Merry Christmas

Hey guys! I hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas Eve with your families and friends. Will had to work tonight so I've been keeping myself occupied watching HGTV and Food Network! He'll be off at 10:00 though and we've got plans to drive to the Town Square (which really is only 2 blocks away but it's too cold to walk!) and take some pictures of the pretty lights and the snow.

Yesterday morning after Will came home from work and caught a cat nap, we got up and headed to the DQ for some lunch and then drove up to Grand Teton park. It was deserted and simply amazing. I cannot believe how much more beautiful the park is in the winter than in the summer. I mean I thought it was absolutely breathtaking in August, but that was nothing compared to yesterday. Everything was coated in thick, powdery snow and it was just so pretty. I almost thought I'd cry! I was really hoping we'd see lots of wildlife but no such luck! We saw this guy right before we left the park though.



After the trip to the park, we came back into town and tried to find our missing package that is being held hostage at the local post office but that was pointless! After standing in line for half an hour, we got the same answer we received on Monday. Basically, our package is here at the post office, it was marked undeliverable to our hotel (this is after we called before ordering and confirmed w/ the hotel that we could have something shipped and checking to see if we had the right address!!) but the Post Office has told us that our package sits among approximately 1000 others that have been marked undeliverable and that they don't have the time to search for it. UUUUUUGH!! I hope they make time to search for it before we leave!!

Anyhow, after the Post Office fiasco, we came back to the room and rested for a while before heading to another one of our favorite restaurants, Teton Steakhouse. Our plans were to eat dinner and then head over to the Snow King tubing place but we ate so much that the snow tubing didn't happen! Our dinner was fabulous though and we'll go snow tubing later this week!

We had a nice breakfast here at the hotel this morning and then went walking around downtown. The stores are all having fabulous sales which is nice but there weren't many people out shopping. Will had to go to work at 2, so we didn't have much time to hang out downtown but in that short time we were out walking around, my face managed to get wind burned and I look like a big old lobster now! Take a look at the friend we made today down at the Town Square:



Here are a few other pictures from the Grand Teton Park that we took yesterday.

A couple of pictures!

Hey y'all! Will and I had a wonderful day here in snowy Wyoming. After breakfast and running a couple of errands, we headed out to the Gros Ventre Road that we loved traveling on last summer. It's the area we saw the most buffalo and the charming little barn on Mormon Row. We drove down the road for a couple of miles before we hit a little buffalo-jam and had to turn around! We drove down the road a couple more miles and stopped into the Grand Teton Visitor Center and took some pictures and threw some snowballs at each other! We came back to town and headed to Bubba's BBQ for a late lunch and then came back to the room and took a nap! Will is working an 8 hour shift tonight and the weather is still cold & snowy but it's so beautiful! I read earlier that another huge storm is coming this way and should arrive on Christmas Eve and stick around through Christmas Day and that night too and they're expecting a lot more snow than this storm produced! Eeeeeeeek! I am so in love!! Anyhow, here's a few pictures I was able to take today. They aren't the best quality but I hope you enjoy them anyway!!

Greetings from snowy Jackson Hole!

Hey y'all! I made it safely out here and I am having a great time. I've come to realize that I could definitely move here, even without Target and good thrift stores because it is just so beautiful here that I'd gladly sacrifice those things in exchange for seeing these views every day!

My flights were both on time yesterday, which is a miracle and I arrived out here about 12:30. Will and I went and grabbed a late lunch at one of our favorite restaurants here, Sidewinders, and then we came back to the room so I could take a much needed nap. At that point I had been awake for 30-something hours!! We ran to the grocery store last night and came back and sat in front of the fireplace and watched the snow fall.

Speaking of snow, we're supposed to get another 10-18 inches today and I am so in love! I've never seen so much snow before in my life and this place looks like a total winter wonderland. This is the best Christmas EVER!! We're heading out in a bit to run some errands and then we may drive up to the Grand Teton Park today and do a little sight seeing. I'm hoping to see a lot of animals and have lots of photos to share tonight! Here's a picture from our hotel room window yesterday of the slopes over at Snow King Resort. Add another foot (yes, foot!!) of snow and that's what it looks like today!



Hope you all had a great weekend, full of holiday festivities and time with your families!

Y'all! I leave in 2 days...

and I haven't even started packing. Keep in mind all of my bags have to be packed no later than tonight since Will is taking them with him tomorrow morning. Did I mention that I haven't even started packing? Yeah, it's going to be a busy, busy day!!

Oh, and I haven't really even started Christmas shopping either. I mean it's a little late now and I didn't want to have to take all our gifts out there and then bring them back here so I'm guessing we'll just do Christmas sometime in January. I've picked Will up a few things that I'll take with me and I'm taking some pre-lit garland and stockings to hang up so it'll feel a little more like Christmas while we're there.

I'm trying to not stress out about all of the stuff I need to get done today but I feel like I just don't have enough time. And it's my fault really, seeing how I've had ALL week to get my stuff packed. I was talking with my sister about this yesterday though and we agreed that it's just too hard to pack a week out. Especially considering that if I packed all of my clothing on Monday I wouldn't have had anything to wear all week. I'm sure it'll all work out though. In the end, I'll survive if I forget something and it it's something really important, I can buy it when I get out there.

I still can't wrap my brain around the fact that I'm going back to Wyoming and I'm finally going to see REAL SNOW on Christmas!! Wheeeee I'm really looking forward to taking the sleigh ride through the elk refuge too! I should be able to get online regularly while I'm out there and I'll have tons of pictures to share with you all too!

Winter Wonderland

So, things here in Maryland have been insanely busy the last few days. The day I booked my flight I finally heard from my best friend (the one that is kind of MIA a lot) and she ended up coming over and spending a few nights here. It was hard breaking the news to her that I was indeed leaving and I felt a bit guilty because we had talked about spending Christmas together since our husbands would be away. Then I didn't hear from her for a couple of weeks and I thought about it and decided that I couldn't base my holiday's and plans around her because although I love her, she's a bit unpredictable! It very well could've come down to me staying home and her deciding to leave at the last minute. I'm trying to not feel guilty about her being here alone for the holidays, but she does know other people here and I don't so she'll be fine.

Will and I had his work Christmas party Saturday night. That was a huge, huge disaster and a pointless waste of time. I'm not sure what the planning commission was thinking while planning this but, um, yeah...I just can't even describe how bad it sucked! I mean who, WHO thought it was going to be a good idea to start off the party playing Rock Band on a projector screen in front of 300 ADULTS? I'm sorry, but the last thing that should happen FIRST at a Holiday Party is a Rock Band competition.

And if that weren't bad enough, *someone* thought it would be a good idea to skip having table numbers and instead make each table sing a Christmas Carol before getting in the line for the food. Our table only had 6 people and 5 of us were boycotting this whole singing idea when this lady whose a Captain in the Army and has been in the service for 22 years, stood up and said "I'm a grown ass woman and I paid for a ticket to this party, I'm not singing ANYTHING" and then walked to the buffet line. The rest of us followed her!

Oh, and then after dinner, someone thought it a good idea to play a little game we'll call "Frozen T-Shirt Contest". And the point of this game was to see which guy could crack open a block of ice first and put the frozen t-shirt on. When the whole Scavenger Hunt began, I told the husband it was time to get the heck outta there. Needless to say, unless I'm part of the planning commission next year and can ensure this nonsense won't be happening, we aren't going to the next party!

