Excuse Me While I Buy This Junk

Where Am I?

2010-02-27T11:30:00.000-06:00

Just a reminder that this blog has moved to http://www.shopjustvintage.com/blog
And if you're here because a comment I left on your blog sent you here, please read the post below. Thank you!

A Hint For Blogspot Bloggers

2009-02-09T11:15:00.003-06:00

A friendly reminder.....

Having had a Blogspot blog, this one, but abandoning it for my own hosted blog, I'd like to give a tip on comment settings. You must choose "Anyone can comment" or something to that effect or some of us simply cannot post. People who do not have a Google/Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, LiveJournal, AIM, or that OpenID thing, whatever that is, can't post a comment. If I leave a comment on your blog with my name and blog address typed in, (something I really don't like to do - sounds pushy or something) your settings aren't rest-of-the-world friendly. I see this all the time and most times, it's just because, well, you don't realize it excludes lots of folks. Probably, most of the people out there use one of those services, but there are those who don't. There are a whole lot of people who love to read blogs, but don't blog themselves. Many of them would love to leave a comment, but have none of those accounts.

For someone who doesn't like to sound pushy, that smacked of it, didn't it? Sorry.

Here's how to do it:

Go to "Dashboard"
Next, choose "Settings"
Then "Comments"
Under "Comments" find, "Who can comment?" Choose the first option: Anyone - Including Anonymous Users

Use a spam filter if you feel that will be a problem, but I never had any.

Wanda
Just Vintage Blog - Excuse Me While I Buy This Junk

I'm migrating

2008-08-29T17:36:00.003-05:00

This is my last Blogger post. I'm moving to Just Vintage blog. Please, if you have me bookmarked or linked - please, someone have me bookmarked or linked - it needs updating.

The blog doesn't look very good, but that'll have to wait. Maybe you can stand it for the brief minutes you'd be there. 'Course this one never looked all that good, either. ;-)

More stuff

2008-08-26T17:55:00.003-05:00

Oh, how dreary and rainy it's been with Fay sitting on top of us these past few days. I'm so thankful for the rain, but it does make me sleepy. I didn't get out this weekend, but am still working through the previous weekend's things.

I believe I mentioned that my web site died? That's consumed me for the past month. I like the computer to do what I need it to do. I don't care much for fixing things. Don't really like building things either, but once it's built, I sure don't want to do it again - much less three more times! Yuck! I'd think it was getting there and something would go wrong and I'd have to start over. I think I lost some pictures in the process, but most are back up. The web site should be fully functioning now. Keeping my fingers crossed. It needs some cosmetic work, but that is not priority. Adding items is. Today I added the blue and pink cup and saucers, a Wedgwood plate, a folk art bird painting and..... something else? Can't remember. All of that was from the recent sales. Here are the rest of the pictures:

Japan fondue forks, gold handle knives and Birmingham centennial hankies.

Can't resist Christmas stuff.

Mostly Italian nativity figures.

I need to put backs on these stockings.

Vera towels and a rooster towel.

Can't you just see these reliefs in a mid century modern kitchen?

A fabulous fireplace had sold in the house with the good, old stuff. They broke all the tiles surrounding it. Now I wish I'd got all the pieces instead of just these few - especially since they were free!

Unstretched painting of a girl.

Unstretched and unfinished.

Another unstretched painting.

Calla lilies print and the folk art bird painting.

Unstretched sunflower painting.

~~~~

And this concludes the show. I think that's all I got pictures of, anyway.

Now, I'm working on getting the blog moved over to the web site. I'll let y'all know.

2008-08-21T17:00:00.002-05:00

Continuing with pictures from last weeks sales, quickly. It's time to go home!

(These 10', gold cornice pieces, there are only 2, I just took 2 pictures, may go home with me.)

8' pine whatever this thing is.

More to come still!

Old Times Part Deux

2008-08-20T14:19:00.003-05:00

Saturday, Erin came up and went to the sales with me. Good girl. I raised her right. She has a good eye. We had so much fun! At one sale, we spent as much time going through the trash on the street as we did inside the house. I won't say what we pulled from the trash and you're not likely to be able to figure it out. Some things look like they might have been, but we actually paid for them. Others look like they'd have been in the house, but were in the garbage.

We hit five estate sales that day and tried for #6, but they'd already closed up. I can't remember what came from which sale, so I'll just share pictures and try to remember as I go.

Sunday she and I went back to the fab estate and got several things half price which was still more than we wanted to pay, but not so bad.

These two pieces were from the good stuff sale. Erin found the dresser or desk tray on the right. It's marked made in Italy. I bought the thing on the left, I don't know what you call it. It was dirty and I was afraid the dirt was permanent stains, but washing it revealed a lovely piece. I did note there was a hairline crack in the lid. As I was shaking the water off the bowl, a handle hit the faucet and broke clean off. Uh, oh. Too bad. Guess it's mine now.
~~~

Also from the good stuff sale. That's an early spongeware bowl. Quite old. The pitcher was described as "early". I'm not sure "early" what.
~~~

Erin found the brown transferware at another sale, but the alabaster tumbler and little dish was from the good stuff sale. Those initials are mother of pearl. The other side has an inlaid design.
~~~

All from the good stuff sale. Sugar shaker, milk glass dresser box (unwashed in the picture - cleaned up nicely) and silver shaker with cobalt insert.
~~~

That plate is Brougham and Mayer? I think? Something like that. It is going to try to find a place at my house. The colors are right for a couple of rooms. The ironstone pitcher was from another sale.
~~~

I know nothing about those two vases. They sure look Art Deco, don't they? All three of these things came from the sale with the trash. No they were not free.
~~~

Curtain tiebacks. Great color, don't cha think?
~~~

Erin's find of frame corners, wood things and glass things.
~~~

More to come tomorrow.

I still haven't had the courage to take the web site down to fix it. It just seems like it's going to be so much trouble. What a headache!

Just Like Old Times

2008-08-19T16:02:00.002-05:00

What a weekend! If I've seemed a little less than gung ho lately, it's probably because the summer has been so blah. The sales have been few and far between and when there was one, the things to be had were not so exciting. I think you all know one of my favorite things to do is find treasures. The hunt is exhilarating, but if I don't bag a kill fairly often, my spirits get a little down. This weekend was the way it's supposed to be.

Friday, I lit out alone. Lena bowed out for the weekend. Friday seems so far away now, I can't remember it all, but I'll give it a try.

(The images might be down for a time. My shopping cart isn't working and I need to take the whole site down and reinstall. These images are stored there. Hopefully they won't be missing in action very long.)

Let's see. I was running a little late Friday morning and the first estate sale I went to had been going on an hour or so. As always, I started in the basement. I had piles of stuff, but darned if I know what I got that took three trips to the car! What in the world did I do with it? Here's what I remember:

After tons have people had already been there and I'd even been there for awhile working the perimeter of the room, I found a large, untouched lidded, cardboard, storage box underneath a table. I opened it and found all this silver! Some are real silver, sterling, not silver plate.

These were, I think, the best pieces in the box. A large, Gorham, golf "trophy" from the 1950s and a pair of Wallace Sterling Rose Point candlesticks. (Sorry 'bout the fuzzy picture.)

The price was quite right on all the silver. Better than I'd even hoped for.

There was some fabric and, oh yes! Vintage Ray Ban sunglasses!

These Christmas candlesticks:

Some more stuff that got in pictures with other things.

Next on the list was a fabulous sounding sale. The estate sale company's web site had four pages of pictures and the stuff looked incredible! I knew there was no way I'd be able to buy anything, but I had to see it anyway. That house, which was a regular looking house, was full to the brim with honest to goodness, swear to God, hope to die - and to die for - antiques. It was like stepping into a spread of Colonial Homes magazine in the 1980s. If you've seen that magazine from that time period, think of the best home with the best stuff and you'll know what I saw at this house. It was what I aspired for my home then and knew it wasn't obtainable with me being a stay at home mom with two kids, living in "Podunk", Alabama with no money. This house was like being in a museum. I just can't say how wonderful the antiques were. Did I buy anything? Sure! A 1980s telephone, a decoupage memory jar and an automobile vase. LOL I think I bought the three cheapest things there. No, that's not true. While I was tempted, I did not buy a grungy little $3.00, tin match holder.

The hula girl came from the first sale and the owl was bought on Saturday.

Apparently, the sellers didn't know this was an automobile vase or it would have been much higher. Of course, I could be mistaken and it's just an epergn horn.

There are so many pictures, this will be continued tomorrow............

Gosh, how boring I am!

2008-08-12T16:04:00.003-05:00

There is absolutely nothing going on around here! School started back, but my kids are grown. People have been staying in because it's still pretty hot, although a "cold" front is coming through. The cooler weather - or just a change in the weather - might bring out customers, but it's raining. That means I get to work on the computer while no one's stopping by. But it might also make me feel compelled to work Thursday to make up for slow times earlier in the week.

This past weekend was open weekend, so I only went to a few local sales. I bought a 25¢ plate stand. Woohoo. However, I never did get around to sharing the finds of the weeks before, so here they are.

My meager findings:

~~~

Erin's contributions (much better than mine):

She painted and distressed the bench. And yes, I give away magazines in the shop! How often do you find shop owners that generous? LOL

~~~~~

Last time I mentioned a recipe site I've begun. I have a few recipes up now and I think it's fully functional. Perhaps it's good to go, so here it is. The big reveal. Ha! OK. Whatever. Keep in mind it will grow. I hope my friends in Blogland and real life and friends I don't know I have, yet will contribute. I'll also eventually add cookbooks for sale, primarily charity cookbooks.

Good Cooks' Recipes

~~~~~

It seems I always find things to do other than what I truly need to be doing. That, at the moment, is adding things to the web site. I have added some lately. Got the candles up and a few other little things, but not like I should. That HAS to take priority -- and soon! I also need to get this blog moved over to it. Another priority. And I need to allot time each day to do blogging. How many times have I said that? Sigh. Anyway, if you want to see what's new at the site, here it is:

Just Vintage

That's all I've got today. Time to edit some pictures.

See ya!

Good grief.....

2008-08-05T18:20:00.000-05:00

how time flies! Last weekend was a dud. I headed for a sale that advertised a Hoosier cabinet. Since I need furniture for the shop, that was the first sale on my list. Phooey. They were asking more than I could get in the shop, so I took off for a sale that advertised lots of collectible glass and pottery. I figured Ms. C from last week would be there already loading up on all the good stuff. Was I right? Of course! She was there and had loaded up, but honestly, I didn't see anything in her pile that made me regret not getting there first. There was still lots of stuff left and prices were so-so, and maybe it was the mood I was in, but the stuff looked so-so to me, too. Lena went the next day and was talking about all the neat things she got. It really made me wonder if it was my mood, but later I talked to friend Tiff who went not long after I did and she had the same feeling as I. (How's my grammar there?) That made me feel validated.

Ricky and I did go to a goat auction. Not for a goat! They auction stuff people bring from home first. It was hot and I didn't see anything worth sweating for, but it is definitely worth checking out when I can.

Erin is getting into the resale business with me. She's beginning to buy things to put in the shop. She has great taste, by the way. I've got pictures of the few things I found this weekend and the things she's sent, but naturally, the pictures are on the computer at the shop and I'm at home. They'll be posted later.

I am working on a new blog, too. A recipe blog. Like the world needs another recipe site, but I've been thinking about this for a few years now and lately haven't been able to get it off my mind. Seemed like the time to do it. It'll have "heirloom" recipes. Recipes passed from one good cook to .... whoever asked for it. Like me. Can't say I'm a very good cook. I've been known to burn boiled eggs. But the recipes are good and if I pay attention, they're good even when I'm the one doing the cooking. I will run out of recipes pretty quickly, though and will need help from my friends -- YOU! More about this site a little later.

This weekend is open weekend at the shop. Busy week.

Wanda

2008-07-25T07:16:00.002-05:00

Where did this week go??? Here it is Friday afternoon and I haven't blogged about the auction, nor have I worked through all the stuff. It wasn't wonderful, but I got a lot of pictures. I mean real pictures - prints and paintings. I do have pictures of them, too. So here's last week's gleamings.

The above picture is stuff from a sale here in town. It was supposed to start at 7:00, so naturally I arrived at 6:20. There was a vehicle I recognized as a fellow dealer's parked out in front. Dang! I can never beat her! (We are friends so I don't begrudge anything she gets. She just gets up earlier than I.) I jumped out of the car and took off up to the house and the seller said in a not so nice voice that the sale didn't start until 7:00. She wasn't letting me in. I mumbled something about people do get here early and looked at the vehicle and said I thought she already had a shopper. No comment. I plunked myself down on the top step and she went inside. I could hear dishes clattering in there and I just KNEW it was Ms. Friend-of-mine. I know the sound of her dish clatter. But maybe I was wrong. Only a few minutes later the seller poked her head out the door and said in the sweetest voice that I could come on in. Really? You're sure? I won't be in the way? Oh no, I could come on in. Ha! I was right! It was Ms. Friend-of-mine. I'm sure the seller told her I was on the step and Ms. Friend-of-mine said it was OK to let me in. That I was harmless and besides, she'd already got what she wanted -- which was just about everything worth getting. I asked her how she got lucky and got in early. She knew them. Hrmph. Oh, well. I really didn't see anything in her pileS that was worth crying over. The greyhounds in the above picture came from another sale.

The rest came from the auction.

A-be-be-da-be-da-be-be-da-be that's all folks!

Today was a 130 mile round trip for practically nothing. What is it with summer? I've temporarily lost my enthusiasm for everything. I don't want to hunt, don't want to sell, don't want to decorate, don't want to create, nothing! Sleep would be nice. Floating on the water and reading maybe. Oh, well. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I will not falter!

2008-07-18T15:37:00.002-05:00

Three weeks. Three weekends I've not been able to go to the sales. Well, a couple here and there, but nothing to speak of. I couldn't wait for today. Started on Wednesday looking in the classifieds for estate sales. By this morning, there were three. One 20 miles north of here, the other two 45 miles north west. Totally different directions, but Lena and I did not let that deter us. We hit all three. This is what I got.

That's right. Four things. Pretty cool things, but I'd have like for there to have been forty things! However, I did get a nice step stool for $5 and some printer labels and printer magnet... strips...things....whatever you call them. I'm happy to have all that, but still.

The auction is tomorrow. They have an auction the first and third weekends of every month and this weekend is not typically a good weekend, but I have to go pick up the sewing desk. The pictures on the auction site do not look promising, but who knows? Erin is going with me so we can stay late for the furniture if need be. The auction is an hour and a half from here, begins at 9:00 a.m. and ends at late thirty. It's been known to go past midnight. They do smalls first and don't get to the furniture until 7 p.m. Now, if it was more local, I'd absolutely love it, but it's not. Anyway, we'll see what happens tomorrow. I'll let y'all know.

The internet! I has it!

2008-07-16T14:10:00.002-05:00

Finally! I have internet at the shop! When you're used to being home all the time with internet just sitting there waiting to be used any time the urge hits, it's hard not to have it. Now I can get busy on the web site, eBay and blogging. And other stuff as the mood strikes. But first....... :-( My point of sale software, which is simple, but a dinosaur, is somehow clashing with the internet or something. It's causing my computer to freeze up. Temporarily each time, but a nuisance. All that work and I'm going to have to do it again with another program. Over 1400 items to be put into a new system. Turning me into a blubbering idiot! No comments from the peanut gallery on that, please.

Thought I'd share some pictures of some rearranging I've done. There was a significant overhaul last week. Some major furniture pieces have found new homes. I was a bit panicky that those pieces held a whole bunch of smalls, but I was able to find spots for the displaced items and make the shop not look so empty. I've basically been grounded for three weekends and haven't been able to shop for more stuff. Look out this week's sales and the auction! I'm coming and I'm HUNGRY!

Hello - Remember me?

2008-07-09T08:58:00.003-05:00

What is wrong with me?! It seems like I can never find time to blog any more. I do have a promise that today's the day I get a phone jack at the shop, though I'm not holding my breath. It's been promised for at least two months now.

The kids came for a visit, my son and daughter-in-law. They got here Saturday and left this morning. It was a very nice visit. We thoroughly enjoyed having them and Reggie the Dog. Buster the Cat is glad to see his doggie cousins (Ross the other granddog was here two days) gone, but we'll miss them all.

Things are going well at the shop. Several major furniture pieces have been sold and I haven't been able to replace them, yet. With the kids coming home Saturday, we couldn't go to the auction Saturday night, so Lena and I went Thursday and left bids. I only won one thing, a little, drop leaf, sewing table/desk. Naturally, it was the thing I least wanted and the piece that will not hold lots of stuff. I believe if I had been at the auction I might have managed to get something more useful. I'll show a picture of the little desk when I pick it up at the next auction.

I uploaded pictures of some things bought in June. Much more has come in since then, but those pictures aren't on this computer.

The 2 little chalk dogs have already been adopted.
~~~

Can't resist these baskets.
~~~

This chair has a story. A friend, but competitor was 15 seconds ahead of me walking into a sale. As I was walking up the steps I heard her saying, "I'll take that and that and that......" I was in urgent, is she getting everything, I've got to buy something mode. I'm not very comfortable buying furniture. I always mess up somehow and really don't know what the prices should be. I stood over this chair, wiggling it, seeing that it wasn't very sturdy and asked the price. He told me, then I said it wasn't sturdy, there seemed to be a dowel missing or something, would he take less. He did "since I'd have to work on it". It wasn't until I got it in the shop later that morning that I saw the back leg had been totally broken off and repaired with metal brackets:

You can have this beauty for your foyer - just for looks - for $50.00. Not exactly the profit I was hoping for.
~~~

Large Italian glass vase. How do I know it's Italian? I saw the red Made in Italy sticker before it was washed down the drain. Sigh.
~~~

This lamp has a story, too. Lena and I had gone to some sales in Birmingham. This one was in a small basement and didn't have much. You also couldn't tell what was for sale and what wasn't. I spotted this lamp on a washing machine and tried to get the seller's attention. He and another man were having a lively conversation, so I stood by the table, hoping he'd realize I needed help. I couldn't get a word in edgewise. After being ignored for a couple of minutes, I threw up my hands and loudly said, "Oh, forget it. Let's go." Well that got his attention! He apologized, but by that time, I just didn't care about the lamp any more. Lena was determined then I wasn't leaving without the lamp. She asked him how much and he didn't know! "The kids" were running the sale. But he ended up making me a very good deal and I left with the lamp. Of course, now I realize I'll have to take it apart and try to clean the brass or replace some of it if it won't clean. Some deal.
~~~

She's found another home already, too.

~~~

Oh! It's almost time to open up and my hair's still wet and I've got to fix my lunch and stop by the grocery store! I think these pictures will be too big for the space in the blog. I'll have to fix that when I have more time.

Ok, Ok.....

2008-06-26T21:30:00.002-05:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah....... I get it. It's been over a week and I left the typo in last week's title. Sigh. That's fixed. Lena wins the prize for mentioning it. I did it on purpose to see who'd call my attention to it. Ha! Yeah, right. But I did realize it was there a couple of days ago, but was too lazy to change it.

I just can't seem to get motivated to blog. Got out of practice and can't get back in the groove. I do have pictures of last week's sales, but didn't get them uploaded. It's like once I get home from the shop, I don't want to do anything like that. But internet is coming soon to the shop! That'll give me something to do during the chunks of time no one's in there shopping.

And speaking of the shop, I've got to buy some furniture this weekend! Four major pieces have sold. Pieces that hold a whole lotta stuff. Word is getting out naturally, slowly and surely. Just the way it should.

We'll see what the sales hold this weekend. Lena and I are going out in the morning.

That's about all I've got. Nothing much has been happening around here.

Getting back to watching Reno 911. Best show on TV. LOL

Wanda

A near miss

2008-06-18T21:24:00.003-05:00

Whew! I had a near disaster yesterday! No, nothing to do with the picture above. I just thought I'd throw that in because I haven't used any pictures lately. This horror story has to do with the computer, printer and my point of sale software. I'm using a DOS program by Dale Harris. It's free and does a great job. I worked days on end putting in the over 1500 items with their stock number, brief description and price. Lena came a few mornings and called them out to me. Erin helped a day or two, but mostly I went around, wrote them on a piece of paper then typed them in. One......at......a........time.

I hadn't hooked up the printer, not having the correct cable. Wal-Mart, our only local source for that kind of thing, didn't have the exact cable I needed, but had one that would work. How was I to know it wouldn't work with the software? Oh, it said so in the software set up, but I don't understand technical stuff like that. I got it hooked up, tried to print and the program froze. I could not get back in. Scared me to death. I didn't know what to do. I worked with it all afternoon and finally resigned myself to starting over from the beginning. Groan. But this story does have a happy ending.

