Leaf Looking

Judging by the pictures you would think fall had come; instead the high for Thursday is supposed to be somewhere around 99 with a very high dew point making if FEEL like 104.  I don't mind, really, because you see, I don't like winter and living in a state where we get a lot of it, I can wait.  

Still, I love the Back to School time of year, the excitement of new pencils and backpacks and chalkboards...

The date on this little easel desk and chalk board says 1913; Mr. Wonderful's Grandma had it for her days teaching in a one room school house in Iowa.  A stoic Norwegian if ever there was one, Grandma lived to be 107 and died on the farm where she was born.  Good stock those Scandinavians!  This treasure came home from the last trip to Iowa  two weeks ago; the roller still works like a charm with lots of pictures including the solar system and 'teaching the calf to drink'.  

My Big Grama was a school teacher too, starting her career teaching in a one room schoolhouse as well.  My Grama taught eight grades in southern Minnesota.  These two books called  Prose & Poetry The Sunshine Book and The Emerald Book were from her storeroom of all things academic.  I put them on top of my mantle with the little figurine that I found at the thrift store for $ 1.75 a few years ago.  

I love to decorate for the season and fall colors are so beautiful, even when the bounty is artificial.  I weave a garland alongside the books and pile of pumpkins and gourds.  The runner is one I sewed about five years ago; Jo Ann has such an awesome collection of autumn prints, sigh...

I haven't taken my vintage turquoise and yellow print tablecloth off the dining room table yet, it looks so cute with my turquoise Fiesta dishes, bright colored napkins and striped tumblers.   I bought two of these English patterned plates; another thrift store save that cost me $ 1.30 for both of them!  I like to buy two dinner plates and change out my dishes.  Since it's just us empty nesters, I have lots of sets of two, well, I have lots of sets of more than two but we won't go there!

Not in a Million Years!

I was going to the Dollar Store in search of something for a craft project when I thought, I'll just run in to Good Will.  My first isle, I looked up and THERE IT WAS!  I haven't seriously even looked for the Friendship Large Red Bowl!  I mentioned it yesterday in the post about the Pyrex at the Flea Market as a joke.  I never thought I would find it!

Are you ever so shocked to see something that you stop in your tracks?  I approached, I looked, I saw the price tag and then I fainted!  I protected the bowl by falling on my head in a summersault position.  Then I looked underneath that shelf just to see if the others might be there too.  They were not there, probably because last April I had found the rest of them at a DIFFERENT thrift store!  

I took Big Red home and washed it up, there are a few light black scratches (almost like pencil lines) that didn't go through the paint but it's almost perfect.  I'm wondering if someone with a real case of Pyrexia will tell me what to try cleaning that with.

I told you I would show you my finds from the Gold Rush Flea Market in yesterday's episode:  here's one.  It's a $1.00 find, full skirted rosebud apron!  The colors are bright and it's like new, only better, 'cause it's old!  I don't suppose you know where I could get a big red bowl to do some mixing when I don it, do you?  Oh!  it's right here!

The price for this red Cinderella, and I'm still in shock:  $ 4.99!

Harry the Hairless Horse

This is Harry, a horse like the one I got for my second birthday.  My horse had a red saddle but when you spend years looking to buy back your memories you don't get picky over a blue saddle!  Harry was made at Moulded Plastics in Maple Plain, Minnesota.  My original Harry was sold at a garage sale in 1970.  I checked frequently on line, apparently there really is some kind of horse that is 'hairless' and several times in my searches that would come up.  

I can't ride Harry the Hairless Horse but this is my millinery when out in my '57 Bel Air!  I added a vintage rhinestone pin to the ribbon for fun.  No, I'm not a RED HATTER, I just like red!

Drivin' my dream.

Girly Stuff

A while back I told you my unique habit of reuniting separated pieces at the thrift store; candlesticks, creamers and sugars, cups and saucers all make their way into my cart while I 'drive' them up and down the isles looking for their lost mate.  I even did it with a vintage boxed Knickerbocker Raggedy Andy this week!  I walked up to a woman holding the boxed Raggedy Ann and said, "Oh!  There she is!"  She handed Ann to me and I confessed, that I was just putting them together.  She said, "Oh, I'll take him then, my sister loves Raggedy Ann."  

Two weeks ago I walked around at the thrift store looking for the mate for this little bone china creamer, I couldn't find the sugar so I placed it on the shelf where I put the loners.  On Friday I went on my weekly field trip and saw a sugar bowl,  picking it up I thought it looked familiar.  I walked to the loner shelf and low and behold!  The creamer from the first trip was the lost mate!  Into my cart they both go, together again, happily ever after. How many of you are now walking through your thrift store restoring couples to their original state?  I make pairs all the time regardless of wanting to buy them!

I think I have about six sets of these little creamer and sugar sets now.  I use them for High Tea parties but I'm thinking with this many of them I might need to think up a little display to put them out and look at them all for a while.  This is my first in the purple color scheme.  For $ 3.75 for the pair, would you leave them?

