, and bought the same white waterlily. I soon learned of the many, many varieties of fancy goldfish, and started collecting them and eventually showing them....taking them as far away as Ohio.

One day in the pet shop when I was looking for goldfish, they told me about koi. It seemed too good to be true....something so beautiful. To make a long story short....my husband bought a bulldozer and dug 6 mud bottomed ponds for me, and I bought some koi from California and started raising them. Not to sell...just for my own enjoyment, because you have to raise many hundreds to pick out a few to keep.

I eventually ended up with 200 varieties of waterlilies...became a founding member of the International Watergardening Society and met many wonderful people who shared my fairly unusual love of ponds and fish. Although I no longer have koi and waterlilies in those numbers, and I no longer raise fancy goldfish, I still do it on a smaller scale and it has been a lifelong love of mine.

That sounds terrific marilyn.

Those are gorgeous, Marilyn!

Both the koi and the lilies sound like interesting and rewarding activities.

Oh, wow, Marilyn—you created those? They’re absolutely exquisite!

Both grand kids love Lego. Grandson is a puzzles maniac. He is 4 and the 100 piece ones are becoming too easy for him. Grand daughter is completely into LOL anything and crafting.

What has drawn me into a whole new lifestyle/venture? Horses. I never got to ride as a child and came into horses with zero experience in my middle/late sixties. I am now taking weekly lessons and I do it all. I catch,groom and tack. I am learning about feeding and vaccinations. We practice natural horsemanship so I also do a lot of groundwork. I am loving every bit of it. In just one year I have learned so much. My secret bucket list desire now is to do at least one endurance ride some day. So much to learn. Those crazy Arabians are great teachers though. They haven't given up on me. ;-)

My granddaughter just schooled me in LOL dolls. I don’t find them too appealing but she loves playing with them.

watchme—I envy you. Sounds wonderful!! I’d love to do that but had my fun with a horse long ago. I’m sure I could still ride. It’s the falling off which could be bad. Be careful.

I have an ADDICTION to collecting. It is quite over whelming at times. Beanie Babies were a real issue for quite some time (thank goodness the company discontinued making them cute), we started rummaging through the "free box" or trash toys at garage sales for miniature barbie McDonald toys, then dalmatians!! Fontanini for my Nativity set and Norman Rockwell plates most recently had me in their grip. Books--I like having the ENTIRE series...

bpath -- I had a good laugh at your post. And just to have full disclosure, one of My two sons still creates with Legos (sometimes with his daughter) and HE is 47 years old. =)

And he did get a glass cabinet for display...

When the girls were young children, we went through the Rainbow Brite phase, the My Little Pony phase and the Care Bears phase. I collected Dept. 56 Dicken's Village for quite a few years. One of the girls took many of the buildings and displays them now every Christmas.

Fub2BHere Our phases were Care Bears, Smurfs, Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony for DD. DS went through Star Wars, Masters of the Universe and Transformers. And yes the Lego Star Wars.

Somehow our house went from zero Cabbage Patch Kids to an entire orphanage full.

The last trendy collectible I remember DD gathering were those big plastic charms they clipped to large plastic chains. I don't remember what they were called.

Watchmelol, I forgot Disney watches. One of my girls collected those in her tween years. They both loved Disney films and we had a large collection of VHS, then DVDs.