Vintage Photo Friday February 13, 2009

I forgot about Vintage Photo Friday!   I am sure that you didn’t though. You must have worried yourself sick, checking back every few minutes compulsively to see if I had updated.  Fret no more!

Today I present a couple of vintage photos of my Granny taken when she came to visit me when I was born in Bangkok, Thailand, 1969.

I was talking with my dad on the photo while uploading these photos (my kind of multitasking, blogging and talking on the phone instead of say, folding laundry and making dinner) and I realized that my dad and I found the dress my Granny is wearing in these shots while I was home in December.  We were sorting through the behemoth collection of items stored in my Granddaddy’s old antique store when we came across it.  I brought it home intending to sell it in my shop but am glad I didn’t get around to it!

Look how happy my Granny looks!  How brave it was of this woman to travel  all the way around the world by herself.  I believe it was the first time she had left the state of NC.  I will be keeping the dress!

And of course I used some of her clothespins to pin it to my window hanging! I really do wish she were alive and I could bring her here for dinner to meet the children, ask her stories and of course to take more photos of her.

Here are a few pages from her scrapbook of her visit to Thailand.

That yucky bit is a very vintage stick of gum.

I am lucky I come from a long line of savers.  I feel like I have such rich pieces of family history and heritage and I wish all my grandparents knew how much I appreciate and value them.

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And please check out Shannon at Pineapples & Artichokes

I am so glad that she is joining me in Vintage Photo Friday.  Let me know if you would like to play along and I will link to your blog.  Cheers!

Fight the Power February 12, 2009

My super cool friend from college, Becca, is full of great ideas!

She has a fun etsy shop:  Treehouse Togs.  And yesterday she was on TEE VEE!

I can not figure out how to stick the video in the blog but here is the link. (Anyone know how?)  She was interviewed as a small business owner reacting to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.  Check it out, it’s informative.

I just found out that the law would make it illegal to sell vintage children’s books!  Are you NUTS?   So the thrift store will no longer sell them to me?  So I can no longer sell them to you?  I know I’m coming late to the party, but I am outraged and a little scared!

***And on another note, thank you all for your fabulous ideas for the auction.  I think I have a plan (but am still accepting your sage advice) and look forward to sharing the finished product with you.

A Perfect Afternoon February 9, 2009

One of my favorite times is when my little one wakes up from his nap. (Okay, there are times it is hard to pull myself off the computer, put down my book or stop sewing but even then I am happy he is safe and up and looking for me!)  Sometimes I can hear the fast pitter patter of his feet running down the hallway but my favorite times he calls out, “Mommy”, and I go in and get some sugar.  Today was perfect.  The boys and I spent a good part of yesterday cleaning, organizing and revamping their bedroom.  If felt good to go into a clean room and I could tell he felt like staying put.  The pile of books he stacked by the bed was a big clue.  We snuggled, read, looked at photo albums and then I ran for the camera.

The drawing was done by a 6 year old he idolizes.  She is the daughter of a good friend and a friend to my oldest since they were babies in playgroup.  She made it for him and we’ve hung it up on the bottom slates of the upper bunk.  It’s very sweet.  The cloud fabric pockets (second from bottom right) hung on his crib and yesterday we put them up at the foot of his bed to make the bottom bunk a little more cozy and comfy and less like the little brother dungeon.  You can also see the remnants of the robot wall stickers,  he peeled 3 off the first night they were up.

After reading and drawing we played the postcard game.  My parents do a great job of sending the boys postcards when they travel and the boys have saved them all.  I bought a pocket chart at the $1 section of Target and both boys enjoy putting them up and rearranging them.  A new “game” my youngest likes to play is planning to go or avoid the places depicted on the cards.  Today he showed me the dolphin postcard from Florida and said, “I no want go there.  Too loud.”  The cavern postcard also got the pass, “I no go there.  Too dark!”  but he was very excited about the old mill which he mistook for a mall, “Have duckie in there?”  He is a sucker for rubber duckies.

I think the possibility of going back to work is on my mind and I’m treasure moments like this afternoon even more.

So thank you little one for a perfect afternoon of laughs and learning together.

Box of Trinkets from My Brother February 6, 2009

I’ve got a sore throat so I won’t talk much today.

Wanted to share a box my brother gave me a while back.

Well, just one story.

These are from the estate of what we called my aunts but I’m not sure exactly the relation.  3rd cousins?  Doesn’t matter, these ladies were golden.  Good sisters who stuck together but did not take gruff from anyone and could talk a mouth full of truck if need be.  Nice southern ladies.  Stop me if I have told you this one before, oh right – you CAN’T!

