My lady heads

I've stumbled up on a new obsession.  Vintage ceramic lady heads.  I saw a few at estate sales this year and I passed them up, always on the hunt for Pyrex.  I could kick myself square in the butt for that.  If I could get my foot up that high. 

I found a beautiful yellow one, they call her the French Thinker and she's from the 1940's, at the antique mall that Larry and I discovered shortly before Christmas.  She was marked $25 the first time we were there and I wouldn't pay that.  We went back last week and she was marked down to FIVE DOLLARS.  Now I will pay that!  I just love her sweet face.


 

My friend, Lynn, has a thrift store back home and she posted a picture on the store's Facebook page of a gorgeous one she had there and I got my mama to go pick it up for me.  Of course, Mama wouldn't let me pay her for it and she gave it to me for Christmas instead.  That mama of mine...   Some of the heads are planters, like this one, and some are just ceramic heads.  Lynn and I both tried to find out something about her but she remains a mystery.

 So now I have the two.  New year, new collection!  :)

Happy New Year!

We did something a little different this New Year's Eve.  Instead of fireworks, we released a Japanese sky lantern.  One of my coworker friends gave me a pink one for Christmas.  We'd bought some last year but decided against lighting them since there were so many trees in our neighborhood.  But this year, we're in a new neighborhood with a huge open space in the backyard so we did it!  And it was so much fun!!  

 

We stood there and watched it until it burned out, about five minutes.  It was beautiful against that New Year's Eve night sky.  The neighborhood children, oohing and ahhing over their folks' fireworks, squealed at the sight of our lantern floating overhead.  It really was awesome. 

We started this 2000-piece puzzle New Year's Eve night, too, and it's gonna take a while.  We've got the easy stuff done!  I cooked the traditional Southern must-haves for New Year's Day.  Black-eyed peas and fresh collards plus our own tradition, Cornish hens and wild rice.  And we had German chocolate cake for dessert.

We watched a beautiful sunrise while we enjoyed our coffee this morning just before the bottom fell out again, and we had an hour of heavy, heavy rain.  I'm ready for some sunshine!

I broke out with a really red, itchy rash around Christmas and we couldn't figure out what we'd done differently.  No new detergent, no new soap.  I have really sensitive skin anyway so it could be anything.  Larry decided to check the levels in the hot tub since we've been using it a lot lately.  Sure enough, the pH level was too high.  So we've worked with it for a couple of days, adding this and adding that to try to get it right.  And we haven't been in the water.  And my rash is clearing up.  :)  It's such a delicate balance to getting the water right.  We're probably just going to drain the thing and start over.  We don't know how long the water's been in there or even when the filter was replaced.  We do it now, do it right, and we'll know.

Our camellias in the front yard are blooming and I'm so excited!!  Bright pink blooms everywhere and tons of buds.  

I sold my old desk yesterday.  I listed it on a yard sale Facebook page and within the hour, I had it sold!  We found a bigger one that Larry uses in his office and we just really didn't have a use for my old one.  I wanted it to go to a good home and the lady who bought it told me she was going to use it in her sewing/craft room.  That's perfect.  We had put it in our bedroom for the time being, until we could sell it or give it away so now we have this huge area to fill.  I have an idea for it.  I want a reading nook.  Loveseat, table, lamp, maybe a small bookshelf.  Another estate sale regret is an adorable little hippie loveseat we saw at a sale last summer and they only wanted $50 for it!  I kept saying we just didn't have room for it anywhere and Larry kept saying we should get it.  Well, we didn't get it.  Dang it.  It would be perfect there!  It was very similar to this one.

 

So this year is going to be the Year Of The Cute Hippie Loveseat!  We are going to find one.  And some lady heads, too.  :)

That about catches you up on the life and times of Larry and Ginger.  Hope you all had a wonderful New Year and are excited to see what's in store for your own lives.  No matter what comes, I know ours is going to be sweet.

My lady heads

My little collection of vintage lady head vases is growing!  I started collecting them a little over a year ago and now I have eight!

Larry got me this gorgeous one today at Browser's Flea Market in Eastman while he was over there working and I just love her!  She's holding a phone!  I love her red nails and her red lipstick and her little 60's 'do.  And the sweet little blush she has 'cause she's talking to a boy.  :)  I named her Julie.

I try to give them all vintage, mid-century modern names.  Here they all are!

Left to right:  Barbie, Debbie, Betty, Hazel and Julie with Mabel, Chelsea and Marie up front.

Road Trip(s)!