Anyway, I've spent the last couple of days buying some last minute stuff for my trip out to Wyoming. I did take an hour and go to the VV yesterday for 25% off day. Can you believe I didn't buy anything for my Etsy shop? I just didn't see anything I really wanted to spend money on! So, my trip to Wyoming is fast approaching and I am getting SO excited! I cannot wait to see the mountains and the snow and the wildlife. I cannot wait to get back to the place that holds a piece of my heart. And I am really looking forward to eating at the Village Inn and getting a huge piece of pie! I have to start packing tomorrow as Will is taking all of my luggage with him on Saturday but he has to pack the truck Friday night since he's leaving here at 5:00am Saturday. Do you think he'll look funny carrying my pink polka dot luggage? lol

Did I mention we're doggy-sitting my best friend's puppy? She's a big ol Golden Doodle and a huge goofball. She's only 6 months old but already 55+ pounds. She and my doggies get along so well and they just love when she comes over. She's been here since Friday night and her mom (the bf) has been here every night too but the friend is having some issues and needed to leave the doggy here tonight while she went home. I'm totally okay with doggy sitting because Charlie (the dog) usually sleeps in our room with my dogs whenever she's here anyway! For some reason she behaves better for us than her own mother! And since my friend is watching our dogs while we're gone, I don't think watching her puppy one night is too much to ask!

Anyhow, lemme leave you with a picture that I stole off of the webcam out in Jackson. This is the view of the Town Square at night. Look at all of that snow. I swear I'd move in a heartbeat if there were more thrift stores and a Target!!

I Bought the Dresser!! Oh, and I'm heading to Jackson for Christmas!

Amazingly enough, the dresser was still there! And I bought it with my 25% discount so I only paid $23 including tax. Man I love a good bargain. I've already started loading it up with all of my stuff and I took my work table out of the room because I don't really use it. I mean the top is always full of junk but I needed the storage from the dresser and I can still use the top for crafting or wrapping up purchases!

And I finally broke down and bought my ticket out to Wyoming today too! I'm glad I waited because I found an even cheaper flight out there. I double checked a few things and found out that for $28 dollars more I could stay a day longer and fly home the same day as Will!

So, I haven't even started my Christmas shopping and it doesn't look like I'll get much done before we leave. Just as well. We can do Christmas when we get back in January. I do need to go pick up a few things before I get out there. Like good quality thermals and some appropriate footwear for cold and snowy weather.

I think I'm done listing Christmas items in my Etsy shop. I hope I can find some time next week to do a little thrifting before I head to Wyoming. I need to find some new stuff to list when I get home. I would say I could do some thrifting while I was in Wyoming but I know how those stores are in Jackson so that's not looking promising at all!

Our Foyer Tree

Usually, our "main" tree is the one I call "Will's tree" because it's the one with all of the mismatched, hodge podge ornaments. It has our special ornaments I buy us and the doggies each year, all of the old non-shiny brites, the bubble lights. That's normally our main tree but this year I decided I wanted a more formal looking tree to sit in our foyer. This is what I came up with:



Please overlook the fact that I've yet to add a tree topper! I haven't found one I liked. And I've just noticed that really bright aqua ornament and it's driving me crazy so I'll be removing that ASAP! Otherwise, I really like the bronze-y/copper ornaments along with the blue. Our drapes have those same colors in them so it looks really nice I think.

Will's trip ended early last night thanks to some extremely bad weather in Georgia with torrential flooding which cause the plane to divert to Florida where they picked up more fuel, spent a couple of hours consulting with people back here at Andrews AFB which resulted in them flying home at 11:00! So, he's home today and we're going to try to get some things done around the house. I may go back to the thrift store and see if that dresser is still there too!

I *heart* the New Thrift Stores AND

I especially *heart* the Value Village. I'll show you why in a minute! So, yesterday afternoon I went in search of the two new thrift stores I'd found while googling. One is about 11 miles from my house, the other 14ish. The first one was HUGE! Alas, it was mostly clothing but I still managed to find a few must haves. There was a fabulous old dresser there - it had an enamel top on it and it was only $30 but I couldn't fit it in my car so I had to leave it behind. Oh, I forgot that I get 25% off in there so I guess it would be less than $30! I really, really hope it's there on Saturday because I want Will to go with me (in his truck) so we can buy it. It would be fabulous here in my office. Yes, I'm still having trouble organizing my stuff!

The second thrift store, the one I thought was a VV, turned out to be called Village Thrift or something along those lines. I did major damage in that store! I found tons of linens and housewares I just had to have! I'm very happy to have found new thrift stores near my house! I'll miss going to the Ghetto Thrift but I'm very happy to have good stores in good areas where I don't feel like I'm going to be carjacked at each intersection. ::knocks wood::

Anyhow, so the husband left again today for a couple of days and to pass some time I decided to run over the the Value Village. I was trying to figure out what would be on sale today. I may have to go each day for a week just to see what is on sale when! lol Today's sale items included "showcase", jewelry and bikes. Blah! But, you know me!! I didn't leave there empty handed. Oh, no sirree! I found tons of good stuff! My favorite find of the day was this guy:



As I'm sure you all know, this is a Gurley Santa! Now, lemme tell you. I'm almost embarrassed to admit, but I had no idea what a Gurley candle even was until a few months ago when I started reading all of y'alls blogs! And since then, I've always wondered where you guys kept finding these candles and how you knew they were Gurley's. I don't know why I didn't just Google that info, but for some reason I didn't. Well, today I saw a little baggie full of misc. Christmas crap hanging up at the VV and inside I saw this paper tag stuck to the bottom of a half-melted snowman. And the tag said "Gurley" and I had one of those light bulb moments! So, I looked through every single baggie I could find in that place hoping to find more Gurley candles. Perhaps some that weren't all melted and disfigured! Well, I never did find anymore inside of a baggie, but I found that guy up there stuck way back on a shelf! Wooooot! He's a big boy, almost 9" tall and although he's got a few dings and some paint missing, I'm happy to finally own a Gurley candle!

Tonight I'm going to be super busy listing some more goodies in the Etsy shop. I found some cute little elf knee hugger things today so those are definitely going in the shop, along with some other kitschy retro ornaments and other goodies! I'm also going to try and make up my mind as to whether or not I'm flying to Wyoming next weekend. We got a Christmas card in the mail yesterday from Lynn & Dick Cheney and the front of the card is a picture of the Grand Tetons all covered in snow and there is snow all over the ground and I really really want to go but I'd have to see if my parents will watch my dogs and I still need to find a flight! Uuuuuuugh so many decisions!

You Know You Have an Obsession When...

...you'll buy an entire bag of crappy ornaments to get to the one good ornament inside!

This little ornament is my favorite, I think. It's scratched up but I still love it. I love the color and I especially love the pink stripe!




And even though this one isn't a Shiny Brite, I really like it too! The colors are great and I like the design.



I love my tree so much I'm seriously debating leaving it up all year! It makes me so happy to walk in and see it in my room.

I've spent a ton of time yesterday afternoon and this morning uploading pictures and listing great new items in my shop, My Vintage Whimsy Etsy Shop! . And, through some googling, I've found 2 new-to-me thrift stores within 15 miles of my house so I'm going there today to check them out! One of them is another Value Village so I just know I'm going to be totally in love!

I hope you all are having a great day!

A Sneak Peek...

Here's my work-in-progress retro/vintage Christmas tree! What do you think?

It's Beginning to Look a Little Like Christmas...

But I still have a way to go before I get everything exactly how I want it. The tree in our foyer is up and half decorated. It looks great so far but I need to finish it tomorrow. And *MY* tree, the one in my scraproom/office is up and mostly decorated and I am totally in love. I went out and bought a 6.5' tall, white, pre-lit tree and it's decorated with all of my old Shiny Brite's and other vintage ornaments. I cannot wait to get it done so I can take pictures and share with y'all!