I was visiting them from college with a friend and they drove us, in their big ole station wagon, to the restaurant.  As we were about to park a woman ambled by ever so slowly, making it so Aunt N & N had to wait.  Aunt N (the sassier of the two) said, “Well HELLO THERE uglier than me!”.  The windows were up, no harm no foul.  But we laughed hard about it, and not just that day.  I think at the time it was the shock of it.  As I age (not gracefully at all) I am realizing the old are not bereft of personality like perhaps I may have thought as a young girl.

And Then He Said… February 1, 2009

Part of a conversation with my 6 year old today:

Me: What job do you think you might like one day?

Him: I want to stay at home.

Me (Internally) – Oh what validation of what I do as a MOM.  How great that my son has not bought into traditional gender roles.  I must be doing something right!

Me (Out Loud):  You want to stay home with your kids like mommy does?

Him:  Yeah.  [pause]  I just want to do nothing.

Love you kiddo.   I would not have traded my “nothing” time with you for anything!

Sick of Sick… January 29, 2009

and Tired of Tired!

Both boys sick again, damn winter.

…and…

Before I had my own blog and realized how easy it is to manipulate “reality” through photography, I used to visit sites and feel inferior about how cool and clean everyone’s house was.  So in the interest of keeping it real, here is a shot taken the same day and in the same room I did my tutorial.   It was a glorious day spent making and creating crafts (and a mess) instead of picking crap up, which I find is NO FUN whatsoever.

See the fun shirt special ordered by my 2 (kinda soon to be 3) year old?  Now see that pile located just under our hands?  Big dog food storage bag bought at IKEA full of clean clothes waiting to be folded and then never put away, which accounts for the mess just above the bag.  Hard to tell because it all looks like one pile but it’s all about 3 piles deep.   The furthest pile, living safely at the top of the stairs,  is a box of our Chanukah stuff with bags from our trip to NC in DECEMBER on top of them.  The remaining colorful bits are the kids’ winter jackets and snow pants. This place does not have a hall closet and the over flow from the “gear” basket is maddening.

But it is a cute little shirt!  From the depths of mess much creativity can emerge.  Right?  Now I am going to try and at least put the Chanukah stuff away.  I HATE cleaning so much.  I wish it was different but it has always been this way.  I LOVE rearranging and reorganizing but it’s the monotonous upkeep that blows.  Surely I am not alone in this.  Does everyone just suck it up and deal?

And here is a link to a wonderful photo on Flickr by CowboyMontgomery, whose photography I deeply admire.  I am going to order a print of this for my 40th birthday.  I will not, however, be making a cupcake shirt with 40 candles for the occasion.

Braggy McBragstein January 26, 2009

I am blessed with really amazing friends.  They are all thoughtful, smart and funny.  I mean, HELLO!   (Wait, is it likes that attract or…)

I love my friends, and not just when they give me stuff.  It’s just more bloggable when they do.  Hear that my dears?  Want to make the blog?  Hit the thrift store and think of ME!

Here are the spoils from a late Christmas/Chanukah exchange with a couple of girlfriends this weekend:

Kate got me a collection of vintage bottle stoppers.  This red guy with a bushy moustache is my absolute favorite.  I think I squealed when I saw him.  She didn’t even remember that I collected little moustachioed men.  How perfect is he?  He’s just the right combination of charming and terrifying.

She also gave me this really cool vintage circus toy.  It has these amazing little caster wheels that I find thrilling.  I am like a child with tin toys.  Love them!

And Lauren made my youngest this pillow that has the letters of his name that button on and off for cozy sleeping and fun learnin’! Always the teacher. 🙂 I did not get a close up of the buttons but I think they are from her vintage stash.

As I have grumbled about before, Lauren is the MASTER of all freezer paper stencils.  She made this for my oldest, a pogo enthusiast.  She asked, “Do you think he’ll be a little embarrassed by it?”  Then we both cracked up.  His exact words upon seeing it were, “Well, I am the Pogo Master!”  Something else I’m chalking up to being 6, braggart supreme.  I’m clinging to the believe/hope it’s developmental, not character driven!  Of course now that I think about it, my Face Book blurb last night was, “Just got back from the arcade and am happy to announce my total domination at the air hockey table!”.  And isn’t this whole post a brag about my new stuff?!!!

Hmmm, so maybe he gets it from his dad.

