VTT - Games

Good Morning my favorite vintage peeps!! I'm actually going to participate in VTT today. Woohoo! I've been slacking for the last few weeks even though I have tons of ideas of things to share on VTT. Anyhow, I'm here today & I'm sharing with you all some of my favorite vintage boards games. I mostly buy these for the awesome graphics but on occasion, we do play them too!

First up, this Educational Play Set. Counting, phonics, telling time - it's all included! Yay!

Here are some of the game pieces - love the graphics!

A couple of years ago I found this plastic puzzle of America. I think I'll repurpose it & use the states in my scrapbook. You know, the scrapbook I'm going to eventually make of my cross-country drive in 2008. lol Yeah, one day!!

I always check the game section at the thrift stores for vintage games and usually I don't find anything worth purchasing but the other week, I totally scored!! I bought all three of these games for less than $5 (total, not each!!) but I found stickers on the sides of the boxes with prices ranging for $4 - $10 which leads me to believe someone either had these in some sort of overpriced yard sale or maybe in a booth. Either way, they were cheap at the thrift & they came home with me!!

There was a game-ish type thing to teach Bridge. I looked in the box when I got home and realized I'm never going to play bridge, even with this very helpful tool. It looks so confusing. And boring. The only time I can foresee myself wanting to play bridge will be when I'm 75 and sitting in my retirement village on the coast of Florida. So, yeah, I have a few years to worry about learning!

Maybe I'll sell this since I'm not planning on using it! Any takers?

And I bought this game in case my mother-in-law comes to visit. Shes' a self-confessed Bingo freak! lol I'm kidding about the buying it for her part but not about the bingo addiction! I bought this because it was a good price. And it has wooden numbers! None of that crappy plastic junk they have out today!

And finally, my absolute favorite vintage game I've ever found - this amazing 1960s version of Go To The Head Of The Class! I almost squealed right there in the game aisle of the thrift store. I cut through the tape holding the box shut, made sure all of the pieces were accounted for & almost had to throw an elbow up in the face of the person getting ready to take it out of my hands! What is it with people in thrift stores? RUDE!!

This boy cracks me up. He looks terrified...like he's about to get his azz whooped for saying a dirty word or something. Wait, is he shooting the bird?!

And how about Dad over here with his smirky little smile. Yeah, you know what's on his mind! And then there's Sister, pointing and taunting. Get these kids some therapy, for real!

Anyhow, back to the actual game! The very same day I bought this, I tortured Will for 3 hours one night by making him play this with me! It was hard!! The question book was, obviously, from the 1960s and some of those questions were so irrelevant to today. I'll have to go through the  booklet again and post some of the questions sometime. lol They were hilarious and I eventually won, which you know I just had to brag about for the following 48 hours. He's used to me bragging because I do it every night when we watch Jeopardy! lol

Aren't the graphics adorable? There is no way I'm ever parting with this game. In fact, I think I'm going to make Will suffer through another 3 hours tonight!!

I mean this game is perfect for us - see, there is even a Cowboy Joe and sometimes Will thinks he's a cowboy! And I always envision myself looking exactly like Mommy, pearls and all. hahaha Not!

Thanks for joining me for VTT!

My Trip to SC - Pictures from Charleston

Hey vintage peeps - it's been a while, eh? I had a perfectly good excuse for my absence the first couple of weeks, but the last two? Nah, just haven't felt like blogging! I had an amazing time in SC though! Will and I went down there back in March for 9 days and we ate tons of great food, went on some day trips, renovated my parent's bathroom. It was great seeing my family & visiting some of my favorite places in SC!

One day, Will and I went to Charleston. I love Charleston & hadn't been there since the summer before we moved here I guess. That was 4 years ago and for as much as things change in that amount of time, it's nice to go back to somewhere that hasn't changed in centuries!! The weather was great - sunny and warm - and Will and I spent several hours just walking through the city & parks and pretending we were tourists.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from that day.

Our view from the parking garage. We could've easily parked on a lower level, but what fun would that have been when we could drive to the top & take in this outstanding view of the new bridges?!



After we ate lunch at Wild Wing Cafe, we walked down to the Waterfront Park. I was hoping we'd see some dolphins but no such luck. I took a ton of pictures of other things though - like this one of Will. He's holding my Vera Bradley bag. lol



And then there was this guy. His eyes totally creep me out!!



