Vintage Thingies Thursday

Hey y'all! I'm doing something today that I haven't done in quite a while. I'm participating in Vintage Thingies Thursday hosted by Colorado Lady. I don't think I've taken part of VTT since Colorado Lady took over for The Apron Queen but I think it's time to start doing this again each week. Gives me the motivation to actually take pictures of my vintage goodies!!

Ahem.

Moving along.

Today, I'm sharing with you some of my favorite vintage planters. You know, those little ceramic planter thingies that came with flowers when little Johnny was born back in 1962. Yeah, those kind. For some reason, one of my local thrifts has started to really jack up the price on these things so when I find them for a decent price, I buy them. Otherwise, they can sit on the shelf because as cute as they are, I'm so not paying more than $3.00 for one.

Anyhow. Without further adieu, here's my rather small collection of planters. I have these hanging on the wall in my office/scraproom/studio/place-that-collects-junk.



I love the duck. That was the first one I bought. She was sitting the shelf last year and like the biggest dummy in the world, I decided to HAMMER THE WALL beneath the shelf and she took a fall. You can't see it, but her butt is damaged. Severely. I could probably attempt to glue her back together but whatev. You can't even see it and knowing me, I'd end up super gluing my fingers together.



See. You can't even tell that she's damaged, can you? Nope. Haha So until the time that I feel like inflicting some torture upon myself in the form of gluing my hand to the table, she's going to stay broken!



The ducky sits beside this cute little pair of booties. I like them okay but with the other 3 planters being animals, the booties look a little out of place. I may have to replace them with something else. Like a dog. Or a sheep. Hmm. I need to find a dog. Or a sheep. Ooh, today *is* 25% off day at the Value Villages so maybe I'll find a replacement!!



And these two, ack!! aren't they just too cute? Now, honestly, I don't really like owls. Well, not the ugly brown and avocado green monstrosities from 1976 because those remind me of these ugly coasters my mom had when we were little. There were 4 coasters and they all had different, ugly, scary, mean looking owls on them. ::shudder:: But this owl? This cute little blue owl with the flowers and the baby owl? Yeah, I think she's pretty cute! I think this is the only owl thing I own though and I intend on keeping it that way. Unless, of course, I find another planter like this but in pink. Come on, y'all know me. The pink owl would be coming home with me and I might be tempted to pay more than $3.00 for it too!

And the cute, pink kitty sitting beside Miss-Not-So-Scary Owl, she's just adorable! Actually, I think it's a he, even though it's pink. The face just looks like a boy. lol And boys can like pink too. Just ask my dog Marty - he looooves pink. So, back to the cat, I quite like the little flower on the top of its head. Is it supposed to be a hat? A flower hat?! I dunno, but it's cute!!

Now, most people would probably use these to store bits and bobs of stuff but I keep mine empty. Well, except for the dust bunnies that probably live in there. Why? Because I know if I started putting things in there, I'd totally forget about them and then I'd spend 2 hours tearing my office apart trying to find whatever it was that was conveniently tucked away in the cat's behind. So, I don't do that to myself. I just leave them empty & smile at them each time I glance up at the wall & see them sitting there looking all cute!!

Thanks for visiting me today to check out my great vintage items. Be sure to stop in over at Colorado Lady and see everyone else that's participating!!

More Snow? For Reals?

What's up peeps? I was sitting here at my desk, minding my own business, listening to Run DMC and reading some blogs when my weather.com add-on thing alerted me to the fact that we're under a Winter Storm Watch until Friday morning. So, being the little investigator that I am, I turn to my favorite source for accurate weather information (ahem, not weather.com because they are ALWAYS wrong!). A few weeks ago I found the most helpful, albeit kind of confusing at first weather forums over at Accuweather.com. All their talk about this model and that model...pffft...whatev - I totally don't understand all that mess but they have been almost completely 100% accurate about predicting the last 2 storms. And lets just say that some of the people on there are calling for more than 5" of snow. I'm going to have to keep checking back to see what they think will happen here in MD.



