happy halloweenie

That's my own Halloween mask found at my parents house. I was a scarecrow in 1962 or 1963? I can remember going to J.J.Newberry's on Pico Blvd. in West Los Angeles (where the Westside Pavillion is now) with my mom and picking out the costume. Sadly the costume was nowhere to be found but I remember it having kind of mid calf length pants, with zig zap edges (like a huge zig zag gone awry). I seem to remember the sleeves being just past elbow length, with the same kind of edge detail? Gosh I miss Newberry's, with a little bit of everything. So many childhood visits there.

hahahhahahha ... so I went out on the porch this morning (in my bathrobe) at six a.m. to see what it would look like at night through the window to the trick or treaters ... and of course someone was walking down the street already LOL. Wonder if it was anyone I know??? They'll surely tell their nearest and dearest about the old lady in a lavender bathrobe on her porch taking photos with her iPad at that ridiculous hour. At least they didn't think I was the BATHROBE BURGLAR.

You can see my spooky hand in the reflection and my husband sitting at the breakfast table of our original puny 1950 kitchen, with NO DISHWASHER (I am doing a lot of kitchen daydreaming at the moment - after 34 years with no dishwasher!), our refrigerator loaded with magnets from our many visits to the UCLA Festival of Books and lots from the Humane Society - got to get all those woofies forever homes!

More stuff I had forgotten all about - I found this cute Halloween basket with a doggie inside and the darling owl, both that I got at Glitterfest in 2012. And these darling ones from Susie Scott that day too, always look forward to getting something of hers ...

Happy Halloween to everyone!

i could kick myself from here to transylvania

Hubby found the Halloween ornament box last night in the garage WOOHOO! So I attacked it this morning and ... the tree skirt (well, not really a tree skirt, that makes it sound really cute and great - nope! it was just a circle of felt I had cut out) was nowhere to be found.

Woe is me. I am so sick of myself, so tired of not being organized and not knowing where stuff is WAH!

Thank heavens I was able to retrieve my black felt out of the box destined for Good Will - LAST WEEKEND, but never made it - and make another.

But of course it wasn't that easy ... the first one I made was too small and so I had to cut a larger one out. Well I don't have anything large enough to trace around so I had to measure all around the one that was too small and increase it by a couple of inches. Can we say TEDIOUS?!

I'm pretty sure I'm wearing my cranky pants today - I'm on day three of a miserable headache and poor Missy has um, intestinal woes today (she ate something that we won't discuss here EWWW and ARGH) and keeps needing to go out. So it's been quite a day so far between one thing and another.

I found these cute ornaments above, that I had forgotten I had bought though ... wonder what else I've hidden from myself hahahhahaha

Happy Halloweenie! Wishing you lots of Halloween candy! [Snickers and Butterfingers are my favorite nom nom nom]

halloween happy mail

 

Happy almost Halloweenie everyone! I only just got my cards addressed and off this morning. Ay yi yi. I had so much fun using old postage this year ... Alfred Hitchcock, Dracula, Phantom of the Opera and Legend of Sleepy Hollow, fun fun fun!  Alas I didn't get any cards made, ended up sending store bought ... the hands on the clock are moving ever faster and I'm moving ever slower. ARGH!

We are experiencing the mystery of the missing halloween decorations over here ... the Halloween tree has been located and last night a box labeled HALLOWEEN was found to cheers and applause but not the one with all my Halloween ornaments. WT Halloween hoohah is that all about? GHOSTS maybe?

little by little

I had planned on doing a catch up post today but I actually ended up really getting into going through stuff and putting it in boxes for Good Will. WOW! Miracle of miracles. So just running in to say Hello and Happy Monday! And a little bit of fall flower shopping this weekend and playing around, trying to figure out things for our Halloween porch on Friday. Number one Order of Business - how on earth to get that big honkin' terra cotta pot from the back yard to the front porch?!!

Happy week to everyone!

and the WINNER is ...

Thanks everyone for entering my GIVEAWAY!