I cannot believe it's already 7 December either. This month is already flying by!! Of course I had a fashion crisis last week which had me at the various malls in the area shopping for 11 hours one day and another 5 the next. I was in desperate need of finding something to wear to the Holiday Reception we had to attend tonight at Vice President and Mrs. Cheney's house. Do you have any idea how much I hate to shop for clothing? Uh, I was so frustrated after spending 11 hours in the stores that I literally started crying. I was tired and ill and nothing fit right and I couldn't find anything I thought would be appropriate for this little shin-dig. Ugh. I didn't even make it to the Value Village on Thursday to try out my new card which gives me 25% off on Thursdays!

The aforementioned party was this afternoon and it was pretty swanky! Granted, it was held in a huge white tent but damn, that's the nicest tent I'd ever been in! The Air Force band (orchestra?) was playing the entire time, there was an open bar(!!) and the food was decent, although kind of weird for a cocktail party! I didn't expect to see mini cheeseburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs cut in half, bowls of popcorn and macaroni and cheese, but whatever. lol There were quite a few kids there so I'm sure the food choices pleased them but I think it was, I dunno, not tacky but weird. Even the port-o-potty trailers were all swanked out. Heck, those toilets in trailers were nicer than the bathroom of the first house we rented here in Maryland! We were shuttled in to the actual residence and then we had a photo with the VP and the Mrs and then went into the tent and socialized. I just assumed that the VP and his wife would come into the tent at some point but they never showed! Of course our party was their second of the day and at that point they'd shook hands with roughly 1000 people so they probably just wanted to go sanitize their hands, take some Airborne and get some sleep! All in all it was a nice time and I've figured out that NW DC is way nicer than the ghetto parts over near the Base!

I am still debating if I'm going to fly out to Jackson for Christmas. I've found an even better price for a flight than I found last week (and much less than the 2,200.00 one!) and I really really want to go back out. While at the party today, there were all of these pictures of Mr. Cheney out in Jackson during the winter, and just pictures of the scenery itself with tons of snow and I tell ya, I felt a tug in my heart because I really do want to be there. I told Will the other day that if I had known in August that I probably wasn't going back out for Christmas that leaving would've been much, much harder. If I had known when I drove away that that was the last time I'd see that area I would've been so sad. And I've been kind of in a funk lately because I thought I'd be here alone and my husband would be there seeing all of the beautiful snow and winter wonderland and maybe I was feeling jealous.

So, do y'all think I should go? If I have to stay home, I'll be sad but I'll make the most of it too. I can thrift as much as I want, I can hit up all of my favorite antique stores, I can go to DC and go ice skating or up to PA and go snowtubing. On the other hand, out in Jackson I can see so many fabulous things I just can't see/do here in Maryland. I can't drive down the road and see herds of buffalo or elk. I can't drive down the road and see the amazing Grand Tetons. And snow. I don't see much of that here, although it did snow (and stick!) yesterday. Ugh, I am just so cheap that I hate spending that much money on a flight. Not to mention the total pain in the ass that flying has become. If I do fly out, I'm sending all of my bags with Will on Air Force 2 just so I don't have to check any luggage or deal with any of that crap.

Anyhoo, tomorrow is of course Monday and we all know by now that the VV does 25% off on Monday which means I need to get to bed early so I can be up/dressed early. I also have to stop by the post office and mail off another package. Someone bought that totally cool Halo Tree Topper I posted last week on my Etsy page. I had almost decided to keep it and put it on my tree but I'm happy to have made another sale too!

I hope to get things somewhat organized tomorrow so I'll have time to visit all of my bloggy friends. I'm starting to go through withdrawals since I haven't had time to visit lately. Hope you're all doing fabulous!

A little spring cleaning in December!

I finally took the plunge and coughed up the $25 to upgrade my flickr account to pro so I could add more pictures without the constant reminders that my earlier pictures were being hidden until I upgraded to a pro account. It sure didn't take long to reach the limit on there for the free accounts! I also spent some time organizing and tagging my pictures and putting them in sets and spiffing up the place. I changed out my avatar on there too so now all of my avatars match on here and flickr and etsy. I also added some new things to the ol etsy shop and I have more to add but my camera batteries are charging so that'll have to wait!

Yesterday was a semi decent day at the Value Village. I managed to get there right after they opened which was nice because it didn't take long to get crowded. I picked up a few must-haves, tried on another fantastic coat but decided against it (wth is wrong with me?!) and signed up for their little card that gives me 25% off of everything on Thursday too! Wooot! Now I can go at least twice a week and find fabulous stuff and get 25% off.

Today, I think I'm going to spend a couple of hours this afternoon trying to get my craft room/studio/office space organized (finally!) and put out some of my Christmas stuff in here. I may even do a tree. What I really need to do is get dressed and go to the mall and try to find something to wear to the Christmas party this weekend at the VP's house. Yeah, time is running out and yet here I sit with no motivation to go shopping. Hmmm.

I'm not feeling very Christmas-y at all this year. It's looking more and more certain that I'll be spending both Christmas AND New Years alone. Will is flying back out to Wyoming and although I could do the same, it's just so freaking expensive to take a flight out there. I'm trying to remind myself that Will and I can always go somewhere together in January for a week or so but the reality that I'll be alone in this stupid state for the holidays is depressing! At least my best friend Andrea will be home alone too! lol Her husband is in the Secret Service and will be with either Bush or Obama for the holidays. Maybe we'll have a pity party together!

I think this is the first year I haven't had all of my Christmas and winter decorations out by now, but I'm just not feeling it this year. I'm definitely in a blah sort of mood right now. Maybe cleaning my room and pulling out all of my great vintage ornaments will help cheer me up!

Wheee!! Another weekend alone.

Hello all my favorite vintage-y peeps. I hope you all had a fabulous Turkey Day and a relaxing weekend too. I have been insanely busy this last week and have seriously neglected the ol blog. I haven't even found time to go read my favorite blogs which is a shame. I'm going to attempt to play the catch-up game tonight though!!

Last week was way more fabulous than I anticipated, which was a welcome surprise because I was really dreading the holiday. For starters, on Monday I was taking measurements of that fabulous Persian Lamb coat I told you all about in my last post and I thought "what the heck...I should try this on so I can have a better guess as to the size". And I totally expected it to not fit and to be tight but at least then I could guesstimate right? Imagine the shock I had when I tried it on and it fits perfectly. Like a glove. Like it was custom made for moi!! It was seriously like Christmas morning. lol So, now that it fits I'm definitely NOT selling. So much for making a sweet little profit off of that but hey, it fits and I love it!

Not only was the whole coat thing exciting, but Thanksgiving was great too!! I spent some time on Wednesday night prepping a few things and making a deelish pumpkin cheesecake and hanging out with my bestest girlfriend Andrea. She spent the night here at my house even though she lives like 15 minutes away and we had tons of fun cooking and acting like fools. I've known her since we were 16 and we've been extremely lucky to always end up living in the same area. We started out living in the same neighborhood when we were younger, she moved to Charleston to go to school, I moved to Charleston a year or two later when I got married. She got engaged in 2006 and was having to move to Maryland to where her future husband lived and then 2 months after she got engaged and found out she was moving here, my husband got orders to Maryland and we moved up here 6 months later! Damn, typing it out like that makes me seem like a big huge stalker, but I promise that is not the case at all. lol It's purely coincidence that we've ended up living close to each other. Heck, for a year Will and I tried to get orders to Illinois and then Alaska!!

So, Wednesday night Will's brother and his roommate came into town too and we all stayed up way too late and imbibed a bit too much and I was regretting that the following morning. Will and I got up at a reasonable time though and made some fantastic canned cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Nothing cures a hangover like some Pillsbury Cinnabon cinnamon rolls, lemme tell ya! Well rolls and about 3 pots of coffee! We started our lunch appetizers soon afterward and I even managed to sneak in an hour and a half long nap that afternoon. Dinner was served around 6 and it was fabulous. We always deep fry our turkey and it was so delicious. I also made mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with a praline topping, a baked cream corn casserole and cranberries. We had rolls and gravy too and it was so freaking good. Man, why don't we cook like that more often?? Once a year is just not enough. I'm going to try to make a big ol dinner like that once a month I think.