When I got home I looked on the software's site and saw there was a new version, so I downloaded it, took off back to the shop, uploaded it and was somehow able to get into the program. Oh, man! I can't tell you how relieved I was! I was even able to configure the printer so I can print receipts now. Yeah!

~~~~~~~

I'm liking having a shop. It's never been so fun to sell things. Before the only reason I sold anything was so I could buy more. That's still the driving force, but there's something about people coming into your blood, sweat and tears shop, loving it and the things in it and taking something home. I never liked selling at the flea market. You'd think the feeling would be similar, but it's not. This is special. Now I need to figure out what my hours and days will be. The one weekend a month has gone bye-bye. I'll still do that, but want to open weekdays, too. I still won't give up my other weekends. Can't give them up or I'd never have any new merchandise. At the same time I don't want to be there all day every single day of the week. I'm over thinking this, though. I just need to let it evolve on it's own. I'll know what to do when it's time to do it.

I won't be open tomorrow or Tuesday the 8th. Friend and daughter obligations. Tomorrow's thing begins early and I'm getting sleepy, so I'd better hit the sack. Oh, I did see that there are some sales tomorrow I can attend. I'm excited about that since Saturday will be pretty limited. More about that later.

Wanda

Just chillin'

2008-06-15T18:38:00.002-05:00

Oh, how strange it feels to just relax. Do nothing. Niiiice.

Saturday was busy enough. Again, a steady trickle with quite a few sales. On the entry forms for the giveaway, there was a list to check where they heard about the shop. It seemed to be pretty equal between the newspaper, the local classifieds and word of mouth. The "targeted" mailing brought in the least. Hmmmmmm.

Congratulations to the winners of the three, $25 gift certificates: Jeanette White, Debbie Melofsky and Sharon Craft.

Now I've got to get a phone line in with internet and get busy adding all that merchandise to the web site. I'd prefer doing it all there instead of having to bring it home to finish. I also want to do my blogging from there. The routine will have to evolve. Anyway, it's good to know this past weekend is behind me and life can begin to get back to sort of normal.

Opening, day 2

2008-06-13T20:58:00.002-05:00

Day two is over and done. We've joked about the lackluster grand opening. Customers have been steady enough, but I've had time to finish putting the inventory in the point of sale system and have had enough sales to start to get the hang of using it. I'm glad not to have had lots and lots of customers all at once. Couldn't have handled that. Tomorrow, if the weather cooperates, should be the busy day.

The highlight of the day was getting to meet Rhoda at Southern Hospitality and Judy at Gracious Southern Living! How fun! They were great and it was wonderful meeting them. Naturally, I didn't have my camera there, but they did. Horrors! They got pictures of three of us. My hair didn't cooperate this morning, I didn't have on cute-clothes and there I am, in all my short, chubby glory standing next to tall, thin Rhoda. I didn't see the picture, but I'm pretty sure I looked stoopid. Even when I wasn't 40 pounds overweight, I didn't take good pictures. In a group picture, I'm usually the one with a goofy look on my face.

That's about all I have to report today. I'm sleepy and boring right now. It's time to call it a day.

G'night all,

Wanda

We grand opened today!

2008-06-12T20:35:00.003-05:00

Finally! I can relax a bit. Over a hundred flyers were mailed, around 200 were placed in an antique mall, a shop and at an auction, about 80 were distributed where Ricky works, there was an ad in the newspaper and in the local classifieds paper. People trickled in all day. We were never swamped - thank goodness - and Erin got to go home and lie in the pool. I got to continue working on inventory and made some sales. I think it was a decent Thursday for the type business it is. I'm not complaining.

Lena and my friend, Melanie, helped with finishing up cleaning and fluffing last night and they each brought food. There's no way I can thank them enough. They are great friends.

Lena came to the house and cut flowers out of our yard and arranged them to put all over the shop. I cannot arrange flowers. Period. I'm terrible at that. It's definitely not one of my talents. I'm glad it's one of hers.

Here are some pictures:

Flowers as you enter the door.

The front window. It's so hard to take a picture looking out into the light. You can click to enlarge the picture. I think.

Erin made this from instructions on Stampington's site. (The price tag is for the basket, not the banner,)

Bugs in the chocolate?

The garden room. My favorite room and the one that takes the best pictures.

The food and register table.

Kids type stuff shelves.

I might get a couple more pictures tomorrow, but the middle room, the room in the above picture, has horrible lighting even though I use daylight bulbs. Everything has a yellowish cast. The pictures don't turn out very pretty. The front room hasn't changed since the last pictures so long ago, but I might go ahead and take some pictures there.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. I believe Saturday will be the busiest day. It should be, but whether or not that is what happens in reality remains to be seen.

Well, that was weird!

2008-06-08T21:50:00.002-05:00

It was an interesting weekend. I did make time for an antique dealer's estate sale on Friday and an auction Saturday. Found some pretty interesting things. But first..........

Erin was here and went with Lena and me to the estate sale on Friday. We went in Lena's Yukon. The sale, which was over an hour's drive from here, was appropriately billed as a "man's sale". Lots of primitive type things, boxes full of our favorite kind of junk and all was nasty, nasty, grody, grungy, nasty, dirty, icky, did I say NASTY? But how fun!! I spotted an enamel top table I needed to replace a card table in the kitchen area at the shop, but asked Lena's permission first. Was there enough room to put it in the Yukon? Sure! Go ahead!

We all three loaded up on smalls then Lena spotted a wonderful, primitive desk she wanted for herself. Uh, oh. How can we get all our junk, my table and that desk in the Yukon? Two young boys were there eager to help. Actually, I think they were eager to get to hang around Erin for a little while. They were scratching their heads on how to get everything in the vehicle. Doing the Star Trek Scotty thing. Captain, it can't be done! It's impossible! Then when he pulls it off, he looks like a hero. They worked and worked, but the only way it was happening was if all the seats were let down, leaving two seats for the three of us. Naturally, I didn't have the camera with me. It was a sight to behold. Erin and I shared the passenger seat. Thank goodness she's little. My behind, even sitting at an angle with half of it on the door took up most of the seat. The chubby boy thought it was pretty hot, though. Of course, I'd accidentally flashed a little boobage earlier which might have made things a little more appealing. No, it wasn't that bad. I'd just leaned over a bit too far trying to make room for boxes. If they didn't get a good view, they weren't looking.

Even still, that wasn't the weird happening of the day. Lena dropped us off at my house and we met her at the shop so I could unload my stuff. We were ahead of her by several minutes. When we pulled up, an elderly man was standing there looking at us and smiling. I got out, said hello and he said, "Well, I haven't seen you in years!" "How are you?" He's holding his arms out for a hug and I walked right into it. Gave him a hug, looked at him and told him I didn't recognize him. He asked me where I went to church. "First Baptist, but I used to go to Oak Grove and Oldfield." He said, "Odena?" "That's where I know you from." Me: "Oldfield, not Odena." Him: "Yeah, I went there, too." "I still sing in the choir." I'm racking my brain and coming up blank, so I asked him his name. He told me and I was still drawing a blank. Then he dropped the bomb. He said, "I'm walking to Jack's in this heat." (Jack's is an Alabama fast food place and a couple of blocks from the shop.) Then he looked at Erin and asked her if she'd drive him there. She looked at me like "Help!" And like, "Why did you talk to him?!" I just told him we were expecting someone to help us unload some furniture and I needed her help. He walked on. Poor Erin. She's thinking he might have been looking for someone to chop up. I think he's just got some dementia going on. He was dressed nicely and smelled like he takes regular baths, so he's not too far gone, yet. Breaks my heart. He's probably somebody's grandpa.

So now here are some of the things bought:

Metal drapery swing arms and as usual for me, I didn't get all the end pieces. There is another end piece that's not in the picture. That makes it worse. Three have an end piece and one doesn't.

Furniture pediment things.

I was excited about finding these.

That scalloped plate is, I was told, a dentist's tray, but shhhhh. We're going to pretend it's a milk glass cake or sandwich plate. I loved the look of the yellow stool.

More things I was excited to get.

And my favorite, aluminum letters.

It's almost here!

2008-06-03T20:25:00.002-05:00

The grand opening. It's next week!! June 12, 13 and 14. Ack! I'm still pricing things, making jewelry cards and digging out more jewelry. There's a whole wall that looks yuck, and Ricky hasn't brought his little boy things down, yet. He also needs to hang my sign, wire some speakers, put in a phone jack and lots of odds and ends. I don't even have a phone, yet. That's one reason I haven't blogged lately. I'm down there all day and haven't had time at night. Too, nothing much interesting has been happening, or if it did there was no time to talk about it.

Let's see. We bought a bass boat sort of on the spur of the moment. Someone Ricky knew was selling it at a good price and he wanted it. We've had it at least a month, but haven't had a chance to put it in the water.

Erin's having a dental implant and I've had to be on hand with the credit card. Whole days I should have been working in the shop. But I don't mind. It's for my baby.

Lena went to NYC - lucky duck - and I was on animal duty two times last weekend. Twelve cats and four(?) dogs. But that all went well. One geriatric cat slipped by me and escaped laundry room confinement, but he was pretty easy to catch.

Oh! I did go to an interesting sale last Thursday. It was hair day, so I was going toward Birmingham anyway and this sale was 10 miles or so away from the salon as the crow flies, but a long time traveling when you have to travel highways, stop at red lights and battle traffic.

The sale advertised a huge doll collection (they did not exaggerate), depression glass and lots of other things -- all "priced to sell". Ha! We all know what that means. "Priced to sell" is very subjective. I ended up with little nick-nacky stuff. Figurines and such. A couple of small pictures, a small McCoy pitcher. Just stuff. But I did pick up a Westmoreland milk glass set. It was a basket bowl with a lid that had eggs molded in with a yellow chick on top as the knob. There were 4 chick egg cups with it, 6 pieces in all. Marked $12.00. I thought I might could get $40 or $50 for it and thought I'd take the $12 chance. I took everything to the check out table and when they got to that set, the lady working the adding machine was a little surprised. She thought it was more than that, but the lady wrapping said, "No, the tag says 6 pieces, $12.00". I wrote the check and the wrapping lady continued to wrap. Slowly.

Just as she got through and I was about to leave, another lady came back and said the price for the chicks set was wrong. It was supposed to be $125.00!! ! Gasp! In shock, I said "Ooo! I want my $12 back". Then I chuckled and said I was hoping I could sell it for $40. They didn't find that funny. "Oh, no. It's worth a lot more than that." I got the first check back, wrote another minus the $12 and was on my way. As I was walking to the car, the shock wore off. "Heyyyy, wait a minute!" If I'd done that in the shop or on the web site, it would have been tough luck for me. I wouldn't dream of saying pay the price it should have been priced at or give it back. I thought about going back and telling them that and calling it to their attention how nice I was about it and just anybody wouldn't have taken it so lightly. But by that time I had 10 minutes to make a 20 to 30 minute drive, so I didn't.

Once home I did a little research. $70 seems to be the going price for the set. I wonder if they ever sold it?

That's about it for me. Just work.

Catch 'ya later.

Wanda

Thank you, Lord for your bountiful harvest

2008-05-17T20:52:00.004-05:00

Who's gonna let a little ol' cold keep 'em in two days in a row? Certainly not me! Last night, I took some Advil and some Sominex (so when I woke up in the middle of the night realizing how sore my throat was and started swallowing and couldn't stop, maybe I could actually go back to sleep quickly) and got up this morning with no fever. Woohoo! I actually felt like getting out! So, I swallowed a couple of Advil, just in case, and took off. A little discombobulated, but out there.

The first was in a neighboring neighborhood. It was supposed to be a yard/estate sale. I sort of knew the people having the sale. Knew as in the man's sister married my first cousin and surely I've met them some time in my life, but I don't recognize them when I see them nor they me. I still can't figure out whose estate it should have been, but I sure hope it was the dredges. Honestly, it looked they went to a crummy thrift store and bought the cheapest dollar store junk they had. I bought a round, Plexiglass top for those cheap, put together round tables we all have. I have one at the store that needs a top over the tablecloth so I'll have something to dust, so that was OK. But I sure hoped that wasn't a sign of the day. Hold on, estate sales in Birmingham! I'm a comin'!

Have I told y'all that Birmingham has the best sales? While I've done well at times at the regular yard sales locally, I don't really like going to them here. They are hit or miss. The toughest competition gets out before daylight and gets people out of bed. I won't do that. Plus I'd rather not buy things locally that are going into the shop. Don't want people stopping in and seeing something I bought from them. It's just weird. And some people take offense that it was marked up more than double. They don't understand. The exception to that, for me, is estate sales. I will go to them here.

The first sale in Bumingham-town was small, but had impact. I think this might be a fun time to let you inside my head. To hear the voice in my head when I'm at a sale. And yes, I do talk to myself in complete sentences sometimes.

The GPS system guided me through a neighborhood and told me my destination was ahead. Then she said I'd arrived at my destination. The voice in my head: Where? Is this it? Part of the number's on the mailbox. Oh, there's stuff under the carport. I reached for my checkbook and its not there! Dang! I left the checkbook on the chest. How much money do I have. OK. I'll go to the ATM if I have to. I walked up and spotted..... oh, I'd better not tell that because it's a present for Lena. I picked up the xxxxx and moved on. Looked at some jewelry, picked out a few pieces, got a couple of lampshades, then realized there are no other shoppers there. Am I the first one here?? Surely not! I'm right on time, maybe a little early, but they didn't act like I was first. It's beginning to dawn on me that the sale was run by family. That's often very good. I went into the utility room. Hey! Look at that vase on that shelf! Can I reach that? I guess I can climb on the washing machine, but let's see.......I can reach it! Oooo! I like that!

On into the house. I turn toward the dining room. Oops. This is the dining room. I never go this way first. Should I turn around and go to the den? Nah. I'm here. Might as well see what.....WOW! Really?! Am I dreaming? Yes, I literally asked myself that. There're still no other shoppers. Is that the McCoy vase I saw in completed highest priced auctions the other day? I don't know. Maybe. But for that price, I can take a chance. OK. I'm not leaving my stuff to go to the ATM, so I better choose wisely. I passed on a lot of stuff I'd have bought if I had a check. That made me sad. I continued on.

Oh, that's too plain. It's pottery, but probably nothing.

Well, go ahead and look at the bottom.

Whoa! Those handles look like Roseville! Nothing on the bottom and awfully plain, but for that price........ Hey! Look at that mirror! Do I have enough money? I don't know. I'll just pile it up and figure out then what to put back.

I didn't go through the whole head conversation. That would take half an hour. I ended up putting back a neat, tole waste can, the jewelry and some fancy scissors. When I got home, I saw that the lamp shades I thought were 25¢ each and told the fellow taking the money that's what they were, were really marked $3.00 each. It was an honest mistake, but I feel bad about that.

Here are pictures of some of the stuff bought there and the two other sales I attended.

The blue vase on the right. Camark, possibly? It was on the utility room shelf. The vase on the left could be McCoy Onyx? Or something else? I'm having trouble identifying the pottery bought today.

A red, Hoosier drawer insert - wood, girl, potholder hanger thing - old, tin house numbers - an early century or maybe late 19th century Pike's Peak brochure - a book of poems with florals, a Dionne Quints ink blotter - an old literary club card and the mirror.

A tole chandelier - after a trip to the ATM.

And after another trip to the ATM......Large, lighted Santa that might come to my house, I haven't decided that, yet. Old, flocked, Night Before Christmas book - little Santa match holder - Gurley candles - old Christmas Scotch Tape that you can't tell anything about in the picture - three large, net stockings and one small - a candy cane quarter saver and four little condiment boxes.

I also got a lot of genealogy and history type stuff and a shoe box of architectural pieces that I forgot to get a picture of. It was nothing all that special, anyway.

At the sale with all the Christmas stuff, I was toting around a porcelain angel, dropped her and her head and wings broke off. I was such a wicked warmit. I put her on a bottom shelf in a closet. Shhhh. Don't tell anybody.

Whew! Sorry about the dissertation! I've just been so deprived of sales lately. But are you like me and think you got so, so much, and when you actually get it all out and look at it think, "Is this it?? Is this all there is?" "I thought it was a lot more than that."

I'd really like to go back to one sale tomorrow for half price day, but don't know if I will or not. I'm afraid the things I passed on will still be more than I want to pay even at half price.

Home today

2008-05-16T15:05:00.002-05:00

Woe is me! I've had a bit of a sore throat all week, but last night it developed into full blown....... something. Flu, bronchitis, really bad cold........... I had a rough night last night, running a fever rocking between 100 and 101, but still got up this morning hoping I felt good enough to hit the sales. Uh, no. I went back to bed and didn't get up until 12:00 and have been in and out of sleep ever since. Still with that little fever. It's now a little after 5 pm.

There are two types of people in the world when it comes to running a fever. Three, really. The group who begins taking a fever reducer immediately, the group who lets the fever do it's thing fighting infection and those who don't fool with any of that, but head straight to the doctor. It's no surprise I'm in the stubborn group. As long as the fever doesn't get too high and I'm not too miserable, I let it do it's thing. So I feel pretty crummy.

This is another reason I don't want a store that has a regular, several days a week open schedule. What if I was supposed to be open today? I'd be up he creek without a paddle. No one to take over for me. But, since I'm not scheduled to be open today, I have the luxury of nursing my whatever-it-is-I-have.

I'm lying down as I type this which isn't easy, even with the laptop, so I'll end this post. Just wanted to moan and groan a little. I try not to do that for real. I'm waiting for Mr. I'm Working Midnights to get up and go get the DQ Blizzard I requested several hours ago when he was up briefly. He didn't seem to understand the urgency of it. He'd better hurry and that's all I've got to say about that!

Mmmmmm........ Candles

2008-05-14T21:32:00.002-05:00

I don't plan to carry any new merchandise, but needed something for a pity purchase if people come in and find nothing to their liking. Capri Blue candles are my choice. These are some of the best candles I've ever sniffed. I first found them at Anthropologie, did some investigation and found that no one locally carries them, so an order was made. So far, we have Aloha Orchid, Volcano, Peeled Naval Orange and Paris. I'd actually smelled the first three and knew they were wonderful, but took a chance on Paris. I liked the name and it turned out to be a good bet. It's very different from the others. Has almost a powdery scent. We had Aloha Orchid burning Saturday so that's the one everyone wanted. All the small jars of that "flavor" are gone now. For the grand opening, we'll have a sample of each burning. Hope nobody's allergic!

~~~~~

I've gone to officialdom kicking and screaming. Each step is very difficult for me to make. The business license, the sign on the window and now a business bank account. Why should I have to think about that? Why is it so hard? Next will be a telephone and then a credit card merchant account. This is all expensive, too! I just want to buy and sell. Hunt the stuff. Sell so I can buy more stuff. Keep records? Yuck! That kind of thing makes me wish I'd just kept all this a hobby. But I'll survive.

~~~~~

It's so nice not to feel like I've got to work constantly at the shop. I do work there a lot, but I'm not so pushed. I'm beginning to spend more time on the new web site. Figured since the site address is on the window of the shop the site probably needs to be presentable.

I'll eventually move the blog to the site and change the look just a little. That's something I dread. It means I'll have to think. Thinking's harrrrddddd! It hurts! The web site is hard enough, but the layout of it is almost done. Next will be taking pictures of all those things, writing descriptions and putting them on the site. That promises to only take for-e-ver.

So that's what's going on right now. Exciting, huh? Sigh.

2008-05-11T19:44:00.002-05:00

It's official! The window has been lettered. There's no denying this is really a shop now. That line going across is a shelf that was there when I moved in. I've always wanted to remove it, but that was more complicated than it looked, so it's still there. There are a lot of reflections in the window and I'm still unhappy with that old, green paint. I just can't figure out what color to use instead. It needs to be something that's historical, not a trendy color. I think we're going to see about maybe getting the buildings put on the historical register.

I did tell a few people and was open officially on Saturday. Not everything was priced, still isn't, but we had it looking decent. A few friends dropped by and a few curious wanderer-ins. Or would that be wanderers-in? Made a few sales, enough to help me get a feel for the process. Easing into things is much more my style than jumping in with both feet.

Here are pictures of some of the areas:

Spindles from the old Birmingham courthouse, iron bracket and a stack of Southern agricultural books.
~~~~~

That iron stand looked nekkid on the bare, cement floor, so we gave it a "grass" rug. It looks better in person than in the picture.
~~~~~

Old shopping cart in the front window.
~~~~~

The "Blue" shelves. My handy dandy hubby made those shelves. Am I a lucky girl or what?
~~~~~

The back window. Sorry the picture is so dark.
~~~~~

I feel like I can relax a little now. Maybe stay home and clean the house. I might actually cook a meal! And who knows? Maybe I can get back into the blogging habit. I sure hope so. I miss it. Miss seeing what all of you are doing.

There's still a lot to do before the grand opening next month, but I can see daylight now. Whew!

Latest finds and........... It's getting closer!!

2008-05-04T17:25:00.003-05:00

Again, I only attended two sales this week. A large estate sale and a yard sale at an antique mall. I really wish I'd had my camera with me. There were about 50 boxes on the ground at the estate sale, all full to overflowing. My thought was that I'd better not hear anyone say "this ain't work"! The boxes were mostly full of just stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff, but looking through each box netted a few cool things. The house had very good things with prices a bit higher than I wanted to pay, but I did come out with some neat items, I think. I thought about going back today for half price, but it was an hour's drive and there was no way of knowing if anything decent was left, so I stayed around here.

Cement planter/bird bath thing.
~~~~~

More Christmas. Most, not very old, but will work well for decorations next year at the shop.
~~~~~

A Tuck Valentine on the left. The little card opens and it's all on padded, fringed silk. The New Year's card on the right is two sided. The other side shows the child chasing the goose.
~~~~~

Number 2 wash tub.
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Tin chocolate display. It's about 3-1/2' long and has doors on the back for storage.
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Glove box? Looks Christmassey to me.
~~~~~

Apgar's Plant Analysis book, daisies tray, rooster napkin holder, old bow tie, aqua Christmas coasters, McCoy frog planter, Air Express coasters, old birthday candles and a woven, tapestry lid watch box.

I also got an Italian Creche and a 1960s mushroom footstool. Something else?? It seems like there was something else that didn't get in a picture.
~~~~~

The shop is sooooooooo close to opening!! I'm trying to get the storage area straightened up for the building inspector to come by and declare me fit for a business license. Got to clean a few areas for that, too. Other than that, I've been pricing and arranging. That's it. No, that's not quite true. I'll have to get the sign man out there (My cousin's husband. Small town, ya know). He has all the information already. I just couldn't decide on the font for the name. I still can't really decide, but will just go with a normal, only slightly fancy font. Got to clean the windows, too. It looks like I'll have a soft opening this coming weekend! I'll just pass the word around instead of sending out mailings this time. That will give me a chance to work out the kinks before the grand opening. I'm getting excited! Can't wait to take pictures to share!

Sales booty

2008-04-25T20:20:00.005-05:00

Lena and I finally got to go to the sales together today and we even had a driver! Her sweet hubby drove and held things for us and took stuff to the car. Too bad we only went to one sale. There just wasn't much going on worth the gas. Actually, we went to one estate sale and one garage sale. The garage sale was all newer, Home Goods type stuff, neither of us bought anything. Nice, just not what we sell. The estate sale was OK. Just OK, though. Nothing terribly exciting, but I'm trying to get back in the groove of blogging, so took pictures of the finds.

An art deco picture frame, a pudding mold, Scotty dog book end, saucers for candles, an old, "Seasons" print (sitting at a bad angle here), a McCoy El Rancho bowl and a bride and groom cake topper. I just grabbed the bride and groom. It didn't occur to me until I got home that they're not very old. 1980s, maybe.

Broken, iron bracket.

Pile of reindeer, a sled with a broken runner and a one armed Santa. I'll keep him. I don't have one with his face and I have lots of compassion for the maimed.

Box of trim, lace and rick rack, cute, long, coat and tie change purse, marble base, sorta fancy side, vanity mirror.

Voile apron with black flocking and a vintage, Vera dish towel.

Did you notice the gorgeous wall behind? Well, we think it's gorgeous. I've finally started putting things in that room. Worked this afternoon until I hurt from the waist down more than I cared to. I'd really like to work all day tomorrow, but will go to Erin's to her neighborhood yard sale and the big festival thing that's going on in the area. Maybe there'll be an estate sale somewhere nearby. I-hope-I-hope-I-hope.

The tags

2008-04-22T10:17:00.004-05:00

Two posts in two days! Now if I can just take the time to visit everyone's blogs....

I thought y'all might like to see the price tags I'm making.

This summer turned up lots of vintage fabric scraps. Many were apron ties to-be. Perfect. I use a rotary zig zag cutter, stamp on the store name and web site address, then use eyelets for the button area. This tag was one of the first made where I was still struggling to thread heavy string through a large needle then sew a button on. Now, I'm using ribbon - much easier to thread - and threading the button with the ribbon through the eyelet. I don't suppose I have to use eyelets, but that's what I'm doing at the moment. I do have to glue the button to the fabric to keep it from flopping around. This is fun and relaxing to do while watching TV. Oh, the price is then written on a printer label and stuck to the back. So, if you come in and buy something, you'll have a bookmark to keep! Slick, huh? I'll include one with each web site purchase, too.

(The web site isn't quite ready yet. You can look and could buy, but there's not much there and the design isn't finished. It's like the shop, needs a whole lot of tweaking.)

I have gazillions of buttons. This one tub is over 10 lbs. I bought two of these dog food tubs full of old buttons a few years ago. Sold one on eBay for $78!, but just couldn't part with both, being a button collector and all. Now I'm really glad I at least kept this one. It was full to the brim when I started making tags. Wish I had them both,now.

Just an update

2008-04-21T16:40:00.006-05:00

Man! Will life EVER settle down to "normal"? Ricky was on vacation all last week, Erin spent a couple of days with us and we all worked at the shop. It seems like it's never ending just to get the place presentable. Well, we'd have been just about ready to open if we hadn't decided to use that last room. I'm glad we did, though. It promises to be the favorite room.

It was a glorious day today. I love our house this time of year. Which is precisely why I don't want a shop that's open every day - or even almost every day. I like being at home. Our house has tons of natural light coming in and I can sit in the den with the windows open, warm - or cool - air wafting in, sometimes with the smell of honeysuckle or roses, the morning sunlight filling the room and wonder how beautiful Heaven will be if it's better than this. I hated to leave, but I had to. Went to the shop and scraped up peel-and-stick tiles. Some were completely loose, others needed a little muscle with a scraper, and way too many had to be chiseled with a hammer hitting the scraper. Ugh. But all that's done now. In a day or two we'll rent a floor cleaner and I'll be on my way to finishing. The end is in sight!! Still lots and lots of work to be done, but it's getting there.

I've started pricing things when there was nothing else I could do. Pricing may prove to be the hardest thing of all. What price is too expensive or too cheap? I've always used eBay as my guide when I had booths, but now..... I'm not so sure I want to do that. Or even can do that. So many of the things in the shop don't have a comparable item on eBay. Then there are things like a nice, floral, crackle glaze creamer. On eBay it might get $5.00 if it sells at all. If I put $5.00 on it for the shop, would people think it was junk? Even though it has decorative value? What if I put $20.00 on it? Would they then look at it and think I was nuts for putting such a high price on something in that condition? I could also look at it like $5 on eBay would have almost $5 shipping on it bringing me to pricing it at $10 which could still seem cheap. Or not?

You see, my biggest problem is that, as a shopper, I look for the bargain. Always looking to resell. I don't know how to see things through the eyes of people who shop the shops instead of the sales. I don't know what "they" think is too expensive or too cheap. When I shop in a shop, I think everything is too expensive and wonder if they ever sell things or if the items sit there forever. Sigh. What a quandry. (That's not spelled right.)

And what about the name of my blog? Does that mean I should be less expensive on everything? I'm not really wanting to change the name. Fun. That's what I want the shop to be. A fun experience. The blog name fits that. I think my stuff is fun, but is it cool enough to demand a higher price than I'm inclined to put on it - which is what I think I'd be willing to pay? I have no idea! I'm so corn-fused!

So, in a week or so I'll have the gang over to take a look and let me know if I'm too cheap. I'll have to feed them well, because I want them to look at everything. Think to themselves what price they'd expect to see then judge how far off I am. I might be too high on some things, too. This is so not like retail where you just double your price. That doesn't work in this business.

Background music was purchased tonight. Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darrin, Ella Fitzgerald, a compilation of "The Great Crooners" and...... Bob Dylan. Had to get a little of me in there! If it was all me, there might be Led Zeppelin or Korn or Pink Floyd or Nine Inch Nails. Or any number of contemporary Christian artists or some bluegrass. I went for sexy music. I think. Isn't it? Sex sells, don't-cha know? LOL

So that's where things are at the moment. Catch-ya later.

I'm still here

2008-04-08T18:05:00.004-05:00

Did you think I'd fallen off the face of the earth? There were times I wished I would, but I didn't and now I can take a break to blog a bit.

First, we worked at the store, naturally. Work, work, work. When will it all be finished enough to walk through? I've told y'all how the things Ricky thinks are important aren't the same things I think are. I want to get the areas people will see ready THEN work on the back part, which will be storage/work area. HE wants to get everything organized in the back then work on the other part. Since he's doing the hard stuff, I bow to him. There was one area that I eventually wanted to open, but figured it could wait. It was an area he wanted to go ahead and paint, but the walls needed scraping and just look at what we found under that ugly, flat, white paint. (The picture doesn't do it justice.)

OK. This area will be open QUICK! It will be the garden area. Lots of natural light. This has put us back a good bit. There's more wall to scrape and we'll have to petition off the areas people shouldn't see.

Philip, our son, came up for a few days and, God love him, he helped scrape. Erin also spent time scraping. That's love.

I don't remember what all else has gone on since March 20. I do remember a couple of weeks filled with appointments and stuff, but this last week was awful. I got the dreaded mammogram call back. For you British girls, I've read we have at least twice as many call backs as you do.

Now, I was expecting this one. I haven't had one in eight years. Had a call back then, just a few months after my mother had been diagnosed with a rare cancer and was told she only had a few months left to live. That experience was so awful - both my mother's sickness and the call back, but I'm talking about the call back here - I couldn't bring myself to have another mammogram until now. Of course, that first one was clear. Just a cyst. I couldn't find a gyn I was happy with and just went along merrily, but finally figured I'd better find one and get a check up.

I knew I'd get a call back on the mammo. KNEW it. EXPECTED it. I'd had a breast infection a few years ago and figured there'd be some changes from that. So they call me on the phone. Uh, just how urgent is that? Do they do that now? I chuckled and said I was expecting the call back and had even joked when I had the screening if I should go ahead and schedule the follow-up. Then I told her I figured it was because of the infection I'd had some time back. She paused. Yes, paused!! I said, "Aw come on! Let me have that!" Then she said yes, it could be that. Not very encouraging. But here's the kicker. The lady put a name to it. Architectural something-or-other. Something I could Google. I had too much information and went into panic mode. It actually fit what I was expecting, but you Google that and see if it wouldn't scare the mess outta you!

I'm absolutely not a worrier. Hardly ever worry about anything, but when I do get something on my mind, it just won't go away. I couldn't eat for two days. ME! That's unheard of. Nothing takes away my appetite, but that sure did.

So today was THE DAY. I was still sure everything was fine, but was still a bundle of nerves. They did the spot compression - ouch! That hurts! Then did the ultrasound. Yes, I'm fine. It was nothing. Praise God! But......oh, I won't say what I want to say about the misery they put me through for a week. I guess I should be grateful it wasn't any longer than that. If the lady I talked to on the phone hadn't put a name to it, I don't think I'd have been so concerned.

Now you know what a big baby I am when it comes to my health. Or even my loved ones' health which includes friends. Or my cat's health - who is a loved one, too.

I'm back on schedule now, making tags, pricing things at the shop, still trying to move stuff around and waiting on Ricky to finish his part.

Til next time,

Wanda

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

2008-03-20T22:13:00.005-05:00

Hopping down the Bunny Trail...............

The same mantle that gets decorated for every major holiday is all decked out for Easter. I'm quite proud of myself for taking the time out to decorate it. We'll just pretend the antique Christmas tree stands holding Christmas candles are not on the hearth below. That's all the Christmas that's still out! I promise! No, I lie. Sigh. There are still boxes in the dining room that need to be put in the attic. But here's Easter!

And See Peter Cottontail?

He was a 2007 acquisition. I've been searching for him for years and years. Oh, I'd find one occasionally, but his ears would be missing or he wouldn't make music or he'd be outrageously expensive, but this one just appeared at the antique mall Lena and I were in (she still is), in great condition and at a price I approved of. Let me explain why I wanted him so badly.

I had one as a child. I actually only have one real memory of playing with him. We were staying with my mother's parents. It had something to do with selling our old house and moving into the new one, but we sold it to those same grandparents, so that doesn't make sense. I'll have to ask Daddy about that. I was 4 or 5 years old while we were staying there and have a few very distinct memories about the house and the stay. I remember the little bedroom the three of us slept in. I remember there was a creek by the house. Ha. Some creek. It was the textile mill's dye ditch, but the street's name was Creek Street, so by the house we called it a creek. A block away we called it the dye ditch. I remember my mother trying to get me to swallow an aspirin. I couldn't do it, so she put it in a banana. Still couldn't do it. I don't remember the outcome of that, but it was all very traumatic. I remember peeping through the keyhole of the bathroom trying to see what my uncle's you-know-what looked like. My daddy was very modest, I didn't have any brothers and my boy cousins lived far away. Not that I'd have asked them to see theirs. I didn't see anything through the keyhole, by the way, so my innocence remained. And I remember playing with Peter Cottontail. I just loved him. Who knows what happened to him? Maybe this one was my Peter. Well, it's possible. Let me have my fantasy, OK?

~~~~~~

The shop seems to be moving along at a snail's pace. It's not really, but I won't think it's flying toward completion until it looks like a shop. But that's when it's finished, isn't it?

We took a couple of the shelves Ricky made down there today and I was able to empty out some more boxes - with room left over! Last week he repaired the ceiling in the back and painted the storage area. That's his idea of getting things ready. Make the area nobody sees look good. Oh, well. It needs to be done, too. It just puts me behind on other things.

If I'm not down there working, I'm home making tags, editing pictures or working on the web site. That's a slow go, too. I've got some PHP showing that I can't figure out how to make disappear. I spend more time searching Zen Cart forums than actually working on the site and not near enough time adding products.

So that's what's been going on the last 10 days of my life. How 'bout you?

Hippity hoppity Easter's on it's way

Sales in the snow

2008-03-10T20:54:00.002-05:00

Obviously my life is still not back to normal as can be seen by my lack of posting and reading/commenting. Last week was a week of appointments. Tuesday was my annual gyn, Wednesday was the cat's annual and the dentist to repair my tooth and Thursday was hair day. Friday? Erm......ummm...Friday? Not a clue. I do remember there were no sales to speak of, so I stayed in. Saturday, however was more interesting.