I can't figure out how to preview this video and see if it works like I used to be able to???
Hope you can see it and hear it!

If you can't, the name of the winner is after this ...

The winner is ... LINDA ... Congratulations Linda!
Please send me your mailing address and I'll get your goodies off to you.

more stuff for Halloween "got too much stuff" GIVEAWAY

More stuff for my "got too much stuff GIVEAWAY", ending tomorrow at NOON PST. Halloween tissue, halloween jack 'o lantern garland and Matthew Mead's MONSTER Book of Halloween.

Sign up on the post (below) to enter. (not on this post)

"got too much stuff" GIVEAWAY!

A little Halloween GIVEAWAY for you! I've collected too much Halloweenie stuff and need to pass it on and I thought I'd like to send it to you, if you'd like it?!

Halloween finger tip towels, orange streamers, 3 packages of Halloween stickers, one pack solid Halloween paper, one tablet patterned Halloween paper, foam Halloween stamps and wide Halloween ribbon.

If you'd like to help me tidy up my craft supplies LOL and have an opportunity to win some stuff to boot in my GIVEAWAY, please leave me a comment on this thread. (Comments are moderated due to spam bots and will be sent to my email. I will post comments as I pick them up.)

This will be a fast one since Halloween is just around the corner. I'll pick the winner on Friday at NOON PST, as I want to mail out to you on Saturday morning, so you'll have it before Halloween. I will email you for your mailing address after I announce the winner.

You must have an active blog to enter. Thank you!

Sorry! Only Continental U.S. participants so I can get this to you quickly.)

Happy Halloweenie!

one year on ...

Today is one year since my husband had his cancer surgery. Thank you so much - sending much love and gratitude to everyone who has had David and me in their thoughts, prayers and hearts on this journey.

Doing a lot of organizing and hopefully even more getting rid of stuff over here. (Re)Found this fun cloth of my mom's this morning - so many things boxed up and brought home in 2011, to wait until I could figure out what I wanted to do with them and time to be able to let go. Slowly (well, ever so slowly!), things make their way to Good Will.

I'm sure those are meant to be peacocks above, but I'm pretending their turkeys today LOL , since the cloth is yellow with brown embroidery.  I'm hopeless at photography and couldn't get the color right. 

My mom had lots of these small cloths - I guess for card tables but they seem like they'd barely fit over the edges??? 

Happy week to you!

seventeenth anniversary

Thank you for our wonderful life together Sweetheart! 

 

We'll be together 21 years in January
and seventeen years ago today,  

Friday, October 17, 1997, we got hitched. 

 

Happy Anniversary to us!

squirrels

Gorgeous day here today! Rain clouds this morning but no rain, now blue skies and the most pleasant of temperatures, mid seventies.

But it's a crazy kind of day. I was going to run errands this morning and got in my car and it wouldn't start. ARGH! Fingers crossed it's just the battery please please please.

I get kind of thrown when plans go awry. Trying to be productive and clean and putter around. I had wanted to put to use some pine cones and pods I found on an old wreath at my parents but, I have no idea where I put my wire cutters. So much is in flux in this house, trying to figure out my parents things, can I say ARGH?!

I found this heart that I made several years ago - I participated in a gift for a fellow blogger, a garland - and after I saw what others had made, realized mine didn't go with the rest of the group at all. So, a pressie for me!

Did you/do you, scrapbook? I unearthed my box of stickers and die cuts the other day and found these leaf die cuts.  Talk about STICKER SHOCK (sorry for the stretch!) - I've got a bazillion stickers from my letter writing and scrapbook days. And quite obviously a big case of OCD. 

 

And I got the adorable little chenille package decorations at a swap meet a few years ago. I WUV THEM.

 

Happy Hump Day! 