Will and I had plans to get up very early on Friday to go shopping but the later we stayed up Thursday night, the more I realized I was not getting up at 0300 this year like I did last year. Instead, we set the alarm to go off at 0515 but when I woke up at 0500, I turned the alarm off and Will and I slept in until 9:30! It was great and I really needed that extra sleep. We managed to hit up a few stores before 1:00 that afternoon and we came home so he could watch WVU, although since they lost, I'm thinking we should've kept shopping! Andrea and I headed back to town that afternoon though and I bought a few more things.

And then yesterday Will and I along with his brother and roommate headed into the District. His brother's roommate is from Colorado and had never been to DC before so he wanted to go see the monuments and whatnot. I wanted to go check out the newly reopened Museum of American History but shortly after walking into that place I realized there was NO WAY I could enjoy being there. It was like a freaking ZOO. Too crowded to see anything so Will and I decided to bounce and we walked around a bit before stopping into the official White House Visitor Center. That was pretty boring. Soon it was time to meet back up with the other kiddos and head back to the train so we could get home. We had a fish fry last night for dinner and it was almost as good as when my daddy cooks it. Almost.

Will had to leave again today, which is pretty much par for the course this month, seeing how this is his 4th weekend he's had to fly somewhere. And of course the weather is complete crap today...pouring rain and cold but not cold enough for snow. Just cold enough to keep you miserable and not wanting to leave the house. Which is why I stayed home, in bed, for the entire afternoon, in my brand new Sock Monkey Footie Pajamas I bought at Target on Black Friday. Check these bad boys out: SOCK MONKEY FOOTIE PJS LOVE! Cozy and comfortable and who can resist sock monkeys? I can't, which explains why I own like 4 pair of sock monkey pj's and a pair of sock monkey slippers!

Now I'm sitting here waiting for the husband to give me a call and let me know he's made it to Arkansas safely and then I have to drag myself downstairs and decide on something for dinner and then I have to go package up 3 things from my Etsy shop that I need to get mailed off first thing tomorrow morning. I should probably take some pictures too and list some of my other stuff on there. We'll see how much I can get done tonight before the bed starts calling my name again! I'm not feeling overly optimistic about any of it at this point though!! I must get a good night's rest because tomorrow is 25% off day at the VV and I have to go check it out, ya know?

My newfound love for the Value Village!

Yesterday afternoon, I had to run to town and pick up some dry cleaning but had an hour to waste before that so I ran into my most favorite store ever and boy was I pleasantly surprised. See, I only go on Mondays because that's when everything is 25% off, but yesterday I found out that the VV has different specials on other days too! Now, I don't know if this is a blessing or a curse because now I want to go there every.single.day just to see what's on sale! Yesterday all shoes, jewelry and "showcase" items (which is what they call all of the expensive crap they keep behind the counter) were all 50% off. FIFTY percent! Gah!

So, I'm cruising through my favorite sections of the Value Village and picking up some cute stuff when something told me to go check out the coats. Oh my good Lord. I nearly fainted! There, standing mere inches from me was a faaabulous Persian Lamb coat. In damn near perfect condition. With a beautiful satin liner with monogrammed initials. I picked up the coat and put it in my cart and a lady came over and started talking about how beautiful it was and how she'd just looked at it and then she had the nerve to reach in my cart and pick it up to show her daughter! I seriously thought I might have to throw down right inside the Value Village if that lady tried to walk away with my coat! Luckily she had the good sense to put it back in my cart and I rushed off to pay for all of my goodies! Unfortunately, the coat is like a size small and well, I'm a bit bigger than that so I won't be able to wear it. But, I'm thinking I'll sell it because it's too fabulous to just have hanging around. Some lucky lady is going to look gorgeous wearing that thing!

In other news, the husband had to work again today which makes the third Saturday this month and quite frankly, his job is starting to annoy the crap outta me! I know it's his job but I'm staring to wish that Mr. Dick Cheney would stay home a couple of weekends a month! But, since the husband was gone I was free to do whatever I wanted today and that included a trip to Ikea and a couple of thrift stores. Man, the economy is definitely in the toilet! It's been slim pickings at the thrift stores lately. Well, compared to a year ago anyhow. I remember when I first started going to the Value Village down near Will's work. There would be so many things to buy that I had to decide what I really, really wanted and leave the rest. I'm not having that problem anymore! I left both thrift stores empty handed today and that's not good! Maybe Monday at the Value Village will be better. I think I'm done with the Ghetto Thrift for a while. The quality of their stuff has gone down and I just don't feel very safe going in that neighborhood.

A New Look...

For my ol blog! It's been feeling very wintery outside lately so I had to get a new template which reflected the current weather situation. Aren't the snowflakes so cheerful? I love it! Want to dress up your blog with a cute new template? Check out this site:



I get all of my templates there! Fabulous & free. Doesn't get any better than that, does it?!

In other news, I also added a link to my pitiful little Etsy shop over there on the left side. My shop is so empty it's almost embarassing to put a link on here. Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to add more stuff! Despite not having much for sale, I've already sold 5 things in just 2 weeks so I can't really complain!

Hope everyone is having a great week! I'm going to stop in to some of my favorite blogs later this afternoon and check out what you all have been up to!

It's SNOWING!!

So what if it's only flurries and it's not sticking, I'm still counting this as snow! Of course I'd be much happier if it was to stick around for a while, but I'll take what I can get right now! I'm jealous of those in western MD though, some parts got 8" yesterday!! It's cold outside (obviously!) and I'm sitting in my office drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Soulful Christmas music and I'm so in the mood for next month!

I'm not, however, ready for Thanksgiving. At.All. Normally by now I've got a menu planned out, my grocery list all sorted out and my to-do list for the actual day planned out. Not this year. I just do not care at all about the actual meal this year. I guess I'm sort of burned out. I've been doing Turkey Day every year since Will and I got married and it's always a huge production. It's usually me, stuck alone in the kitchen for 12 hours, slaving away while my husband and his brother sit on their behinds and I'm just not doing it this year. You know, I realize my attitude is horrible but I'm so tired of hosting holidays and not having anyone help out. This year, since it's only Will's side of the family visiting, I'm letting him do all the cooking and I'm going to sit on my arse and plan out my Black Friday plan of attack. There's a huge, huge back story but I don't feel like sharing it right now but let's just say that I'm done with being the happy hostess while certain members of the in-laws act like I'm their freaking MAID!! It's not happening this year and if that means we're stuck eating tv dinners, well, so be it!

Whew...thank you for letting me vent. I feel a bit better! Now I'm going to go change into my flannel pj's (yes, I realize it's only 3:45!) and I'm going to go sit on the sofa with my doggies and wait for my husband to get home! Oh, and I'm definitely going to stop in to some of my favorite blogs and check out what you all have been up to!

Naked Trees

You can definitely tell that winter is on its' way. All of the beautiful leaves that were hanging on the trees last week are now scattered all over yards and streets and the poor little trees are so naked. Here are 2 pictures I took last week looking out of my craft room






Beautiful, huh? Look at how colorful those leaves are. My intentions last week when I took these pictures was to run up the road to the state park on the weekend and take lots of pretty pictures. Of course that didn't happen because someone whose name I won't mention (ahem, Will) wanted to paint instead. And now I'm regretting not going because all the leaves are GONE! Oh, our Weeping Willow is still full of leaves, but I suspect those will just fall off without any real color change. Here are 2 pictures of the same part of the yard I just took a second ago. See the naked little trees?