We woke up to a blizzard. OK, we might have got an accumulation of 1/2", but man, that snow was coming down! I watched the weather and road closings and by 10:00 was on my way. I'd called Lena to see if she wanted to ride with me. She'd not been to any sales in awhile and was antsy to get out too, so off we went.

I did realize before we left that my finances were in dire need of......money. I was broke. Ricky has been sweet enough to pay the rent on the shop until we get it open and I've not worked much at selling. eBay usually provides a cash flow, but I haven't been doing much there resulting in poverty for me. Would I let a lack of funds keep me from an estate sale? Why, no! Why would you think that?

We went to one sale. There were a couple of things I couldn't afford and talked Lena into buying them, but here's what I came home with:

Platter, plate and bowl, clown glass, darning egg, McCoy? cornucopia flowerpot and a little picture made in Italy. Oh, and a small towel bar to match the larger towel bar I found two weeks ago.

Suzy Homemaker juicer, two Santa tidbit trays, a cool, plastic salad set (not washed yet) and a box of 1960s Christmas Cards.

Lady Sunbeam blow dryer, blown glass hanging lamp - only the shade is pictured - and an old sprinkler that's in worse condition than I realized, but I have two friends who collect sprinklers. I'll be able to make them a heck of a deal. The blow dryer is in worse condition than I realized, too and will most likely go straight to a yard sale.

Here, I thought I was buying a bag of butterfly specimens. It turned out that was only a small portion of the bag. A little disappointing, but I'd have paid the price of all this for just those two packs of butterflies, so the rest was a bonus. There's a butterfly made from peacock feathers, two packs of dyed fern fronds, two Jim Dandy puppy prints and four outdoorsman prints.

It's amazing what you can find with little more than pocket change.

~~~~~~

I'd like to introduce you to my friend and step sister-in-law's blog, if you haven't already met her. Lynn and I met when my father married her husband's mother six years ago. Her blog shows the progress of the renovation on their antique house. So pretty! She's also a very talented seamstress and craftsperson. Swamp Girl

Can You Spell L-A-Z-Y?

2008-03-02T16:27:00.002-06:00

Oh, my! I've stayed in all week. Got out a few times just to go to the drive through or down to the shop for a little while, but for the most part, I've been sitting on the couch working on putting inventory in a spreadsheet. Ricky had a stomach virus and I stayed home with him. He's finally back at work today. Thank goodness! But this has made me a lazy daisy. I took some cold medicine last night and don't think it's actually worn of yet. It was an absolutely gorgeous day today and what did I do? Slept a good chunk of the afternoon. Shameful. I missed the day and didn't get much done.

I didn't even go to the sales this weekend, but did last weekend swollen lip and all. Here are the few things I found.

Heart cutters made in Denmark, three pairs of gloves, a really old Clinchfield Cremer and a blue trim bowl.

Quilt. Umm. OK. A quilt.

A towel bar stand thing and a marble top, iron table. That made the day worth it. Oh, and an old, store ,embroidery floss display box with glass top. Didn't get a good picture of it and as much as I was in love with it when I found it under all those linens, I don't really like it much anymore.

~~~~~

Have you been seeing the commercial for I Can Make You Thin on TLC? It starts March 16. I'm looking forward to that show. Hope he means what he says! I wanna be thin!

Award Day

2008-02-26T16:24:00.003-06:00

My mouth is close to normal again. The last remnants of the scab mustache disappeared this morning and the tooth is in place as much as it's going to be. It was badly chipped and will have to be filled and the dentist said he'd make everything right when he did that. I still have a little swelling in the lip, but at least I don't look like a cartoon character anymore. Naturally, now that that's all on its way out, I get a crud sinus thing. Think maybe I picked that up at the emergency room? I gotta say though, that I'm glad I didn't have it when my lip was so swollen. There's no way I could have blown my nose or wiped the sn..., well you know what I mean.

I did go to the sales this past weekend and picked up some cool stuff, but I have no pictures, yet. I kept forgetting to take the camera to the store. Later on all that.

Feeling pretty crappy, I'm curled up on the couch with the laptop and thought, "It's time to blog!" But I have no pictures and not much to say, then I realized I'd not bragged about the latest awards shared by some sweet blogging friends.

Dona at Antekin passed the Blogging Buddies award to me.

Vickie at Sand Flat Farm and Connie at Magnolia Street Style both shared the You Make My Day Award.

I'd like to thank the three of you, my husband and children, my real life friends, my blogging friends, my parents who made me who I am today, my cat, Buster, all the little people who made this happen, and most especially God, without whom I am nothing.

Of course I'm being silly, but couldn't help myself with award season on TV. But if you take out the little people thing and take out the context, I meant every word. I am thankful for so much in my life. God is good all the time.

I've been a terrible blogger lately. Not just my posts, which don't amount to a hill of beans, but I've not had time to read all my friends' posts. For that I'm sorry. I appreciate so much those of you who come by and leave comments even when I haven't seen what's going on in your life lately. And new friends have stopped by that I haven't returned the favor. This simply will not do! I've got to get my life back to normal! But you all know what's been coming first. Working in the shop.

I still can't see much progress, but shelves have been made and are awaiting paint. After that, it should be a cinch. Maybe.

I want to cruise some blogs tonight, but might have to drag myself to Home Depot. Egads! I better wear tennis shoes! I don't want to get up off the couch. Don't want to get dressed. But, there might be some supper at the Mexican Restaurant in it, so I probably will go.

Oh my, what a day!

2008-02-20T19:17:00.003-06:00

The same ol', same ol' has been my life lately, but today changed all that. We went to The Home Depot. Shopped, paid and took everything out to the truck. All's fine. I put the buggy (cart to most of the US) in the buggy corral, turned around, stepped on a rock, stumbled to the right, stumbled to the left and went down. Face first. I ate up the pavement. I jumped up and blood was pouring out of my mouth. I knew I'd hit my teeth and was afraid I'd lost the two front teeth or at best broken them. Ricky turned around to see me leaning over pouring blood. He thought someone had hit me. Isn't that just how a man would think? He said if anyone had been around he'd have lit into them.

We didn't know whether to go to the emergency room, doctor's office or dentist, but because of the blood, elected the emergency room. It turned out that the blood was a really bad cut inside my upper lip. My lip is swollen and I'll be bruised all around my face. My teeth are intact, but one was pushed back, so I went to the dentist who took x-rays. All looked good in the x-rays and he gave me a wooden stick to bite on to push the tooth back in place. I thought it would take time and was biting on the stick this evening and it popped back into place all at once. Scared me! I thought I've really broken it this time, but I guess not. Armed with Loritab I daren't not take for a day or two, I'll be just fine.

~~~~~

Now, here's this past weekend's loot. Not so very much, but I don't regret anything, so that's good.

Small Italian pictures.

Large cameo. The frame is a couple of feet tall. Can you see the pink on the inside of the design?

Always a sucker for rust and green handles, but a green handle squeegee? That might be carrying it a bit too far.
Also in this picture is a little porcelain drawer with brown roosters on it and a blue Swanky Swig.

I forgot to get a picture of the old blue, wooden, ice cream freezer. Don't know if it works and there are no paddles, but that's not why I bought it. I liked the blue, wooden freezer.

~~~~~~

I don't think I've shown y'all the picture I'm thinking of using for the business cards, have I? This copy is optimized too much. It actually is clearer than this. I don't know how well it will translate into a small size, though. I'd use it on the left side of the card. Regardless, I just love that picture and it's definitely going on the web site's "about us" page.

It's getting better and the roadside was good to me

2008-02-14T06:31:00.003-06:00

Wow! Thanks for the support, y'all! I've had lots of suggestions, but you know, in the end we work at our own pace in our own, best way. I think last week I was just tired and overwhelmed. I'd been there every day and couldn't see the progress, nor could I see the solution. After taking a couple of days break, I went back at it fresh and cleaned two areas. We can now navigate through the office and the area around the storage closet and restroom, as well as the restroom itself, are neatened up. I can't tell you how much better just that little bit makes me feel. We'll get there. Everything in it's time. Ricky will have three days off this weekend and I've got a list of things lined up for him. But the best part is -- we've set an opening date! We're looking at the second weekend in April. Now, when I set a date, nobody pays attention. Things that are out of my control don't get done. I get interrupted and sidetracked. But when Ricky sets a date, he generally sticks to it, although he's not as good at it as he used to be. As the years go by, he's getting more like me than either of us care to admit, but I think since this is a fairly public thing, he'll stick to it if at all possible. One thing is certain. The doors won't open until a few things my electrician business partner (husband) takes care of. They've got to be done before we can get a business license.

~~~~~~~

We were at the shop Sunday evening and a house close by had some things on the street. A cheap, table and chairs, another "disposable" chair and some old doors. Old doors?! Go back! Gasp! And a rusty, crusty, wire rack! Get 'em! We thought there were just a couple of doors in the pile, but it turned out to be six! One still has the white, porcelain doorknob and key thingy. Another has a tin doorknob. Do the others have doorknobs? I didn't notice. But the door on the bottom was a lovely aqua color. Yippee! I luv old doors. Some will be turned into shelves. I didn't get a picture of them, but did get a picture of the rack.

Before and

After:

I got some of the fabric piles off the floor. It was bothering me trying to figure out where they were going to go. Once I get everything worked out into tentative spots, the fun can begin, but as long as things are in piles or hidden, it.....well, that's what overwhelms me. Going through the fabric (the fabric bought in during the summer - there are bags of fabric and linens in the back that have been accumulated through the years) I found small, quilting scraps that I have a plan for. If it works out I'll be a-showin' it to ya.

I'm also working on the new website. The logo has had me stymied. I want the logo to convey the feeling of the shop which includes quirky, so this is what I've decided on at this point. (The edges around the oval need to be cleaned up, still.)

The only thing about that is, it's definitely feminine. Not gonna attract very many men. So that would be for the website only. I guess just the words for the signs at the shop, but you should see what I'm thinking for the business cards. I haven't scanned that photo, yet. I asked Ricky if he wanted his own business cards for his tractors and toys. Of course he hasn't thought about any of that. He's obsessed with painting and organizing the back room. Anyway, I showed him what I was thinking about and he said he approved. Don't know if he was really OK with it or if that was only to get me to shut up or if he just doesn't care. I'm sure he thinks a simple, ordinary card with words is fine. Just like he thinks all I need are shelves. Why would I need furniture? He doesn't quite grasp the creative display concept. But he can visualize things I can't. We make a pretty good team - when we're willing to listen to each other and not throw up our guards.

This week's sales and why I'm so frustrated

2008-02-10T12:18:00.000-06:00

First, I'd like to share this weeks finds. Not many sales were happening and only two of those were producers, but I'm really happy with what I found.

Do you love it? The charcoal drawing of the lady? It was done by an 18 year old, senior high school student in art class in, I'd say, the early 1950s. The information is on the back, but no date. There is a signature at the bottom and there might be a date there, but I didn't have my glasses on to look closely.
Also in this picture, a pair of Jesus and Mary pictures, plastic Santa and snowman candy containers, old, fancy balls and an old, flannel bag with monkeys on it.

The cookbook is packed full of loose recipes cut from the paper and magazines and many, hand written recipes. The Bible is a family Bible with some family information filled in going back to 1803. Montgomerys, I think.

Old wall paper. I always wondered where people found old wall paper. The only I've ever found was from the 1980s - until now.

~~~~~~~

I thought you might like to see why I feel so overwhelmed. What you are about to see will shock and probably repulse you. I'm baring part of my soul to the world here. I just want you to see why I'm not blogging much. See what's preoccupying my mind these days. If you look closely at the pictures of the shop below, you might be able to see where things are starting to shape up, but there are so many layers and piles in front waiting for a place to reside it's driving me nuts! I feel like I move the same piles around from one place to another. Maybe an item stays put here and there, but I'm sort of to the point where I can't do much more until I have a few pieces of furniture in there and in place.

(Edit: The pictures might be too wide for your screen. I just looked at it after publishing and some are cut off on the right. You really aren't missing much.)

This is in the front room. I was pretty happy with that corner for awhile, then things started moving over there to be put on the wall or to find a spot to sit. Notice the paper in the back of the shelves of the hutch. The black and white wasn't pleasing to the eye. It didn't play well with the color of the wood, so I'm coffee staining the paper. The stained paper looks great, but it's taking a loooooong time. I can only soak two pieces of paper at the time and it takes a day or two to get to the right color. Sigh.

More front room. The jewelry case and piles. That rack with the clamps on it is an old, Max Factor fixture. It has the Max Factor light globe for the top, too. It needs sanding and painting.

The pile of fabrics in the back room with no place to live. I know where I want them to be, but have nothing to put them on.

Front room again. That's garbage on the left.

Still in the front. That shelf will go to the back. It's not staying in the middle of the room.

The office. Oh, my word! I've piled, literally thrown, things in there to get them out of the way while we cleaned the floor and painted.

Just a pile of mess.

The storage area. What am I going to do with all that crap? Things waiting to be painted or repaired and things waiting for inspiration.

Back to the back room that will be open to the public. This is where Ricky's tractors and stuff will go.

More storage area. This stuff was moved out so we could hang shelves. Something that hasn't happened, yet.

Ah. A little organization. But with piles around and shelves awaiting hanging.

The garden area, organized, but with piles around.

So there it is. The whole, sordid mess. A few pictures were lost and didn't make it to the post, but the ones that did are probably overkill. More than anyone wanted to see. Sorry.

I just looked up and saw it was one o'clock and I was still in my housecoat. Since I played hooky from church this morning, I should have at least worked at the shop or cleaned house, but I have nothing to show for the time. I do believe we're going to work at the shop this afternoon, though. Now, I just hope I don't loose this post. I'm getting "Could not contact Blogger.com". Internet must be down. I'll try copying everything so I don't lose it all.

~~~~~~

PS to Lynn. If you're reading this and it makes you feel any better, I was under the impression you could do no wrong. LOL We really do need to get together. Thank you for saying what you did.

Just checking in

2008-02-06T20:40:00.000-06:00

Mama Sandi has nudged me again. It's been a few days since the last post. It seems like I'm working at the shop during all the daylight hours. I don't sleep well. No, that's not true. I generally do sleep well, just not much. I wake up too early with a million thoughts running through my mind and drag myself out of bed and get busy. I do occasionally have nightmares. One recurring dream is of pressing the brakes on the car, but the car keeps rolling. Wonder what that means? Ha! Shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Also, I now know the meaning of bone tired. I work and work, arranging and rearranging, moving heavy things, hanging small things. Moving the heavy things again, lifting and shoving. My back hurts. I'm sleepy. I better be burning more calories than I'm taking in!! The sad thing? I can't see any progress. It seems like I just move things from one place to another. And I need Ricky to hang some big stuff and we need to get some furniture over there, but he's working 12 hours every day with no off days and is extremely tired, too.

Last weekend's sales were crummy. I do want to show y'all a painting I got for me and tell you about one sale in particular, but I'm just too tired. Brain tired as well as physical. So, until next time...........

Cool shelves?

2008-01-31T21:11:00.001-06:00

In my last post I mentioned buying some shelves that deserved a post of their own. Well, here it is. There were six estate sales Saturday and I hit every one. At this particular sale, there was a great, metal shelving unit in one of the outbuildings. I had to go back in the house and ask the sale "conductor" how much. $10.00. Alright! Woohoo! I was in the car that day and was sure they wouldn't fit, so I began the task of taking the shelves apart. The first two bolts came out with ease. The next wouldn't budge. Nor would the next or the one after that. This called for a man and looking up, there came one. An elderly one, but a man nonetheless. He, being a southern gentleman, was more than happy to help. He couldn't budge those bolts either, but said he'd take it to the house for me and we'd find some tools. I trooped to the car to get the camera so I wouldn't forget how to put it back together.

We found the appropriate tool, but still those bolts weren't moving. By this time, I'm getting a little worried. I wanted those shelves! They were vintage, had a nice, blue paint and a goodly amount of rust and crust. Perfect for the shop. The helpful fellow gave up on me. Next step was to take them out to the car and see if, by chance, they just happened to fit. These things are a little taller than I and quite heavy and unwieldy. I'm dragging them through the house, half carrying, half dragging. The estate sale handler just sat there. He - yes, HE - didn't lift a finger. He had someone else taking the money while he just sat in a chair off to the side. Finally, I got them out to the car, but realized I would not be able to lift them by myself when an angel walked up. A lady I'd never met before stopped and asked if I needed any help. God bless her. She and I wrestled the shelves in the car only to find out it was just as I suspected. They didn't fit. We lugged them back in the house. Now, we were both determined to figure out a way.

We started undoing all the bolts that would come out and wouldn't you know it? The ones that wouldn't budge were permanent. They were supposed to be permanent! It came apart into two pieces that would fit in the car! Yippee!!! The estate sale man sat and watched us struggle the whole time. He is able bodied and could have helped, but he is not a southern gentleman. I always knew he was a little rude and not terribly friendly, but ..... oh well.

So I get them to the shop and think I'd better put it together to be sure I got all the parts. Typical of me, I didn't make it home with two brackets (side pieces). The sale was still going on Sunday and I had a wedding shower not so very far from there, so back I went. No brackets. They say they haven't seen them. I did have a not so nice thought that maybe the seller hid them out of meaness, but left my phone number and email. Of course I never heard from them.

I didn't get them put together until today. I figured I could leave the brackets off the bottom. Ricky can probably make something for them. I rarely use unladylike language, but quite a few "shoots" and "dang-its" crossed my lips, but what I really want to say is this: It took me TWO F'ING HOURS to put those WRETCHED SHELVES together! I wasn't liking them so much any more, but I think I'm over that now. Here they are. I do think I'll get some glass cut for them.

What do you suppose it means that I had exactly the right amount of bolts? Did I misplace two brackets and their bolts? Or is it possible they never existed?

~~~~~~

Lena gave her view of Friday's sales and the policeman on her blog, White Cats and Roses

It's hilarious! She called and asked if it was OK if she put a picture of me walking away from the police car. I took a deep breath and said yes. The last picture of me I've seen was horrible. I looked like a stuffed pig holding a melon at my chest. I was afraid this one would be similar, but it's not so bad.

~~~~~

I don't know if I'll get to go to the sales tomorrow or not. Ricky will be home in the morning and if he's in one of those, "Why do you want to run off and buy more stuff when you don't have room for the stuff you have as it is" moods, I might stay home.

I've just reread this post and oh, my! It sounds like it was written by a 4th grader. Guess I'm kinda sleepy or something.

It's spring in Alabama!

2008-01-29T12:31:00.000-06:00

Well, no. Not really, but there's something in the air that makes me think spring. Maybe it's because we've had such cold weather. It's always cold in the spring. Maybe it's because the days are getting longer by minutes each day. Maybe it's because I went to nine estate sales over the past weekend! Yes, they're going strong after a winter break. Whew! I was really getting antsy.

I can't believe it's been two whole weeks since I've blogged. Hey, I'm not the only one! But I guess my blogging break needs to be over. We've been working at the shop and I'm still trying to get Christmas put up. Yes, you read that right. My dining room table still has piles of Christmas waiting for a box to sleep in until next year. I was determined to organize it all this year and we've spent a small fortune on plastic storage boxes. I still need a few more to be finished.

The shop is a royal mess still, but it's coming together. A February opening isn't looking promising, but March should be the magic month. Hmmm. Didn't I say that about June and October and December?

At least I have a little to talk about now. I can share last weekend's finds with you all. Thursday was hair day for me and Lena joined me in some pre-salon junking. One antique shop had up to 60% off and I found an old, large, divided drawer being used as a shelf in the restroom. With 60% off, it only cost $10 and provides $40 worth of character. I was happy.

Then Lena and I went to three (Wasn't it three, Lena?) estate sales on Friday. One, we couldn't find. We rode all around Homewood in all different directions, but never got as far as this little road. We finally stopped at the police station where it was my assignment to go in and ask directions. Well, I met a young officer on his way out and asked him. He was kind and found it on his GPS (I have one, but not with us.) and even drew me a map. Lena says I was in flirt mode, but I think she was imagining that. There aren't many things more pathetic than a fat, middle aged woman flirting with a 28 year old guy in uniform. Besides she is the one who noticed how hot he was. I was too scared.

Without further talk, here's the bounty for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I also bought a shelving unit, but it deserves a blog post all it's own.

That's the big, divided drawer. Doesn't it make a good display? Inside it is a '60s child's book, The Secret of the Martian Moons, a tin caboose missing it's back wheels, two glass knobs, a "whistle for your milk" mug where the little bird is actually a whistle, a green, Jack in the Pulpit vase, a straw purse with Lucite handles and trim, a glass towel bar. To the right of the big drawer is a yellow plant stand with "Mod" stationery inside. The stationery is from 1969 or 70. I know because I had some exactly like it!

There's the book and caboose again, two gas heater bricks standing in front of a white painted flower pot, and an iron tray thing. Maybe something glass sat inside?? I don't have a clue what that thing is, but it looks like a shadow box to me. Except I don't know how it would hang or stand........

I have no idea why I bought the house biscuit jar. The lid is even broken and glued back. It was a last minute grab. I do like the plate in back with the pink roses and the chalk, cherub thing is OK. Lena found it first, but passed.

Ah, old bras and corset things.

You can't tell much about this, but that's a big frame that I might decide to keep and an old-ish, shopping cart. It was only a dollar, so I figured I should be able to find some use for it.

An elf convention in one box! I have enough of my own now that I feel like I can sell these. I might reconsider selling Grandma, though.

This is what I've decided to keep for sure. There are three other boot mugs that aren't pictured. Many of the small Christmas balls have indentions in them. I didn't have any like that.

Maybe it won't be so long before the next post. What? Do we hear an echo in here? Have I said that before? We'll be working at the shop for the next few days, but I might get a few minutes to blog.

How boring I am right now!

2008-01-13T08:17:00.000-06:00

Nothing's been going on around here. I have nothing interesting to report. No estate sales, yard sales or auctions. A few thrifts, but borrrinnnggg. I spent last week trying to clean up from Christmas, but still have a mess. How?? Why is it taking so long? I am trying to do it "right" and buying plastic tubs which means I have to keep going back to the stores (can't find all I need at one store). I'm trying to find the least expensive containers, too. And the right sizes. Now, that's hard.

I've not worked at the store lately, so nothing to report there. Ricky has a long weekend next weekend and has done some swapping to get another day or two off and plans to put up shelving in the storage area of the store, finish putting in plugs, hang lights and whatever else we can work in during those few days. I really wish he'd just do the bare minimum and rest. Just lie on the sofa and watch TV and sleep. He's worked so much the past year, he's exhausted.

~~~~~

Since nothing's going on, I thought I tell a story about an estate sale I attended a few years ago. I'd almost forgotten about it.

The sale was in a neighborhood that had been built in the late 1960s to early 1970s, but has now run down. The middle class people who built those houses have moved on or died out and a lower economic and social class has moved in.

As I was walking up to the house, quite some distance, I heard banging coming from a house across the street, a couple of houses down. It was constant. Bang! Bang! Bang! Then crash! Glass breaking. The sound was odd enough to make me look to see what was going on. There was a man on a ladder hammering away at the house, the windows. I wondered why he was doing that and decided they were renovating or something, but it was sure an odd way of doing that.

My mind turned to the sale ahead. The house was full of people and we all milled around looking and picking up things. After about 15 minutes I heard someone in the front room say the police were here and the man doing all the destruction ran - they thought toward this house - and he had a weapon!! I was kinda scared and really wanted to look, but took advantage of the commotion and kept shopping while everyone else had their interest diverted elsewhere. I quickly decided where I'd hide if he came in and held everyone hostage and continued to shop, peeping out of windows whenever I was near one.

Nothing ever happened, I didn't have to hide under that skirted table and the rest of the people began shopping again. The mumbling and rumors was that it had something to do with a divorce and the "weapon" was the crowbar he was using on the house. I don't remember a thing I bought there. It's been several years now. I do remember that the experience was the most exciting thing of the day.

That's probably the most intrigue associated with a yard sale I've ever had. That and when a yard sale friend was "murdered". (At her home, not at a yard sale.) Maybe someday I'll have a mystery like the Sharon Fiffer books about antique picker, Jane Wheel or Mary Kay Andrews', Weezie Foley, antique dealer in Savannah. Or even Lovejoy! I just love those books. Not Lovejoy as much. I prefer watching the TV show over reading the books. Ian McShane was so cute in a rougish way in that series.

Am I unusual?

2008-01-07T11:12:00.000-06:00

Oh, my! It's been a week since my last blog post! I've been working my tushie off. The store's coming right along. Things are coming out of boxes now. It's all set up with a trial run. At least I can see what's going on and it's beginning to look like a shop. I'm sure everything will change before the opening - whenever that may be - but a girl's gotta start somewhere.

Erin and I went in together and bought a coffee table and a couple of chairs that we'll paint and reupholster. She's got the first half of this week off and will come up tomorrow, so we can start on that.

I've been spending every moment I can at the shop and not much computer time at all. I apologize, but I haven't even read anyone's blog. I miss it, but just won't have time for much of that for a while, yet. I appreciate all your comments and see that I have a few new blog friends. I'll check out your blogs as soon as I can.

I realized that we'll be having our 35 year high school reunion this year (35 years???!!! Yikes!!) and I'm not ready! I need to loose another 30 pounds at least. If I start walking and did what I did last spring, a pound a week.......I won't have enough weeks. Sigh. Anyway, I made up my mind that today I get started on my exercise and healthier eating program. I even have new workout britches which I was going to hem this morning and wear. Erin's room has become the sewing room as well as the I-don't-know-where-to-put-this---throw-it-in-Erin's-room room. So the pants needed serging and when I couldn't find the foot pedal to the serger, I figured it was time to clean her room - after I walked and went to the gym. I drug out another pair of knit pants, but couldn't find an appropriate top that covered my tummy. Ugh. I'll start the exercising part tomorrow. I'll try to clean house, including the sewing room and finish getting Christmas down today. That's right. I still have Christmas all over the place.

So what am I doing to keep from working? Blogging! Ha! Christie from Serenity Now tagged me to tell seven unusual things about me. Am I unusual? I'm sure the rest of the world thinks so, but I'll be darned if I'm not having a hard time coming up with something, but here goes. Let's see how far I can get.

I'm short. I've always claimed 4'10", but I think it is really 4'9-1/2". I was so angry when they put 4'9" on my driver's license! Dang it! I need that extra half inch! I rarely wear flat heeled shoes. All I ever wanted growing up was to be 5'2". When I realized I might not make it, I just hoped for 5'. Nope. God had other plans. I still don't know why. My parents were both 5'2". (I'm still taller than Brenda Lee and too tall to be a Little People person.)
I've only been out of the southeast US three times. One of those was when I was 6 months old. Sad, isn't it? Oh, wait. Make that four times. When my mother was pregnant with me, she went to New York City.
All my youth, I preferred my men to be blond and/or musicians. I fell in love with and married a dark haired, non musical guy.
We've lived in the same house for the past 30 years. I've wanted to move for the last 25. Ricky hasn't.
Ummmmm.......... uh....... hmmmm.......Oh! Even though I'm very short, I don't generally wear petites. Did you know petites aren't supposed to have hips or boobs? Or much length from waist to crotch?
I'm an only child, but very not spoiled. Momma was determined I wouldn't be a spoiled, only child and did everything she could to make it so. Maybe to the extreme.
Ooo-oo! One last thing. Whew! I didn't think I'd make it. I was terribly shy growing up. Painfully so. Don't ever doubt the literal meaning of painfully shy. Actually, I must not have been shy until I was 7 or 8. We lived in Lufkin, Texas for the first half of my second grade year where I was voted most popular girl in the class. Momma said it was only because I was new. (See how she didn't want me to be spoiled and snotty?) When I came back, I expected to be just as popular here, but that didn't happen. It might have, but someone, because of jealousy I now realize, said something hateful to me and I shut up. For the next 8 years. There were other factors involved, but that was a pivotal moment. It wasn't until I got married and went to work that I finally began to really come out of my shell. It's been a lifetime struggle and the old shyness and insecurities still come back from time to time.

