Vintage Portland, Oregon Rednesday

Can I first huff and puff and say, in the most plain of words, that I LOATHE the new blogger?! Grumble grumble snarfle hiccup!  I did this post in its entirety yesterday and I continually "saved" it, plus the program kept "auto saving" it all the while ... well ... I went to post it this morning and all that appeared was the Title.  Just my post title.  Not any of my text or the many photos I uploaded and resized and repositioned, over and over again. And I just now back clicked on my history and I can SEE my DRAFT, complete draft, as bold as day - and yet, it's not in my drafts folder.  Why did blogger save my title but not my post?!  What the hoohah is that all about?!  miffle piffle pish posh GRRRRRRRRRRRR!   OK, sorry ... feeling a bit better now ... back to Rednesday.

(Please visit Sue at Sue Loves Cherries for more Rednesday fun!)

Some vintage Portland, Oregon tourist ephemera for this Rednesday. Enjoy!
(sorry, there's more blue than red!)

 

Put a stamp on it

Trying to get back up on the old horse ... some new stuff in my Etsy!

Rednesday Scramble

(Please visit Sue at Sue Loves Cherries for more Rednesday fun!)

(As they say, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks -I can't seem to figure out 

this new blogger set up - my post looks one way on the screen in front of me 

and yet another when I look at the "preview" screen!  There's this ginormous

space that I can't get rid of.  ack!)

 

I don't know about you but some Rednesdays it's just slim pickins over here.  Nothing comes to mind and I have to scramble, wanting something fun to share.  Looks like today's Rednesday offering is literally a scramble of stuff! 

Mr. Peanut mechanical pencils ... food coloring from who knows what decade, found at the back of my mother's pantry ... Betty Crocker brochure cracks me up, "Betty Crocker urges you to try her Sponge Drop Tea Cakes ... a kitchen appliance thermometer brochure ... and I love the vintage illustrations in this Flying A map, so charming!

 

 

Happy Rednesday!

 

 

 

mish mash

It's a dreary Tuesday here in Los Angeles today and I've been  having so much fun playing on ancestry.com, finding out more about family members.  I've even got my husband hooked too, we are a family obsessed. 

And I made the tiniest foray in craftiness this afternoon ... a wee bit of craft dabbling ... good gosh, it's been so long.  AND it felt sooooooooo good. 

Just a little bit of foofing up a birthday present of money and making it more fun when it arrives in the mail.  Don't let anyone ever tell you that you have too many supplies - they are there for times like these, when craftiness takes a hold of you and you don't want to go to the store, but you want to play now!  

I dug around and found that I had this darling aqua washi tape that matched the birthday card, a Martha Stewart "present" punch I'd never even opened, a vintage air mail envelope with aqua insides, some cute scrapbook paper and of course, birthday candles to make those wishes come true!  

Happy dabbling to you!

2500 into 1100 does not go!

Sorry!  I seem to have fallen off the edge of the blogging merry-go-round, huh?!  I've apparently been gone so long that blogger has changed and I'm staring at a completely unfamiliar screen as I type this.


There were some gray days over here ... I was totally smacked down and so depressed when I realized that although one year had passed, I was still stuck, very much in the midst of my father's estate business.  WAH!  It's been constant work for over a year and I had thought, had hoped for a release and a return to my own little life.  Nuh uh! 

Tax returns to figure out and file.  Done.

Fixing up my father's house so we could rent it.  Done. 

My father's house to rent.  Done.  FINALLY, one week ago our very first tenants moved in.  WAHOO!

 

A lawsuit against a scallywag, a worm, a weasel - a brief moment of hope and then dashed!  Now more legal wrangling and perhaps court.  So draining!

And the boxes and boxes and more boxes of a family's life to sift through.  Clues on pieces of paper, filling in puzzles, taking shape.  I'm having so much fun on Ancestry.com, filling in our family tree with new found info. 

As much joy as it brings, it is daunting.  It feels impossible to squeeze my parents things into my much smaller home. 

So that's where I am these days ... buried under boxes in this wee hoosie, adrift in memories.

Yesterday I poured over photos of my mother when she was young.  So much fun! 