I'm going to miss looking out the windows and seeing beautiful colors everywhere. Buuuut, I'm also excited about winter. I love winter, really. The cold, crisp air, snow (man, I *REALLY* love snow!), all the yummy soups we make for dinner, ice skating, frozen waterfalls. LOVE.IT. Some people hate winter but I really like it. Perhaps it's because I grew up down south, where "winter" is anything under 45 degrees. Y'all think I'm kidding, don't you? Haha Nope. It was a "cold day in Hell" if the mercury dropped below freezing!

And snow. We hardly ever saw snow. Maybe half an inch every 5 years. And the entire 3+ years I lived in Charleston, it never snowed once! Now, where I grew up in SC it would snow maybe .5" every 5 years and then every 10 years or so we'd get a "big" snowfall, which in SC terms means anything over an inch! If the forecast predicted any sort of frozen precipitation, the entire state would shut down. Down south we just aren't prepared for any sort of frozen stuff. The grocery store shelves would be empty, people would be stock piling like they were preparing for Armageddon. Of course if you live down south, you know I'm telling the truth. But people that have never lived down there don't really believe that the entire town/state will shut down until they experience it for themselves.

Back in 2001, my boyfriend moved to SC from New Hampshire, a state which is frozen and covered in snow for something like 10 months out of the year, and he didn't believe me when I told him that if it ever snowed while he was living there that the entire city would go nuts, stockpile like lunatics and then the city would shut down until all traces of snow melted. Luckily for me, within 3 or so months of him moving down we had a HUGE snowfall. Now, huge by SC standards is probably a lot different than say, South Dakota. Or New Hampshire. But it was HUGE to SC. I remember the day like it was yesterday. It started snowing one afternoon around 3:00 and when we got off of work, I took him to the grocery store to show him the pandemonium. He couldn't believe people were acting like that. We took pictures to send to his friends back in NH. The bread aisle was completely empty, no lunch meat, no canned goods, no milk, even the fresh meat section was almost empty. LOL I'm telling ya, people down south ain't playing around when it comes to snow. We ended up with 7 or 8 inches of snow, the town was shut down for 3 days and that was the last time there was considerable snow in SC.

So, now that I just went off on a tangent, lemme get back on track! Yeah, I love winter. Especially winter up here in Maryland, because we actually get a couple of snow days each year. Last December, I was home alone because Will was overseas in Africa, and it snowed a good 6" one day. It was beautiful! Of course the next day it all melted. Boo! Then a day or two after that, some jackass decided to drive a little too fast down a very narrow road leading into our neighborhood, hit a patch of ice, took out some utility poles and we lost power. So, there I was in my old house, freezing, pregnant, no friends or family anywhere around, my husband halfway across the world. It SUCKED! Each time I called the power company, I kept getting the runaround. Oh, the power would be on in 2 hours, then 4, then 6 and finally I spoke to an actual person, explained my situation and told him I needed a straight answer because if the power wasn't going to be on for several days, I needed to know so I could pack my crap and drive down to SC. Yeah, I drove to SC. Ugh!

And the year before that, on Valentine's Day no less, we had a terrible ice storm. Terrible. Like a good half inch or more of ice coating every single surface. We lost power then too, but Will was home that time. Although I was very sick with a terrible winter cold and thought I would surely die. That storm saw us sitting in a old drafty house for HOURS, then trying to find a pet-friendly hotel for the night, finally driving all the way over to West Virginia to stay with Will's aunt & uncle, driving all the way back home the next morning because the power company said the electricity was back on, realizing it wasn't, driving 70 something miles down to Virginia to a pet-friendly motel....on and on and on. It was insane.

Wow, I guess it probably sounds like I don't like the winter very much after all! But I do. When we still have power! And I'm excited that it's only 2 weeks until Thanksgiving. And Christmas is coming too and I love decorating for Christmas! We usually go all out but I'm not sure what we'll do this year. Looks like Will is going to be back in Wyoming for 2 weeks during the holidays so I'm not sure if I'll stay here or fly out there. I don't want to decorate as much as I normally do if I'm not even going to be at home to enjoy it. But, I don't want to sit around a naked house either. Hmm, decisions, decisions.

Oh, here's a picture of my cute little coat I bought at the VV on Monday. It's actually dark black but I had to lighten the picture in order to show the detail of the trim. And check out the brooch. That's the one I won a few weeks ago over at Lisa's Retro Style . Looks fabulous, doesn't it?



Ignore the ugly pink price tag I've yet to remove!

Anyhoo, I suppose I've rambled on enough for one day. I need more coffee, I need to figure out if my 5 year old camera is going to live to see another day so I can take more pictures of stuff for Etsy and I need to let the puppies outside. Oh, and catch up on some of my favorite bloggy pals! Have a great weekend, y'all!

I *heart* Etsy!

Yay! I made another sale today, not even 10 minutes after listing an item! I love when that happens! I have been busy trying to get good photos of my items and listing some new things today, but I have so much more I need to get on there.

My room is coming along, slowly, but I'm getting to a point where I can actually walk around without tripping over everything. lol And Will has been busy painting our living room and foyer the last couple of days. It looks great in there but I'll be glad when we're done painting. I think I mentioned before how much I HATE to paint.

I had a ton of good luck on Monday at the Value Village. I found a fabulous 1960s (I guess!) coat which I desperately needed. It's black, has big ol buttons on the front, and fits perfectly. Best part was only paying $15 for a big, heavy wool coat that I'm most likely going to be wearing to the very swanky Holiday Party Will and I have been invited to at the Office of the Vice President. As in *THE* VP, not just some VP of a company! I'm pretty excited about attending such an event, although I'm not sure anyone else will be sporting a thrifted coat from the 1960s! lol The coat really does look fabulous though. I also was quite tempted to buy this great little camel color coat, which fit like a glove, but it had a few imperfections near the hem. It was dirt cheap though, only $5 and was made out of 100% baby camel hair. I loved it and I'm regretting not buying it now! Oh well.

I also picked up a great old scale for $6. Of course this was after I went out last week and bought one for $20 at Office Depot! Oh well, the one from Office Depot only goes up to 2 lbs while the one from VV goes up to 25 lbs! My shopping trip on Monday also found me buying some more vintage Shiny Brites, some vintage beaded ornaments, some more little glasses, old sewing notions and lots of other vintage goodies which I'll be listing in my shop in the near future.

I have been neglecting my google.com/reader list for the last couple of days so I'm going to try to make my way there this afternoon so I can catch up with all of my favorite bloggers and see what vintage goodness you've found recently.

Another little peak...

Would you all believe my room still isn't finished?? Good grief!! This is taking a lot longer than I had anticipated! Oh, we're through with painting, thank the good Lord but now I'm dealing with the nightmare of where to put everything. See, Will built me a big ol bookshelf thing which you would think would offer a lot of storage. I mean it does offer a lot of storage but at the same time, I'm losing another piece of furniture that I had a lot of stuff stored in. I guess I could keep it in here, but the whole reason I wanted to re-do my room, the whole reason I wanted Will to build me a bookshelf was because I felt very cramped in here. So, now I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to store all of my stuff! It's slowly coming along though.

Check out this picture. It's a shot of my wall color and the valance that I initially bought for the twin size guest room, before I even knew I wanted to paint my room these colors. It matches perfectly! It's just like the picture of the curtain I posted last week, only it's a valance. Of course now Target has stopped carrying these so I'm forced to go on Ebay and order 2 more so I can have matching treatments at each window. I looked at several fabric stores and couldn't find anything I liked nearly as much as these so I'm just going to go ahead and buy 2 more and be done with it. The curtains are $20 a panel, and I found 2 valances on Ebay for $12, so I'll stick with the valances!