Now that that's done and once I've let it sit for awhile, I'm sure I'll think of more interesting things about me that I should have said instead of the lame things I came up with. LOL

OK. Back to work. Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work I go. Don't know the words, but there are words, hi ho--- hi ho, hi ho, hi ho.......

Edit: Just as I figured, I remembered something else. My driver's license says my eyes are blue. Now, I always wanted blue eyes, but they are green. VERY green. Was the license giver-outter person color blind??

And Happy New Year to you, too!

2008-01-02T22:13:00.000-06:00

Well, did you think I'd fallen off the face of the earth? Totally disappeared? Vamoosed? Nah. I'm still here. The kids were here for a few days after Christmas. Son, daughter and two granddogs. What a blast! I've taken a long, blogging break which might continue for a bit longer. I'm a busy little girl these days.

Erin and I cleaned the back floor of the shop and now I'm starting to arrange things. As I'm pulling the bigger pieces out, I'm getting a panicky feeling that my stuff is crap, it looks horrible in the shop and nobody will want anything I have. The other panicky feeling is that I do not have enough big pieces. I nickel and dime myself to death. It's so much easier to spend a quarter to make $5.00 than it is to spend $250 to make $500.00. Add that to the fact that I never seem to have $250 these days......... eBay's always been my spending money and most of my eBay-able things are packed up.

Ricky's so funny. He has his own idea about the shop. His vision is definitely not mine. He's been buying John Deere model tractors and other model things like boat motors and now boats and rods and reels. He wants to set up a large area for these things. Uh, not at all what I had in mind. My vision is cool, unique, vintage home decor. Not Cracker Barrel toys! So, Erin and I set up a corner for him - which he saw tonight while lighting the pilot light. He said, "That's all I'm getting? That one, little corner?" He sounded kinda hurt, so I said that was only tentative that he might get that whole wall and that I was pulling out rustic stuff that would look good with the tractors. Sigh. What can I do? He's put a lot of hard work into this building and is so excited to have a place to sell his collections. He thinks, and he could very well be right, that word will get out that we sell these things and people will be excited about it and the women will bring their husbands and..... all that and everything. My mission is to meld it into the rest of the store. Oh, and today, he bought a toy train with tracks at Hobby Lobby with the intention of setting it up in the shop! Ack!! Where???? There's no room for something like that! He said he might make a track up high.

He saw that we'd put a wonderful, old, rustic 3' wide door behind the shelves for the tractors and said that door needs to be hanging. Ah! For a change we agreed on something. I'm thinking, yes, hang it vertically for a nicer backdrop than just propped up in the corner. I said I agreed and wanted to do that with several doors. I wanted one to be a divider at the kitcheny area. Uh, no. I misunderstood. He thought the door should be hanging horizontally for a shelf. I do not agree with that. Not a 3' deep shelf and not showcasing the wonderful wood on the door. Not gonna happen. It's tempting, but I simply cannot boot him out. I can't break his heart. I want him in on this every step of the way. I want him as interested in this business as I am. And God bless him. He took this blank slate:

And made it look like this:

We now have storage and work areas behind those walls. Before it was all open. No storage, no place to work that people wouldn't see. I still don't know what I'm going to do with those horrible floors, but at least they're clean.

Ho, ho, ho..........Murrrr-rah Christmas

2007-12-24T22:00:00.000-06:00

In Elvis speak.

There won't be many words tonight. I thought I'd be posting every day from Friday until now. Ha. So much for that idea, so I'm cramming in a bunch of pictures tonight. Hope Christmas Day finds you all healthy, happy and wise with full tummies.

This white tree is much prettier in person.

I think the stuffed boot is quite old. At least the fabric seems to be.

One of the set of four glitter bells. My very first "married life" ornaments.

The clear ball with the tinsel inside is one of my favorites. I love it for it's simplicity and because it was a wartime ornament. Something about metal being used for the war?

Another children of the world ornament like the ones hanging from the chandelier.

The tree unlit.

And lit with over 2000 lights.

Tale of the 6' silver, aluminum, pom-pom Christmas tree with blue balls

2007-12-21T09:02:00.000-06:00

The following is the oft told tale of my momma's 6', silver, aluminum, pom-pom Christmas tree with blue balls. The picture below is not that tree. I can't believe it, but there doesn't seem to be a picture of that tree in existence.

I'm a "real tree" snob. Always have been. I've always preferred a real tree over fake. My mother, on the other hand, preferred ease of use and no mess of an artificial tree. She also liked modern. Current. Not old fashioned. So in the early 1960s, she finally bought an Everlast, 6', silver, aluminum, pom-pom tree. I hated it. I thought it was the ugliest, most un-Christmas thing I'd ever seen. What's worse, she wouldn't use her lovely, old, Shiny Brite ornaments, but bought all new, blue balls. Only blue balls on that tree. The color wheel would provide any other color we needed. I was appalled and grumbled about it, but we used it for many years. After all, what say did a 10 year old have?

By the 1970s, it had fallen out of favor and had been relegated to the attic. In the 1980s, a lady we knew casually would advertise on the local radio station's "Swap and Shop" that she wanted to buy aluminum Christmas trees. Momma would ask me if she should call her and I said - I remember these fateful words well - "Why not? Those will never come back in style. They'll never be collectible. They're just too awful. I sure don't want it." Remember, this was the 1980s when all things natural were the thing. Shiny and gaudy were out. How do trends reverse themselves so quickly? She was never convinced, though and I thought she kept the tree. By the time of our first Christmas without her, 1999, I'd come around to loving the silver, aluminum Christmas trees. They'd become popular and sought after and I had one! All I had to do was ask for it. So Daddy and I got up in the attic to find it.

We rummaged around, found the other Christmas ornaments, which he gave to me, and after some searching, there it was. I'd know that box anywhere! It was a eureka moment. Like a light was shining around the treasure. I happily drug it down and took it home.

I was so excited when the day came to put it up. I brought the box in the house, opened it, pulled a limb out of a sleeve and...............what's this???? This tree is gold!! That's not my momma's 6', silver, aluminum, pom-pom, Christmas tree! What the......? I looked at the box. The name "Deason" was scrawled on the side. They were the previous owners of my parent's house and had left their ugly, gold, aluminum Christmas tree in the attic. It's not even a pom-pom tree. And now it was mine.

I don't know what happened to our silver tree. I saw the lady who was wanting to buy them so long ago, but she said she never bought one from my mother. My guess is that the tree went the way of a yard sale. I still want a vintage, 6', silver, pom-pom tree, but don't want to pay the retail price, so keep looking at the sales. Some day I'll find one. Probably when they've fallen out of favor again. Until that time, I put up the small silver one I picked up at a yard sale, faithfully decorated with blue balls and the gold tree that has such a story behind it and has earned a special place in my heart.

Erin made the pipe cleaner star I put on the gold tree this year. She copied an ornament she bought in a store. I think she did a great job.

*In case you're wondering what a pom-pom tree is, look at the ends of the two trees pictured above. See how the ends of the branches just end? A pom-pom tree ends more rounded. Prettier. I can't describe it, but I bet you could see a good example on eBay.

~~~~~

Christmas is barreling down on us full steam, isn't it? I'm done. No more shopping. I haven't wrapped a single present, but that's typical of me. I've been concerned about how much I've been eating since I have my gyn check-up next week, so I've decided to postpone it until about March. I know if I went now, everything I have that can be "counted" will be high and I really want to pig out some more on cake, pies, candy........ I figure March will give my system a chance to get back to normal. That way if anything shows up high, we'll know we'd better do something. Philip will be coming up to stay a few days with us after Christmas, too. He and his dog. Our daughter-in-law has to go back to school earlier than he, so she's staying home. They're both teachers. I still have more pictures of decorations to share and the main tree, so I might be posting every day until Christmas.

Take it easy, y'all. Don't stress too much.

Christmas overload

2007-12-18T08:34:00.000-06:00

We're back from Florida. It was a nice break and I thrifted and antiqued down US1 until time and money ran out. But no time to talk about that now. Christmas is almost here! I've still got a couple of presents to buy and no idea what to get. We're having a girls get together tonight, sort of a progressive dinner thing and I'm the second stop, so I'll have to get busy in just a bit. I might not get to blog much this week, so am sharing a lot of pictures today. I'm saving the trees pictures for a post of their own. Here goes...................

The "Putz" houses collection. They're all old. I just adore collecting these houses.

~~~

Tree topper stars. They look much better in person than in this picture.

~~~

I couldn't get a good, clear picture of the chandelier and ornaments. The little people are so special. I found them at a yard sale, plundering through someone's barn. She had intended to sell them on eBay, but let me have them for $5.00. She could have got so much more for them on eBay and if I didn't intend to keep them I would have encouraged her to sell them there, but I wanted these babies and knew I would never be able to afford them if they made it to eBay.

~~~

The living room mantle with our stockings. The old one in the middle belongs to the cat. The cross stitch one on the left is Philip's. It's the first stocking I made. The next, more Victorian, crazy quilt looking one is mine, made in the 1980s. The plaid is Ricky's. Erin made it when she was about 12 years old. The far right stocking is Erin's. It was a crewel kit I did in 1981 or 82.

~~~

Just some old things hanging on the pegs next to the den fireplace. The stocking with my name on it was mine in the 1960s. I found the two, Merry Christmas, sock stockings at an estate sale this summer. The little elf is part of a large collection. I haven't got a decent picture of those, yet.

~~~

Old Christmas card boxes and a couple of other old boxes.

More old boxes. I can't figure out how to display these well. I don't like them piled in the chair (or the card boxes lined up on the brick), but don't know what else to do with them. There are actually bubble lights in the two bubble light boxes! I had forgotten I had these.

~~~

Connie asked, "No reindeer?" Why, yes. Of course I have a reindeer collection! LOL I've run out of surfaces and haven't got them out....... wait! Maybe there's room in Philip's room! Ooo! I'll try that!

The Snowmen

2007-12-11T18:15:00.000-06:00

Snowmen seemed appropriate for today. Our high was 77 °. But I just heard on the weather report a rumor of snow flurries this weekend! That's weather in Alabama for ya.

We're still home. Who knows when we'll get outta here? It's such an ordeal for us to go anywhere. Ricky was determined the yard and carport would be clean before we left and the warm weather has had him working outside all day yesterday and today. It looks good, too.

This is the snowman collection. I'd say 99% of them are 1960s and earlier. The fence is a Christmas fence from the 1940s or so. The box is as cool as the fence. Hmmm... Where'd I put the box? I got lucky at an auction a few years ago. I couldn't stay and left bids on a bunch of Christmas lots and won most of them! The fence came from that auction. The snowmen are from here, there and everywhere.

Everyone loves the roller coaster. I had it until I was in about the 7th grade, maybe longer before it was sold or given away. It was only in the house for Christmas and, like Meggie's, it went from the living room to the kitchen. When I was small it seemed so large, but as I grew, even though I was still pretty small, it shrunk. It only stood about 2-1/2' - 3' tall at the highest point. We rolled down that little hill and up another, smaller hill before coasting off the end. Yes, it was tons of fun. All my friends loved to ride, no matter their age. My babysitter loved it just as much as I did. I think Santa's elves made them for Sears. Or maybe Santa bought it from Sears.

Vacation?

2007-12-10T21:17:00.000-06:00

We've been working hard trying to leave for Florida, but there's still a lot to do. Looks like vacation will be put off a day or two. As for me, I've been cleaning and trying to finish decorating. I don't like to leave a messy house when I'm gone for a few days and I sure don't want to have to finish the decorating when we get back.

I decided today that I have enough Christmas decorations now. I don't think I have to keep every ornament and decoration I find any more. That's a milestone for me! I'm taking pictures, but need to retake most of them. The color is just weird.

This is one of my best Christmases ever. I believe it was 1958. Santa brought that roller coaster and the drum set among other things. How can you get better than that?

Just a quick check-in

2007-12-08T21:01:00.000-06:00

OK, OK. Sergeant "Holding Patterns" Sandi is on patrol making sure we slackers pick up the pace. I've been lazy. I admit it. Actually, I just haven't had much to say. We finally got a tree and I've been decorating it for three days. No, not constantly, silly. Off and on. I decorate as long as I can stand it, then go do something else. It's real purty, but not finished, yet. Pics will come later.

Ummm.......hmmmm.... I told you I don't have much to say. I will, but want to put pictures with the words and I don't have the pictures yet.

Hey! I do know something I need to ask you Florida folks and people who know about Florida. We'll be traveling down the west coast of Florida and cutting over to the east coast to visit son and daughter-in-law, Philip and Lisa in Port St. Lucie. Normally, we get on the turnpike, or occasionally cruise the east coast, but we've never been down the west coast. We have plans to stop in junk stores, thrift stores and antique shops. Do any of you have suggestions for the places we don't need to miss? We're going to take a couple of days to arrive at our destination. If there are any shops with especially wonderful displays, I need to know. I'm collecting a file of inspiring shops. I hope to eventually be one of those inspiring shops.

I've enjoyed going through the boxes of decorations and have found some things I've forgotten about like the two doll ornaments above. I need to get finished before we leave for vacation.

A Right Jolly Old Elf

2007-12-05T10:08:00.000-06:00

Me at just over a year old. I didn't know what to make of that Santa, but got comfortable enough with him pretty quick:

And he soon became a very close friend.

(I wish I could get my hands on those figurines on the corner shelf now, not to mention the toys!)

I don't know if Santa was new that year or if he'd been around awhile, but he has stuck with me and I've loved him every Christmas of my life. My kids grew up with him, too. He's become a tradition in our family. He's much worse for wear now, having lived in the attic, he became brittle and beat up and we burned a too strong light bulb in him causing a brown spot on his front. We say he has heart burn. He has a couple of friends now, but he's still our favorite.

~~~~~~

I've collected a lot more Santas through the years. Most of these are older. Some, usually a gift, are "new". I just found a box of Santa and angel candles yesterday, after this picture was taken. I think I need some greenery or something at the top of the mirror. The Merry Christmas banner is the one I grew up with.

Look at the expression on the big guy on the left. Wonder what he saw? The fellow sitting in front of him is probably my oldest and the round headed guy on the far right is a bobble head.

I'm not sure if any of these are originals from my childhood. I just don't remember if any of them stayed around or were sold, but the smaller, pointy hat Santas are like the ones we had.

~~~~~~

In spite of decorating and Christmas shopping, I just can't seem to get in the Christmas spirit. It just doesn't seem like Christmas for some reason, but it's always like that for me. I seem to be ready for Christmas by February.

~~~~~~

My darlin' daughter has done me a disservice. She works three twelves, so she's off four days a week and has started watching The Waltons every morning. Now, she knows how much I've always loved The Waltons and will tell me which episode was on the day before and what it was about. Well, now I get up every morning and turn on The Waltons. And watch TV for TWO HOURS!! I should be walking to get healthier...erm...lose this weight... or cleaning or something constructive. I feel so guilty. I'm thankful for the luxury of not having to work, but feel terrible that Ricky goes off to work every day, working doubles (not by choice), basically working and sleeping and I'm watching TV for two hours in the mornings and not cooking and cleaning like a good Olivia Walton... I mean Domestic Goddess. If I'd make up for it the rest of the day, I wouldn't feel so bad, but I don't. You see, I was supposed to be a Princess or at least an heiress, but there was some mix-up before I was born. Or I could have listened to Momma when she told me it was just as easy to love a rich man as it was to love a poor man. But you know what? I love my hubby and my parents and wouldn't trade any of them for all the riches in the world.

~~~~~~

We're having girls night out tonight to celebrate my and another friend's birthday. Hers is actually today. Or was it yesterday? Mine was last week. We always have a fine time when we get together. We're going to try to have our Christmas party here at my house. I hope we can find a time we can all get together. I'll be gone to Florida most of next week, so it'll have to be this weekend or the week before Christmas.

Angels We Have Heard On High

2007-12-02T12:43:00.000-06:00

The angel hanging from the lamp with the arrows pointing to him has been moved. What an unfortunate placement! I didn't realize until sometime after taking this picture that it looks like he's been hung by the neck from a tree. The effect was supposed to be of flying in the air, but that is definitely not how it appears. Now, he hangs on the tall, green vase in the back. Much better.

These are just angels I've picked up through the years and some were gifts. There's no special story about collecting angels. Oh, wait! I was an angel in my first grade Christmas program! So there. Oh, I've got to dig that picture out.

I've been on the road most of this week. Doing some shopping and tree hunting. Then I decided it was time for a new web host. I had the money and wanted to do it before I spent it elsewhere. I moved one site over to the new host and what a disaster it was! It's all just about straightened out now, but I burned the midnight oil last night before giving up and going to bed. I've also purchased www.justvintagetoo.com. Actually, I didn't have to buy it. I was allowed one free domain name with the new host. I don't know if that will ultimately be the site name, but it's the one I'll play with for now. Another thought was justvintageboutique, but that was harder to type, so I settled for "too". What do you think? "Too" or "Boutique"? Boutique looks better, but it's so long. I still might be able to get justvintage. It expires this month. I'm holding out to see it if gets renewed or not. But all that is so boring. I'm telling you this because I'll eventually be moving my blog to justvintage something and building a whole new website there. This is exciting for me. Snapdragon Antiques has been around for several years, but I'm ready for a whole new look and feel to go with the new shop. I'll probably keep the Snapdragon Antiques website for awhile too.

Ah! Here it is! This was cropped out of a photo of all the angels. It hardly looks like me.

Look at those shoes! I can't believe my mother let me wear those! Bet she didn't know. I'm thinking I still have that costume around here somewhere. Probably in the attic. I know I've still got the pattern. The gold stars were glued onto the dress. Hmmm...where are the wings? I know we had wings......

Saga of the Pine Cone Elf Band

2007-11-29T19:22:00.000-06:00

One of my most favorite childhood Christmas decorations was a little, six piece, pine cone elf band. I loved putting it on an end table or some special spot every year. They came in a box, each elf with his own compartment. When Christmas was over, I'd lovingly put each elf back in his place. We took really good care of these little guys. At some point after I moved out, Momma put them in a yard sale. Remember, she just didn't care for all those dime store ornaments. I was heart broken and have looked for that band ever since. Oh, I've found it, alright. A bit more than I can afford. Just a tad. No, I'm holding out until I find one for a few dollars at a sale instead of $50+ on eBay or in a shop - that's when that exact set even comes up for sale. In the meantime, I've collected these onesies. Most were a dime or a quarter each. Occasionally there will be two or three together, but usually it's just one. And none of these are exactly like the ones from my childhood.

The wire trees in these two pictures are new. Bought last year on clearance.

~~~~~~

I've been on the road this week shopping. Looking for a fake Christmas tree (That's a story for another day.) and a mid week, estate "pre" sale. Another day's story. You all have been prolific writers while I've been away. Add that to last week's blog updates I haven't got to read yet, well let's just say I'm way behind. I might end up having to start fresh. I need to list some things on eBay tonight and probably won't get to read many blogs. If I haven't gone in and commented on your blog lately, I apologize. I'm trying to get around to everyone, but feel hopelessly behind. I'll be gone all day again tomorrow, too. Maybe next week will calm down some. I sure hope so.

How my collection came to be

2007-11-27T10:18:00.000-06:00

This is a picture of my collection of vintage tree toppers. Most cost a dollar or less, but I think I remember paying as much as $5 for one of them. Yes, you really have to hunt for the bargains. I usually have them in candlesticks, but this year piled them in the Roseville console bowl I inherited from my mother. She had a cactus planted in it. I tried to keep the cactus alive for years, but it died a slow death. I'm happier with it empty, anyway.

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But how did all those boxes full of decorations I shared in a previous post come to be, you ask? Well, sit back and I'll tell ya.

Ever since I can remember, I loved Christmas. All things Christmas. The meaning, family get togethers, food, gifts, and yes, the decorations. The gaudier the better. I loved the late 1940s - 1950s, dime store ornaments my mother had. She didn't share my love. She'd say, "Those old, cheap, dime store ornaments? I don't want to use them." But I'd insist. Every year, I'd lovingly put the ornaments on the tree and find the perfect spot for the little pine cone elf band. She'd just roll her eyes and shake her head. She really wasn't into Christmas as much as I was. She was the type who always got depressed at Christmas. She thought her life was too much UN-like the movies where all was perfect. She had unrealistic expectations of the season. There was a lot more that went into all that such as her shyness and insecurities, that type thing. The point is, I was the reason we decorated. I pushed. Daddy never enjoyed decorating for Christmas. Still doesn't.

I grew up and got married. I still have the first Christmas ornaments I ever bought. A box of four glittered, Styrofoam bells I bought at Bob's Bargain Barn for 5¢ for the box. (I ran across them the other day, but can't find them right now or I'd take a picture for you.) That was in the summer of our first year together. Our first Christmas rolled around and all I had was those four ornaments. We cut down a tree on his dad's land and bought a few lights and some balls on sale at Zayer, 50¢ a box. That tree was pitiful. We had no money, you see. But it was ours and we were so proud.

We were still broke the next year and the next and I took to making ornaments. Nothing like you all are making these days. Those things I made were tacky smachy! Uuuugleeee! I also started shopping after Christmas sales for marked down ornaments. Got some good ones then. Or so I thought. I refuse to use any of them now. Do you see history repeating itself? I finally understand why Momma didn't like those dime store ornaments of hers. One thing, for her they represented a time when they couldn't afford anything else. But more than that, she truly thought they were ugly. Just like I think the ornaments from my early married years are ugly. However, I do think 1970s ornaments are not as pretty as 1940s ornaments.

I was determined never to have an ugly tree again and when I began going to estate sales in earnest, I started finding the old ornaments I loved so well and started stocking up. I continue to find them and just can't bring myself to part with any. So the collection grows and grows. I won't get rid of the '70s ornaments in case my grandchildren find them charming. Erin likes the same older ornaments I like and Philip is like my dad. He grouses and grumbles when he has to decorate much. I'm not sure how his wife feels about Christmas decorating, but I do know she's not a sentimental type person.

So there you have it. The story of why I have this much Christmas stuff. It's a compulsion. It's like when people who lived through the Depression save string and aluminum foil. I chose one, small collection to show you to begin with so as not to overwhelm you. I'll continue to share one or two collections at a time.

Walp. I think I'll pull out a few more boxes tonight. See ya!

Still here

2007-11-26T10:44:00.000-06:00

Yes, I survived the dinner Friday night and have been recuperating all weekend. It was a smashing success. Lots of laughs and good food. We ended up with 30 people here, only 4 of those were small children. Twenty six adults were sitting around eating and there was food left over! We had a lot of food. We still have a lot of food. We've been eating the same meals twice a day for a couple of days now, and eating some of the dessert for breakfast, mid afternoon snack and dessert after supper (or dinner depending on where you live). We're getting tired of it, but don't like to waste anything. Can you freeze dressing?

My dad and step mother came home early from their little vacation and came over for the fun. Ricky's three sisters and one of his brothers were here. Plus their kids and grandkids. I'd managed to get the house clean except for Erin's room, which is my sewing room/throw-it-in-here-when-I-don't-know-what-else-to-do-with-it-room. The door was closed to that room. I did make one cleaning mistake. There was a dead bug by the window next to the big dining room table. I'd meant to get it up and forgot. Guess where my step mother chose to sit? Um hmm. The chair right beside the bug. I'm hoping she was watching the plate and the chair and didn't see that big ol' bug. Anyone else seeing that bug would not have bothered me at all. She's the only person I cared if she saw it. And she sits right next to it! Wouldn't you know it?

I was able to get a lot of the Christmas decorations out and placed in their spots during the day Friday and will be sharing pictures throughout the month. I thought the cherub pictured above was appropriate to herald in the season. He's not old, only 10 years or so, a gift from a former piano student and I've always enjoyed using him. I've got a long way to go with decorating, but I can see the end. I think.

The weekend rest is over now. Back to life. Yesterday, it was so dreary, I laid on the sofa and watched TV all afternoon, drifting in and out of sleep. I never do this! But I sure did yesterday. Today, my back hurts from all that lying around. But I did get to see Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse Of the Black Pearl. I'd never seen any of the three Pirates movies. Now I want to see the other two. I'd forgotten Johnny Depp "channeled" Keith Richards for the role. Remembered that real quick. LOL So today is dreary too, but I'm resisting the urge to be completely and utterly lazy. I need to do stuff. And I got way behind reading everyone's blogs. Need to start cruising. Right now, I'm getting hungry. Hmmmm....wonder what's in the fridge? Oh, yeah. I remember. Green bean casserole, dressing, gravy and cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, chicken salad, macaroni and cheese, slaw, cheesecake and bread pudding. Sigh. It sounds so good, and it is. I'm just needing a hamburger or something.

What?? We're having dinner here?!

2007-11-21T07:14:00.000-06:00

I'd resigned myself to having a quiet, rather lonely, Thanksgiving Day. Ricky is working until 6:00, Erin and her boyfriend will be eating lunch with his grandparents, my dad and step mother are in Tennessee, Philip, our son, is in Florida. Then suddenly, things changed. Thanksgiving day will still be quiet - but busy - but Friday? Not so quite, and busier. We found out Philip will be coming up for the Alabama-Auburn game and will be here sometime Friday afternoon. That's great, but I still thought we'd just have a quiet holiday weekend. Erin had to work on Friday and my dad would still be in Tennessee. (I'm an only child, by the way. Have I ever mentioned that?) Then yesterday afternoon, I got a call from a local school telling me that Ricky had won the raffle for a meal for 20 from a local caterer! Well....yea! Uh, who's going to eat it?

I knew Friday was the only day we could do this, so I called Erin. Yes, someone was willing to swap days with her. Called Philip to verify he would be here. Yes. Then I started calling Ricky's family. He's one of seven children. So far, everyone has said they'd be here. I'm only calling the ones we're close to. They're the only ones who bother to show up at anything anyway. That means I'm calling four families, and their adult children and grandchildren. I'm counting 22-24 adults and teenagers and four little ones. Oops! That's risky with food for 20. Guess I'll need to cook a few more dishes. But worse than that, I've got to step up the cleaning!

Inside is basically under control. I'm not so very much worried about that since I got started last week, but this is what I'm looking at under the carport.

Ack! Ricky got in the attic and got down everything that looked remotely like Christmas decorations. Told me to go through this stuff. Get rid of what I don't want. This was mostly things we didn't necessarily use. Things that had fallen out of favor, but some things we just didn't have a better place for like lights and that big Santa and boxes of plain balls and..... The doll bed and the frame don't belong in that picture. I don't want to have to go through all these boxes. They aren't very fun. These are:

We had to build special shelves to hold the Christmas collection. I've X'd out things not Christmas. 90% of the collection is from the 1960s and earlier. I can't wait to get it all out! Can't wait to share it with you all!

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Oh, my! This is my 100th post! I'm not ready! We'll have to celebrate some other date. Either postpone the celebration or do my birthday or.......something.

So if I don't talk to you all for a few days, Happy Thanksgiving! And Happy Regular Day to the rest of the world!

Gobble, gobble, gobble

2007-11-20T07:45:00.001-06:00

Since I'm anxious to start Christmas decorations and take pictures and, and, and..... everything, I want to get the Thanksgiving mantle out of the way.

This is my small turkey and pilgrim collection with a couple of the kids grammar school turkey creations added in.

Ah, see the camera reflection? At least it's not my ugly, "concentrating on taking a picture" face. LOL

The ugly, "concentrating on taking a picture" face was actually in this picture. That's why you don't see the top of the candlesticks.

Most of the turkeys and pilgrams are old. A few of the turkeys are from the 1980s or so, but only a few. There are Gurley candles, salt and pepper shakers, a candle holder and a napkin holder. And those two fan tail things on each end. They are from the '80s for sure. I don't like them on the ends like that, but suspect I probably just shouldn't use them at all.