This single, sandy ladybug was nice enough to sit there while I took a picture.



Will and I toured this boat one day while we still lived in Charleston. It was, uh, interesting. And I was quite thankful to get off! I have this issue with claustrophobia and those tiny little hallways weren't helping things. I was happy enough to just take a picture of the Yorktown from across the river - no need to go on another tour!



While we were sitting in one of the swings down at the waterfront park, we heard the familiar roar of a C-17, the planes Will used to fly on before we moved here. Those things are huge!! Funny story - Monday, Will and I went grocery shopping and he picked up a package of brats and was like "these are the kind we used to fix on the c-17s when we'd fly back home from Europe. We'd start cooking them in the oven on the plane when we'd take off and they'd be ready halfway home". I was like "isn't that a 9 hour flight??" and he said "yeah, it took about 5 hours to cook them in the oven." Hahaha Can you imagine?! Five hours to warm up a brat?!



Here's the famous Pineapple Fountain. I don't know why I didn't have some of my wedding pictures done around this thing. We saw a bride getting her pictures made here and it made me really regret my choice of photographer for my own wedding.



One of my favorite things to do in Charleston is to walk around looking at all of the historic houses. I love seeing the old bricks, the old iron fences, all of the details. This house had amazing window boxes.



Aren't the tiles on this roof amazing? I love them. It reminds me of the tile floors in bathrooms.



Here's another picture of my favorite steeple in Charleston.



Our wedding reception was held in this building. It's the Old Exchange Building & Provost Dungeon.



Wow, this turned out to be kind of long so I will come back (hopefully tomorrow) with pictures from our day in Myrtle Beach!!

Floods and Family

Hey guys! I haven't been around much lately - did you notice? haha Things have been kind of busy this month so I haven't had much time for blogging. So, the snow has melted and a few weekends ago, the great Monsoon season started. It was a lot of fun. NOT! Once again, our basement flooded. You know, I'm not sure why we don't just go ahead & fill it up with water and have our own little indoor swimming pool. lol But seriously, this is what the backyard looked like on Saturday, 13 March. Will didn't get home from that week long overseas trip until 5:00 that morning and then we slept for a few hours and woke up to this:



So, we had the pleasure of spending the entire day cleaning out the basement and trying to get the water out. The ground was just so soggy from all of the snow melting that water started seeping up through these hairline cracks in the basement floor. I hate our house. HATE IT. It's a piece of poo. I wish we had known there would be all of these issues because there's no way in hell we'd have bought it. Obviously. I don't know if I'm more pissed that the home inspector didn't see any of these things when he did his inspection or that the person that sold us this house did such a shoddy job with his "repairs". Either way, I just want to sell this dump & get the heck away from this money pit.

The only good thing that came out of the flooded basement was the forced spring cleaning! I took a truck load of stuff to the thrift store to donate. That felt great!!

Last weekend, Will's aunt and uncle came into town & stayed with us for a few days. His aunt wanted to go to a concert so we went & it wasn't really my style but it was nice to get out of the house. As you can see in the photos below, I was feeling pretty good by the time the concert started!



I promise Will wasn't nearly as intoxicated as he looks in this picture. He just doesn't take very good pictures - he always looks drunk!! I, on the other hand, was as intoxicated as it appears. Hey, I had to do what I had to do to get through that concert. Don't judge me!!



Will had to fly again on Friday so I had to entertain his aunt and uncle - we had lunch together and then did a little shopping at the Home Depot to finish buying supplies to finish off the deck. I took them to my favorite local restaurant for dinner that night and had a deelish meal of crab legs.



Will and his uncle worked all day Saturday on the deck and then we all went out dancing on Saturday night. It was on Sunday morning that I started to realize that I'm not as young as I used to be. I felt like crap all day Sunday - too much beer on Saturday night, I guess. Considering I go out *maybe* 3 times a year, I guess my once-in-a-while night of imbibing too much is okay. Thank goodness I didn't have to really function on Sunday though. lol

And while we're talking about families, I'm heading to SC this weekend to see MY family!! Yaaay! I'm so excited. I haven't seen them since last September, which may not seem like too long ago, but we usually see each other every couple of months. This is probably the longest I've gone without seeing them since I moved to MD back in 2006. Will and I have been trying to figure out a time when we could go down there but his schedule at work has been insane since December. He told me on Monday afternoon that he was finally able to take some leave for next week so we're off to SC on Saturday.