Oh, it's 25% off day at the Value Village and I found out last Monday that they open a full hour earlier than I thought! I got there right at 10:00 last week and I couldn't figure out how so many people were already in the store with full carts and then I saw the hours on the door. They open at 9! So, I'm going to be there at 9:00 today and maybe I'll snag some good deals. I have a TON of stuff I need to get posted on Etsy today too. I made another sale last week, so in a weeks time I made 2 sales so I hope my luck continues!!

I'm hoping later today that I'll have a chance to catch up on some of my favorite blogs too because I haven't even had the chance to do that lately and I'm dying to see what you all have been up to! Hope everyone has a fabulous Monday!

I am so grateful

I realize I haven't talked politics on this blog before, and really it's because I don't like to mix politics in with fun stuff, I don't want to alienate anyone whose views are different, and I generally wish to keep this blog free things that might upset anyone. However, I have to say that what happened yesterday was absolutely AMAZING. The sheer number of people that turned out to vote, who stood in lines for hours (and in the pouring rain here in MD), who got out and voted for the first time in their lives...I just can't even put into words how I felt seeing that on tv last night.

I never thought that I'd live to see the day when an African American would be elected into the white house, and I'm not even 30 yet. Anyone that thinks racial issues aren't still a huge deal has obviously never lived in the South. I grew up in SC, spent the first 26 years of my life there, and while I never heard of any lynchings or cross-burnings during my lifetime, the racial tension is still very high. Sure, we associated with people of different races in school, but in a lot of ways, it's still very segregated down South. And it's very sad to grow up witnessing people you love and look up to, being racist. These people that you love, these integral parts of your family tree, are so blinded by hate that they refuse to see that people are just people. And as I got older, I became more disgusted with certain members of my family. The same ones that I loved so dearly as a child.

So, getting back to the Obama win last night. I honestly never thought I'd live to see the day when a black man would be elected president of this great country. I am so happy that we've reached that point and I hope that as a nation, especially those that didn't vote for Obama, I hope we can all come together and try to make this a better place. I hope that Obama does amazing things for our country. I hope that one day we'll all see that people are just people...skin is just skin and it doesn't mean a damn thing if the elected person is white, black, orange, green or any other shade of the rainbow.

On the other hand, this election has been a wonderful tool to see just how many bigots are still running around. Racism is alive and well and it reared it's ugly little head so much in the recent months. It's caused otherwise rational people to do and say some of the most ridiculous things. It's divided families and it makes me wonder if anything has changed in the last 160 years. For people to feel like a man is unqualified simply based on the color of his skin, it's just sickening. If you don't agree with his policies, fine. But I've seen people that have never cared to vote one way or another turn into racist jackasses this year and it both saddens and disgusts me.

In the following months, I hope that this nation can come together to work on the real issues and that we'll feel united once again. I hope the economy improves, I hope we can bring our troops home, I hope we can start seeing people as people instead of thinking of skin color first and then deciding whether or not we can be friends with them. Our country still has so many things it needs to work out, especially race related issues and I hope that this election will start to change the way people look at one another.

God bless America and may we all stop for a minute today and be thankful that we're even in a position to be able to vote, for a lot of people have paid the ultimate price to give us this freedom.

A Sneak Peek

I haven't had much time to get online these last few days but I'm taking a break from painting to hop on here for a few minutes and catch up on everything! The painting is almost done and hopefully by tomorrow I'll have my room put back together and organized. I never realized how much I'd miss having my own space until it was gone and lemme tell ya, I miss it A LOT! Sure, I've got my laptop that I could be using to update, but it's not the same. Anyhow, the room is almost finished and I'll definitely share pictures when it's all done, but in the mean time here are a couple to hold you over! I cannot get a good picture of the paint color on the walls. It's a light robin's egg blue. At least I'm guessing that's the best way to describe it. It's definitely not baby blue. I love the color. And my desk...my fabulous PINK desk. Yes, pink. I love it so much! Both colors are a lot lighter in person than they are showing up in the pictures so just pretend that you're looking at them in person!





I have that fabulous chippy green cabinet I bought at an estate sale back in the summer that is going to come back in here when I'm done painting and then Will is building me a huge bookshelf that's painted a pale green too. I found some drapes at Target that would match this room perfectly but I'm trying to resist buying them because they are pricey and I could make them cheaper.

My $5 estate sale cabinet from this summer:


And the curtains at Target that I really want for this room but don't want to spend $80+ dollars on. I couldn't find the picture of the actual curtains on Target.com so I had to "borrow" one from an ebay auction:


Wouldn't those look great in here? I may break down and buy them!

I took a couple of hours yesterday to run to the Value Village and I bought a ton of amazing stuff. Except for 3 items, all of it is for resale and I'll hopefully get to list it soon. Speaking of resale, I learned a very valuable and expensive lesson this weekend. Don't list on Etsy when you are only half-awake. Because if you're like me, you'll put the wrong price on shipping for "Everywhere Else" and someone will buy an item and you'll be out of pocket when you pay almost eleven freaking dollars to mail something to France! So, don't do that! And if you discover you made a mistake on several other listings, go back in and change the price on shipping before anyone else makes a purchase. Yes, I learned the hard way, but it was nice to get a sale within a week of listing something on Etsy. Of course the timing could've been better, seeing how my entire scrap/craft room is turned upside down and it was a PITA having to find the product and then my mailing supplies but hey, a sale is a sale and that's cool!

Oh, crap, I almost forgot! Last week I was browsing through some other blogs and I stumbled across this amazing place: Lisa's RetroStyle. Well, I was reading through some of her posts and saw where she'd recently bought a mannequin and was needing a name. I offered up the name "Veronica" and at the time I don't think I even realized that she was having a *CONTEST* to name the mannequin, but I received a comment from Lisa over the weekend telling me that I'd won the contest and she was naming her new mannequin Veronica! How cool is that? I really want a mannequin of my own and I've been searching the thrift stores and craigslist to no avail! Maybe soon. So, a huge thank-you to Lisa for the brooch that is coming my way!! I can't wait to see some of your other fabulous clothing on Miss Veronica!

Well, I suppose I should get back to work. What I really want to do is drag myself and my doggies upstairs and take about a 3 hour nap, but I must persevere and get this room finished. Look at this weather. Isn't this perfect sleeping weather? This is the view from my windows in my craft room. It's rainy & cool outside and I just want to go snuggle up in bed with my dogs and a book at relax!

Happy Halloween!

Last night while Will and I were out on the porch hanging up our spider webs, we noticed the neighbor across the street dragging out even MORE of his Halloween stuff and we decided that I needed to do a little more shopping today and buy a few more things. LOL I feel a little friendly competition beginning between our houses. I can't wait to see what Christmas is like.

So, today, instead of going to Home Depot and buying paint, I'll be schlepping across the Baltimore metro region looking for more spider webs, some strobe lights, more tombstones, a couple of spotlights and then costumes for the two of us. Nothing like last minute preparations, huh? Oh, and I still need to go buy candy and fill up the treat bags.

Last year I filled almost 100 little treat bags and we sat at the house for the entire night and we didn't have even ONE trick-or-treater come by. Talk about disappointing! It was our first (and only) year in that house/neighborhood and we just assumed we'd get some kids. Hahaha I finally threw away all of that candy when we moved back in April. I've seen several houses on our new street that have decorated for Halloween though so I'm guessing we might get a few trick-or-treaters tonight. But, if we don't, it'll be okay because I'm buying all chocolate and well, I wouldn't complain if we had leftovers and I were forced to eat them!

And lest you think I sat around all day yesterday scheming up ways to out do the neighbors decorations, allow me to provide proof to the contrary:





That's right, folks. I emptied my craft room (minus the big furniture) yesterday and everything is now sitting in the middle of the dining room. Yeah, that's lovely! I absolutely HAVE TO paint tomorrow so I can get my stuff put back in here ASAP because all of my crap in the dining room is just not working! The husband offered to help me by putting everything in boxes & trash bags. lol Think he's trying to tell me something?!