Larry and I have been on the road the past two days!  Yesterday, he spoke, along with a group of Braille folks, to the guys in the Braille program down at Alamo.  Banjo and I went with him, dropped him off and then went to the park and enjoyed a beautiful, sunny, cool morning.  After they were done, we all had lunch at the best little hole-in-the-wall country restaurant, Sharkey's.  We had the lunch buffet, spaghetti with butter beans, fried squash, biscuits, banana pudding and we got some ham for Banjo.  

We left Alamo in search of some thrift or vintage stores.  We had asked and got directions to a good one called the "red barn" in Vidalia so we headed there.  On the way, we ran smack dab into Mount Vernon and Brewton-Parker College.  Larry graduated and got his degree from BP in 1985 so we had to stop!  We walked around their beautiful campus and Larry got himself a shirt and a pennant to hang on the wall in his office.

Here's a picture I took of him under the Brewton-Parker arch.

Back on the road toward Vidalia and once we got there, we never saw a "red barn" vintage store so we stopped and asked.  I have to hand it to Larry.  He is NOT like other men who will just drive and drive aimlessly.  He'll stop and talk to somebody!  Come to find out, it's the Little Red WAGON and it's in Lyons.  So off we went, down the road some more headed to Lyons.  It was so worth the drive!

We saw an estate sale sign on the side of the road so we turned off and went to find it!  We got a cherry quilt rack and a few other things.  I found a couple of very old books, Gregg Shorthand and a book of American poetry.

We found lots of good stuff at the Little Red Wagon!  A lot of vendors sell there and there's tons of vintage and antique but there's lots of good old Southern things, too, and boutique clothes.  I got the cutest tank tunic that I hope to wear with leggings Thanksgiving, IF it's warm enough.  You can't ever tell with fall in Georgia.  It was 32 this morning and freezing, 78 this afternoon.

Here's our pretty quilt rack.  I put my granny square afghan on it and an afghan that belonged to my own granny, Maw. 

 I found this potholder at the estate sale yesterday.  It's right at home here.  :D

We found these adorable little Christmas signs at the Little Red Wagon.  They'll go in our beachy bathroom next month.

I cracked all the way up when I saw this Seven Willows soap!  That's so Southern.  I got a bar of sea salt soap to go in our bathroom, too.  Savannah's Salt soap.  Yummmm.  I used to make my own soap.  It's so much more cost-effective to buy somebody else's now.  And saves time, too!

Who remembers learning shorthand?  I never did but I remember my sweet Aunt Carol using it and writing up a storm when she worked as a legal secretary.

 

Larry found this 1960's Bobo The Clown inflatable punching bag for $3!  Ricky and I had one very similar when we were kids, probably the 70's version.  I love it! 

We wore Banjo OUT yesterday!  But he had his blankey and pillow in the back seat so he didn't mind much.  He was with us, he ran at the park and he got ham!  He was a happy boy.

Today, we hit an estate sale first thing and then drove down to Montezuma and went to one there, too, in a beautiful old 116-year-old house.  We went by the flea market in Oglethorpe and then went and visited with Mama and Daddy for a little while. 

I found this amazing 1967 Syroco atomic starburst clock at the flea market for FIVE DOLLARS!  I've wanted one forever to go over the TV.  I just love it.  One just like it is listed on eBay RIGHT NOW for $150!!  I knew it was special the second I saw it.  It was just stuck on a shelf waaaaaay in the back, covered in dust.  But I knew.  I knew. 

I found this little sweetie at the first estate sale this morning.  A 1960's Enesco praying child head vase.  He's right in front on the shelf with my lady heads, with lots of mamas to look after him.

The second estate sale, down in Montezuma, was fabulous!!  That kitchen...swooooon.  It was HUGE, with an island in the middle AND a little sitting area off to the side.  The whole thing was decorated in roosters and chickens.  Baskets and pots hung all over and five (yes, FIVE!) pie safes held beautiful baking dishes and chicken figurines.  I coulda stayed in there all day.  Until I saw the dressing room!  They had turned a small bedroom (the whole house had been renovated and was just gorgeous!) into an area for the lady of the house to dress and do her makeup.  There were full-length mirrors and bureaus and chifferobes and the best lighting I've ever seen.  I walked in and my mouth fell open.  Then I went and found Larry to show him!  I found bags of Clinique stuff in a bureau drawer.  I got all this for $8!  Squeeeeeee!!!

We found quite a few treasures there and got a little Christmas shopping done, too!

I got these cute little bottles for the kitchen windowsill (that I'm constantly changing!).

And this pretty vase that I found on a window shelf in that beautiful rooster-y kitchen.

We stopped by a cotton field on the way home and took a few pictures.  