So, yeah. More snow is on the way and I'd be surprised if it were only 5 inches! I was just commenting early today that we needed some fresh snow to cover up the ugly grassy patches that are showing up near our walkway! Woohoo!! And, this time, if a blizzard decides to drop 4 more feet of snow, Will IS HOME. Thank the good Lord! It might be nice to be snowed in with him for a week! It could also turn out to be a week in Hell if we were snowed in together. We have the tendency to get on each others nerves if we're around each other constantly for more than like 72 hours! I'm going to attribute that to the fact that for our entire marriage, he's had jobs which kept him from home for at least a few days a month so we really don't know what it's like to be around each other constantly. Better get used to that though considering this next job will have him home every night. Oh boy.



Anyhow, no more snow talk until I see some flakes falling! Promise!

Will emailed 'the powers that be' the other night with our list of base choices. The first 4 were in Colorado, then Spokane, Anchorage, a base in Idaho and finally, a base in Massachusetts. Will thinks we should know by Christmas where we'll be heading next summer. It's both exciting and scary!



And yesterday was the monthly reminder that my 30th birthday is fast approaching. Only 3 more months. Ack! I really need to get busy planning some sort of vacation! I would love, LOVE to go to Scotland for my 30th but I don't see that happening. We're going to have to take whatever vacation I decide on before my birthday anyhow because Will's job will start on the 18th. Think he'd mind if I took a solo trip to Scotland and the UK? That would be so amazing! I'm not sure I'd want to come back though. Well, I'd come back long enough to pack my house up, grab Will and the puppies and contact the post office with my new forwarding address! I'm not sure why we didn't put England on our list of places we'd like to get orders. That was kind of dumb!



Anyhow...it's time to relax, catch up on some blogs & stalk the accuweather.com forums for the latest info on the impending storm. If you don't see me again for a few days, please send out the search & rescue party. I've sworn off chocolate for Lent so it's going to be challenging around here if I'm snowed in for any length of time! lol

PS- aren't my flowers gorgeous? These are the ones Will sent to me for Valentines Day. They are holding up quite well, don't you think?

Lookie!!

Y'all, my amazing apron from Suzy over at Georgia Peachez arrived last week. Of course, my husband didn't bother to tell me about it until the following day but we won't get into that! I found the inner strength to refrain from ripping the package open immediately because I knew I'd want to take pictures of everything so I waited until we had a free moment (ahem, yesterday) to open it. It. is. amazing!! Love!

First, look how cute the packaging was. Wrapping it in pattern pieces is such a great idea! Now I know what to do with all of those horrible 1970s patterns that are clogging up my cabinet! lol I'll start wrapping gifts to my mom in them. She's probably the only person I know that would "get it". Will would look at me like I'd lost my mind.



And here's my cute apron just waiting for me to try her on! Man, these pictures are kind of blurry. Evidently, I was too excited to sit there & take focused pictures. Sorry about that!!



And of course, here are some self portraits in my bathroom mirror. Why I didn't just put the camera on a tripod and take them that way - I have no idea. Either way, look at how great the apron matches my shirt. lol And look at all of the amazing details on the apron. Love the flowers. Love the paisley. Definitely love all the pink!





Thanks again, Suzy!! I love it!

I Won! I Won!! I won, I won, I won!

I woke up this morning to a fabulous email from the very talented Suzy over at GeorgiaPeachez letting me know that I had won the apron from her One World One Heart give-away!! I was/am shocked!! I am so excited & can't wait to get the apron & wear it while I'm in my craft room. Isn't it beautiful?? I love it!

Thanks so much, Suzy!!

Freedom - At Last!!

I was finally able to break free from this personal prison I've been stuck in for the last 10 days! I had a great day doing some window shopping but the crowds were ridiculous. You would've thought it was Christmas eve. I guess everyone has been cooped up for a week or more so they were probably feeling much like I was & just had to get out of the house!!

I came home right as a florist was delivering a bouquet that looks much like this one:



Aren't they gorgeous? Will had flowers sent to me since he's gone & felt bad about not being here for Valentine's Day. I love them! All pink - does he know me well or what?!

And the mail man brought me the newest issue of my favorite ever magazine:



Oh, and I totally splurged and bought my favorite ever snack today while I was out - Petticoat Tails.



I freakin love shortbread but I never buy it so it's a real treat when I break down & splurge. I even bought two boxes of shortbread today. I was feeling very deprived after being stuck at home for 10 days & felt like I deserved it.

