Thursday, August 30, 2012

south of the border


Edited to add: I found out via darling Leslie's blog, Brookhollow Lane, that there's a brand new blog link party this weekend - A Favorite Thing on Saturdays at Mockingbird Hill Cottage. So I thought I'd link up this already posted entry since it's about one of my absolute favorite things - this ceramic donkey of my mothers.

It gave me untold moments of fun and pleasure as a child, playing with the buttons it held. 

Please forgive me, I may not make it around to everyone's blogs until next week.  I look forward to reading about all of your favorite things. 




A photo of my mom and brother taken on a day trip to Tijuana Mexico in 1957.  My mom is the second from the right, wearing a dress with what they called a "mandarin" collar back then - my brother is the second from the left, note the bobby socks, penny loafers and rolled cuff Levi's.

My mother used to entertain all of my dad's visiting clients and their families when they came to So. Cal. on business trips.  That usually called for trips to Disneyland, Santa Monica Beach and Grauman's Chinese. This group must have visited before and was looking to be more adventurous. 

I know the young man on the left is the son of one of my parents favorite people, a man my father worked for in the late 1940's and became the best of friends with.  They would meet up across the country, at various golf courses until his former employer and then beloved friend, passed away in the 1980's.  Sadly I haven't a clue who the other woman is with her darling son.

I don't know the back story of the ceramic burro, when it came on the scene and from where?  But I thought it looked like it could well be a souvenir of this trip to Tijuana and it holds a very special place in my heart. It was a fixture of my childhood. My mother always kept her stray buttons in it's basket and I loved to play with all the buttons when I was little.

I was so sad when I couldn't find it in it's spot at my parents house after my father passed away last year. I looked and looked, with no success.  There were only a few things I was specifically longing for and seeking out and they all proved to be illusive until the very end.  

And each time it was my husband who found them, this cherished ceramic burro and my mom's grandmother's baby doll.  (A couple things proved to have truly vanished without a trace WAH!)  Now I look for special places in my home for them, where I can always enjoy them.

Monday, August 27, 2012

things are a bit brighter


Thanks so much for your kind words, they mean so much to me!

Hurray, my Auntie is much improved!  Yabba dabba doo!  When we visited with her this past Friday, she didn't want to remain in her room for our visit, she wanted to go to the lounge - she got herself up and out of her bed, grabbed her walker and she was off.  So cute.  She talked a mile a minute for the hour and a half we were there.  So she seems to be returning to at least, a version of her old self. 

She's going to be a great grandmother too and we're all looking forward to a small family get together to celebrate in September.

We still don't know what's up with our doggie for sure. They thought she had Cushing's Disease but after several tests, the results came back negative.  Now the vet thinks she's had a reaction to her thyroid medication, says an animal can develop a sensitivity to a prescription and that being ravenous, scarfing down food, vomiting, panting and agitation can also be symptoms of too much thyroid medication.  The vet reduced her dosage and thinks she should be better by the end of this week.  Fingers crossed.

We've had to feed her three times a day and split those three meals into six bowls at each feeding, so that she could keep her food down.  18 bowls of food a day, timed at ten minute intervals at each feeding. Anything for our little (well, not so little) pookie pie!  


Hope you all had a lovely weekend.  We saw a fun movie yesterday, Robot & Frank, to celebrate my husbands last day of vacation.


Happy Monday!

Sunday, August 19, 2012

blogging blues


Life is weighing a bit heavy over here and blogging seems of very little import these days. Yup, I've got the blogging blues, er, blahs!  


My Auntie is in the hospital/rehab facility "indefinitely" and she has cabin fever of course and her spirits are sagging.  Attitude can be ALL, certainly so very crucial for elderly patients.  

She is my last link to my family's past and all the stories I was never told.

My doggie is ill with "they know not what".  They thought they knew what she had but last weeks test results came back "inconclusive", even after being viewed by a specialist.  This week will bring more testing. 

My best and dearest pal and constant companion.

 
There is more and as they say, when it rains, it pours.

Hope you are all well and managing to somehow stay cool!


Tuesday, August 7, 2012

bobbie had a nickel

Oh! such a woebegone little book.  Cover missing, whole pages gone and funny random bits cut out. Obviously very well loved by a little boy and later his sister so very long ago.  

(I'm so sorry that I couldn't post this charming book in its entirety - my younger self apologizes for any role she may have played in the removal of the pages and denying you the complete story of little Bobbie's trials making his big decision.  Thankfully the climactic end and Bobbie's choice are intact so, SPOILER ALERT teehee!)

 










The End.




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

Monday, August 6, 2012

patty cake patty cake

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man.
Bake me a cake as fast as you can;
Pat it and prick it and mark it with B,
Put it in the oven for baby and me.
Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man.
Bake me a cake as fast as you can;
Roll it up, roll it up;
And throw it in a pan!
Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man.