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I CAN SEE! I CAN SEE!

Got my new contacts yesterday and the difference in my vision is remarkable! I've worn hard contacts since 1970. Got them over the Christmas holidays my 10th grade year. I'm still in hard contacts. Gas permeable these days. I considered going with soft, but was told my vision would not be as clear as with hard. Not having very good corrected vision with hard, I certainly didn't want it to be worse! It seems every time I'd have my eyes checked and get a new prescription, we'd go through all the, "which is better - one or two?" Then they'd stop! My mind would be screeming, "But it's not good!!!" They'd act like that was as good as it was going to be. Now, tell me. To use an old cliche, how is it they can put a man on the moon, but can't give someone with astigmatism 20/20 vision? I'll never understand that.

I chose a different eye doctor this time. She did all the tests, ordered the contacts, tried them on me then went through the "can you read this line" tests again. And tweaked the prescription. That's never happened before! So I waited another week and got my new set yesterday. The world is sharp and clear! My computer glasses are even too strong! I'm so excited! I still can't read a street sign until it's too late to turn, but all things considered, that's a minor thing. I take Ocuvite, but my dad has been taking something he has to order. He says it has helped his vision more than Ocuvite. I think I'll try it, too.

Some day I might get the courage to try Lasik surgery. My daddy has me scared. He watched that 20/20 or 60 Minutes show years ago where they were talking about people who ended up with messed up eyes. Sigh. He even brings it up still. If I did it, I sure wouldn't tell him about it.

Today's finds and store fixtures

2007-11-17T11:08:00.000-06:00

Remember the estate sale that didn't happen last week? It actually took place today. It was the only sale I had any desire to attend this morning. It was supposed to start at 7:00, so I got there shortly after 6:30 and cars were lined up the street and people were already shopping. Phooey! I don't think I missed much, though. The lady who lived in this house went to yard sales for years and had sales a good bit. Apparently, she got rid of all her old stuff a long time ago and was replacing it with newer things. The prices were right, but there just wasn't much to choose from. Here's what I found:

This wicker stand thing is about 3' tall. Don't know what it is or if it has any age on it at all. The tray is actually very pretty, made in Italy, probably the 1970s.

What is it with me and ashtray stands? I don't smoke, never have smoked and never wanted to smoke. But I love the stands. This one has a handle, so I don't know what to do with it. Maybe put a dish in it for a small bird feeder or bird bath?

What do you "see" when you look at these terracotta.......things? I suspect they had a stand and the... er... pointy end was to be toward the bottom. Lena and I have had a good laugh over these. When I first saw them, I thought, "bullet". Lena's first thought was... um....how can I put this delicately...... an appendage we ladies don't have.

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Some of you have been wondering about the store progress. We're definitely going to get the furniture pieces from the booth today. We still have the trim to paint in the back room. Oh, foot! I should have taken a picture of the boxes and bags and piles and stacks filling up the front room right now. It's a huge mess. I've made a bit of room for the furniture, but other than that, there's barely a path. I went by this morning and noticed I hadn't locked the front door again. Not only was it not locked, it was open a couple of inches!! And had been like that for four days!! I'm really going to have to give the neighbor my phone number. One of the businesses a couple of doors down has a square dance every Friday and Saturday night, so lots of people walked past the "open" door last night, plus the riff-raff that walks up and down the street (maybe not so many in the actual front of the store) and people going to the beauty shop and dog groomer. Who knows how many people stole a peek? I bet they were appalled at the mess. Oh, I've got to get a picture so you can see what they saw. Nothing is missing. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Good because, well, nothing's missing. Bad because nobody thought anything was worth stealing! LOL

I have picked up a few display pieces lately. A store where Erin (my daughter) lives is closing out their home goods and getting rid of some of their fabulous display pieces. I always liked going in there because of the way things were displayed and now I get to own a few of the pieces myself.

These are porch column size. They put those dowel pins in them for what, I don't know.

Bent rebar to hold glass shelves.

I had this corner shelf, but it was an ugly, bland, peachy color and dirty. Erin took it home with her and crackled it and painted it this pretty blue color for me. What a sweet daughter I have!

The store with the fixtures has some old, small, rusty, grocery store shelves I have my name on. They're supposed to call Erin when they take them down, but that was to have been last week. Hope they didn't forget.

So now you're all caught up on what's going on with the shop. I pretty sure it's going to be called Just Vintage. I'd like to have that domain name, but someone is using it just as a parking site, so I'm trying to come up with a good domain name. TheJustVintageStore....... TheJustVintageShop.... Too much? I don't know. Something will come to me.

6000 Square Feet of Antiques at an Estate Sale

2007-11-16T13:41:00.000-06:00

That was the line of parked cars we saw in front of us when we found an empty spot for our vehicle this morning. There are more over the hill, almost as many behind us and down another side street. Cars as far as the eye could see. They even had a police lady directing traffic and a man on a golf cart taking people to and from the sale.

The ad said it was the 6000 square foot home of a prominent doctor. It also said there was enough stuff to fill an antique mall and.......a basement full! You know what attracted Lena and me. The basement.

It was an hour's drive from here and we arrived about 20 minutes after opening. We headed straight for the basement full. I don't know about her, but I was envisioning a basement full like we saw this past summer. One where I spent over an hour plundering and making piles just in the basement. This was not like that. The basement was only a tiny, half size basement of nothing. It was not full! Almost empty, really, but there was a lot outside. Perhaps all that had begun life in the basement and had been drug outside. There were boxes on the ground and everything in them was a dollar each. For some things that was fine, but for others, it was way too much. Out of those boxes, I only bought these three things:

Got all three for a dollar. I really like the ornament hanger box and the little Made In Japan houses will go in my collection.

Inside the basement was this mid century, aquarium stand. You can't tell a whole lot about it from the picture, but the design of the iron is pretty unique. I almost didn't get the sheet metal trays on top until Lena walked by and said I'd better. What was I thinking? Of course they're charming and add a potting table feel to it. Lena found more than I did in boxes. Maybe we'll get to see her loot today or tomorrow.

Upstairs, was fabulous! Tables and tables of wonderful glassware and luscious porcelain, all priced appropriately. Oh, and the antique furniture was to die for, but at $875+ each piece, well, we weren't tempted to buy any. I did take a $20 chance on an 1899 White House Cook Book thinking they sold for $100 or so on eBay. Don't know where I got that idea. If they did, they aren't now. I should be able to get my money back.

Speaking of eBay, here's a tip for those of you who sell there. Sacred Harp hymnbooks. They're a southern thing, but were used throughout the US. I just sold one for $102.50, the other for $141.50. They're hard to find, but do crop up from time to time and not many people know they have value. So keep your eyes peeled for them.

Here are the auctions if you're interested in seeing them up close.

Book one.

Book two.

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I continue on my cleaning spree. Got 2-1/2 rooms done yesterday! Woohoo! LOL Of course, that messed up the room I'd already cleaned, so now I'll have to go back and straighten it. Sigh. We didn't finish taking the remaining items home from the booth yesterday, nor did we paint trim. Nothing ever goes as planned around here. Thank goodness we're flexible. Or I am. Ricky is when it pertains to me. Not so much if they are his plans.

Award time!

2007-11-14T16:19:00.000-06:00

Some time ago, it seems like ages now, but it was just last month, I was given the You Make Me Smile Award. I've never got around to passing it along. I feel so bad about that! I'm sending it on to Lena at White Cats and Roses. You all know she and I are yard sale buds, but it goes much deeper than that. There's hardly anything we don't know about each other's innermost thoughts and feelings. Lena, you truly make me smile.

I was thrilled that Joy honored me with her brand new creation, the You Make Me Laugh Award! I'm with great company, too. Take a look and see who all else got this award. The Joy Of....

This one, I'm passing along to Kim at Vintage Rescue Squad. I've had a lot of fun reading her blog. Her yard saling reminds me so much of my life.

I really should make an effort to send these awards out to more people. All of you deserve them! I can even think of several without any effort. I've made some great Blogland friends. I'm enjoying knowing each and every one of you. But time to do that is not a luxury I have at the moment.

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I've been cleaning today. I think I've alluded to the fact that I'm not exactly Suzie Homemaker. During our married life, our arguments were always about my bad housekeeping and money. Ricky's finally accepted I'm not his mother and the kids are out of college and on their own, so we don't argue much any more. I tend to put off cleaning the house until it's a three or four day job. It gets so bad before I clean, I'm saying, "How did it get this bad? Why did I let it get this bad? How many dead bug bodies are behind that desk? Ack! A live bug! Will I get it clean in this lifetime?" My dad and step mother only show up when the dust is forming it's own mountain, dust bunnies and spider webs are hanging in sheets below the furniture,and we have to clean off places to sit. I actually heard my step mother mutter something about me needing a maid as she was leaving one time. That's the God's honest truth. She said that!

This morning I got up a ball of fire, determined to do that job in one day. Wanna guess how far I got? One room. One lousy room! And I didn't even get completely through with it. I'll keep working for a while tonight. Now, that room does have the computer area and I've tackled it. That's taken most of my time. It's that area that's still messy. You ain't seein' the before picture until I have an after, though. LOL

Tomorrow, we're supposed to get the rest of the big pieces from the booth and paint the trim at the shop. Opening day is getting closer and closer. I'm not setting a date. It'll happen when it happens.

Just popping in

2007-11-13T18:10:00.000-06:00

There hasn't been a post from me since, when?! Can you believe I really haven't had much to talk about and no time to take any pictures of anything, so I've kept quiet. But you know I can't keep quiet for long, so thought I'd just pop in and say "Hello".

The @#!#% men-o-pause had it's grip on me yesterday. I'm generally sailing through this time of my life with very few problems or complaints, but yesterday, my anxiety level was through the roof. Very unusual for me. I'm one of the most naturally mellow people you'll ever meet. I don't need mushrooms to make me mellow. (Do they? Isn't that why the Mellow Mushroom is named the Mellow Mushroom??) But yesterday, I was anxious and, as it turns out, extremely weepy. My sister-in-law called and wanted me to go to lunch with her and her daughter. I tried to beg off, but she said her dog had died. How could I refuse lunch knowing that?

As she was telling me the story of how her 13 year old dog had a heart attack and died while she watched helplessly, I started crying. Right there in the middle of the restaurant. Didn't think I'd ever get the tear fountain turned off -- and I didn't even like the dog. Barely even knew her. And the day got worse.

Shortly after leaving the restaurant, riding down the road, minding my own business, a State Trooper clocked me going 61 in a 40 mph zone. I had no idea. Oh, I knew the speed limit and make an effort not to exceed it in that area because they set up there often. I know that! But I wasn't paying attention. So this sweet, young, baby face State Trooper and I had a laugh about our driver's license pictures and stuff in general. All the while this conversatin' was going on, I was thinking, "Oh, dear Lord! I sound just like some of the people they pull over on Cops." And I COULDN'T STOP MYSELF!! He went to his car and came back with a ticket. And I THANKED him!!! "What did I just say??" So as he was walking back to his car, I said, "No, I don't mean thank you, but haha, you know, haha." Good grief! How goofy can you get? I walking away in my side mirror and it looked like he chuckled and shook his head. Yeah, but I've still got a ticket. And one I deserved.

About half a mile later, the tears started flowing again. I could not cut them off for thirty minutes! A song came on the radio that touches my heart. I don't know the official title, but it's Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone -- Unending Love..... I was screeching out the words at the top of my lungs and bawling then added laughing, all at the same time. I'm fine today. Pretty much back to normal.

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I'm extremely honored that Joy at The Joy Of My Life and Work
chose to give me her brand new, You Make Me Laugh award! I'm in with some good company. Thank you, Joy! I've got some award catching up to do, but my husband will be home in a few minutes and I want to spend the rest of the evening with him, so as usual, I'm putting off highlighting the award and passing it along. I should be able to get to that tomorrow.

2007-11-10T22:05:00.001-06:00

Thank you everyone for the "well" wishes. I'm still sniffling, but feel great. Got over the yucks pretty quickly. Thank God.

Lena and I haven't been able to go to the sales together in weeks. She's had other things to do. She has a life. A mini vacation one weekend, college football another and another. Not that I'm jealous or anything........ But we finally got together this morning. Headed straight for an estate sale. And waited. And waited. And waited. It became evident pretty quick nothing was going to happen, but we couldn't leave just in case. The neighbor across the street capitalized on the advertised sale by having one herself, but she has them quite often and didn't have much. She said she had not seen anyone at the neighbor's house working at all. We don't know what happened, but it sure wasn't the sale.

We hit just about every other sale in town, though. It was a slow day for stuff. Lena got a great, aqua/turquoise/that-color-I-can't-figure-out-it's-name trunk. I didn't say so, but I secretly wished I'd asked about it first. Maybe she'll picture it on her blog. I found a cool, art deco, gas, space heater and a few other things, but didn't get pictures today, so I'll talk about them later.

I did get a picture of these poodles. While I was contemplating the space heater, Lena was digging through a box and found these spaghetti poodles -- and handed them to me! How sweet was that!

The cold paint is coming off their accessories, but I love 'em anyway. Can you tell Mrs. Poodle has black cat's eye glasses on? Mr. Poodle is holding a top had and cane.

This must have been Be Kind To Wanda weekend. My sweet friend, Ruth, had a yard sale and let me come over the night before. I amazed (probably more likely appalled) her by grabbing up the old Christmas ornaments. Got a bunch of glass balls for Erin who will have her first big Christmas tree this year and is frantically hunting more ornaments. For several years she's used a vintage, small, silver tree she talked me out of. She didn't have a large enough place for anything more, but this year she does and is so excited to be decorating. It's exciting watching her.

The picture isn't all that great, but what else is new for me? Some are, some aren't. The angel, starburst things on the left, the tiny stocking, bottle brush trees, roll of tinsel garland, elf and Santa and sleigh are for me. Notice the pink handle slotted spoon and crocheted piece? I also got Lena some solid color balls and a couple of Santas, but they are already in her possession.

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I found the larger pictures of the auction items. I can't say they're all that much better, but here they are. Uh, which ones were too small??

The auction junk..... I mean "treasures"

2007-11-08T10:53:00.000-06:00

Finally, I got pictures of the goods from the auction on Saturday. Not only did I get all this, I think I picked up a bug. I, who never gets sick, have the crud. Ran a fever yesterday and last night. Now, I'm stopped up and coughing, which I'll assume means I'm on the mend. The pictures are not very good, but I'm not inclined at the moment to try to make them better.

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Before I show the pictures, I just want to apologize to everyone. I want to look at everybody's blogs, but it takes about 3 hours out of the day to check to see if they've been updated, read those that have and leave comments. So I tried Feedmailer. I told y'all about it a few weeks ago. It would let me know of just enough updates that it took awhile for me to suspect it wasn't sending everyone's new posts. Boy, was it not! I've now subscribed to two other RSS to email services and have been inundated with updates! So maybe, between the three services, I'll be notified of everyone's new posts. The other two? Send Me RSS and RSSFwd. I really like getting the updates through email. Now, on to the pictures.

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Almost everything I bought I'm going to keep or give as gifts or trash. The gifts, are not pictured. Don't want to ruin the surprise.

I've been wanting to start a collection of the convex glass silhouettes. This makes two. The other I've had since my 27 year old was a child. The two landscapes will go with my cottage print collection. The one on the bottom might not. The scene doesn't fit and it's badly torn, but the frame is a good color for the hall.
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I paid too much for this dinky table and messed up on the picture. Don't know how I ended up with two of the same picture. I don't know what it is. Smoking stand? Shoe shine? It's pretty small. Only about 2-1/2' tall. That piece of wood on top was put there afterward. Wonder what was supposed to go there? In the middle picture, you can see the groove to hold something. Glass? The groove is only at the top and bottom. That'll be a challenge to fix. Not my challenge, though. I'd never figure that one out. Any ideas what should go there to make it pretty?
~~~

I was happy to get this pretty Miss.
~~~

A box lot of pictures I paid WAYYYYYY too much for. The three I pictured first came out of here and the ones at the end of the post. There were some advertising prints with thermometers and that round picture is one of those pictures on tin they did in the 1930s. It has a picture of a small child surrounded by painted flowers and stuff. There are also some old group photographs and a 1925 calendar with a photo of children.
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Can you tell anything at all about this picture? Why is is so small?? I don't think I told it to be that tiny. But, hey. I'm sick. I've got an excuse....today. There's a desk insert that I may or may not use or can use in the new office at home that has been seriously put on the back burner. On the floor are chalkware bunnies that will go in my collection and some other crummy chalkware. Really bad. On top is a collection of ink wells, iron paperweights, a stand up perpetual calendar and two painted lamp globes.
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Tiffany collects the Cupid Awake and Asleep pictures and whatever else these pictures are called. I really should give these to her. I'm hoping she thinks she has enough. I didn't intentionally set out to collect these. After all, my friend has this collection and, even though we all like a lot of the same things, I try not to duplicate what everyone else is doing, but I'd certainly have kept them if she wasn't collecting them. They just fall into my hands. What's a girl to do? The one below started it. I didn't think Tiffany would want one in such bad condition and hers are all small and that one's really big, so........

Am I bad for wanting to keep them? The color is perfect with the color of my walls - which look "off" in the picture. I have some nice Christmas gifts lined up for Tiff. Will you forgive me, Tiffany? Please?

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Now, I'm off to read all those updates in my email!

Live in the Now

2007-11-07T10:07:00.000-06:00

I was just looking at my email trash folder and found some things that inexplicably went straight there instead of my inbox. Some emails are supposed to, but a lot of these aren't. This was one of them. I try to live my life like this, but do fail in some areas. I wanted to share this with all of you.

~~~

READ THIS VERY SLOWLY.... IT'S PRETTY PROFOUND.

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word "refrigeration" mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, "How about going to lunch in a half hour?" She would gasp up and stammer, "I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain." And my personal favorite: "It's Monday." She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of "I'm going to," "I plan on," and "Someday, when things are settled down a bit."

When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now...go on and have a nice day. Do something you WA NT to......not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

Make sure you read this to the end; you will understand why I sent this to you.

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask "How are you?" Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, "We'll do it tomorrow." And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say "Hi?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift....Thrown away.... Life is not a race Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over.

It's National Friendship Week. Show your friends how much you care. Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND. If it comes back to you, then you'll know you have a circle of friends.

To those I have sent this to... I cherish our friendship and appreciate all you do.

"Life may not be the party we hoped for... but while we are here we might as well dance!

The auction is history, but will live in infamy

2007-11-04T20:12:00.001-06:00

The throng of people before the auction began.
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I took 20 pictures and figured you all wouldn't appreciate all twenty being in this post, so I created a Flickr slide show for you.

~~~~

Groan. I should have trusted my instinct. How right I was about deep pockets coming from Atlanta. The corner cupboard Erin and I fell in love with sold for $975.00. There is no way I could resell that around here. Let me just tell you about the day.

We arrived about 7:30 that morning. The auction didn't start until 9:00, so I had plenty of time to look at each item or box lot -- all 8000 lots!!! That's not 8000 items, but 8000 lots! Boxes of things counted as a lot.

I had quite a few things marked that I thought I'd have a chance of winning.

The auction started promptly at 9 a.m. just like they said. The property was auctioned off first, then the guns. Ever notice how they always do "guy things" first? They tell us there will be three auctions going at once. One auctioneer will be in the pottery building, one in the front and one in the back. I never even poked my head in the pottery building, but heard one jug sold for $1800.00.

Naturally, I wanted things in the front and in the back. Just as naturally, Ricky was standing in line to pay for the gun he'd bought, so there was no help coming from him. I was running from back to front constantly for the first hour. Twice, when I got back around to the back a box I had marked as something I wanted was being sold for $5.00 and I was three seconds too late. Everything in front was going much to high and I wasted a lot of time waiting on some of that stuff. I did manage to get a few things from the back. But some things I wanted went for astronomical prices.

Remembering Deb at Curious Sofa's creations of bejeweled bottles, I picked out a box of bottles totally at random. I thought this particular box had several bottles that would look nice decorated. Ha! What great taste I have. That box sold for well over $100! There was a table full of old fabric. Someone did say there was an old flag in the lot and there was a Lucky Strike pillow, but mostly it was just fabric and crocheted lace like we see at estate sales all the time. I was willing to pay $40 for the bunch. Apparently the lady next to me was willing to pay $50 because when it was bid up that high, she threw up her hands and stomped off. But the bidding didn't stop there. I ended at $150.00!!! I saw the buyer going through it later and she was oohing and ah-ing over the fabric. Not the flag or anything. I was thinking I had some fabric to sell to her!

About the middle of the day, Ricky said he was going to go see a guy about some guns. A stranger. He left with my purse and my cell phone and didn't return for what seemed like hours. I was beginning to get sick at my stomach. He didn't know this man and....guns?! Ack!! But return he did. He was to call the fellow and go to his house, but Ricky could never get hold of him. I think he was fine, but it sure made me nervous when I thought about it.

There was a couple of hours lull where there was nothing I was interested in being auctioned. Finally, after 8 hours, the pottery auctioneer moved to the paper/chalkware/baskets tent. I happen to love ephemera. I love old books, old paper items, old magazines....anything paper and old. Love it, love it, love it. I love to look at it then sell it. And now I have scrapbooking friends to think of. There were several lots I was interested in in this tent. There were Baggies I was willing to pay $30 for! It was getting dark, the auctioneer was tired and had just come from high selling pottery and didn't have patience for the low bidders of cheap calkware and stuffed animals. Someone offered to buy the whole tent and the auctioneer threatened to sell it that way. Nooooo!!!! But he gave us another chance to up our bids. Then finally he got close to the items I was interested in. My heart rate increased and even started skipping beats. And he said he would auction from this point to that point - which included lots of old Playboys. I wasn't interested in those, although I wouldn't have minded getting them. No, there were only two lots in that batch I wanted. When I walked off, the bidding was at $300. I was so disappointed, frustrated, tired and hungry. We decided it was time to call it a day.

Checkout was not an easy process. Well, paying wasn't so bad, but we had to go through a checkpoint. They checked our list and compared it to the items we were walking out with. It turned out I'd not paid for four pictures and I didn't want to go back through the paying process, so I let them keep them. That was $20 they'd have been short. We're talking about $20 out of over a million taken in. Hrmph. Oh, well. I'm sure somebody got to take them home with them. Loading up the truck, Ricky dropped a box of pictures that had a hand painted glass lamp globe on it, breaking the globe and I didn't even get mad. I was too numb at that point. Really, I'd already expressed my anger with the way the auction was handled. I realize having three going at once is not uncommon, but it is for this area and these auctioneers were not experienced at it.

Our day at the auction lasted 12 hours. Fourteen if you count traveling time. We stopped at Ruby Tuesday's at 8:00. The parking lot was far from full and there were several empty booths, yet the hostess said it would be 15 to 20 minutes. Nope. Not gonna wait. We went down the road bit and had bar-b-que. When I got home and looked in the mirror, I saw my upper lip needed bleaching. Perfect. I'd spent the whole, frustrating day, just for a paltry pile of stuff, sporting a mustache I didn't realize was showing.

Pictures of my loot will come at the next opportunity.

An auction tomorrow

2007-11-02T08:59:00.000-05:00

We went to an estate auction preview last Sunday. This auction is so far out in the middle of nowhere.... But I'm really afraid deep pocket people from Atlanta will show up. It's a good one. We were there an hour and didn't see all there was to see. Didn't even go under all the tents! There were at least five tents with four rows each of stuff. The property was large and things were lined up all the way around the fence. There were three(?) outbuildings full and a house full. One room had nothing but pictures and frames with a path to walk through! I took pictures, but they don't begin to hint at the enormous amount of stuff this person collected. A lot of primitives, old toys, paper items, not many girly things.

You can't really tell, but those are advertising signs along the front fence.
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Under one tent actually looking into three more.

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Part - yes, PART - of the crockery collection. This was a huge building full of all kinds of pottery jugs and churns. Hmmm. Don't believe I saw that mirror before. I like it.

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A corner cupboard Erin and I fell in love with. The crackle finish is old and perfect. The piece is really tall, though. Eight or nine feet. This was in a shed full of furniture and pieces of furniture.

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Looking down the side fence.

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The back corner.

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The hope is that there's so much stuff we'll stand a chance just on sheer volume. I normally buy things other people don't think of, but honestly didn't see much of that there. It was all "good". Things everyone knows to buy. Things you can look up in a book. Anyway, we'll get up early in the morning to head to the auction, so I don't know when I'll post again. Saturday night? Sunday? Sometime next week?

Till then...............

Lena's blogging!

2007-11-01T18:00:00.000-05:00

Another quick note to tell y'all that Lena has created a blog, White Cats and Roses. Y'all go visit and make her feel welcome!

I'm taking it easy today and not talking about much, but a lot is going on. I'll have plenty to talk about later.

The House Was Haunted

2007-10-31T20:55:00.000-05:00

Today is the final spooky story post. Actually, I don't even know how to begin, so I'll relate the story in the sequence that I either experienced or learned it.

My grandparents, Dee and Autry, swapped houses with another couple when I was, oh, 10-ish? I'll call the other couple The Smiths. My grandparents were living in our old house, the one we lived in until I was five and swapped it for The Smith's house across town. I rather enjoyed the new house and yard in the daytime. There was a huge shade tree with low limbs in the back yard, an apple tree in the side yard and a swing on the front porch. Grandpa and I would sit in the swing and he would peel an apple we'd picked, slice it and alternate giving him and me a slice. He only peeled it because I didn't like the peeling back then. I didn't spend a lot of time there, but did spend the night every once in awhile.

I hated spending the night there. I was scared to sleep in a bedroom and slept on the couch next to Grandma and Grandpa's bedroom, but I was still terrified. I was scared to turn my back to the middle of the room and scared not to. I sure didn't want to see what I was afraid of! But I didn't know what made me afraid. I only knew when I was alone in the room and the lights were out, I had the most oppressive feeling come over me. This is nothing I could explain then, nor can I explain it now. Heaviness, oppression, sadness, terror......all these things describe the feeling, but it was more than just those words. As I got older, I would sleep in the middle bedroom, but was terribly scared there, too.

Grandpa died in 1977 and Grandma left us in 1978. It was during that year Grandma felt someone rubbing her legs. My uncle moved into the house after Grandma died. If you've read all the posts, you might remember the uncle I visited the day he died. It was this uncle who moved into the house. We were talking one day and he mentioned that the house was haunted. He said they could hear someone running from one end to the other. Now, I never heard anything when I had stayed there 10 years earlier and Grandma never mentioned anything like that, but my uncle ruled out squirrels and other critters. We thought maybe Grandpa was looking for Grandma and was upset he couldn't find her there. But that still doesn't explain the feelings I'd get when they were both alive. When my uncle remodeled the house, the running stopped.

My cousin was staying with his dad (the uncle) and said he woke up in the night and saw a woman standing at the foot of the bed staring at him. Another night he said she tried to smother him. Needless to say, he was pretty scared and didn't like staying there, either.

Years later, I spoke to The Smith's granddaughter-in-law. She had lived in the house that was first ours, then my grandparents', then The Smiths. The house had burned a few years earlier. I asked her something about the house, don't remember what now, but I do remember her answer. She said, "No, but that house was haunted." What??!! I'd lived there the first five years of my life. I remember a lot about that house, but nothing like that. She said that a rocking chair would start rocking for no reason. There may have been other things, but that's all I remember her talking about. Since hearing that, I've tried to relax and feel the feelings I had when we lived there, but can't grasp anything. I do wonder if the hauntings had something to do with The Smiths? Perhaps they brought the ghosts with them?

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Hope everyone had a fun Halloween. It's over for us here. We ran out of candy and our company is gone. I think I'll turn in now.

Grandpa Was There

2007-10-30T20:30:00.000-05:00

Dee and Autry Norred circa 1927
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Most of my stories involve my maternal grandmother. I do believe most of Erin's and my sensitivity come through her genes.