I am so exhausted. I didn't sleep well at all last night. Stupid sciatic nerve had my whole leg tingling and numb. I woke up at 4:00 and tossed and turned while trying to get comfortable but nothing was working. As a last resort, I ended up folding my electric blanket in half and cranking that sucker up as high as it would go and used it as a makeshift heating pad. That plus the 2 Aleve I popped finally eased the pain a bit & I went back to sleep sometime around 6:30. I was up again at 8:00. Ugh.

It's definitely going to be an early night for me. I'm heading to bed now to curl up with the doggies, my new magazine & maybe a petticoat tail or two and I'm going to try to get comfortable & relax. Will is working tonight so I'm sure I'll have to make some late night phone calls to chat with him for a bit, too.

I am so excited that the snow has receded enough that I can get out of the house. Tomorrow, I'm hitting up one of my favorite thrift stores & then doing some clothes shopping. Yay! Of course, it's supposed to snow again on Monday and Tuesday so my excitement is going to be very short-lived!! Ha!

UGH!! Why?!

Instead of attempting to get out of this house today & perhaps doing a little thrifting, I now get to stay home and try to shovel out a 4' deep canyon/gap/area around the perimeter of our yard. Why? Well, because the snow has now hardened and my dog just walked right over to the fence and almost jumped over. Okay, it wasn't so much a jump as it was just casually walking over. Thankfully, I saw her & yelled her name and she came running back!!



Stupid snow.

I do not want to have to take the dogs out on a leash for the next week while I wait for this crap to melt far enough down that they can't escape. I'm thinking that's probably my only option at this point though because I just don't see how I'm going to be able to shovel all of that snow. I mean sure, the 40 pound dog can walk across it, but I know as soon as I get out there, I'm gonna sink up to my waist!

Btw, Will and I have sort of narrowed down the list of places we might want to move. Colorado Springs is on the top of the list now. Anyone lived there? Visited there? I drove through on my way back from Wyoming and it was pretty. Oh, and I checked and they have FIVE TARGETS there. Two of them are Super Targets! Yay!! And I googled & saw that there was plenty of thrift stores too!!

Of course, plans could change & we could end up staying in the area if Will is offered another job at the Pentagon after his year-long tour is up. If that happens, we're still moving - back to the bay because if I have to live here with all this crazy traffic, I at least want to be able to go home at the end of the day & have a nice view & a relaxing neighborhood!! Our current house is convenient for shopping but I'll sacrifice that in order to have a view of the Chesapeake Bay & not have to deal with planes, trains and the bus!!

Stir Crazy? Cabin Fever??

Call it what you want but I am definitely experiencing it. OMG! I've been at home since Thursday. Last Thursday. Minus a quick jaunt to the gas station, the tiny grocery store down the street and Burger King. I was home, alone, from Thursday night through midnight Tuesday morning and I was about to go nuts. There's only so much shoveling one person can do before they go insane. There's only so much talking to my dogs that I can do before I start to feel crazy. I mean they're cute but they don't really talk back and the lack of interaction with other humans was getting to be a bit too much.

Will was home less than 3 days and he just left again. I'm so over this job. OVER. IT. There are only 6 people left on his team that can fly these Vice President trips, so every.single.time. they leave, they're all going. He used to have a few more guys on the team but they either got out of the military, got deployed or are on leave. It's ridiculous that they can't have more people on the team because I would be a lot less stressed if he wasn't having to do 15 jobs at work and then come home & deal with phone calls all night, PLUS being gone every single weekend. This is the 5th weekend in a row that he's been gone, not including all of the trips during the week too. It's just taxing and tiring and I need a break from his constant travels! Come on May!!

So, as I'm sure you are all well aware, MD got blasted with another big storm Tuesday night through yesterday. An additional 22 inches fell in that span of time. That's in addition to the 32" we had over the weekend. Our angel-neighbor down the street came through on Monday and cleared a decent path on the driveway with his snowblower so I didn't have to shovel an entire parking space for Will's truck. It wasn't quite wide enough though as I quickly found out at 12:30 at night when Will finally made it home & tried to turn into the driveway and couldn't fit. There I was, out there, shoveling like crazy in the middle of the night. Ugh. I started having severe chest pains and was wheezing and thought I was going to die. Asthma + cold air + rigorous activity = not good! Thankfully, I didn't drop dead from a heart attack & despite still wheezing a few times a day, I'm okay.