 

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

anyone care for salad?




Found this "cheerful and cheap" salad set at my parents. Isn't it fun?!  The cruet sits on the bottom shelf and the funnel and salad fork and spoon are placed on the top shelf. There is one stray S&P shaker that fits nowhere in the grouping, I guess it had another home (with it's mate, that was nowhere to be found BOO HOO!).

All these years it had hung in my mom's kitchen happily - I wrap it up and take it home and now the shelf is falling apart.  MUTINY! hahahhahhahahha


Wednesday is Rednesday at It's A Very Cherry World! Please join in the fun with Sue here. 


Please join Suzanne at Colorado Lady for more Vintage Thingie Thursday fun here. 

red and green fabrics for sale

When push comes to shove, some things need to find new homes after trying in vain to cram my parents things into my house.  I have a box of red and green fabrics that I've been wistfully saying "some day" to for a long time now and never finding the time. Here are some of them, darling vintage-ish fabrics from the late seventies to eighties - I'll be putting these up for sale on my Ebay shortly.

Please feel free to leave me a comment with your email address if you have any interest in any of the fabrics and I will email you the Ebay item number when I've listed them.



Two Yards
(above two photos are the same fabric, just different sides)
A VIP Screen Print Cranston Print Works Company
Christmas in the Country Collection
Stencil Picture Patches
so charming!


Two Yards
one inch various xmas motifs
A VIP Fabric Cranston Print Works Company
print runs parallel to selvedge


Two Yards
one inch various xmas motifs
A VIP Fabric Cranston Print Works Company
print runs parallel to selvedge


Two Yards
one inch various xmas motifs
Wamsutta OTC Div. of M. Lowenstein Corp.
Hallmark Cards design



Two Yards
one inch various xmas motifs
A VIP Fabric Cranston Print Works Company

Two Yards
Country Classics Prairie
by Ameritex

One and a half Yards
An Ameritex print
teddy bears in overalls :)

one quarter yard
Teddy bears and hearts
appears to be Gordon Fraser illustration
A VIP Print Cranston Prints Work Company

one quarter yard
Teddy bear Winter/Christmas
appears to be Lucy Rigg illustration?
A VIP Print Cranston Prints Work Company



Wednesday is Rednesday at It's A Very Cherry World. Join in the fun with Sue here.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

lock the door and throw away the key




Yesterday was the International Quilt Show in Long Beach and today is the Renegade Craft Fair in downtown L.A. - so much temptation, so little willpower hahhahhahhahaha!

Happy crafty weekend to everyone!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

vintage polaroid land camera





Produced: 1948-1953 / Original Retail: $89.75
Estimated Production: 800,000 - (900,000)

First commercially available instant picture camera

Info found at The Land List: An Ongoing Project in Catloging Polaroid Cameras


and at Historical Cameras


Oh gosh. It's so very hard to know what to do with all of the wonderful, fun, sentimental things I've inherited?!  I would keep everything if space allowed but alas living in a cracker box of a house, it doesn't. And I don't want to rent a storage space - I know that would become the thing that went on forever.  WAH!

I can only find a few polaroid photos and this camera appears pretty pristine, suggesting it was barely ever used. The accessory boxes show age but the items inside look brand new.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

vintage goodies

I thought it might be fun to share my mom's vintage flatware collection, spoon rack and salt box with you today. These must have been around when I was little but I don't remember them until we moved shortly before I turned ten.  Sometime thereafter, I know they were ever present, hanging in our kitchen.  My mom loved them all so. 

Oh! I just had a thought. They would have belonged to my mom's mom until she passed away and then my mother inherited these family keepsakes. That's why I have no early memories of them. DUH! 

I'm embarrassed to say that I've only been really paying attention and examining them this week. What treasures they are! 

Almost all the vintage flatware is sterling.  Two are souvenir spoons from Redwood Falls, MN where my mothers maternal family had quite a presence long ago. Six pieces were made in Sweden, the birthplace of my fraternal great grandparents - so they were brought from the "old country". I cannot tell you how much that delighted me to see Sweden on the back of them, as I had found nothing belonging to my fraternal great grandparents up to this week.  YIPPIE!  A couple bear a known family monogram - there are other initials too but I haven't a clue who they belonged to???

And one has an enameled flower on it ... so much fun.

I'm assuming the spoon rack and salt box are from the 1950's - my mother decorated in the Early American style of the day - perhaps they are earlier but I am 99.99% sure that they are not later.




 souvenir spoons from Redwood Falls, MN


six pieces from Sweden

an enameled Lily, so enchanting



Joining in on all the Vintage Thingie Fun with Suzanne at Colorado Lady here.