Well, I should go get dressed and start running my errands so I can get back here early enough to decorate, fill up the treat bags and dress up! Hope you all have a frightfully fun Halloween, be safe tonight!

My latest Ghetto Thrift Goodies

Boy did I get some fabulous things at the GT today. You know, sometimes when I go to the Ghetto Thrift, I leave almost empty handed. Never completely empty-handed though because I always find at least one thing I just can't live without, but there have been times I've left rather disappointed. See, the drive to the Ghetto Thrift takes me through some of the 'hoods of Baltimore and I get kind of nervous driving over there. So, when I go to the GT, I like it to be worth my drive and I like to buy a lot of stuff. If this thrift store was in a different location (say, not in the hood) I'd probably go more often but I am just not that comfortable driving there more than once a week. It takes me about that long to get my courage up again!!

Anyhow, so yesterday I had to run some errands and I decided I needed to stop in the GT to see if there were any new treasures that needed to come home with me. And I wasn't disappointed at all. What I was disappointed about was the fact that the GT only has like 5 carts and the rest is hand baskets. Now really, how much stuff can you fit in a basket?? That is the most stupid idea ever! If you want people to buy a lot of stuff, at least have somewhere for them to put all of their crap while they are shopping. So, I wasn't lucky enough to get a cart because the store was crowded and I had to settle for a basket. That sucker got loaded down though and I thought the bottom might break!

Here is my little rant for the week. Last week I stopped into the GT and picked up a few things and the lady running the register told me I couldn't use my 25% discount because I didn't tell her in time. That kind of pissed me off because the first thing I do when I get up there is put my military ID on the counter. Basically, she didn't take the time to enter the discount and she would've had to ring my order up again so she just told me she couldn't take it. Ugh! So, yesterday while I was checking out, I asked if they were still giving the discount and the guy told me they were. Yay for my discount! I was counting on receiving the discount because I bought a couple of things I normally wouldn't buy if I had to pay full price for them!!

So, on to my fabulous purchases. First up, a couple of vintage children's books. I don't know why I've been drawn to these old books lately. Maybe it's because of the cute covers or the colorful illustrations on the inside. These are for resell though and I hope someone on Etsy will find a good use for them, either to read or to use in crafts.



I also picked up this vintage box of hosiery. The box says "Bakers Dozen" but there are only a couple of pairs left in the box. Either way, the box alone was worth the purchase price and if there are any retro-dressing ladies that need some new hose, well, here ya go!



And then I found this adorable twin size flat sheet with two pillow cases. I love the yellow flowers but more importantly, look at that ruffle! These linens are SO soft! I love nothing more than to crawl into bed and feel soft, cold sheets and these feel like they'd be heavenly to sleep on. Honestly, I prefer vintage linens to anything you can buy today. There is just no comparison to me, not even with the 12 million thread count sheets you can get these days. I'm torn on what to do with these though. One of our guest rooms has two twin beds in it so I could always keep these to use on those beds. On the other hand, we hardly EVER have company and those beds are almost never used.



And my absolute best find of the week is this little beauty below. I think I almost dropped my basket when I saw this hanging up. I couldn't wait to get my greedy little hands on it before someone else spotted it. Check out this full/double size blue with white flowers chenille bedspread.





Isn't it gorgeous? And in fairly good condition too! I noticed a small section of the fringe unravelling and one section on the back side that the stitching is coming undone but that looks to be an easy fix. I was just so excited to find this thing! You hardly ever see chenille spreads around here and usually they are white or beige. I love the bright blue color. Last year at the VV near the base I found a fabulous double peacock chenille spread that had a green background. It was only a couple of dollars and was shoved under a rack of linens. I'm thinking someone else wanted it and had put it there to come back later and buy but too bad! I'm debating if I should keep these for our other guest room or if I should sell it. Hmmm so many decision!

I also picked up a couple more milk glass candy dish things to hold more of my crap, er I mean very valuable items, here in my craft room and a cute drinking glass with a picture of a blue warbler on it. I swear I saw someone else post pictures on their blog not long ago of a set of glasses with birds but I cannot find the post now!

So, that was my day at the GT. Quite a good haul, I made it out of the 'hood safely and bought a ton of good stuff. Now I need to work on emptying out my room because I finally decided on paint colors and I'm painting this place ASAP! I can't wait to show you the new look. I have a few pieces of furniture that I want to paint but I feel guilty painting it. Someone please tell me to not feel badly for painting this stuff. I mean it's not like museum quality furniture. Just stuff I've picked up at thrift stores or estate sales and I want my room to match and look cute. Tell me it's okay to paint this ugly brown furniture!

Monday's Finds at the Value Village

Well, nothing helps cure those post-vacation blues quite like a 2.5 hour trip to the fabulous thrift store! Luckily, I got there early today so it wasn't quite as packed as it was last week and I was able to get down a couple of the more busy aisles before the crowds got there. I swear, sometimes I will stand in that store and wonder if people are really *that* obtuse. I mean if your cart is in the middle of an already narrow aisle and you see someone else walking down said aisle and coming towards you, don't you have the good sense (and/or manners) to try and pull your cart as close to the racks as possible??? Yeah, most people up here don't. I don't get it at all. So, it was nice to get most of my shopping/looking around done before the rude people got there!

I think I may have spent more there today than I ever have, but I bought a bunch of cute little things. I picked up a bag full of old Boys Town Christmas stamps/seals from the 50s, a baggie full of German ornaments, 4 pillowcases, a twin sized flat sheet, a couple of books and a huge Gund bear that still has tags on it and must've been a collectible type of thing from 2000. I dunno if I'm going to resell it or maybe strip his ugly clothes off and just keep him. The bear is about 30" tall and just so cute so he might be staying even though I don't really even like bears!

Yesterday I decided it was time to start trying to sell some of my stuff on Etsy. It's all vintage stuff right now, but I may at one point decide to actually make things too. I need to list more things today and start going through some of my stuff and putting aside things I know I can live without. See, that's my problem. I always go into the thrift store and find such good things I just know would sell online but then I have a hard time parting with them! I'm hoping all of that is about to change though. lol And I also signed up for Twitter yesterday too. I am so lost! I'm guessing I'll get the hang of it soon though. Seems easy enough to figure out.

Today I need to go pick up coffee creamer and a pumpkin carving kit for the husband and I'm going to try to make it to the Ghetto Thrift too if I have time. What I *really* need to do is stay right here at home, box up my entire craft/scrap/office room and clear it out so I can paint this weekend. But, seeing how I haven't decided on paint yet, cleaning all of this stuff out doesn't make much sense. I swear I tried to settle on a green shade yesterday but none of the swatches I have seem like the right color. I have a lot of red and green accents in this room so I can't find a color I really like. Maybe I'll just stick with white walls! Ugh!! I am so indecisive...it drives me NUTS!

Back to reality

Hello, my favorite vintage peeps. Hahaha. I make it sound like I actually have a lot of people reading my little ol blog! I've been away for a while but I'm back now and hopefully will get back on some sort of regular posting schedule. Which in reality, means about 1.5 times a week, but still.

So, Will and I just returned from a little jaunt down to the mountains of Tennessee and I have never been so happy to leave from a vacation! I know that sounds ludicrous but it's true. This vacation is proof that not all vacations are magical and that sometimes vacations can pretty much suck.

Now, don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE being in Eastern TN and in the mountains but the circumstances with this particular vacation were just so, ugh, I can't even form the words. Will and I went down and met up with my parents and my sister, her boyfriend and my niece. Everything was going okay the first night down there. Even the second day seemed to start off okay. We were going to go to Dollywood and have a fantastic time riding rides and eating tons of junk food. Except Dollywood is closed on Thursdays and we didn't know it until we got to the little entrance to the parking lot. Things just got worse from here on out.