I cannot wait - I'm definitely going to take a day trip to Charleston since we haven't been back there since 2007, and I want to go to Myrtle Beach too. I haven't been there since 2004 which is crazy to me seeing how I grew up only 60 miles away from there. I probably won't even recognize the place.

My favorite steeple in Charleston:



My favorite Charleston picture ever - us on our wedding day sitting on a limb of a several hundred year old oak tree. Awww!



So, we're heading to SC in a few days but in May we're going to Tennessee!! Will and myself, the two doggies and my mom & dad are renting a cabin somewhere in eastern TN. It's a little getaway for my 30th birthday. Will is probably going to be working on my actual birthday so we're going a few weeks early and we're spending a week there. Aside from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the mountains of Tennessee & NC are probably my favorite place on earth. I just love it there. Marty likes it there too. This was in 2004 when my mom & I went for a few days. Well, Marty went too! This was before we had Scarlett. Anyhow, Marty so enjoyed riding in my Mustang. He was such a good boy and look at how handsome he is!



That picture just cracks me up every time I see it! I miss my Mustang too. It would've been great to have convertible this past weekend when it was 75 degrees outside.

Anyhoo, I need to finish packaging up an order & printing postage so I can drop it off at the Post Office. Then I get to come home and start packing for my trip to SC! I hope you all are doing well - I haven't had time to stop by any of my favorite blogs lately but I will try to do that later today!!

Fleas, Spring & Productivity

Hello my favorite vintage people. How was your weekend? Mine was fab-u-lous! Friday, my sweet husband told me that since the weather was going to be so nice on Saturday, he wanted us to get out of the house & do something! Now, you guys don't really know Will, but let me assure you that he is quite possibly the biggest homebody ever. I mean he seems perfectly content to stay at home all.the.time, which came as quite the shock shortly after we were married because he wasn't like that at all when we were dating. I digress....

Anyhow, Will asked me on Friday if there was anything I wanted to do on Saturday and I mentioned to him that I'd LOVE to go to the DC Big Flea, if I was feeling better. That stupid cold/sinus thing knocked me flat on my youknowwhat last week. Luckily, I felt a bit better Saturday morning and we made the very long drive over to Chantilly, VA to the Big Flea.



Lemme just say that I was completely overwhelmed by all of the vintage goodness inside those two buildings. I'm one of those people that has to look at everything before I will buy anything, which doesn't bode well for this sort of place. lol Aside from the fact that someone else may snatch up whatever it is that I didn't buy right away, the place is so freakin huge that simply remembering where I saw something that I might be interested in buying is not very likely. Did I mention it was two huge buildings?

It took us 3 hours just to walk through the first building. Then we spent another 3 in the second building. Crazy. I was still not feeling 100% so by hour 5 I was just ready to go home. It's that point in my sickness where I have that annoying tickle in my throat that starts me on a coughing frenzy that lasts for 10 minutes unless I have something to drink. Ugh. Annoying. And that's what happened for the entire 6 hours we were at the Big Flea so yeah, that kind of sucked!

Oh, and I didn't know it until yesterday morning, but I was in Sue's booth twice! I didn't see her though so I wasn't sure it was even her booth but I saw the circus sign she blogged about here & it made me think of her & wonder if it was her booth. It was. I wish I had met her! Maybe next time though!!

The only things I purchased while at the big flea were 4 vintage cards from Patrice's adorable booth. I found the perfect card for my sister's birthday! I can't wait to send it to her. Patrice's booth was filled with tons of vintage linens & cards & all sorts of goodies.

I was hoping to go back to the Flea yesterday so I could do some more shopping but Will had to leave for a week long trip at 3:00 and I didn't have enough time to drive the 60+ miles to get to back to Chantilly. I'm definitely making plans to go again this summer though. Cannot wait!

And, last week while out picking up more cold medicine, I found this amazing magazine at Wal-Mart. I'd been looking for it & couldn't find it anywhere so when I saw 10 copies on the shelf at WM, I was quite tempted to buy them all! lol



I resisted that urge and only bought one copy and it was totally worth the $10 I paid for it! Love!!