Grandma had phlebitis in her legs and Grandpa would rub them at night when they went to bed. They were so much in love, but Alzheimer's took Grandpa's mind and he spent the last six months of his life in a nursing home as a vegetable. Not long after he passed away, Grandma was awakened from sleep by the sensation of someone rubbing her legs. She was convinced it was Grandpa. She never had that feeling while he was in the nursing home. I don't know if it ever happened again, but she absolutely would not accept that she could have been dreaming. I believe her.

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The big finale is tomorrow. It'll be a long post and involves me, my uncle, cousin and my grandparent's house.

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We're putting up walls in the store this week. We'll paint the back part tomorrow - hopefully - and then I'll start getting set up! It's starting to really get exciting! I'm not setting a date to open, though. That'll come when it comes. We're just taking it one day at a time.

Till tomorrow..................

Who's That Knocking?

2007-10-29T20:52:00.000-05:00

My grandmother on the left. Circa 1911.
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I've mentioned in another story that my maternal grandmother, Autry, pictured above, lived on a farm in a house that had some strange occurrences. They had quite a large family, too. Thirteen children plus four grandchildren who's parents had died. All were expected to work the field both to plant and to reap. The younger ones did what they could, which often meant run here or bring that. Autry was one of the younger children.

During one particularly hot day in the field, Autry was sent to the house to fetch some water. She went in the kitchen and heard someone knocking on the wall between the kitchen and the next room. She thought her brother, Glen, was playing a trick on her and called out to him. "Glen, what are you doing in here?" No answer. So she went to the room where the knocking came from and no one was there. Just then there was the sound of someone knocking on the wall of the room across the hall. She called out again. "Glen! I know that's you! Now, stop it!" She went across the hall to that room. Again, no one was in there. Then the knocking began in the room next to that one. She knew she hadn't seen anyone come out of there and that scared her something awful! She ran back to the field and every last person was out there working. No one had left the field.

All these years of knowing this story and it's just now dawned on me that if I remembered it correctly, this meant they had water in the house! How very unusual for a farm house to have inside water in the early 1900s. Ordinarily, the water would have come from a well, and I'm sure theirs did, but why was she in the house? Just another thing I wish I could ask her about. I miss my Grandma.

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They Couldn't Stay There

2007-10-27T14:59:00.000-05:00

My great grandparents and their children. My grandmother is second from the right in back. It's not a very good picture of her.

The family pictured above was my dad's side. The grandmother I've already talked about was my mother's. So this is a different family.

It seems like more ghostly things happened back then or maybe they were more ready to believe. Maybe they were right.

The father of the family, Robert Smith, found work in Alabama City near Gadsden, Alabama. Naturally, the whole family moved with him. Houses big enough for that brood were hard to find, at least in their price range. After days and days of searching, they lucked up. Found a large, nice house who's rent was wonderfully inexpensive. It was unusually bright, having a lot of windows to the outside and transom windows over every inside door. Most houses of the day only had one or two, small windows to a room. They considered themselves fortunate, indeed.

They brought up all their belongings, which in those days wasn't a fraction of what we have now, and got settled in the first day. Exhausted from moving, everyone slept well -- until midnight.

Suddenly, they were all awakened by the sound of glass shattering. Lots of glass. It sounded like every piece of glass in the house had burst into a million pieces and fallen to the floor. They all jumped out of bed, ran into the hall and found nothing. Not a sliver. Shaken - not much sleeping happened after that - they braved another night or two with the same results.

Finally, the mother, Lizzie, asked a neighbor if they'd ever heard anything like that. The neighbor replied, "Oh, didn't you know? The last family who lived here was killed during the night by the father. That house is haunted. Why do you think the rent was so cheap?"

They didn't stay another night. They packed up their clothes and what little furniture they had and began the search for another house.

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The sales were pitiful today. Those two estate sales were very lackluster, to put it mildly. One was 40 miles one way from me, waaaayyyyy out in the "cuntree". I promise, they should have burned everything there or thrown it away except maybe....perhaps....this:

And even that I could have lived without. The other sale didn't start until 12 noon. Odd, I know. So I showed up at 11:45. They made us all wait - for nothing. Bleah. Took me all of 10 minutes to see I didn't want anything there. Lena is in Florida, but I sure needed her with me to make me go to regular yard sales this morning. I wonder if I missed anything by not going to those?

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My first cousin, twice removed got married this evening. I didn't realize it was going to be outside and didn't dress warmly enough. Thought I'd turn into a girl-cicle! It sure was good to see that part of the family. We've drifted too far apart. We still love each other tremendously, but never get together. I think it's up to me and my first cousin to remedy that. Speaking of my first cousin...... Her husband died a few years ago. The groom was their grandson. I was sitting at a table next to hers and all of the sudden, realized her late husband was with us! I know! That's nuts, isn't it? But I mentioned it to her and she agreed. And we cried. She said he's with her all the time and leaves little hints here and there. I didn't press for more information, but will next time I see her.

Finally! The hutch is in the store!

2007-10-26T17:48:00.000-05:00

(The color is off in the pictures again today. Maybe it's the time of day I'm taking them??)

We finally got the hutch to the store. The hutch, itself, is not all that exciting. There's something I just don't like about it. I'm not sure the top goes with the bottom. Maybe it's the finish. Maybe it's the round, knob looking things. Maybe it's both, or all three, but it's sure going to hold some stuff! Might sell, too. If we still have it by spring, we'll have to do something about the finish. Either refinish it or paint it.

This also came from that same sale last weekend. Now, this I like.

We spent a total of $600 at that sale. All that stuff I pictured last week and these two things. I'll let you figure out how much everything was. LOL

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There was another, small, estate sale here in town today and there are two, fairly close tomorrow! This is unprecedented! We never have estate sales here! This is part of what I loaded up with this morning at just the one sale.

Large, Fire King vegetable bowl.

Red handle rolling pin and stoneware, covered dish.

Collection of doggie figurines and a zebra.

Love the Made in Japan Indians, but don't they look menacing next to the little lady?

This is the sweetest, daintiest, little, child's crocheted purse! Only about 4" high without the handle. Wait. Uh..... strap?

That's a feather hat with the two yo-yo pillows. I think the yo-yos on different backing with prettier, more up to date trim will be nice. Hmmmm. Wonder when I'll get around to that?

And I thought this was the sweetest bundle of quilt pieces. I didn't take it apart, but it appears to be strips she had pieced together to make blocks. I just like the way she tied them up in the bundle. So practical. Obviously someone who had come from hard times.

I also got a whole bunch of books to lot on eBay when I have enough of the same authors and two Sacred Harp hymnbooks. They usually do pretty well on eBay. I even saw them on Antique Roadshow once. They're very hard to find. I found some about 6 years ago and haven't seen any since. Until today. I was pretty excited about that.

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Ricky starts his vacation as of now. He'll be off almost two whole weeks. We plan to work in the store first and get it ready, then work on the house. See if we can get pretty much finished with it. I hope I get to finish the spooky stories! The really good ones haven't been told yet. Hope he doesn't keep me too busy!

There was no one there

2007-10-24T19:06:00.000-05:00

Philip's second Halloween.
Yes, he was a ghost! What did you think he was?!

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(It was raining today, so still no furniture to take pictures of. Ahem. I should say there was no furniture of which to take pictures or something like that.)

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My grandmother's family had two houses. One in town and one in the country. Least you get any ideas, they were far from wealthy. One of their sons was killed during WWI and they used the insurance money to buy one of the houses. With thirteen children, any money realized after their death was divided into minute amounts, so my grandmother and her brothers and sisters didn't benefit a whole lot through the sale of the properties. There's more to that story, but I only have it third hand and don't feel at liberty to spread rumors.

Well, as usual I've strayed from the subject.

The house in the country, which in the present day is just a few miles from town, had a very long driveway. The driveway is now a loop populated with several houses. But in those days it was simply the drive up to their house. If they heard a wagon or a horse on the drive, they knew they were having company.

One dark and cold night, they heard horses pulling a wagon up the drive. Who in the world was visiting that late? Everyone scrambled to straighten up just as most of us do today when we have unexpected company. They heard the wagon pull on up to the house then..........nothing. They waited. Nobody came to the door. Someone looked outside to see if anyone needed help and no one was there. No horse, no wagon. Nothing but black night.

That house has another story I'll save for another day. My grandmother had several stories that will be told later. I miss her so much. She died in 1979 when my firstborn, Philip pictured above, was 6 months old. She was such a hoot. Lots of fun and had stories galore. I thought I'd always remember them, but I know there are many I've forgotten, just as I know I've got some confused. I wish I could ask her about her cousins, her parents, her grandparents. I did way back when, but I don't remember the answers.

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Have you tried the French's Crunchy Onion Chicken recipe that's in the pullout in all the magazines this month? We had it for supper (dinner to all you non Southerners out there) tonight. It was pretty good. Worth having again sometime.

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Yes, it's rained all day today! We couldn't go get the large piece of furniture today and probably won't get to tomorrow. We do need to have it out by Saturday.

She wasn't dead!

2007-10-23T15:03:00.000-05:00

1950s Halloween coloring book from Saturday's sale. The cat is flocked.

We didn't make it to pick up the large piece of furniture yesterday, so no pics today. I'll just tell another spooky story.

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My great grandmother was a diabetic. Severe enough that she'd had a leg amputated. She died in 1933 at the age of 64. In those days, the dead were often prepared and laid out in the house, usually the deceased's home. My grandfather, her son-in-law, was in the room with them when they, the mortician people, were embalming her. He said she started moaning and he tried to stop them, but they just passed it off as gas escaping her body. (Perhaps once you begin the process or replacing blood with chemicals, it's too late anyway.) Most of us who have heard that story believe she was in a diabetic coma and was actually killed during the embalming process.

I've always heard of Victorians being afraid of being buried alive. They'd have a string attached to their finger that lead up to a bell above ground. I've actually seen a pipe at a grave in a cemetery. It seems like I've heard that they'd to that, too. Have a pipe going through the earth and casket so they could breathe and yell if they woke up. But don't you think the smell would come through the pipe? Ewwww!

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Jayne, at Country Cottage Chic, passed the Spirit of Christmas Award along to me. Thank you, Jayne! That was so sweet!

This award is for those who talk about and show the spirit of Christmas in their blogs.

What is the Spirit of Christmas you ask?

Quite simply it is those that have a generous and giving nature. Those who care about others. Those who have a kind word to say or a broad shoulder to lean on in the times that others need that. Those who display the "Spirit of Christmas".

We're supposed to pass it along to five blog friends.

So, I'm sending it to:

Lisa at A Thing For Roses because she visits her grandma.

Deb at Curious Sofa Diaries for sharing her luscious shop with us.

Lidy at French Garden House for the eye candy.

Colleen at Fresh Vintage for sharing her finds and, most recently, the "best sellers" list.

Karla at Karla's Cottage for giving the best parties ever!

Ladies you need to go here to pick up the graphic.

Thank you all for such enjoyable blogs. And, believe me, it was a hard decision. I love everyone's blogs. If you're on my list, I like to read your blog. I don't always comment, but am trying to get better at it. And there are so many, many more I haven't discovered, yet or somehow missed adding to my list. Arghhh! So many blogs, so little time!

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We're to go pick up the large piece of furniture tomorrow. The seller offered to sell me everything that was left. I don't know what all is there, though. Everything I asked about was gone, so we'll see.

Finds from 10/20 estate sale #2

2007-10-22T11:53:00.001-05:00

A couple of interesting things I forgot to say about the estate sale Saturday was that we had to sign a waiver before entering stating that we would not hold them responsible for any accident and they had a policeman there all day. Definitely the oddest sale I've ever attended.

Here are more pictures of the haul. Those yellow things on a lot of the stuff are the price tags I haven't taken off, yet.

Oops. That candlestick got photographed twice. Not sure if the lady picture is a print or a drawing. Haven't looked that closely, yet. That white ball isn't a spirit. It's the reflection of a light in the ceiling. The figurine has lace on her skirt. Am I supposed to leave that all nasty and brown or try to clean it? How would I go about cleaning it? I know some of you collect the lace skirted girls.

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Love the print and the frame - and the pink floral dishes. The coffee grinder? Hrmph. They had it marked $100!!! My instinct told me, without even looking closely or noticing the price, that it was 1970s. At the end of the day, we were standing in the vicinity of the grinder and the seller just came out and said she could let me have it for $25. Well, what a deal, right? So I said OK. Got it home and my original instinct was right. It's 1970s, worm hole wood. Sigh. Found one that had sold on eBay for 9.99. Maybe I can get my money back at the store just for the visual appeal.

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That might be a water color of cows and a farmhouse. Again, I haven't looked that closely, but it sure could be. It was a great price. The footstool, however, was marked $75 originally. I tried to get her down to $10, but she held her ground at $25.

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This chest was painted, if the newspaper lining the top drawer is any indication, in 1953! It cost me more than I'd rather have paid, but still was pretty good. I should be able to at least double my money. When I went to pick it up, I wondered aloud why I'd paid so much for it. One of the fellows said, "Oh, sand that down and repaint it....." ..............>>

What??!! Noooooo! That's what I bought! The naturally, crackled finish. There's lovely crackling on the painted drawers, too.

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The best piece there. Everybody looked at it and wanted it, but it was just priced too high for an estate sale. By the end of the day, she let me have it for almost 1/4 the starting price. It's about four and a half feet tall and not quite 4' wide and the inside is painted blue >>>>

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A fancy iron dish/bowl/thing. It's about 10" wide.

~~~~

Nice oval frame with ugly flowers in it, and a blue, blown glass oil lamp. I saw the horse lamp through the window and was able to research it before the sale. Found one on eBay that had sold for $9.99, so I planned to pass on it. But when it was only a dollar, figured, what the heck. The mirror has a story. A that day story. Don't know about before I found it. When I saw it, I wanted it. I can't remember now if he put my name on it or if someone else had already claimed it. They think someone else claimed it. When I went back after lunch, they were talking about how the lady didn't get her mirror. "What mirror", I asked. They showed me and I told them I wanted it. They said I'd need to wait until the end of the day in case the lady came back. There was much confusion. The people taking the money were going to sell it to me, saying the other lady hadn't paid for it. The estate sale handler, said to wait. She thought it had been paid for. By the end of the day it was still there and I got it half price. Loaded up the car with that trip's buys -- and forgot the mirror! I had to go back home for the checkbook and when I walked back in, they were all laughing about me forgetting the mirror. So do you think it's jinxed or meant to be mine?

~~~~

These trays started out at $35 each! That was one of those, what were they thinking things. I got them significantly less, but at the high end of what I normally spend on tole trays. The dishes and stand were just because.

~~~~

Great price on a plant stand.

~~~~

Big, glass, hand painted lamp shades. About 14" diameter. Had to make an offer on these and offered low. Wish I'd tried a little lower now. I think they'd have taken it.

~~~~

Primitive, wood, tool tray, plate with pretty graphics of the Capitol, a Harvey coloring book and a never used umbrella in a velvet, embroidered case. And a Raymor, Italian, pottery box.

~~~~

There will be a few more pictures tomorrow. A big piece of furniture we've got to get, hopefully today, a metal table and maybe some of the things I knew I was keeping. You don't know how hard it is to give up some of that stuff, but when you don't have a place, you don't have a place. And I'm pretty good at making a spot for things I love.

I'd love to say how much everything cost, but since most will be for sale, I just don't feel comfortable doing that. I will say tomorrow how much we spent total. I should get back on the spooky stories tomorrow, too.

Finds from 10-20 estate sale #1

2007-10-21T19:50:00.000-05:00

There are a lot of pictures today. I hope the files are small enough that it won't take too long to load!

This all began over a week ago. There was an ad in the local paper for an estate sale that was to take place 10-20. I didn't get out and see anyone who was talking about it, but apparently, it was the talk of the town. Lena had heard some talk of it and, since she lives less than half a mile from the sale site, she went over there and peeped in the windows.

She called me and said the sale looked wonderful. There were no drapes on the windows and you could see everything and everything looked fantastic! She was quite despondent that she was going to be out of town that day and wouldn't make it.

By Friday, my curiosity had got the better of me and I had to see for myself. She did not exaggerate. If anything, she held back. I was so very tempted to try the doors to see if they were locked. Might have if the neighbors couldn't look out their kitchen window and see everything that was going on. Too, I'd just read a book, Savannah Blues, where the antique dealer climbed in the open window of an upcoming estate sale and found a dead body. I didn't think I'd find a body, but figured I'd get caught somehow and didn't want to risk that. It was awfully tempting, though. Instead, I went back home and tried to get some sleep.

The sale was to begin at 8:00, but I planned to stake my spot in line by 6:30. I missed the 6:30 mark by about 15 minutes and ended up third in line. The sellers stuck to their guns and didn't open up until 8:00. This was the oddest sale I've ever been to. I've heard they might do it this way in other parts of the country, but it's the first one I've attended that was handled like this.

Only 10 were allowed in at a time. There was someone posted in every room and we were to tell them what we wanted, they'd make us a ticket and put our name on each item. We then took the ticket with us and repeated the process for each room. After we paid, we went back to each room and collected our loot. Now, we're talking about them marking each plate, each lamp, each toy, etc. And THEY WERE SLOOOWWWW!!! It drove me crazy! I could tell them what I wanted pretty fast, but it took them too long to write it all down. All the while, I was twitching, wanting to get to the next room. Also, all the while, we could see the line of people outside watching us with frustrated looks on their faces. I guess, all in all, it was a pretty good system for us first few. We didn't have to fight each other for the best stuff. We just had to choose the right rooms to hit first.

I ended up making three trips to the sale that day. The first time, then after lunch for half price, then at the end of the day for the real bargains. Here is some of the stuff from the first run. This is just the stuff I could get in the car. There was more in the truck. Oh, yeah. Ricky showed up at 8:00. He was one of the people having to wait in line while the lucky duck, first in line people shopped.

The color looks off on these pictures. Makes everything look kinda icky.

Y'all might have noticed my addiction to iron plant stands and ashtray stands.

You can't really tell, but sitting on top of the cigar box is a little, porcelain lady in a lace skirt with tiny, porcelain shoes sticking out. That's a doll trunk and a corduroy....um...lamb?

Victorian print in a pretty, gold frame, a beaded....thing....chatelaine? Maybe? A pewter or lead candlestick. It's heave as lead. That's probably what it is. Green, footed, Depression glass bowl and three, Italian nut dishes.

That hurricane lamp is 1970s ugly, but the two, old, hand painted shades were sold with it. They're all dirty. Haven't been washed, yet.

Scroll shelf.

Scrolly wall hanging thing and little shelf.

These were on the garbage pile. The game is an old, old Stock Exchange game with Bakelite game pieces and a leather dice shaker. The iron thing in front is a whatsit. I've not a clue what it is, but it was iron and you know I love iron, and it has this crackle patina>>>

Isn't that great?

I asked the seller where all the junk was. She said they threw away four of those rent-a-garbage can things full. Can you imagine the expression on my face? Of course, her reply was..... say it with me...... "You wouldn't have wanted any of that." How many times have we heard that one? I do know her and we've got to back tomorrow to pick up a large piece of furniture. I'm going to tell her if she ever does this again (this was her first) to call me before throwing anything away. I'm also thinking of trying to buy everything that's left at this sale. It was that good. The stuff pictured above really isn't a very good example.

Oh, the prices were all over the place. Well, that's not quite true. They were either too, too high or way cheap. We'd look at something that was marked quite high and wonder, "What were they thinking?" Then we'd see something for a dollar and think, "That's only a dollar? What were they thinking?!" I found out later, they had an antique dealer price the obvious pieces - and some not so obvious pieces, but some of the best pieces in the way of character and unusual-ness, was overlooked.

~~~~~

I've just discovered we can get RSS feeds through email! Now, maybe I'm the last to know about this, but it sure is a time saver. I'm using Feed Mailer. You just create an account (free) and add the blogs or sites RSS feed addresses and say how often you want it to check for updates. Since I'm at the computer a lot, I've chosen hourly. So once an hour, I get to see if any of you have updated your blog. It's so much easier to keep up with! Almost like answering email. Now, I've got to add a bunch more blogs. So far, I really like it.

~~~~~

Opening the shop is getting closer and closer. I cleaned the nasty carpet today. It really just needs to be pulled up and thrown away, but that's out of the question at this point. I've even started telling people. It feels so strange. I'm not talking about a just a dream anymore, but a real happening.

~~~~~

I'll have more pictures of the sale tomorrow.

The Graveyard Fireball

2007-10-20T20:26:00.000-05:00

Philip's first Halloween. Those were Superman PJs. All I had to do was make the cape.

Today's story is a short one, and thank goodness! I've spent the day back and forth at an estate sale. Made four, count 'em, 4 trips! I'm busting to talk about that, but will leave it for tomorrow.

~~~~

My dad was a second (or third) generation textile mill worker. Like most kids his age, he went to work young. Was a foreman by the time he was 16. Shortly after that, at the tail end of WWII he left for the Army, and never looked back at the mill. When he came back home, he found employment elsewhere and did pretty well for himself.

All the mill families lived in the Mill Village and walked to and from work. Daddy was on evenings and the quickest way home was past the Village Cemetery. That one, dark night, as he passed the cemetery, a ball of light shot out across the road in front of him. Scared the you know what out outta him! He ran home and told everyone what had happened. The grown-ups just tut-tutted it and said it was just swamp gas. But doesn't swamp gas form in low lying areas? The cemetery is the highest point in the whole village! He took the long way home from then on.

~~~~~

There won't be a Halloween post tomorrow. There's too much to tell about the estate sale. I've been to some good ones this summer, but I believe this one tops them all!

So That's Why I'm Afraid of Horses and Drowning

2007-10-19T13:18:00.000-05:00

Beulah Hagan Norred, Annie Mae Norred, Robert Norred,
Dee Norred, Josephine Stonecyhpher Hagan
ca. 1907

My Southern Baptist heritage makes me resist the idea of reincarnation, but this next story makes me want to believe.

As a child, like most all little girls, I wanted a horse. We even lived across the street from a stable. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't convince my parents to get me a horse. Later, when I'd had a chance to actually be around horses just a bit, I realized I was afraid of them, especially their heads and noses. As a very young child, there was this time between wakefulness and sleep when I'd have an awake dream, sort of - I don't know how to describe it - of a horse head shaped thing that was wrapped in cloth. It would nudge at my face, but I don't remember this being scary. Just weird. Also, as a child, I was terribly afraid of drowning. I was especially afraid of riding down a road which would suddenly end at a river's edge. I'd have dreams of just that and the car not stopping ending up with us in the river, going under. Every time we went over a big bridge, I'd hold my breath. But I loved the water! As long as I could touch bottom I was fine. I'm still that way. I don't like being in deep water without some support, although I love being in the water.

As an adult, two or three years after Erin was born, I started having a dream every spring that either she or I was drowning. It was never Ricky or Philip. Just me or Erin. If it was me, I could feel myself taking water into my lungs. If it was her, the panic was horrible. We were going to the lake a lot during those years and I just passed it off as knowing lake season was right around the corner.

Some years later, while researching my mother's family, I came across this tidbit about my third great grandmother, Martha Ruth Camp Stonecypher:

On April 2, 1818 James and Martha Ruth Stonecypher started from near Eastonaelle, GA on horseback, each carrying one of the twin boys on their respective horses. James had Joseph while Martha Ruth had John, as they attempted to cross the Tugaloo River to visit Martha Ruth's parents in South Carolina. This crossing is known as Clevelands Ford. Marth Ruth and her son John were swept off her horse in the river and drowned before James could safely put Joseph on the river bank and go back to assist his wife and son.

Did you get that? It happened in the spring. April. She and one of her children drowned. The child was only two years old. I often wonder if he was the youngest of the twins?

One more thing. If someone gets my name wrong, if they don't call me Rhonda, they call me Martha.

Marth Ruth Camp was the grandmother of Josephine Stonecypher Hagan in the above picture.

Now, maybe it's inherited memories or maybe it really is reincarnation or maybe just a huge coincidence. I don't know, but it sure sure amazed me when I first put all of that together.

There was another weird thing along those lines. I was mindlessly entering genealogical information in my database one balmy, summer night. I was probably close to being hypnotized when I had a flash, like a photograph in my mind. I was sitting on a old, wooden front porch, wearing a long, brown skirt, and had a big, wooden bowl in my lap. I was shelling peas and had the sense there were children in the yard playing. I was seeing all this through my eyes, not looking directly toward myself. I knew there were other people on the porch. I knew the house was a four room dog trot with a four square roof. I think that's what they call it. The roofs that come to a point at the center. That was it. A split second visual, but I'll never forget it. What in the world caused that? I wasn't thinking about anything like that. I've tried since and can't conjure up anything similar.

My uncle, the same one I visited the day he died, had a couple of similar experiences. His grandfather, my great grandfather, the husband of Beulah Hagan Norred pictured above, was shot in the chest and killed. Bobby always said he could actually feel being shot in the chest, just the way I knew how it felt to drown. He also had a vision of a church. He was trying to find the old home place and, as he was riding down the road, he "knew" as he turned a curve that there would be a white church with wooden picnic tables in the yard and a cemetery off to the side. He could even see people, women in long dresses, having a pot luck dinner "on the grounds". As he rounded the curve, the church and cemetery were there just as he had envisioned, but the tables were long gone.

Next installment: Ball of light at the cemetery

~~~~~
By the time I'm through with these stories, you're all going to be convinced I'm really weird. I hope you won't stop being my friends! Maybe I need to shut up while I'm ahead.

~~~~~
I didn't go to any sales this morning. It was raining and there's an estate sale locally tomorrow, so I'm saving up for that.

~~~~~

Ghost Dog

2007-10-18T10:32:00.000-05:00

The little white puffball on the left was our Peek-A-Poo, Buffy. The picture on the right is our now 28 year old son, Philip, holding my parents' Poodles, Mitzi on the left and her mother, Cutie, on the right.

We got Buffy when she was 4 years old, a year younger than Erin was. Just a little later, my parents' got Cutie as a puppy. They let her have one litter, which turned out to be a litter of two. Mitzi was the only one that lived through birth and they kept her for a companion to Cutie. All three dogs were great friends. Well, Mitzi was a little standoffish, but Buffy and Cutie were friends. Early on, they played together, running around each other, chasing each other from one end of the room to the other, making hairpin turns, and tumbling over each other. Cutie gained a lot of weight and as they both got older the fun and games stopped.

My mother died in July of 1999. Buffy was 16 and loosing her vision, Cutie was 11 or 12 and very much overweight. In August, one month after Momma passed away, Cutie died quite suddenly of heart congestion. We all went to Daddy's for the "funeral". Ricky, Philip, Erin, Buffy and I. Daddy had Cutie in a duct tape sealed, Rubbermaid box for her casket which was still in the den. Buffy went to the box and sniffed around a bit. I'm sure she knew Cutie was in there and something wasn't right. The men went to the back yard to dig the grave, leaving Erin, Buffy, Mitzi and me in the house with Cutie. Mitzi seemed oblivious to everything that was going on. She just wanted to be petted, as usual. Buffy walked around, checking everything out then, out of the blue, looked toward the blank TV screen. The TV was not on. Besides that, she never looked at the TV. Some animals notice TV shows and sounds, but Buffy never acknowledged a TV was in the room. But that day, she looked straight at it, perked her ears up and cocked her head, like she was watching and listening to something.

Just then, she started running from one end of the room to the other, making those hairpin turns exactly like she did when she and Cutie were playing all those years ago. This went on until she tired and lay down to rest. We have no other explanation than Cutie's spirit was there and free. She could run and play like she used to when she was a puppy.

When we covered up her grave, Buffy laid down next to it and didn't want to leave. We had to pick her up and carry her away. One month later, our Buffy was dead. We left her in the back yard alone for about 5 minutes and she fell in the pool and drowned. She was a very good swimmer. I suppose it could have been the shock of it and not being able to see well or perhaps she had a heart attack. What I do know is I cried for three straight days. I blamed myself for leaving her, it was the last straw, loosing my mother, which was expected, then Cutie then my precious Buffy...... 1999 was a very bad year.