1959 pack-o-fun halloween crafts

Cleaning house and going through boxes over here. I found this Pack-O-Fun book from 1959 with this cute Halloweenie stuff for you!

october

"There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October." 
-  Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

pumpkin time

It's pumpkin time over here! Being a mega Pumpkin Spice Latte fan[atic], when I saw Holly's (of Damita's Pretty Wrap blog) adorable coffee cozies with pumpkins on them, I had to have some. One for me and one for the hubby. Now we're pumpkin yummy, inside and out! Holly also included the mini pumpkins (they make me smile!) and a sample of her divine Hazelnut warmer tarts, mmmm yummy scent. You can find Holly's cozies at her Etsy shop here.

I've always loved Fall but alas we don't really have much of a Fall here in So. California (although we do have a lot more Fall than Winter!!!). It's 81 degrees right now. So we have to play Make Believe. 

I got out one of my absolute favorite books, Susan Branch's Autumn. She makes me feel comfy and cozy. I was so surprised to find she has a Pumpkin Latte recipe in the book! How had I never noticed it before??? It does include pumpkin though and real PSL's don't have any pumpkin in them. A couple years ago I tried one of the many supposed PSL knock off recipes with pumpkin in it - and well, YUCK and BLECH! So I won't be trying Susan's recipe, although I adore her.

Her books transport me to a dreamy place, where all is well and good in the world. People are kind to each other, love is always present. Meals are homemade and food is love. The little things, the small gestures that make life dear and meaningful.

I seem to have fallen down the rabbit hole and landed in a very sentimental place ...

Happiest of pumpkin time to you and yours!

hope is the thing with feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers 

That perches in the soul, 

And sings the tune without the words, 

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; 

And sore must be the storm 

That could abash the little bird 

That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land, 

And on the strangest sea; 

Yet, never, in extremity, 

It asked a crumb of me.
~Emily Dickinson

 

Awwwww ... Many years ago my mom had a pen pal that made her this sweet little birdie pitcher. Hoping I can find a spot in this jam packed to the brim house, so I can see it all the time.

Celebrating Malala today!

Anyone else jumping up and down over the news this morning that Malala Yousafzai (and co-recipient, Kailash Satyarthi, fellow child rights advocate) won the Nobel Peace Prize?! 17 years old and won the Nobel Peace Prize! Her unrelenting courage, determination and sense of hope, blow me away. In her speech of thanks, she thanked her beloved father "for not clipping her wings".

May we all be inspired and emboldened to action by this brave, compassionate soul. May all girls fly free and pursue their sweetest and boldest and wildest of dreams.

Wishing you a happy and fabulous Friday!

view master

Vintage View Master from my parents things, belonging to my brother. Still works, much to my gleeful surprise! Found some reels too - Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and two reels of Marineland of the Pacific (located in Palos Verdes, CA until torn down for a hotel resort BOO HISS).

Yesterday would have been my brothers 68th birthday. 19 years he's been gone in December. Everyone is gone now - never gets easier ... grab your loved ones and give them a big hug for me.

cock-a-doodle-ooooo

Cutie pie egg cups found at my parents. I'm assuming they were a gift long ago, since there's only two of them, looking like they were never used. The bowls are extra big - I eyeballed my Large egg next to them this morning and my egg seemed very puny and would wibble wobble around if placed inside. Not a single manufacturers mark on them, so know nothing about them. Any ideas, my vintage pals?


On another front, I am ready to throttle myself! Feeling crafty and with an idea in my head this morning, I went to find something I bought. It's the perfect thing. Cannot. find. it. anywhere. Round and round I go, looking where it should be. Nuh uh, still not there. 

Off to shift this mess around and hopefully find what I'm looking for puhleeeeezzzzeeee ...

I sure can understand the allure of minimalism now!

gone girl

Sweltering heat in Los Angeles and off we went to the coolness of the theater yesterday morning, to catch opening day of "Gone Girl" before the crowds made it an impossibility. 

I didn't care for the book - the main characters were both so despicable (and I didn't find the male characters voice particularly well written) - although I did enjoy all the plot twists. Very clever. Don't you love it when a mystery writer keeps you guessing?