I thought my Vintage Thingie Thursday followers might enjoy this vintage photo frame with a picture of my mom in it that I found yesterday.  It's like an Ojos Dios, with a place for a photo in the center - I think my mom is about three or four in this photo.  If it is as old as my mom was, it's from the 1920's. 

vintage vacation souvenirs

(Please join Suzanne at Colorado Lady blog for more Vintage Thingie Thursday fun!)

Happy Vintage Thingie Thursday!

Feeling a little poorly over here ... sniffle sniffle ACHOO ... so I'm arriving pretty late to Vintage Thingie Thursday. Sorry! I've been laying down, reading "The Hunger Games" and enjoying it! And also wondering if there was anything I could pull together easily to share this Thursday???


I grabbed a few things that were close at hand ... some stuff my family must have picked up on road trip vacations before I was born (but then I seem to remember Paul Bunyon, so I guess I was there too). A little barrel from The Trees of Mystery, bear and squirrel salt and pepper shakers (actually I don't know where they got these???, but they go so well with a National Park theme that I'm throwing them in hahahhaha) and some fun vintage postcards from their travels.

Find a seat and grab some popcorn

(Please visit Sue at It's A Very Cherry World for more Rednesday fun!)

Anyone remember this?! All the giggles and good times of going to the theater in your own home (what a concept hahhahhahaha) ... dad would get out the screen and set up the projector and mom would make a BIG bowl of popcorn and we'd all settle in to watch cartoons and short films.

vintage E-Z Pop TV commercial from the 50's

My mom would always make popcorn the old fashioned way,
but I do remember her bringing home Jiffy Pop when it first came out.

This Rednesday, I thought I'd share these 8 mm films that belonged to my brother ... Woody Woodpecker in "Well Oiled", Woody Woodpecker in "Termites from Mars", "Oswald the Rabbit" and "Ten Fathoms Deep" - I looked this last one up, wondering what it could be and found the following snippets here:

"Ten Fathoms Deep" (Castle Films) is still a compelling bit of footage that only hinted at future possibilities which the former French naval officer spent a lifetime achieving - the safest and most practical manner that allows man to explore and research the deep oceans of the world.

It's from 1952 and about Jacques Cousteau, how fun is that?!

It also said:

" ... among his considerable accomplishments, designed and built the first scuba diver regulator (aqua lung) in the 1950s, as well as the first underwater camera housing apparatus more than 50 years ago which, at the time, could hold only 13 minutes of film."

the lovers, the dreamers and me

who said that every wish would be heard
and answered when wished on the morning star?



somebody thought of that and someone believed it
look what it's done so far

I guess I'm a mega softie, just a sentimental smooosh ball ... one of my favorite songs is The Rainbow Connection! Kermit and Miss Piggy and Walter were on GMA this morning and sang TRC - I can't get enough of it. it always reduces me to tears.



have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name ...

one year

Saturday was one year since my father passed away.

What a thing grief is! Ever since January, which was the one year anniversary of when this all began with my father's fall and his breaking his hip and then his decline - I have been replaying and reliving, the sad, the traumatic, the painful events. As if it's on a loop in my brain.

SOB!

Not being a newcomer to this world of grief, I have been counting down and longing for the arrival of March 10th, knowing that somehow miraculously, things do weigh less heavily, less frequently, after the first year mark.

I made plans to do something that would bring me joy on the day and also something in remembrance of my dad.


The hubs and I went down south to Santa Ana and took in GLITTER FEST for the first time. So much fun to get to see lovely creations and artists I've seen online. Can't wait until it's time for the next one in the Fall.

Cards from a few of the wonderful artists in attendance.

I got some darling - as if I need more, geeeeeeezzzz - Easter ornaments for my feather tree.

(by Sue Smith of The Fox & The Hare)

(by Robin Kelso)

I apologize to the wonderful artisans who made these for the miserable photos - it's always easier to grab the stupid phone, rather than hunt down the camera and here are the results. WAH!

And we ran into my crafty friend Susan too! Hi Susan!