How Many GBs in a Stereoscope? January 22, 2009

Last summer I bought a whole box of stereographic cards along with an old book of maps & charts of Ancient Egypt for my oldest son.  He is very into the HGTV show, If Walls Could Talk and I had planned to place these in a trunk to “find” but I couldn’t go through with it as he appreciates the exact and I couldn’t flat out lie, even to make a little magic.  But I gave him the slides and we got very excited to learn more about stereoscopy and how we could view these old and wonderful slides as they were meant to be seen.  Enter Ebay!

Today was a glorious mail day, three bundles waiting for my outstretched arms right outside my door!  One of the packages contained a stereoscope I won off Ebay (I love how we “win” things at auction.  I “won” the privilege to buy.)  Happy nevertheless!

I hope I am instilling in him an appreciation of things created before his time.  My hope is especially strong as we enter this new stage in his life.  He is now part of the ipod nation.  His uncle sent him an ipod nano (which came in the mail yesterday, it’s a good mail week around here) and my morning has been full of, “Is gigabyte only a word used to measure on ipods or in the whole world?”  and “So now I have my own transportable computer?!”

Let the record show I do not have an ipod yet. After hearing me bemoan the inequity, my son suggested I open a “vintage ipod” shop so I could finally have one.  With a sly smile he described “wooden ipods” that would be more my style.

It’s a new day alright.

Wrap Up January 14, 2009

The pre-holiday build up and general busyness is such that when it is over, you just want to leave it to rest.  And so I have, but I wanted to wrap up about one last craft, some super gifts and our trip.  So forgive me for dredging it back up, won’t promise to be brief!

An unanticipated benefit to blogging is that my gifts this year were SPOT ON.  My parents are both very generous and thoughtful but some holidays past ( just sometimes Mom!) I have gotten great gifts that would have been just the thing for 10 – 20 years earlier me.  Which makes sense because that was the me they knew best.  Leopard print, I used to love it!  But this year I cleaned up!  My parents, who have been excited about and supportive of my etsy shops, really got into looking for hidden spots to get great vintage finds for me and to map for my future visits.  Cool parents, huh?  One of these “shops”, run out of someone’s garage,  is where my parents got me this little lithographed monkey that I adore. (Do not even try cousin Pat, we’re not telling the secret location!)

I love his combination of cheeriness and brokenness!  And I didn’t even take it personally that my mom knew just what kind of bank to get me, one that lets the money flow on through!

And my dad, understanding my penchant for everyday things and pieces connected to my grandparents, gave me a box full of the most glorious clothespins.  They are worn smooth from use by my granny in a different day.  Makes me a little less apt to complain about schlepping the clothes to the basement.

I also got these labels in their original envelop.  I am thinking of framing these.  Just beautiful! I can imagine my granny ordering these and then sewing them onto clothes, afghans and quilts made by her soft hands.  She often told me I should apply lotion more frequently because, “Soccer is going to give you rough hands”!

And my Aunt Donna, who is a super crafter who should crank out her own blog, passed along the COOLEST planters from her collection.  I was so surprised and touched by her gift.  This little chick is my favorite:

Have you ever seen such sass and pep captured in porcelain before?  Ok, coming clean – this is an area of confusion and therefore growth for me, (chant inside my head).  What is the difference between porcelain and ceramic?  I have Googled and yet still it eludes me.  Thanks Aunt Donna for your generous sharing of these vintage gems!

Phew.  I might just do this one in installments.  Yes, I will save the trip and last Chanukah craft for tomorrow.

Upon reflection, is it 12 of me to share my presents?  I feel like the kid zooming her new bike up and down the street Christmas morning, just a ringin’ that bell!

2nd Generation Blogger January 8, 2009

My oldest asked me this week if he could start a blog to share some of his Lego creations.  I said sure, figuring it would be a nice way to be in touch with the grandparents and a good way for him to practice language.  He thought it should be named, “Leg-ology” but I imagined creepy people googling his site hoping for gams so I suggest maybe, “Lego-ology” would be a little more exact.  He’s all about the exact.   He wants to take his own photos but I can’t bring myself to let him use my Nikon.  A camera is on the wish-list for his birthday and I like the idea of him being in charge of the visual as well as the text but in the meantime I’m taking the shots with his direction.

Here is his site, Lego-ology, and an excerpt from his last post:

The first thing he wanted people to know last night was, “my    blog will  be closed on holidays.”  So NOTED!

This morning he showed me one of his Lego creations and asked, “Did we blog this yet?” Oh man, I’m in trouble.  I can see the computer slipping through my fingers already.  What’s next, the television remote?

So if you or your kiddos like Legos show her/him my guy’s site.  I’m sure he’d also love to see photos of their lego work as well!