Next up: So That's Why I'm Afraid of Horses and Drowning!

~~~~

I'm feeling very special right now! Carrie at Oakrise Cottage has honored me with the You Make Me Smile Award, too! And Jayne at Country Cottage Chic thought of me for the Spirit of Christmas award! I just keep getting further and further behind. Or would that be farther and farther? I've taken too much time writing this post today and really can't spend much more time on the computer.

~~~~

I might have to skip posting tomorrow. It's yard sale day, ya know! We'll see what I have time to squeeze in.

~~~~

What do you think about Just Vintage for a shop name? Are there 782 other shops by that name all over the US? I'm still thinking, but that one is on the list.

I've been asked why I want to change the name from Snapdragon Antiques. I don't know. It doesn't seem to fit the physical store. My husband will have things in there, too. John Deere stuff and some other guy things. I don't want the fellows to think it's just a girl store. So, I'm thinking. I know I shouldn't think too much. In the first place, it hurts! LOL Then the more I think, the more confused I get. I should just relax and let it come - and trust that it will.

I knew they were going to die

2007-10-17T07:57:00.000-05:00

Four times in my life, I've known someone was going to die. Well, I didn't know I knew it until later. Thank goodness!

When we first married, we moved away from this itty bitty town and lived close to Birmingham. Ricky was working construction there and I was only too happy to move away and start our new life. But we went home to Sylacauga almost every single weekend. We'd go down Saturday morning and spend the night, going back home Sunday night. I was good to visit people in those days. Not sure how I've got out of that habit. I need to get it back.

Every weekend, we'd make the rounds of parents and grandparents. This one, particular weekend in October, we missed visiting my paternal grandparents. I woke up Monday morning with my grandfather on my mind. Heavily. I knew I had to visit him the next weekend. The odd thing was, I wasn't worried about visiting my grandmother, just him. Of course, she was part of the package, but I NEEDED to see him. Tuesday morning, the feeling was still there. Wednesday, the same. And Thursday. He was the first thing I'd think about when I woke up each morning. He was on my mind as I was getting dressed. Once I got to work, other things crowded into my mind and I didn't think of him so much.

I was at work about an hour on Thursday morning when my mother called and said PaPaw had had a heart attack and died while sitting in his favorite chair. That's when I realized I'd been having premonitions.
~~~

The second time, 1978, involves my maternal grandmother. She'd had a couple of heart attacks and the doctors had finally declared her fit for open heart surgery. She was in the hospital in Birmingham for a few days before the actual surgery. By this time, we'd moved back to Sylacauga. I had been shopping in Birmingham that day and had to get back home for Vacation Bible School that night. I was the church pianist. I almost came on home, but felt the need to visit Grandma, so I drove across town for a visit. She was sick at her stomach. Had I only known that was a symptom of a heart attack... I did tell the nurse that she was sick, but I couldn't stay. I had to pick up Philip from my mother-in-law's and get to the church. By the time I got to my mother-in-law's, my mother called and asked me how Grandma seemed to me. They had already called the family in. She died shortly afterwards. The last thing she said was those peas I gave her made her sick. Bless her. I didn't give her any food.

A few years later, we heard of a male nurse who worked with heart patients in that hospital the same time Grandma was there. He was killing his patients by injecting them with something to bring on a heart attack. Grandma talked about a male nurse. She didn't like him. My uncle and I feel sure she was one of his victims.
~~~
There were no more premonitions that I know of until the 1990s. About 1995. My aunt's brother ran a shoe repair shop. He was no kin to me. His sister married my daddy's brother. Got it? I'd known him all my life, but only to exchange pleasantries. No real conversations. He was standing outside his shop one day as I drove past. I had this overwhelming urge to stop and talk, but didn't. What would I say? You see, nothing specific comes to mind. There's no urge to witness to these people or anything like that. It's almost like I just want to be near them. To give them a hug. A few days later, I learned he had died quite suddenly.
~~~
The last time was just over a year ago. My uncle had been sick. He'd had an operation to drain fluid off his brain and, I believe, had a stroke afterwards. As far as I knew, he was getting better. I'd intended to go see him, but kept putting it off. On that Thursday in May, I had been to Wal-Mart and on my way home, decided I had to go visit him. Right then. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. I knew if I went home first I wouldn't get back out. Go NOW!

I walked in their door and his wife looked at me kinda funny and said, "How'd you know?" Let me tell you, my heart flew up through my mouth and hit the floor! I thought he'd died. As it turned out, the nurse had just been there and said it was only a matter of hours. I got to spend a few hours with him before he died. He wasn't conscious, but I wouldn't trade those few hours for anything.

Now here's the part about that one that almost embarrasses me. He and I worked on our family history together. I whispered to him to help me out a little if he could. Would you believe, just a few days later, I did some research, the same I'd done before, but was just looking for anything I might have missed and out of the blue, found my great great uncle. A man I'd been hunting for years.
~~~
Thank goodness I don't realize these are death premonitions until after the fact. I've had the urge to call or visit people who didn't die. There must be something different about these feelings, I suppose they're stronger, for one thing, but they don't happen often enough for me to learn the real difference. For that I'm grateful. I don't think I could stand truly knowing someone was about to leave this place.

~~~
Tomorrow: Ghost dog

~~~

I'm still trying to think of a cool, funky, unpredictable, edgy name for the shop. How did the Anthropologie people ever think of that?! I'm looking through a spelling dictionary to see if any words jump out at me, but after about 15 seconds, they become just a list of words.

The trim is now painted in the front room of the shop. I still want to clean the carpet and the window needs some work, but it's getting closer!

~~~

Another award? Awww, shucks! I'm blushing. Sandi at Holding Patterns honored me with the Christmas Award. Now, I'm two behind. What a nice feeling. Not being behind, but to have awards! I've got to get dressed in a minute to go do some genealogical research with a cousin and Ricky's off tomorrow. Looks like it'll be a couple of days before I can pass these along.

Let's Don't Go That Way, Mommy

2007-10-16T09:38:00.000-05:00

Erin and Philip - Halloween 1985?
She looks like they'd just been fighting.

~~~

It was approximately the same year the above picture was taken when this next story took place. The kids and I have always had a special connection. We've known what the other was thinking too many times to be a coincidence. Still do. Erin, especially, has been sensitive to things no one else feels or sees. More so than me or Philip, or their dad. If she feels something, I pay attention.

There's a certain route we take when we come home from Birmingham or anywhere we drive Highway 280 north of town. This route is a back way, but much shorter. It's in a very rural area. Although highly populated, it's dark, but pretty well traveled and safe for the most part. However, there have been serious accidents and maybe even a shooting or stabbing. I have a vague recollection of someone getting shot or stabbed sometime in the past 30 years, but I could have made that up. One quick turn off that road and you can have any drug you desire. Since this particular road is traveled by everyone who lives on this side of town - which includes the mucky-mucks - and most of the families living there are decent, hard working folks, we feel completely safe during the day and reasonably safe at night.

This particular night, the kids and I were coming home from shopping in Birmingham. As we neared the turn off 280, the thought ran through my head not to go that way, but I thought I was just tired and imagining things. Because I was tired, I was going to take the short cut as usual and not listen to my intuition. Just then, Erin said, "Let's don't go that way tonight, Mommy." Well, that was all it took. If both of us had the same feeling, I wasn't about to take any risk.

I often wonder what would have happened? Would a car have crossed over to our side of the road? Would a dog have run out in front of us, causing me to swerve and hit a light pole? Would we have been hit by a stray bullet? Would the three of us still be here today? And whole in body? Or was Erin just picking up on my thoughts and the trip would have been uneventful? Just something else we won't know in this lifetime.

Tomorrow: I Knew They Were Going To Die
(I promise to get to the real ghost stories this week.)

~~~

Meg at Meggie's Stuff was kind enough to think of me for the You Make Me Smile Award! I've got a busy day ahead of me today, so I'll work on passing it along sometime in the next few days.

~~~

I've been entertaining the thought of changing my business name from Snapdragon Antiques to something more.... I don't know.... more funky? Was it Kim who visited a shop called Vintage? And Deb's Curious Sofa is a great name. If I'm ever going to change it, nows the time. Before I'm famous. (Insert a grin and a giggle here. Oh, who am I kidding? A hardy guffaw would be more appropriate.) I've used that name for the past six or seven years, but don't know how well I'm associated with it. Nobody who shop's my booth knows it. Only eBayers, the occasional web site shopper and my blog friends. I've not promoted the web site properly to have any faithful shoppers and I offer such diverse things on eBay, I'm pretty sure I don't have lots of people who watch my auctions and besides, I've kept, and use, my original user ID, ivorytklr. I only have the Snapdragon Antiques graphic in the auction description.

So what do you think? Should I change the name? I have nothing in mind. Another thing is trying to find a logo to go along with snapdragons. Good appealing pictures of snapdragons are extremely hard to find and I have a very limited imagination when it comes to that kind of thing. I see such cool logos out there. Many of you have great ones! Mine is so dinky. I'm not at all happy with it. And hiring someone else to come up with something is totally out of the question.

~~~

I think I'll paint the baseboards at the shop today.

Ta - as I see in the English novels I read. Or is that used as thank you instead of goodbye? I'm so confused.

In the Presence of Evil

2007-10-15T10:01:00.002-05:00

So today starts the 15 Days of Horror. Did anyone notice that from today to Halloween is 16 days? Typical of me, I figured wrong. Now I can't decide whether to split a story in half and call it 16 Days of Horror or just not have a story on Halloween. Everyone will be busy that day, anyway. Hmmm.

Anyone want to join me in telling our stories? If you do, let me know and I'll start a list everyone can see. The one rule, it has to be a true story or stories.

~~~~

**This first story is pretty tame. In a way. They'll get more interesting - and more ghosty - as time progresses.

Have you ever met or just passed by someone who seemed to emit evil? Not some huge, snarly guy in a dark alley, but just someone, normal looking, doing a normal activity. I have a time or two. The most recent encounter was at church. Our church has a program for inmates on work release where, once a month, they are bussed to our church for Sunday morning service and lunch. Some people think this is a wonderful idea, others think the leaders have lost their minds. I won't go into all that. It's not the point. They were there last Sunday. Usually, as they walk in, I look at them and think, that's somebody's sweet son who got mixed up in drugs or shoplifting, or something. I wouldn't be afraid of any one of them. But this one fellow walked by and the first thing that came to my mind was rape. He scared me for the two seconds he walked in front of me. But he is not the subject of this story.

About 10 years ago, my husband and I were headed to Florida for a weekend trip and stopped in Shoney's for breakfast. Before we finished, a man came in and sat across the room from us. He was clean, neat and fairly attractive. There was nothing unusual about his physical appearance or demeanor. He looked like Mr. Anybody. I couldn't see him sitting down, but I think Ricky could see him if he turned his head that direction.

The moment I saw him, I became uneasy. Ready to go. There was something about him that scared me and I only had a 5 second visual, if that! No, he seemed to be emitting evil and it made me very uncomfortable. We were another 10 minutes or so finishing eating and when we left he had just been served. We had to walk past his table and I couldn't get past fast enough. It was if my chest was constricting! Like my whole body had braced itself for an attack, but not a physical attack. Not mental, either. It was a very odd sensation. When we got to the car I asked Ricky if he saw "that man". That's all I had to say. He replied, "The man eating the raw steak? Yeah, I saw him."

Now, of course, eating a rare steak means nothing, but it seemed to have significance with this guy. Ricky had felt ill at ease about him, too. Since we both felt it, there had to be something there. I wondered if he was going to shoot up the place, but we never heard of anything happening. I'll never know if it was our imaginations or if he truly was evil personified.

~~~

Tomorrow: "Let's Don't Go That Way, Mommy"

~~~

It seems like I don't get to go blogging for several days in a row, so when I get the chance, it takes all day! I finally have enough time to visit blogs today again. I haven't visited since Wednesday or Thursday. Can't wait to see what everyone's been up to since then. I see I have some new friends, too! Looking forward to seeing your blogs. Let's see. It's 11 a.m. Think I should at least put on some clothes before visiting? Yeah, I think I will. It's just shameful to still be in my housecoat when it's almost lunch.

~~~

Best Deal Magazines has Traditional Homes on sale today for $3.79/yearly subscription. Save an extra 18% today only by using code, AUTUMN18.

Yesterday's yard sale

2007-10-14T08:41:00.001-05:00

I really debated over the wisdom of participating in the antique mall's yard sale yesterday, but had boxes of stuff handy and needed the extra money, so I drug it all up there Friday evening. When I had it set up and priced, I knew it was a mistake. I didn't even have $100 worth of stuff. This is so different from my usual sales. Normally, at home, I have a three car carport full. Literally. We always have three or four rows of tables and more outside the carport. We do have good sales. Yesterday, I had four folding tables full and the most expensive thing I had was $5.00. Not a good sign. But in the end, I sold about a third of my items for a total of $56.00. Now, if you're set up in your front yard under a shade tree or under your carport or in your garage, that's not so bad. Easy to set up and take down. But when you have to travel 30 miles one way, sit in the grueling sun because you don't think about getting an umbrella out of your car and using it, and get blistered, well, that's not so good. I had on 3/4 length sleeves and now have a funny blister line. My nose is red and there's a V shape on my chest. But I did have a pretty good time. Made a new friend, smiled and laughed with a lot of people, saw a few sweet doggies.......

I parked myself near the road. Ricky warned me not to set up near the road, but it's my favorite spot, next to some friends. One of the first times we participated in this sale, he was with me and we stood there and watched as a car had a wreck. Apparently, the driver was looking to see what all the commotion was about and didn't see the car in front of him turning in until it was almost too late. He slammed on the brakes, skidded sideways about 75 yards, straightened out, slammed into the culvert, went airborn straight up with the car's nose pointed skyward, then landed on all four wheels. The driver jumped out, asked if everybody was OK, got back in and drove off! The car that was turning in was the mall owner and his step-daughter. He parked, got out and, with a confused expression asked, "What just happened?" Anyway, we're aware of the danger of being so close to the road, but I like that spot.

We never had a huge influx of people. It was odd. To be on a busy highway, with a sale that had been advertised for weeks. We just had a slow, steady stream. I took a few pictures from my seat during down times.

To my right.
~~~

Across from me and to the right. They were really the smart ones. In the shade all day. But I have seen it where the shade was not the best place to be.
~~~

To my left.
~~~

Across and to the left. There were more people set up around that corner, all along the building. Come to think of it, there weren't as many vendors as usual.

Don't you just love to see pictures of people looking at things at yard sales? Their posture, the thoughtful expressions on their faces..... We can't see this lady's face, but can easily imagine her expression.

~~~~~~~

Tomorrow begins my 15 Days of Horror. Ghost and paranormal stories of of mine, my grandmothers' and my dad's. There will be a story a day from here to Halloween. Should be fun!

Too pooped to pop

2007-10-12T21:24:00.000-05:00

Have you ever heard that expression, "To pooped to pop?" I grew up hearing it and that's exactly how I feel right now. Hope I make at least some sense while I write this.

Lena and I had planned to go to estate sales in Birmingham early this morning. We'd talked yesterday evening and she was going to pick me up at 6 a.m. I fell asleep on the couch and woke up around 10 p.m. Figured since I only had $5.00 cash, I'd better check to see how much I had in the bank before hitting the ATM. I visited my checking account online to find that I only had $22 in the bank! Horrors!!! I hastily transferred some money from Paypal, but that will take a few days. I figured my Friday of sales was off, but it was too late to call Lena. I sent her an email, hoping she'd check in before leaving, but just in case, I'd planned to call her about 5:30. As long as I didn't have to get up early and stay up, I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. Yes, I overslept this morning. She was already headed for my house when I awoke. Awakened? Aww. When I woke up!

I met her in the driveway, wrapped up in my housecoat, shaking my head with a forlorn look on my face. She thought she'd go anyway and came in to get the directions. Ricky got home after working midnights, before she left. I explained my plight and, sweet hubby he is, asked if I wanted some money. Why, yes! Of course! I was ready to go in 15 minutes.

The sales were so-so. I got some books, some that will actually pay for the day when I resell them, but nothing aesthetically pleasing except for two art deco lamps I haven't got a picture of, yet.

The most interesting thing though, was when we stopped at a convenience store on the way to the first sale. A man was walking out of the store with two display racks, one an ugly, red, plastic one, the other a small, wire, collapsible, Grandma's Cookies stand. I thought he looked like a cookie rep and asked him if he was going to throw them away. He looked at me kinda funny and said he was. I asked if I could have the wire stand and he looked at me even funnier and gave it to me! That was providence. Serendipitous. A "happystance". Being in the right place at the right time. It should find a place in the store pretty easily.

I won't bore you with the rest of the day, which was quite busy, except to say when I got home, I loaded up the car with tables and boxes slated for a yard sale and took off up the road, 30 miles to the antique mall where I'll be participating in the semi annual yard sale tomorrow. I unloaded, set up and got everything priced before coming home. All this on 4 hours sleep. This little girl needs about 9 hours to be in peak form. That Monster drink did it's job, but it has completely worn off now. I bet I sleep good tonight.

Sorry there were no pictures today. I know they make posts much more fun, but I just didn't have time to take any.

China closet #2

2007-10-11T19:43:00.000-05:00

Here are the pictures of the china closet on the right side of the room.

Bottom shelf. The center piece is no name pottery. The cherub comes off the flower ring. Those are oyster thingies in the bowl that came from my mom's. Would you believe the cherub flower bowl sat in the booth for over a year with no takers at $20 or so? He sat there so long one of his wings got broken, so he came home with me. I love him and always have. Behind him is a moonstone, fan vase I bought at one of the first estate sales I ever went to. Set me back $2.00.

The pictures are out of order. This is the top two shelves. Just some Homer Laughlin china on top and on the other shelf, stacks of milk glass plates and some copper lustre in the middle.
Notice the door trim. That was added in the remodel by my handy dandy man.

The tray actually has more design on it that isn't visible in the picture. Lena was going to sell that at a yard sale several years ago. I snapped it up. If you look closely, there's a tiny doggie under a glass sherbet cup turned upside down. The cup is the type that fits in metal holders.

Just an overall view and a better view of the second shelf.

China closet pretties

2007-10-10T16:35:00.000-05:00

The dining room is coming back together, finally! We have two, built in china cupboards, each with two doors - one on top and one on bottom. (The bottom door is solid and hides storage.) I had them arranged quite nicely, but we decided to replace the doors. Wrong measurements were taken resulting in the top doors being too short. The clever fellow I married knew just what to do to fix that. Raise the shelf that's between the top and bottom and add a piece between the doors. I know you're not getting a visual with my explanation, but that's not important. The important thing was, I had to take everything off the bottom two shelves. Not knowing it would be a good two months before I could put the stuff back in, I didn't take a picture of the arrangements. Often, this results in a better look than you had before, but I don't think I did as good. I'm sharing pictures of one of the cupboards today. And let me say this. I highly recommend taking pictures of things in your house. Pictures show where improvement is needed. You can see easier what's missing or what just looks goofy, where in person there are too many distractions. Anyway, here's the left side of the room cupboard.

Bottom shelf. Green Depression glass, some of my poodle collection and a
favorite calendar plate. The afternoon light hits this spot and makes everything sparkle. This is morning light. Nothing is sparkling in this picture.
~~~

Shelf #2, above the bottom shelf. That man bottle is a liquor bottle from the 1960s. It's been mine since, probably, 1965. Why? How? Beats me. I was 10. How did I come to be the possessor of that?? One of life's big mysteries.
Now, here's where seeing it in a picture helps. I think I need something tall and white opposite the man bottle or maybe I'll try him back center, peeking above
Little Miss Birthday Candle Holding Poodle.
~~~

Shelves three and four. Most of my creamer collection and a stack of colorful plates that have always made me happy stacked like that. Top shelf has a picture of a girl with a real feather skirt that Tiffany gave me and Depression glass snack plates.

That's it for today. I'll try to add the right side tomorrow. Looks like I might have some blog time tonight! Yippee! See y'all in Blogland!

Retail sales!

2007-10-09T08:17:00.000-05:00

Are you wondering where I've been the past couple of days? Yeah, I'm sure that's really bothering you and causing unrest in your mind. But I'll tell you anyway!

Erin came home Sunday and after church we went to Belk to shop. This is the store I mentioned about a month ago that has bought out our 2nd favorite store (1st favorite is Anthropologie) and is having clearance of both store's excess. Bargain heaven! We closed the place down on Sunday. Still had clothes in our arms we hadn't tried on when they announced they were closing for the day, so we hid those clothes and made sure we were there first thing Monday morning. Monday, we shopped from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with only one 15 minute break for lunch. We made three or four trips to the car to unload our bags. Thank goodness we were there early and got a close parking place.

I don't know what I did with Sunday's receipts, but yesterday's totals were:

$188 spent
$1016 saved off original retail!!!

I don't think Erin spent as much as I did. Wish I had her totals, too. Now, I'll admit that a lot of that I would never have bought or even tried on at retail, but when a t-shirt is $1.98, well shoot! If nothing else, you can wear $1.98 to clean house in! I did get a Ralph Lauren top for $9.98 and another for $3.98, a Liz, winter, sweater pullover for $3.98, etc. There were several other things nicer than simple t-shirts, including two pair of shoes. Got Ricky 5 bathing suits for $1.98 each. There was one area that turned out not to be such good bargains, though. We had a false start with a $75 bra that rang up for $1.98. So when we shopped the undies, we weren't paying close enough attention to what the sale price would be. The sale there ended up only being about half price.

That was my 5th trip to the store and I still haven't covered it all. Haven't even looked at the household, accessories or cosmetic-y things, yet.

Ricky's off the next couple of days, so I don't know if I'll be able to blog or visit blogs or not. I don't like getting behind on reading all your blogs, but it looks like behind I'll be for a few days.

Saturday's Sales

2007-10-06T19:27:00.000-05:00

Today, I was back to normal. Didn't sleep worth a flip last night - menopausal women will know what I'm talking about - but drank a Monster drink at breakfast and I'm still going pretty strong at 7:30 p.m. Yea! Hope this doesn't mean I won't sleep tonight. Sigh.

I really wanted to go to an auction today, but couldn't get anyone to go with me. It's an all day and all night thing if you stay for the whole auction, and nearly 100 miles from here. I rarely go alone. I was in the mood for either an auction or estate sales. No regular yard/garage sales for me today. Just didn't want those. Lena, on the other hand, didn't want to go out of town. She preferred to cruise the local yard sales, so we went our separate ways today. Turns out she did pretty well. (I'm trying to talk her into getting her own blog. She has a lot to offer.) My finds were just so-so, but the hunt and few purchases satisfied my hunger.

My big purchase of the day, $15.00, was a frame for my yard long print. You may remember I was going to get it professionally framed until I heard the cost. I've bought a couple of frames from Hobby Lobby and Michaels that were too big and I'd planned to cut one of them down and paint it and.....whatever. The frame I bought today is just right. It actually has a new, Victorian girls, yard long print in it. All I'll have to do is shave a bit off my print and pop it in. I'm happy.

~~~

One of the few things I could actually sell on the internet is this Denby bowl, but the blue is a perfect match for my 1950s bathroom tile and a roll of toilet paper just fits. It's already in it's new home.

~~~

Got this rusty, iron, ashtray stand:

I'm thinking it'll make a great candle stand.

~~~

This seems to be worth exactly what I paid for it, so since it goes well in my dining room, looks like I'll be keeping it. For awhile, at least.

~~~

The first two estate sales were in newish town homes. The previous inhabitants got rid of all their junk...I mean good stuff.... before moving into the new dwelling. They then bought new decorative items for their new home. Don't-cha just hate that? But at this sale, I bought a few cookbooks and the blue bowl I'm keeping for my bathroom. As I was leaving, I noticed piles of boxes by the garbage can. The one on top had these smoking stand pieces in it. Yes, they were to be thrown away. It was missing two legs. Some of the boards are broken, so I probably won't put it back together, but what can I do with these neat pieces? What would Sue and Ki do with them? I think perhaps the three pieces on the right should be hinged together to form a triptych. Mirrors, ya think? That'll get done months or even years from now. LOL

~~~

Do you love it? The photo, naturally, doesn't look as good as it really does. It is, however in bad shape. But it's OLD! Very old! And seems to be a painting! It's awfully smooth and I thought it was a print, but I'll be danged if the flower center dots aren't raised! The backing is rough pine boards. I haven't taken it apart to see what the painting is on. Cardboard, it looks like. Toward the bottom, the paint has flecked off in a couple of pretty big chunks. The frame is disintegrating. Just picking it up, a piece of the fancy molding crumbled off. But the whole thing is charming. And nearly three feet tall!

It was found in the last couple of hours of a three day old sale I didn't know about. Didn't see it in the paper. Just saw some signs and followed them. There was no date on the signs, so I didn't even know if was this weekend. Following those signs turned out to be the right thing to do. I also got this mid century modern wall clock and candle set.

If you're not into MCM at all, that won't be appealing, but I should be able to sell it on eBay. Not for big bucks, but a little more than I paid for it.

~~~

So there you have it. My few finds for the day. Erin is supposed to be coming up to go to church with me tomorrow. Our church participates in a community wide communion. Four churches near each other walk to a nearby empty lot, and have communion together. Erin's always enjoyed it too, so last I heard she's going to come up for it. We need to think of some adventure for the afternoon.

Fun reading

2007-10-05T15:47:00.000-05:00

Again, I've got nothing to talk about! This is so strange. All I want to do is eat and sleep. I didn't even go out to the sales this morning! Sounds like I'm depressed, doesn't it? But I'm not. Far from it. Just sleepy and hungry. My sleep got messed up a couple of nights in a row and I can't seem to get back right.

I thought I'd recommend some fun reading. If you enjoy yard sales, garage, sales, tag sales, rummage sales, estate sales, and/or boot sales - and mysteries - you'll love the Jane Wheel mysteries by Sharon Fiffer. Jane is a picker in New Jersey and always finding dead bodies and such while she's "in the field". They are fun, quick reads in an area that I, and many of you, can identify with. She collects McCoy and Fire King, has too much stuff, but keeps her dealers supplied with plenty in between solving mysteries. You can pick up the books off Amazon for tiny bits of cash if you don't mind reading used books, or a little more if you prefer new.

Buried Stuff

Wrong Stuff

Dead Guy's Stuff

Killer Stuff

Hollywood Stuff

Now I think I'll go take a nap. Awww....it's almost 5:00. Too late for a nap. It's time to start supper. Yes, that's what I'll do. I'll cook and eat! We had home made pizza last night. Oh, my goodness, it was gooooood! Tonight we're having chili. I made brownies this afternoon. What's wrong with me?! I rarely cook!

I'm also thinking of renting a movie. I'm way behind on movies, like a couple of years worth, so there should be plenty to choose from even if it is the beginning of the weekend. I also saw a 1950s sci-fi movie is coming on tonight. Of course, either of those choices means I'd have to stay awake.