And then we drove over to Costa Mesa to have lunch at the Taco Asylum. We're vegetarian and I had seen online that they had a wild mushroom taco and a curried paneer taco - nom nom nom YUMMERS! Tasty! Now they weren't in tortilla's - they were on naan bread, like pita. Actually I'm not sure that anything on the menu is what you typically think of as a taco, but they sure are good if you're in Costa Mesa.

Then on Saturday evening, we met my sister-in-law and my two nieces for dinner, to share the one year anniversary and think of the father, father-in-law, grandfather, we all miss so much.

My oldest niece was newly engaged the previous weekend and her fiance came along too. So very nice to have some good news this year, after so much sad news, so many passings last year.


We lost my brother 16 years ago, so my darling oldest niece will walk up the aisle with her momma. The moments my brother missed and the moments his dear girls have missed with him, break our hearts, over and over. But life goes on and somehow new moments of joy are made.

Then on Sunday, we went out to breakfast and then took a trip out to the cemetery and sat with dad (and my mother and my uncle too, nearby) for awhile.

So, one year passed. Our hearts look both backward and forward ... we long for Spring and new beginnings.


Happy Monday to you all!

wowie!

Murmuration from Islands & Rivers on Vimeo.

be patient, wait for it ... and be blown away by it!

video found via the charming blog, the small object.

Little Women

(Please join Suzanne at Colorado Lady blog for more Vintage Thingie Thursday fun!)

Happy Vintage Thingie Thursday!

This vintage thingie Thursday I'm sharing a copy of the much beloved "Little Women".

What a treat it was to find this in my mom's things! The front page bears an inscription from my mother's Aunt Lu to my mom, dated 1932. The book itself is from 1881 (so much fun!) but I'm not sure if Aunt Lu gifted my mother her very own copy, or if she purchased a used copy for my mother? (I'm guessing that she passed along her own copy to my mom, as her full name and city where she lived, is written in the upper corner as if she were writing who the book belongs to and then the inscription to my mother is in the middle of the page.)

I started to thumb through the book and was immediately intrigued by the lack of credit given to the illustrator/illustrators. I googled and found the following interesting entry regarding the illustrations here. (I didn't know that Little Women had originally been published as two books.)

Volumes one and two were published in separate volumes for several years, although beginning in 1870 they were available in a set. In 1880 Roberts Brothers published a revised, 586-page single-volume edition with over two hundred new illustrations by Frank T. Merrill, which Alcott enthusiastically praised. The following year, as part of an eight-volume set of Alcott's works, Roberts Brothers issued what is known as the regular edition of Little Women, a smaller, 532-page edition without the Merrill illustrations. Neither Alcott nor Niles appears to have made the revisions that materialize in the 1881 text, although neither seemed to have objected to their being made; Niles commented in an 1883 letter to Alcott that the changes in style seemed to have resulted in additional sales. Among the textual changes, punctuation was modernized, spelling was modified, and instances of slang were deleted or changed. Characters were made more attractive and more fashionable: Laurie is taller, less ethnic (his "long nose" in the first edition becomes a "handsome nose" in the revised text), and more attractive; Marmee becomes a "noble-looking" woman; Meg's violet silk requires twenty-five yards of fabric, rather than twenty; and Professor Bhaer is described as more of a gentleman. The character of Jo in particular is altered so that she becomes less tomboyish, less colloquial, and more conventional.

Throughout the next century, the regular edition would be the version made available to most readers. It was not until the 1980s that the first edition was reprinted and studied. The changes in the novel and its textual history are the subject of ongoing scholarship.

And so this copy turns out to be the 1881 edition, referred to as the "regular edition" - now I'm curious to see the reprint of the first, original edition! Isn't it fascinating that there were "textual" changes?! I wonder how often that happens?

Once upon a windy day

(Please visit Sue at It's A Very Cherry World for more Rednesday fun!)

I thought this title was a fitting choice for this blustery Los Angeles Rednesday, "Once Upon A Windy Day". I found quite a few "dearly loved" childrens books at my parents house - I think almost all of them were my brothers first and then became mine. They're bringing lots of smiles of remembrance.

Here's the beginning pages of this darling story for you, from 1947, written and illustrated by Jane Flory.