Friday morning we woke up to torrential downpours and tropical storm-like winds. It was insane. The cabin we rented, which was quite nice I might add, sprung a few leaks around the windows and doors. That's how hard the rain/wind was. Oh, and then we lost power just as I was starting to get ready. No more power = dead curling iron and I went to town looking like a hot mess.

By Saturday the weather was fair again and the rest of the family went to Dollywood but Will and I skipped out. There were just so many things we wanted to do that we hadn't done yet and since it was our last day, we decided to skip going to the amusement park and actually get a few of the things done. One of our stops was at the Apple Barn, which I normally LOVE, but I ate a fried pie and drank a huge glass of apple cider and within about 20 minutes I became violently ill!

So, as you can see, our vacation wasn't that great at all. The weather was horrible one day, I was sick as a dog for several hours on another, I only spent about 5 minutes with my mom (which is another story I won't get into here because it just makes me so damn mad), the leaves looked like crap and Will and I didn't do hardly anything we had planned on doing.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to stop at any of my favorite little antique stores in the area either. But, today is 25% off day at the Value Village and I have every intention of drowning my vacation blues sorrows by getting there when the doors open at 10:00. I found a couple of cute little vintage Christmas things there last week and I cannot wait to go today & see what I can find.

In other news, I absolutely HAVE TO pick out a paint color for this scrap/craft/office room this week because I am painting this weekend. I am the most indecisive person ever when it comes to paint. I am torn between painting this room a shade of pale green, like maybe a very pale jade color, or maybe pale pink, or even pale turquoise. Gaaaaaaah. Why can't I make a decision?? And I must find a bookcase this week. My room looks like a bomb went off in here and it is driving me crazy. I think having a bookshelf/case would offer a lot more storage and could help me keep this place a little more neat. I hope. lol

So, what color should I paint this place?? Pink? Green? Turquoise? Something entirely different?? I need help people!

Fall decorating

Man, I have really been out of touch lately. Every day I remind myself I need to come and blog, and more importantly, come and read some of my other favorite blogs but I just haven't found the time to do that.

So, the husband was off of work Monday, which was nice. But it also cut into my thrifting! Instead of going to the VV for 25% off day, we went to Home Depot where I purchased HUGE mums that were "damaged" and thus, dirt cheap. We came home and planted them, I deadheaded the ones that needed it and now they look fabulous again and I'm so glad we didn't pay full price!

Last weekend was spent much the same way as Monday. We did some work in the yard, decorated the porch for Autumn and pulled out some of our Halloween decorations for the yard too. Of course we'll have to bring all of this stuff back inside next Wednesday when we leave for our little trip down to the mountains of Tennessee.

In addition to trying to get all of my stuff ready for our trip next week, I also have to go shopping either today or tomorrow and find something to wear on Saturday, when we go on our little WHITE HOUSE TOUR! Evidently it's some sort of "Friends and Family" tour and not just the regular old tour the average Joe gets to take. And we have to get sort of dressed up. And I don't really own anything "dressy" so I need to go shopping and buy something. I'm hoping the weather cooperates and it doesn't rain and it isn't hot. We were supposed to take this tour in July before our trip to Wyoming but everyone was so busy that it got pushed back. And I'm glad it did because I didn't want to be schlepping around DC in July with 100% humidity, trying to look "dressy".

Well, that's about it for now. Here are some pictures of the fall decorations.







These pictures are CRAP but I haven't gotten around to taking better ones yet. Maybe I can do that today!

Slim pickings at the Value Village

So, I didn't find too many goodies at the VV today, but what I did find was a total steal. I still cannot believe my luck! Take a look at what I found:



That's right. An authentic old Hudson Bay Point Blanket, in good condition and it doesn't smell funky like a lot of old blankets do! I immediately look for tags on old blankets and when I saw that this blanket was a REAL one and not a fake, I had to snatch this up. Do you think $7.50 was a good deal?? After checking Ebay and seeing how much these have sold for, I think it was a steal!! Here's the tag from the blanket.



So, that blanket and a couple of other small things were the only items I bought today at the VV. Will is gone again for the day so he won't be flying back into DC until late tonight so that means I can go to the Ghetto Thrift here in a little while! Maybe I'll have good luck there too!

Redecorating

I don't know about you guys but I feel like we are constantly redecorating this house. Which I don't mind one bit, by the way. I look forward to changing out accessories with the seasons. I blame it on being a Gemini. I honestly could not live with the same accessories, day in day out, for 12 months at a time. I get bored very easily.

I went to 3 different Targets this week. As many of you probably know, Target is having a HUGE clearance sale. HUGE. The stores around here marked down things to 75% off yesterday. Of course I spent the majority of the money on Thursday. Go figure! I totally scored though. I found a king sized dark brown velvet quilt for less than $18. The matching shams were $4 each and then brown "silk" curtains were $13 each. Yes, I know it sounds like a lot of brown but it's going to look fabulous once I pull it all together. And I have to admit that brown isn't a color I'd usually pick to decorate with.

I attempted to pick out paint colors today while the husband and I were at Home Depot. I'm kind of tired of looking at these white walls. At our house in SC, the first thing we did after closing on it was to start painting. Every room was painted. And then we moved to Maryland and rented a house and all of those walls were white. And we couldn't paint. So, although I'm used to living with white walls, I do want to paint here in our new house. I can't find a color I really love though. I need to keep the walls neutral because I do change out the accessories and slip covers with the seasons and need everything to match. I'm thinking a nice sandy color will work.

The weather is nice this weekend so I need to go tomorrow and pick up some mums and other fall stuff to decorate the porch. The husband has been busy today building a section of privacy fencing and he'll finish that up tomorrow hopefully. This weekend has been much better than last!!

My Crafty Afternoon

I actually meant to do this project a couple of weeks ago, but I'm just now getting around to it. During the summer, we have this anchor thing that hangs on the wall by the door and it has pegs across the bottom and we use it to hang our keys on. Well, since summer is over, I wanted to take it down and replace it with something else. Only I couldn't really find anything I liked that would fit in such a small space. So, I made something! It's cute, it was cheap to make and I can do a new one for Christmas too!

Here are 3 wooden letters I bought at Jo-Ann's a few weeks ago. These are our initials, the "W" and one "L" are smaller than our last name initial.



I picked out a couple of pieces of scrapbook paper I liked that had an Autumn feeling to them and then chose the paint color. I only painted the edges of the letters because that is all that shows and I am lazy. See my post from earlier today. L-A-Z-Y. I picked a nice pumpkin color to paint the edges.







After the paint had dried, I turned the scrapbook paper right side down, turned the letters over so the right side was down, and I traced around them. The "W" was a pain to try and trace out!! As you can see from the paper, I guess some of the paint wasn't dry after all! Oh well.



After cutting out the letters, I used Mod-Podge to glue the paper onto the wood. I used a very thin coat for the smaller two letters since those were primed white when I bought them but the unfinished large "L" soaked up quite a bit of the glue so I had to use more on that one.



After the glue had set up a bit and the paper was firmly attached, I used an Xacto knife blade to trim any little pieces of paper that wasn't aligned perfectly. Then I used a small emery board to sand down any snags along the edges. I then flipped the letters over and attached small sawtooth picture hangers on the back. I forgot to take a picture of that step!

Next I added some bronze cup hooks onto the front of the large "L". I should've measured first and pre-drilled the holes but I was lazy. lol I just eyeballed it and hoped for the best.



Ta-Da...the finished product. I may have the husband rehang these later. I couldn't really reach the wall to hang these where I wanted them but I think they look okay for now. And we can hang our keys up again and stop throwing them onto my very old Louis Vuitton trunk!