Georgia snow.  :)

I'm pouting because the wind was blowing my hair.  I hate the wind blowing my hair.  :)

We've had a great couple of days on the road!  We stayin' our hinies HOME the rest of the weekend! 

Our trip to Jekyll Island with a side of St. Simons

We left out early Friday morning and went to Jekyll Island for the weekend.  Banjo went with us and we had our very good neighbor, David, babysit Tabbie Hoffman for us.  

We had so many wonderful experiences that I hope I can do them justice here!  We took over 400 pictures in three days!

Jekyll Island is such a beautiful, quiet little beach town and we met some really good people there.  The lady at the gift shop, Nana, who told us about the huge convention center "they" just built there and the monstrosity of a hotel that's going up, too.  There was an estate sale Saturday on the island that we went to and I found a Le Creuset French oven that I wanted really, really, really bad but wouldn't get it because it was $75.  A great deal, I know, but I'm like that.  I won't spend a lot of money if it's something I want.  If it's for the house or for Larry or one of our babies, I'll do it in a heartbeat.  I thought it was just a little self-indulgent so I wouldn't get it.  Larry went back Sunday and got it for me.  That's an amazing man I married.  But, hey, I knew that 26 years ago! Standing in line to get in to the estate sale, Larry talked with a lady who was also furious about the convention center and the hotel going up and she even told him that Governor Deal has made a deal (grrr!) to bring some hunters in and kill the "excess" of deer there so that they can build more stuff.  Larry and I encountered a beautiful small deer in the woods at the beach and he came right up to us (but of course, that's when we were frantically trying to find Larry's wallet and didn't have a camera with us!) and we just cannot bear the thought of them being killed.  We got her name and we're joining the cause to save those deer.  That's what we liked about Jekyll.  It was quiet and peaceful, natural and full of wildlife and the people who love them.  We ran into another lady on the beach who feeds all the feral cats on the island.  We have activism in our souls and while we realize that tourism brings jobs and money, what's more important is what the people who LIVE there want and from the very outspoken folks we talked to, this is not what they want.  Bringing things to a vote seemed fair to us.  "They" didn't do that.  If there is an excess of deer there, looks like we would have seen more than one since we combed every inch of that island, beach and river side.  Hmph!

Saturday afternoon, we discovered that Larry's wallet was missing.  He thought he'd left it in the truck and I couldn't remember if I locked my door or not so we were convinced that it was stolen.  I told Larry when we first discovered it missing that I believed some good person had found it and would mail it to us.  I said we were going to trust God with this and even if we didn't get it back, if someone had stolen it, there was nothing in there that couldn't be replaced.  I had $14 in cash in my wallet.  Every other dollar we had was in that wallet!  Of course, we had my debit and credit card but still, we had a chuck of money in that wallet!  We backtracked our steps, went back to Driftwood Beach where we had gone that morning, looked everywhere and just could not find it.   We went to SeaJay's and had lunch and I spent the entire time trying to get Larry to perk up and stop worrying about it.  He felt awful.  We prayed about it and decided that we were going to see God working in it NO MATTER WHAT.  We went back to our room and no sooner were we done with our showers when Larry's phone rang.  He answered and I could hear the voice from the other side asking if he was Robert Schneider and when he said yes, she said, "I have your wallet".  I just broke down and started squalling!  Not because of the money, not because of the many cards and things we would have had to replace, but because I KNEW without a doubt that God had done this.  We had been strong, we had gone to Him with it and we had trusted that He was in control.  And He was.  Larry gave me the phone and I got the lady's name and directions and off we went to St. Simons to meet her.  It took us about twenty minutes to get to the Sea Palms Resort but we met her in the lobby and got it back.  Not one dollar was missing.  Not one thing touched.  She'd found a card in there that had the phone number of a friend of Larry's, called the friend, got Larry's number and called him.  After she'd googled us and found us in Warner Robins, called the house and got no answer.  :)  It was truly an amazing experience, one that still has us in absolute awe.

Banjo was super good all weekend but he was a little afraid of the water at first.  He didn't realize he could swim!  By Saturday afternoon, he was running to the ocean!  It was so sweet and I'm so glad we took him with us.  We enjoyed him so much!

We bought a beach umbrella and anchor from a little souvenir shop and that was the BEST thing we could have gotten the whole trip!!  It was SO hot and we sprayed each other down with Banana Boat and I am happy to report that this was the very first beach trip of my life (except when my mama was keeping me covered!) that I didn't get sunburned!  We both got a little pink on the shoulders but NO BURN.  Not even our heads or feet.  We might have figured this thing out!  Ha!  