Halloween mantle close-up #1

2007-10-03T17:41:00.000-05:00

Let's see. Front left, the black blob you can't really make out, is a black cat with arched back standing next to a black pot, probably made in Japan. There's the Halloween horn and a tiny, plastic pumpkin head man. I think he's an old cake decoration. The pumpkin with the witch's hat is a candle and the cat on a skull is someone's bad attempt at ceramics, but I do love it. It was even broken and glued back together. I see a newish ghost back there just filling a space.
Oh, the mirror is one of the few things I have from my maternal grandmother's.

~~~

I got nuttin' to talk about today. Well, that's not true. You didn't believe that anyway, did you? Really though, all I have to say is that my sweet, sweet hubby painted the front room of the store for me today. It's sort of the color of my blog and web site. Not my favorite color by a long shot, but it looks good with the brick and is neutral enough that I can use primitives or lacy foo-foo with it.

While he painted, I vacuumed the spiderwebs off the brick walls. It was appalling the amount of spiderwebs and mold that vacuum sucked up. My throat feels like I've been breathing pure pollen. I'll be so happy when the whole building is painted and cleaned......... AND ........ I'll be so happy when my house is finished and cleaned. We do things the hard way. Ourselves. Or more accurately, himself. I do the finishing stuff like fabrics and decorating.

At least my ISP isn't kicking me off line tonight. I'm trying to catch up on everybody's blogs.

See ya!

I see dead people

2007-10-02T15:10:00.000-05:00

No, this is not a Halloween story, although some of those are coming the last two weeks of October. This is something unusual that happened to me today.

My husband had an appointment at the sleep clinic (finally!) which is in the old part of the hospital. The old part is wonderful. Really art deco with beautiful tiles in the foyer, but that has nothing to do with anything. We went in through the basement. As we were walking down the hall, we saw an undertaker we know. His grandmother used to live next door to us, his dad worked with my dad and my husband, and he actually worked with them when he was in school. Now he's an undertaker. I didn't think anything about seeing him at the hospital. We see him all over town under normal circumstances, but I guess if I'd actually let a thought go through my head, I'd have wondered that he was there, in his suit, all solemn and sort of guarding the corner. We exchanged pleasantries, he asked us where we were headed, told us exactly how to get there and as soon as we turned the corner, in my peripheral vision, I saw a gurney with a blanket covered body.

I'm sure I've seen this before, but if I have, I've blocked it out of my consciousness. Something about this just creeped me out. I averted my eyes as soon as I saw it, we stepped into the elevator and I looked at my husband with horror in my eyes. He said, "What?" I replied, "I didn't like that." "What? Me bouncing the elevator?" "No! You didn't see the dead person on the gurney?" How did he miss that?! He didn't understand why it would bother me. It's something I can't explain. It's one thing to see a body after it's been embalmed and gussied up, but to be that close to a freshly dead person..... It affected me... somehow. My sensitivity was attacked. By sensitivity, I mean my, well, my sensitive-ness. You know. When you feel things.

This is something that goes through the female line of my family, but seemed to skip my mother. My grandmother and I have had ghostly experiences, it seems to me she told me her mother had certain abilities and my daughter and I sense things quite often. My cousin, who is descended from the same great grandmother, will call me as I was about to pick up the phone to call her. Often. I'm jotting down a lot of these stories to begin the tales later in the month, hoping not to forget to tell any of the good ones.

~~~

Now on a totally different subject, a friend of Lena's and mine resigned her position on the Historical Commission and the mayor called me yesterday and asked if I'd be willing to fill her spot. Now before you get too impressed, I've known the mayor for years and years and years. He owned a business with my cousin's husband and lives in our neighborhood. Remember, we're a small town. Everybody knows everybody -- until you go to WalMart or a Little League baseball game and you wonder , "who are all those people" and where on earth they came from.

I called our friend to see just what her position was and what she had to do. She assured me I really wouldn't have to do anything unless I volunteered. That I could just be a voice or a body. As long as I don't have to do anything hard like write letters or call people or anything like that, I said sign me up. The commission is in charge of keeping downtown "historical". I just hope they don't try to make me do anything complicated. Maybe I can go on trips to look at other towns. Now, wouldn't that be fun?

~~~

I'm so disgusted with my ISP. It keeps knocking us off line. I'm not getting to go blog hopping or visit any of the other sites I always like to see. Can't stay on line long enough. I don't think I'm on line right now. Wonder if I'll be able to publish it when I get through?

The Power To Schmooze and Halloween Decorations

2007-10-01T09:33:00.000-05:00

My Halloween mantle. I've been waiting until October to start showing pictures of it, but it's been decorated two weeks now. I'm thinking about using it for my post banner the rest of the month, but you all would get sick of seeing it, so I'll try to refrain. I will show close-ups as the month progresses.

~~~

As I said Saturday, Siobhan of Vintage Mosaic Boutique so kindly gave me the Power Of Schmooze award. Does that mean I'm an a...... uh, that I kis...... uh, nah. Here's what it means.

The Power of Schmooze Award is for bloggers who effortlessly weave their way in and out of the blogosphere, leaving friendly trails and smiles, happily making new friends along the way. They don’t limit their visits to only the rich and successful, but spend some time to say hello to new blogs as well. They are the ones who engage others in meaningful conversations, refusing to let it end at a mere hello - all the while fostering a sense of closeness and friendship.

I think that's real nice and I'd like to pass it along to.....ummmmm..... Everybody who has ever left me a comment! I'm such a noob, I'm ecstatic when I get 6 or 7 comments on a post, then I see people who are having a bad day if they only get 50. Will I ever be there?

Anyway, I thought I'd go back to my first few posts and see who were my very first commentors. (I'm thinking "commentors" is not a word. Spell check doesn't like it.) I'd like to give these wonderful folks the Power Of Schmooze Award, even if they've gotten it before.

Jayne from Country Cottage Chic. We knew each other from another forum and she's actually why I decided to start my own blog.

Sarah from the Misadventures of Mama and Jack

Sandra at The Nostalgia Fairy

Rhoda at Southern Hospitality

These are just the people who left comments the first couple of weeks of my blog. The folks who found me - somehow - and had compassion on the new blogger. I've made so many new friends the list would be a mile long, so that's the only way I could figure out how not to hurt any feelings.

~~~

Work to be done today:
Ricky will try to finish, or at least get close to finishing, the dining room.
I'll clean the walls at the building prepping it for paint.
Maybe.....MAYBE.....The plan is....... We'll start to paint the building this afternoon!!!
But right now I'm sitting here waiting for the bank to call and tell me why I can't log into the online account thingy and Ricky is digging around trying to find something he's lost. Sigh. And I'm hoping my internet connection will stay up long enough to post this blog. Double sigh.

I'm so weak

2007-09-29T19:42:00.000-05:00

*Thank you to Siobhan at Vintage Mosaic Boutique for awarding me the Power To Schmooze Award! I'll attend to passing it along tomorrow.

~~~

I have no will power. I stayed up until past midnight last night with the intention of sleeping in this morning. Of course, when the sun peeped through my window....... Did I say peeped? We only have sheers on the windows in the bedroom since the drapes aren't hemmed, yet. Let me rephrase that. The sun blasted full force through three windows, bathing the room in bright, crisp autumn sunshine. I woke up. And decided to go to an estate sale in a neighboring town. I could have gone back to sleep, but the sale was calling my name. I could hear it from 20 miles away! It turned out to be a pretty good thing. Nothing I couldn't have lived without, but some things I'm glad I got.

I bought a "War Quilt" and took a picture of it, but in the picture it looked like crap. It actually is in bad condition, but not as bad as it looked in the picture. I just couldn't show that pic. A war quilt is a quilt of small squares made around the time of WWI, using men's wool suits in grays and blacks. Maybe even some linsey-woolsy.

~~~

That picture standing up in the back looked pretty interesting until I parted with my $5, got it home and realized it's really a window cling thing. I guess. OK. So it's a vintage window cling thing, but I just don't think it was worth $5.00.
There's a double mint dish back there among all those quilt squares.
Look at all those blocks! They appear to be vintage 1940s-1960s. I didn't know I was getting all that. They were in the box with the fabric pictured below along with mountains of muslin. Should I get an Etsy shop to sell some of the quilt squares and stuff like that I've been finding lately?

Those are aprons. Some are very pretty and frilly and there are two Christmas aprons. The wire stand folds up.

The surprise of the day, however, was this silk quilt top. Yes, silk! The picture doesn't do it justice, naturally. It was crumpled up in the very bottom of the box of fabrics. I had no idea. I'd just tossed around the few pieces on top, figured it was well worth the price they were asking and, since it was too heavy to pick up, pushed it to the checkout. I'm sure they didn't know it was in there, either. That sorta makes up for the $5.00 window clinger.

Today's sales

2007-09-28T14:56:00.001-05:00

Here's the report for today. I was alone this morning. Lena had to attend some kind of counseling conference... training... class.... thing. Have I told you she was the elementary school counselor? She's not doing that anymore, just buying and selling "vintage home decor", as I like to call it, but does do the odd class from time to time.

I went to three sales in Birmingham. Didn't net too much, but did OK. I guess. Just not one of my more exciting days. Here's the haul:

A vintage, Hanky Panky blouse. What a coincidence!
~~~

Vintage Vera napkins still with their tags, Staffordshire saucer (1980's maybe?), newish hand mirror with blue and white back, white pie bird and a Limoges cat.
~~~

Yummy, yelloware bowl, but with two, big ol' chunks out of the rim. Paid too much for this, but I just rarely find this kind of bowl in any condition that is even close to being affordable.
~~~

Dansk dutch oven and vintage, greenish yellow or yellowish green upholstery/drapery fabric.
Sorry. I know that was boring.
~~~

Cool, 1960s, Polynesian patterns.
~~~

Cute, little rusty, iron plant stand.
~~~

And this iron trellis. Nobody saw it hiding behind the bushes, not even the estate sale people. I have no idea how they missed it. The thing sticks up 6' out of the ground! I saw it as I was leaving and went back in to ask about it. Happy me! It got to come home with me and just barely fit in my car. I mean JUST barely.

I also got some old, Filmmaker magazines and two very old cookbooks. One, Culinary Echoes From Dixie, is copyright 1917. I collect southern cookbooks, old ones in particular, so that makes me happy. The other is a 1908 Rumford cookbook. That cookbook alone is worthless, especially in the condition it's in, but what makes this one appealing is all the hand written recipes glued to the blank pages!

~~~~~~~~

I'm going to go blog hopping for a little while now, but might not get to stay with it long. My husband just got home and wants to go look at a gun. Yuck. Not my thing, but he's renewed an interest that he's put on hold for the past 30 years, so I guess I can allow him that.

********
Update.

As soon as I posted this blog, my internet went down, but I think I can finally cruise some blogs now, but it's late. Sigh. And just so you know, no animals will be killed with the renewed gun interest. He just wants pretty shotguns. I'm OK with that as long as I don't have to see them. Guns give me the heebie-jeebies just to be in the same room with them.

Hanky Panky

2007-09-27T20:56:00.000-05:00

My friend, Tiff, threw a Hanky Panky party for the gang tonight. We are a group of friends with one major thing in common -- we all love antiques, shopping for antiques and finding bargains. We met at Tiffany's beautiful house tonight for a vintage handkerchief exchange. These place cards were waiting for us at the table:

Aren't they just the cutest things? We had a lovely meal and lots of laughs and played Dirty Santa with the hankies each of us brought. Each hanky had a story behind it. The one Lena brought said, "To my wife"and I had chosen that one, but it was taken from me by Melanie. It had such a sweet story. There was a poem with it from a husband to his wife on their 50th wedding anniversary, dated 1913. Now, Lena wouldn't say if the story was fabricated or actually came with the hanky, but I like to believe it was with it always.

Tiffany's son graciously took a picture of us. Twice. I'll include both because I look a little tipsy in one. The one where everyone else looks great. Actually, I look tipsy in both of them and I'd had nary a drop to drink. Just water. Wonder what was in that chicken salad?

Now you'll be able to picture us when tales are being told.

Left to right: Lisa, Shannon, Melanie, Tiffany, Me, Lena

Do we look anything like you had pictured? I'm always shocked at how short I am when I see myself in a picture with other people. And I have my tall shoes on!

A good time was had by all.

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Did you get your copy of Romantic Country Winter 2007? Oh, my! Just quickly looking through made me drool and Karla's house on page 36! You did good, girl! It looks great!

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I still haven't had a chance to visit everyone's blog from Karla's party the other day. It's killing me. I wanna see, but I haven't been home long enough to sit down and cruise.

1920s German Portrait

2007-09-26T09:47:00.001-05:00

What a blast we had at Karla's party, yesterday! I haven't had a chance to visit all the pretty houses yet, but will. I just need a few blocks of time. I appreciate the visits to my blog and kind comments.

I thought I'd talk a bit more about one of the pictures I showed yesterday.

The red and gold wallpaper is in small doses in our family room (we call it the den). This is on the fireplace wall. There is brick to the right and underneath what you see in the picture and a passageway to the left. I'd show the whole wall if there wasn't such a mess of stuff temporarily misplaced from remodeling. The sconces are hard plastic. Home Interior type. Everything on this wall came from a yard sale, except the candles and the oval frame. And the candles might have come from one.

But what I want to talk about is the oval picture.

I remember the day I bought that picture. Lena and I were at an estate sale in Birmingham and when we started to leave, my truck was dead. It wasn't the battery. There was some other problem that wasn't easily fixed and we had to have it towed home. She and I both needed to get back to Sylacauga for the pep rally. Her son played football and my daughter was a cheerleader. We didn't miss pep rallies, but we missed that one. It seems she might have got to go to some of it. Did you, Lena? I do remember my dad had to come get us and take us home.

I really loved that truck. It was a good yard sale truck, but my husband decided he wasn't having an old truck that had to be worked on all the time and sold it. But I've drifted away from the story of the picture.

The picture was made in Germany, was about 11" x 18", on some type of soft canvas, not paper or a stiff canvas board, and had holes all around the outside of the image and a few on the image. It also had a cheap, narrow, wooden frame. And it was a dollar. I fell in love with the image of the girls and bought it. I took it to my cousin, the local studio photographer and framer. I told you we're a small town. We're all kin somehow. All natives can play the 6 degrees game. Anyway, we decided we could cut it into an oval and eliminate almost all of the holes. There are only a few left showing and those are hard to find. The perfect frame cost me $75.00!!! Ack!! But I absolutely love it. It's one of my favorite things in the house.

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Lena and I are going to spruce up the booth today. I realized yesterday that I've lost all interest in the booth. My emotions and thoughts are totally on the store. Analyzing things as I do, I've tried to figure out just why that is. Is it because I've neglected the booth all summer? Or because it hasn't made much (any) money in several months? Have I neglected it because of the heat or because it hasn't make much money? Both. But has it not made much money because of the heat and because I've neglected it? Probably. But I think, bottom line is because it's time to start a new chapter in my life. It seems to be time for that store to open. It's hard to let go of something I've loved and enjoyed. I never like closing doors and I refuse to burn bridges. Part of me wants to keep a booth and have the store, but I feel that's not the right thing to do. Then again, I'm thinking. This whole enterprise has been on faith, so I need to try not to think and just go how the Spirit leads me. He's definitely telling me it's time to move, so I'll start that process. First up is painting the store. That will hopefully happen this weekend or next week. I'll keep everyone posted in my diary.....I mean blog.

Big party at Karla's Cottage!

2007-09-25T13:39:00.000-05:00

Wow! Karla's having a big Romantic Country Party over at her blog, Karla's Cottage. Didn't want to miss the fun. I've always hated knowing a party was going on and I wasn't there. The theme of the party is What Do You Love About Your Home?

The things I love the best are "unpicturable". The memories of raising my kids here. Other things are too messy at the moment to get a picture of - the back yard and pool among other things. Or too big so that I can't get far enough away to take a picture - like the 50 year old oak trees in the front yard. So I chose a couple of wall arrangements.

But I also dug around and found some old pictures. This one of the pool. The yard surrounding doesn't look like this now. Many more flowers. I think it's better now, but it's terribly messy.

And the roses along the side of the carport. This has changed, too. Most notably, I totaled that truck and am on my second car after that.

I always liked this picture in spite of the graininess and the ladder propped up on the side. This has changed much as well.

So there are a few of my favorite things about my home.

Martha Stewart's new magazine and Make A Jewelry Christmas Tree!

2007-09-24T12:40:00.000-05:00

This one slipped up on me! I almost missed today's Deal Of the Day, Martha Stewart's new magazine, Blueprint, for only $9.79! I'm not a huge Martha fan, but this magazine intrigues me. I think I'll take advantage of the special price. Hope you get in on it, too!

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For the past two days, I've been shopping at Belk clothing store. Belk has bought out our favorite store, Parisian, and is consolidating the stock. Right now, massive amounts of clothes are 75% off retail and another 30% off that. I shopped Saturday night and Sunday afternoon (Lena and her daughter went with me yesterday) and haven't even touched a fourth of the racks. I've spent $183, but saved $640 off retail!! Blogging has definitely not been on my mind. So I poked around this morning and found the instructions for making a jewelry Christmas tree that I wrote several years ago. I know we're all in fall mode right now, but if you want to do this and don't have a ready stock of junk jewelry, it might take awhile to gather it up.

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Make your own jewelry Christmas
tree!

It's easy peasy! Here's what you need:

Styrofoam cone. Size will depend on how many
findings you have to decorate with.

Christmas wrapping paper foil in red, green, gold, silver or any other color you'd like. You can even use kitchen aluminum foil.

Jewelry findings, buttons, beads. Use your imagination. If
you do choose jewelry, please use pieces of broken jewelry. I advise not deliberately using jewelry that is still in good condition, even if you think it's junk. Remember, today's junk is tomorrow's treasure.

Hot glue gun. Don't forget the glue!

*Optional addition #1 - Tiny Christmas tree lights

**Optional addition #2 - Beaded garland

1. Wrap the cone with foil paper. Overlap the ends and glue
together. Do not use hot glue directly on the styrofoam.
It'll melt.
2. Start hot gluing your findings on the foil covered cone. Use larger pieces first, then fill in the spaces with smaller findings.
3. Decide what you'd like to use for a star. This tree has a foil paper star glued onto a tiny piece of wire. Standing slightly crooked, isn't it?

*There are two ways to use a string of lights. You can put them
under the foil, using florist pins/picks, the little things shaped like
large staples, to hold the string in place. When you wrap the cone
in the foil, you need to make little slits where each light is, then press the foil down around the bulb. This is the hardest way to make it look "right", so you might try the next method. Put the lights on top of the foil, either hold the string in place with the florist pins or glue it down, then simply glue your findings on top of the light string. It is harder to cover the light strings this way.

**If you choose to use beaded garland, add it before adding the
findings, then procede to step 2.

Find a pretty, silver tray, mirror, doily, plate or saucer for a base
and you're done! You really don't even have to have a base.

Estate sale? Really?

2007-09-22T07:24:00.000-05:00

OK. So there was an estate sale advertised not so far from me in a downtrodden area. In my town, you can go from poverty to upper class in two miles. I'm neither of those, but literally in the middle. Physically and economically. The sale was advertised for 7:00, but there's something about the sales in a poorer part of town. I always think there will be some old pottery or depression glass or hand-me-down furniture that they don't appreciate, so I couldn't wait. I was there at 6:15. The sellers were there and said to come on and shop. What a waste of my morning! And it turned out to be not one, but two estate sales combined! Pitiful. There were a few things outside, so I asked, "Inside, too?" Yes, a washer and dryer and a dresser. None of the nicknack-y stuff? No. As I was leaving, she said if I knew anyone looking for antique furniture to let them know. Huh? Was it just the two chairs and the dresser in the yard? Oh, no. She forgot to tell me when we were inside. Two more dressers and two chiffarobes, so back inside we went. Bleah. Well, one of the chiffarobes was OK, but would need to be painted and I just wasn't in the mood.

I did find out that her niece was a former piano student of mine, one of my favorites, so we had a little bit to talk about. The student and her parents were quite different from the estate sale house. I'd say the student's mother married quite well. The whole family is "good people", though, so please don't misunderstand. Daddy just didn't have much money.

I started to leave again. Got in the car and spotted two outbuildings. You know by now how my heart flutters at the mere mention of an outbuilding. Back inside I go to ask if there's anything - junk - in the buildings. Yes, but that's all it was, junk. Old tools, a really tall wardrobe thing...... I controlled my expression, I think. A really tall wardrobe thing? My mind immediately went to the wonderful, old, primitive wardrobe I found in an outbuilding once for $35.00. Can I see what's in there? Well, she didn't even think about someone wanting to see in there, but yes, if I wasn't afraid of spiders and such. Nobody had been in there in a long, long time. She really didn't even know what was in there. My pulse raced.

Her husband went to the car and got the key then stopped. He said he'd just thought of something. We can't go back there. Why? There's a goat in the fence. It belonged to the neighbor and said neighbor was doing them a favor by letting the goat stay there, so they didn't have to cut the grass. He couldn't (wouldn't) be responsible if the goat got out and if the goat bit somebody, they'd be liable and he would not take that responsibility. They'd just get all that out another day and have another sale. The wife tried to talk him into it, I said if it were me I'd tie the goat and get it all over with in one day, but he stood his ground. Would not budge. Talk about deflation, but at the same time anticipation. I really want to know what's in those buildings! But like the goob I am, I didn't even think to tell them to call me when they opened them up. Sigh. Guess I should make a weekly trip over there to be sure they didn't decide to clean them out and put the stuff on the street. I think letting the sister I know would be useless. There was something underlying in that situation. Just a feeling. Oh, I think they were on good enough terms, but the sister was conspicuously absent.

........An hour later......
I called Lena to see if she went. Yes and she bought three pieces of furniture! I kinda thought she might. But get this. A yard sale competitor/friend was there at the same time as Lena. Lena looked over at her and she was walking out with arms full of depression glass, wooden dough bowls and who knows what else? She had double arms full, the seller had double arms full. C. had gone through the kitchen cabinets. When I had asked if the nicknack-y stuff was for sale the seller pointed out a clock on the wall, a thermometer and a picture. When I asked about kitchen stuff, she said no. Hrmph. The only thing we can figure out was that C. just plowed right in and made herself at home. It was all so nasty, maybe the seller really hadn't gone through the cabinets or anything. Or maybe she was mad at me for showing up so early. Surely not. Oh, well. Ya can't win 'em all.

.......Hour three update.....
Can you tell I'm writing this as the day progresses? I went back to the sale. Lena had to go back and pick up her chiffarobe, so I met her over there. We both went through the kitchen. I looked on the back porch. Nothing. Did get a Bassett Hound figure. But.....I fussed at the seller a little bit. Exaggerating and laughing about how she didn't tell me I could go through the cabinets, making sure she knew I wasn't mad, but at the same time trying to make her feel a tad guilty for not mentioning it. THEN I gave her my phone number to call me when they go through the out buildings. Will she do it? Who knows? Now I wish I'd told her if she lost my number to get it from her sister. Foot! I'm so not good at this.

That's about all for today. We're headed out to do some shopping. Catch ya later!

Fall vignette #2

2007-09-21T18:46:00.000-05:00

Well, I stay away a day (Ha! Poet 'n didn't know it!) and it feels like I've been away forever. Honestly, it feels like I played hooky from school or laid out of work. My husband was off yesterday and this morning. That SO messes with my free time. I really appreciate the nice comments everyone has left.

I did get another fall arrangement done. This one is on the front porch.

Super simple again. There's some more of that $3 Wal-Mart leaf garland. Man, that stuff wraps good! The chrysanthemums were another $3 and some odd cents from Wal-Mart. They're in a pottery cauldron I picked up at a yard sale. The plant stand was a VERY happy yard sale purchase.....um...last year? Two years ago? I don't even remember how much it cost, but I'm sure it was minimal.

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I've been working on one of my other web sites, Genealogy Footprints, thinking I should just turn it into a blog. Maybe blog once a week about genealogy related things. I decided to download and use WordPress this time. I keep hearing how much easier it is than Blogger. Whoever says that must be either a computer geek or 15 years old. Blogger is more like plug and play to me. WordPress had a steeper learning curve, but I've got things almost looking the way I want. I really want to have a long list of subjects to post about before going live with it, though. At least 25-30 weeks worth. So far I only have seven. I want to keep it simple, like hints to search the census records on line, how to write an effective query, maybe compare the subscription sites and some software. Just things like that. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.

Now I'm off to visit as many of you as I can! Is anybody else making themselves sick on Candy Corn?

Beaded purses

2007-09-19T12:19:00.000-05:00

I've never really known what to do with my small collection of beaded purses. They used to be on the wall, but came down with everything else when we painted. I dug them out the other day wondering just what to do with them - again. They ended up hanging on suction hooks on the dresser mirror.

Just let me say how brave I am to let you see what the mirror is reflecting. I did throw a piece of fabric over the pillows, but the bedside tables are just a hodgepodge of piled up stuff. No organization or prettiness, yet. And no bedspread. The purses might not stay here. There's a small piece of wall between two doors I might hang them on.

You can't see the detail, but the dark purse on the bottom belonged to my grandmother. Actually, my step grandmother, but the first one died long before I was born. After my grandfather died, she moved in with her sisters. My grandmother died some years later, as had one of her sisters, leaving just Thelma.

Back in the day when I was a good girl and visited people often, I paid regular visits to Thelma. It was on one of those visits that she was in a tizzy looking for her keys. She and I hunted and hunted and in desperation I began to pilfer through drawers. This purse was in there. With 14 silver dollars! I shyly asked for the purse. Told her I didn't want the money, although I would loved to have had it. There's no telling how old it was, but I didn't want anyone to think I had stolen money from her. She said she thought the purse had belonged to Lucy, my grandmother, and of course I could have it! After all, she wasn't going to use it any time soon. That was the first of my beaded purse collection. We actually found another one, not pictured here, so that made a collection of two.

The smaller one on top was found in a trunk of doll clothes I bought at an estate sale. The other was found in a trunk of fabric, also at an estate sale. I haven't found any in several years. Oh, they're all over eBay, the internet and in antique shops, but I'm not that avid a collector. I prefer the surprise finds.

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Everyone is asking about the frog from yesterday. I don't know. He was so close to dead when Buster brought him in and like I said, I ran screaming out of the room. When I finally poked my head back around, he was gone. So I'll either find a petrified frog under a major appliance or Buster ate him. It makes me so sad. That's one of the bad things about having a cat who loves to be outside. That and the occasional fight.

I know it's nature's way, but dang it! It upsets me to see little animals killed by the big, bully animals. And eaten. Or not eaten. Which is worse? The indignity of being eaten and often regurgitated or left to lie there, dead and mangled, for the whole world to see? I think I'm gonna cry. I prefer not to know about it or pretend it isn't happening.

Halloween candles

2007-09-18T09:25:00.001-05:00

What a difference a day makes! There's another side of me that shows up this time of year (and spring). If I'm not sleeping, I'm energized and wanting to nest. Clean and decorate. Talk about extremes! And no, I'm NOT bipolar......am I?? No, I'm not. OK. That's settled. This morning I woke up raring to go and created this little Halloween candle cluster.

The other day - as I was cleaning the bedroom - I was about to do away with three, cheap, Halloween bracelets and it hit me. I could put them on pillar candles! The idea actually came from another blogger. I'm so sorry, but I don't remember who it was! She had put a rhinestone pin on a candle and set it in some silver trays. She got the idea from a book and again, I don't remember which book! Arghhh!

The bracelets are too small to go all the way around, so I used straight pins to hold them in place then just wrapped a Wal-Mart leaf garland (that I remembered to buy last night) around them. I think the whole arrangement would look better without the bracelets, but wanted to put a Halloween spin on it. I was worried about the different colors of the candles. That one on the left is several years old and very faded, but I think the colors are just fine together. They coordinate with the different color leaves. I was pleased.

With the house remodel, I think the last time I decorated for a holiday was July 4, 2006. I collect vintage decorations and decorate at least the mantle for every holiday. The Halloween mantle is already done this year and I usually wait until the first of October. Pictures of that will come later. Christmas is the biggie. We've had to add shelves in the workshop for the collection and I'd say 8 out of...no, 9 out of 10 items are old. I collect 1960s and older, especially 1940s and 1950s. We didn't even have a tree last year. It was so strange. I can't wait to get started this year, but Halloween and Thanksgiving will come first.

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Oh, shoot! The cat just brought a frog into the house. And he's not dead! Barely alive, but alive enough to hop around when Buster messes with it. I'm such a girl. I scream and run when anything like that gets in my house. I can't clean up a dead mess the cat leaves, either. My husband's asleep and won't get up until 1:00. Oh, what to do, what to do?