So, today, I did something completely unusual for me - I stayed home. All. Day. No Value Village 25% off shopping. No errands. I just stayed home. And worked. And by work I mean sorting through a crapload of linens I've accumulated in the last 2 months & have neglected to list in the Etsy shop. Let's face it: February was a very gray, very cold month. It was impossible to get any decent pictures of the linens. So, I just kept accumulating stuff through the month and hoped that one day I'd have some decent sunlight in which to photograph my new goodies.

And that day was today. I woke up to the sun shining & birds chirping & knew what I had to do - I had to get busy playing catch up!! I'm sad to say that I didn't get nearly as much done as I had hoped. But, there's always tomorrow. I'm home alone again this week so that means I'll have plenty of time to do work. And clean. And organize. It's time for Spring Cleaning, ya know. And lemme tell ya, I have plenty of cleaning and organizing to keep me busy for probably THREE weeks. Hahaha

It's going to be an extra early night tonight. I was up until 3:00 this morning emailing back and forth with Will as he flew across the ocean! I love technology!! I was so sad about him leaving yesterday (stupid hormones!) so it was great being able to email all night long. I'm so looking forward to his new job in May. I'm thankful for his gainful employment but this lifestyle is just so taxing on me. I've held up quite well for the last 7 years but I'm definitely ready for a change of pace, which will include having him home every day and not having to spend weeks at a time worrying about his safety! Yay!!

And with that, it's time for me to force myself to go to sleep! lol As I mentioned, I have a ton of stuff I need to get done tomorrow so I can't pull another all-nighter. I'm too old for that nonsense! Goodnight, friends!

Vintage Thingies Thursday - Books

Hey guys! I'm participating again in VTT. I know, two weeks in a row?? Shocking, isn't it?! I have been racking my brain this week trying to think of something to share that didn't require too much effort in the way of staging pictures or anything because I've been sick with a horrible cold & sinus infection and I just didn't have it in me to do anymore than the bare minimum. Luckily, this weeks pictures were easy enough to take, seeing how these books sit on the shelf behind my desk. All I had to do was turn around & snap a few pictures! Yay for simplicity!!



Anyhow, as previously stated, this week I'm sharing some of my favorite vintage books. I'm not sure how I decided that I needed to start collecting vintage Better Homes & Gardens books. I think it started out with wanting one of the old red & white checkered cookbooks and then just sort of escalated from there. Next was one of the gardening books, followed by a decorating book, a handyman book, a few more cookbooks. Soon, I had a collection!!



I think my favorite is the decorating book from 1961. A pink kitchen? LOVE!!



Pink bathrooms?? Really LOVE!!



I would LOVE to find a house with a pink bathroom. As a matter of fact, a few years ago when Will & I were looking for homes, the biggest thing on my wish list was a pink bathroom! Our realtor though I was insane when we'd find a house with vintage bathrooms and I'd squeal in delight! I mean pink bathrooms are my absolute fave, but I'd settle for a minty green or blue too.



I think when Will & I find our dream house & we stop moving all over the place, I'm going to insist on having a pink & aqua kitchen. And in my pink & aqua kitchen, I'll house all of my vintage cookbooks, like these fabulous Betty Crocker cookbooks.



This one is my favorite - the Cooky book. Cooky. LOL I remember buying this shortly after Will & I were married. My momma had come down to Charleston to spend the weekend with us & she & I went antiquing on Saturday. I actually paid $5.00 for this book, which is about $4.00 more than I'll pay for vintage cookbooks now. I was young & naive and just didn't know any better.



And while those cookies look delicious, there's a lot of nastiness in those old cookbooks. Take for example this most disgusting picture:



Yeah, I know what y'all are thinking. Y'all are thinking what the hell is that thing?!?! Well, that's what I was thinking when I first saw it. I dunno. Maybe you are thinking "wow, a party loaf. I haven't seen one of those since Jane's baby shower back in 1972.". Yeah, thankfully, I've never, ever seen one of those before and I hope I never do. So, while I enjoy collecting vintage cookbooks, I don't do a lot of actual cooking from them. Well, at least not party loaves!! Ewww!!

Here, for you all, a recipe for the Party Loaf. Three layers of disgusting fillings, *PLUS* a cream cheese frosting, all on white bread. GAG!



Thanks for visiting me for VTT. Stop in at Colorado Lady & see everyone else that's participating!

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?