Will and I did more shoveling (imagine that!) on Tuesday and we were able to get the rest of the driveway from the back bumper of my car to the street cleared. Finally. Not that I can really go anywhere because all the stores are still closed. I'm so sick of shoveling. I am going to buy a snowblower. Watch...we'll buy one and it won't snow again for 15 years!!

Since Will had to leave today, he wanted to take me for a drive down the road (yeah, yeah...stay off the roads...blah, blah, blah) so we went into our little downtown area & then to Burger King. I hate BK but that was the only place open besides the 7-11. I stopped there too. lol Loaded up on peanut M&Ms, Combos and those little powdered donuts that come in a bag. We depleted our junk food stash over the last few days. Shoveling is hard work & leaves ya starving!

Yesterday, in the middle of the blizzard, Will tried to build me a snowman. I've never really built a snowman because I'm from SC and it doesn't snow there. Well, the snow yesterday was very powdery so my snowman (woman, really) was very small. If Will had been here over the weekend, we could've built a life-size elephant out of snow. That snow was very heavy & wet and perfect for building snow people and/or animals. I wanted a pink snowwoman. She didn't turn out as nicely as I had pictured in my head. And I couldn't find the appropriate things to use to decorate her properly. She looks a little ghetto. Oh well, at least I have a snowwoman sitting on my deck & she has pretty jade green color button eyes. LOL Just pretend she has a nose & a mouth. And that she doesn't look like she's bleeding internally. LOL My not-so-fabulous idea to spray her pink using food coloring made her look kind of bloody. Oops.




Here's some other pictures from yesterday. Behind this pile/shovel is our 4' tall fence. It's pretty much buried at this point. We should see it again sometime around May.



Poor little Scarlett. She wants so badly to go outside but she can't. She's too short. Well, all dogs except Great Danes are too short. She sits here on the window seat every day looking out onto the frozen tundra.



This icicle is gigantic. It's about 4' long now. Drip. Drip. Drip. I wonder if it'll reach the ground before it breaks off.



What is left of our 6' shrubs. They've been reduced to 2' tall piles of frozen sticks. I hated those shrubs anyway so I'm glad to see them go. Now I can finally get that picket fence I've been wanting. lol



Our very snowy roof. Should've bought a snow rake (whatever that is) and cleared the roof off but we're gamblers like that. Figured we'd just wait and see how much weight this 80 year old house can take. So far, so good. No collapses, yet.



Oh and today while we were out being rule-breakers and not staying home, we took a drive through the Wal-Mart parking lot. Not because we wanted to go there but because that's how you get to the Chick-fil-a, which was closed, btw. Wal-mart has only plowed about 1/3 of each aisle. So, these piles are going to get much, much bigger in the next few days.



Here's the main street in our little town. Look! You can see my dirty, streaky windshield! I tore my wiper blade last week but whatev. Clearly, I haven't been out to get a new one yet! Anyhow, the people on this road are still plowed in. I think if I lived on this street, I'd be out there every time the plow came through so I could keep my car semi-clear. Shrug. Guess they had other things to do, you know, like watching Rosanne reruns on TVLand.



Obviously, 7-11 knows what's up. Their parking lot was so clean!! Look at their big ol pile. Almost up to the bottom of the sign!! I bet they've done a ton of business this week.



This is our street. The first time I've seen black top in a week! Finally. Too bad all these people insist on parking in the street. Probably could've been a lot more clear if their cars wouldn't have been in the road. I'm sure it's all refreezing as I speak though. Slushy. Should be fun tomorrow morning!!



I cannot even fathom what another 12" of snow is going to look like. I've read some reports online that say this storm that is coming on Monday could drop another foot of snow. That is going to be insane. I just hope this doesn't melt anytime soon because our basement is going to flood horribly & there is no way I can deal with that all alone!



I am really, really hoping that I can get out of this house tomorrow. I NEED to do some thrifting. Or window shopping. Or something. I just need to get out of this house for a few hours and do something, anything. Well, anything except shoveling.


As I said before, I'm home alone all weekend so you know what that means - time to sit here w/ my junk food & catch up on blogs!! Can't wait to see what you all have been doing. Hopefully you've all been doing lots of thrifting so I'll have some eye candy to hold me over until I can get out of this mess & go do some junking of my own.