When it comes to decorating, I think I gravitate toward the softer side at least in the bedrooms.  This little leather coin purse belonged to 'Big Grama', that one was a school teacher.  I filled the purse with my favorite flowers.  I love the fragrance and the petite little bell flowers, the cake at our wedding was decorated with silk Lily of the Valley even though I was married in August, not May the month when they bloom.

Gloves are part of my ensemble when I wear vintage dresses and drive the '57.  Being a tall girl, my glove size is 7, not typical for the 5'2" average woman of the 1950s.  I frequently use gloves in vignettes to layer things on.

I love handbags and hats too, eat your heart out Bette Page, mine are really vintage! I picked up the little white purse (which had never been used) for $1.00 at a flea market a couple years ago.

Over the headboard, a collection of girly soft colors, 3D hydrangeas, a floral from the 1950s and a pastel toned plate are hung along with four Skeleton keys.  I love to look at these vintage pieces tucked here and there, connections with the past make me happy in the present.

His Excuse for Everything!

Part II

August 5th, 1978 to August 5th, 2012:  Thirty four years of mostly happily ever after.  On this anniversary we celebrate by going to brunch at a historic hotel dining room and then will attend Roman Holiday at the Guthrie Theater.  The ticket for the play was a gift from our son for Christmas and my birthday 18 months ago, I was saving it for something special; this qualifies!  Yup, I'm HIGH MAINTENANCE!  I want our  anniversary the focus of life on this day each year!

Ten years ago I had the great idea that we should take turns planning the anniversary date.  He said, "Okay, but I don't want this to turn into some kind of contest each year."  At 24 years I said, "Oh no, I planned a trip to Door County, Wisconsin."  The next year, our Silver Wedding Anniversary, became HIS year to plan.  He shooed me out of the house for a month or so in the evenings telling me he was working on a project.  I believed him.

My 1957 Chevy Bel Air

On our anniversary morning I had an appointment and when I came home he said, "I need some help with the garage door."  Still oblivious, I followed him out of the house barefooted.  Our next door neighbor was outside but I dutifully watched as Mr. Wonderful pushed the garage door opener.  In  the middle of the garage was the car we had looked at but couldn't afford 18 months earlier!  I said, "Did you rent it for us for the day?!"  He handed me a silver engraved key ring and said, "It's yours!"  In the back seat a vintage radio was playing (wait for it) "Tammy's in Love." 

Now, I confessed, I'm high maintenance but not THAT HIGH!  He is romantic, but not THAT ROMANTIC!  The car I had wanted from the time I was in high school was the ultimate gift, next came a photo album with the first 25 years of our life together chronicled inside.  I got in the car and he took me to a park for lunch on silver rimmed china, silver rimmed crystal goblets!  Driving home again he told me that we were going to a Bed & Breakfast for the night!  Yup, 25 years of romance in ONE day.  Yes, I renewed his contract for the next 25 years.

It was an amazing anniversary, and completely shocking to me.  My beloved had purchased the car over a year before, stored it and waited through my having a job I hated, our son going through Basic Training and me being a train wreck waiting for his graduation, and a few other life issues that were not all that pleasant.  He told me that many times he almost weakened and thought about giving me the car before the 25th Anniversary.  I"m glad he waited.

So on this day and any other day, what is 'His Excuse for Everything'?  

 "I gave you a car once!"

Known by my Heart

I can't resist these little couples when I find them at the thrift store!

August 5th, 1978 I married my beloved and my friend in a beautiful old chapel with stained glass windows and marble walls and bridesmaids and groomsmen wearing pastel green gowns and tuxes (it was the '70s, OK?!)  The picture on the right was taken on our honeymoon, the one next to it was taken six years later with our first two children!

The day of the wedding dawned clear and we were relieved because the photos were being taken inside and outside on the beautiful campus of Northwestern College in St. Paul. The Christian college where we met  was once a seminary for Catholic priests, situated on a secluded wooded campus with a lake, the chapel was a beautiful setting for our vows.

My mother's wedding pearls hang on the angel tree topper

 My wedding gown was sleeveless, which was a blessing.  The temperature went to the upper 80s on that day and there wasn't any air conditioning in the historic campus building where we dressed or in the chapel.  

Little Grampa had an Old Spice bottle like this, I combed antique stores to find it!

Mr. Wonderful was, and still is, the man of my dreams.  He was silly and could make me laugh, he was a believer, he was tall (I am 5' 9"!), I wanted to spend my life with him and he was heading to seminary in another state after finishing his undergrad!  I didn't want him to go without me and so I got married when I was not quite 21.  As I tell my daughters now, "I would ALWAYS marry Daddy, I wouldn't get married that young!"  Daughter number one married at 22, daughter number two is 26 and still single.  Good listeners!

Our wedding garters are in the vintage planter, his is the black and white one complete with ball and chain, mine is barely blue anymore.  The cake topper sits in the middle of the table and the silver album on the left is filled with the story of our first 25 years, my husband created it for our silver anniversary nine years ago.

I hear the cottonwoods whisperin' above,

Tammy, Tammy, Tammy's in love.

The ushers escorted our two mothers down the isle to that organ tune at our wedding ceremony.  A friend told me at the reception, "I heard that song and started to cry!"  Thirty four years later, and I'm still in love.

Stay tuned for part two...