We had a cooler full of ice and drinks and a big bag of cheesy poofs.  We just hung out at the beach all weekend and life was pretty much perfect!

Sunday morning, we went for a sunrise walk on the beach and found a washed ashore jellyfish.  I wanted to pick him up and throw him back in but Larry was afraid he'd sting me.  We noticed he didn't have tentacles but we didn't know if he was storing them inside or what.  We didn't know what to do!  Just then, a Jeep belonging to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center comes by and Larry flags them down and we show them the jellyfish.  One of the interns there picked him up and told us that he was a cannonball jellyfish and was totally harmless to people.  We noticed a tiny crab had latched on to him as well.  I took them both from her and headed out to sea with them.  I can't even describe how it felt to give an otherwise doomed jellyfish back to the ocean at sunrise but I can say that it was a beautiful experience and one I know God had a hand in, too.  I kept talking to them, "we're almost there, y'all" and "hold on, little buddies".  :)  It was pretty amazing.  God was all around me, in the beautiful colors of the sky to the cool water around my feet to the cold little rubber ball I was holding in my hand.  No church service I've ever been to could compare.

We spent the rest of Sunday morning at Driftwood Beach and pretty much had the whole place to ourselves until some folks showed up to get married!
  

  

We made it a point to go to the Sea Turtle Center that afternoon!  We got to see a little bit of the work they do to save little sea creatures and their habitat and how we can all help.  This little girl's name is Glory.  She swam around to look me right in the eye.  :)

We checked out the historic district on the river side of the island, too.  The Horton House that's been there since 1746!  If you want to build a house that'll stand the test of time, build it with sand, water, lime and sea shells.  Sounds like my kind of house to me!

We'd had to cross the Sidney Lanier Bridge going over to St. Simons to pick up Larry's wallet so we went back and hung out at the park under the bridge Sunday before we started home.  

We had such a great trip full of sunshine and breezes, salty sea air, laughter, a few tears and a whole lot of love!

Garden update!

I haven't had good luck at all with growing squash this year.  Those squash borers got me again.  All of that extra care, all of that precaution, they still got me.  BUT!  I think I caught it early and was able to take care of it before they killed all three of my new plants.  I lost one.  The other two are doing good and it's just a waiting game.  I don't know if those things are in the stem.  If they are, the plant will die.  But there have been no signs so there's hope.  Larry and I went and got some squash at a local produce stand and the lady there said this has been a bad year for squash.  It's been a bad year for MY squash, that's for sure.

But I do have squash.  Right now I do.  :)

The tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and banana peppers are doing great!  We're picking a couple just about every day now.  Everything grown organically with no chemicals or pesticides.  I'm so proud.

 

 

My delicious sweet lettuce turned bitter in this awful heat we've had so I'll try again in the fall.  Lettuce likes cooler weather.  I'm going to plant onions, spinach and lettuce in the fall and I've already started sweet potatoes that will be ready around then, too.  And I'll plant mammoth sunflowers, thanks to my friend, Terrie.  She left one of her sunflower heads on our porch (along with a very generous sampling from her garden that we enjoyed for days!) for me to dry and harvest the seeds so I could plant in late August.  I planted sunflowers by the fence in May and the first little flower is forming.  I was so excited when I saw it today!

 

My beautiful bougainvillea has bloomed like crazy ever since I put it in the backyard.









 


This is the first bloom in my pot of wildflowers that I grew from seed.  I can't wait to see what comes up!









 



And the white hydrangea in the backyard is just full of blooms.  They are sooooo beautiful.








 

Larry worked this morning so I went to an estate sale by myself and I got this little white metal rack that I thought would be perfect for the flower pots I've collected lately.

I got a lot of really cool stuff today on my own and then with Larry once he got off work but the best thing all week (maybe even all year!) was this 1960's (I've narrowed it down to 1962-1965) Broyhill Brasilia dining room table and chairs that I found at the Salvation Army.  I just happened to stop last Wednesday afternoon on my way home from work and I saw it.  I fell in love at first glance!!  And when I went over and looked at it, I knew I had to have it.  I love everything about it, its solid wood construction (it's very well made!), the cool vintage atomic-style chairs, it's the perfect size for us now with the kids coming to visit and it's OLD, my favorite thing!!  We love it.  Since it's 50+ years old, it has a few little problems and Larry and I are going to work on it.  Somebody PAINTED on it.  Ugh.  So we're going to strip it and refinish it with some satin poly and give it a new 60's-like finish.  It had been in storage and was covered in grime and spider webs.  It took a lot of cleaning before I would even let it in the house.  It's had a rough life, a long life and I'm so happy it's with us now.  

It looks just like it belongs with us.