Hater, that I was, I did like the movie though, if one can use the word "like" about this story. I don't know if it was due to the passage of time in between the reading and then viewing and having an emotional breather/rest or being prepared for all that was to come?

Two and a half hours long and I didn't notice the length at all.


I'm hoping it's our Santa Ana Winds and/or not enough sleep for two nights and not a relapse of my bug - because my sinuses and throat feel really bad. Drat drat drat. We've been having extreme temperatures again and winds whipping everything up.

Heat heat go away, don't return another day, darn you.

I was hoping to go to the Antiquarian Book Fair today but felt lousy and pooped out - it was 101 yesterday in Pasadena and supposed to be even hotter today. BLECH! Maybe tomorrow, I hope hope hope.

Like an idiot ... I stepped foot in a bookstore today and not being able to come home with the book I had gone to B&N for (Lena Dunham), bought two other books and three magazines. Hanging my head in shame. I (think I) have managed to avoid the purchase of magazines all year long and fell off the wagon with a resounding thud. Stampington mag's should be classified as an illegal drug. I cannot resist the holiday issues. They fill you with euphoria and leave you with remorse. 15 smackers for your fix.

Sally, in the doldrums with buyers regret

rosanne cash

My stinking Verizon email has been down for more than two and a half days now - sometime Tuesday it went down for me. The funny thing is that I was able to pick up my email on my phone while I was in Westwood Village (a few miles at most from me???) twice this week - once at the eye doctor and once at UCLA. So they are indeed giving the commercial and big users priority on service. I couldn't even get my email at 6 AM today. GRRRRRRRRR 

Went to the eye doctor on Wednesday since I continue to have flashes of light in my eye ARGH. She said that this is longer than usual for these episodes and healing, but not unheard of. Oh good grief. Of course I would be out of the realm of normal. LOL Back in two months to be checked again, unless something happens in the meantime. So. sick. of. this. 

Had the pleasure of seeing Rosanne Cash in concert last night at UCLA. Great concert, love her! For the first portion of the evening she performed her new album, The River and The Thread, from beginning to end, with interesting anecdotes in between about the songs and cute banter with her husband. I don't think I've experienced a performance of an entire album before, from start to finish, and it was really nice. After the intermission she did songs from earlier albums. 

The only damper was a giant of a man sitting in front of me, when he stood up he loomed about 6'5", just kept getting taller and taller - just about obliterating my view of center stage and Rosanne Cash. And he kept scratching his head all evening ... up went his arms and out came his elbows like wings ... ay yi yi. I had to lean towards the complete stranger next to me - thankfully she was very nice, since I was practically in her seat with her hahahhahaha.

Off to see "Gone Girl" this morning ... which ironically I didn't care for the book at all but am so curious to see what they do with it since it's getting good reviews.

TGIF!

holy cow ... printed in 1711

I found a couple antique books at my parents house ... I just about fainted dead away when I read "Printed and Sold by James Blow, M,DCC,XI".

1711 ... seventeen eleven!!! WHOA! Now that's cause for passing out, huh?! It's in pretty good shape considering all those years - 303 years.

 

The left hand page bears a name and the words, "His book".

The right hand page is a personal note from a long ago relative 

of mine, which appears to have been sewn into the front of 

the book. The book was given as a gift from a grandmother
to a granddaughter in 1861.

Names and years are noted here. Sadly pretty much unreadable.

I am wondering if these are all names of people who were
gifted the book? 1807 is written upside down - notations
seem to be written any which way.

"The Instructor
or
Young Man's Best Companion"
Note the bottom of the right hand page, this is where it states 1711 -
BELFAST
Printed and Sold by James Blow, M,DCC,XI
So exciting! Pass the smelling salts!

So charming, appears to be wood block prints?

I can make out one relatives name here 

and the year 1786, at almost the back.

I can find two years noted on these pages, 1749 and
1776 (now I'm not sure of that when I look at it again)
and recognize the same relatives name and a date of
December 29th, but year is unreadable.

Hope you got a kick out of this too!

Happy Hump Day!