I can estate sale all by myself

Larry worked today so I went out on my own, in search of treasures and boy, did I find them!

I started out at a living estate sale here in town and I missed an Americana casserole by thiiiiiis much.  My eyes always scan the kitchen/dining room areas first for Pyrex and before my eyes and brain could connect, this lady had snatched that dish right out from under me!  I didn't even see it until she had it tucked under her arm.  Good for her, I thought.  There'll be something else along today that's even better!  I found an unwanted, unloved olive green (the great big one!) mixing bowl that I got for a dollar and the cutest little pink pitcher for $2.  It's a Teleflora and not at all vintage but I love it anyway.  

From there, I drove to Elko to the widely-publicized Schneider estate sale.  Well, we had to go to that one!  Mr. Bernhard Schneider is a very, very wealthy man and he owns a good bit of property down Perry/Elko way.  His house on Elko Road sold recently and all of the contents were for sale today.  Some folks said they've gone back to Germany.  What a gorgeous house!  Paved driveway from the road, beautiful landscape, breathtaking lake and the cutest little lake house, swimming pool, tennis court, you name it, they had it.  Except maybe Pyrex.  They didn't have none of that.  But!!  I got something kinda sorta like Pyrex.  German Pyrex!  Like!  Called JENAerGlas.  Jena Glass.  That's what I'm calling it.  I got the Jena Glass vintage casserole dish with a groovy orange and green floral design, some tiny Noritake tea set dishes, a cute little 70's German trinket box in bright orange, a rug for my kitchen and it seems that there's another Mrs. Schneider who loves pink.  Her bathroom was adorable!  The prettiest pink wallpaper I think I've ever seen.  I checked the tags on her pink towels and sure enough, Cannon.  Squeeee!  One appeared to have never been used.  I got three of them and three wash cloths.  One of the wash cloths, a mitt, really, was made in West Germany.  You know that thing's old!  I found an Italian cosmetic bag in her closet and I got it because, yeah, it was pink.  I found some cool German drugs in it, too!  Just allergy meds and an antibiotic blister pack, but still it was cool to see German medication names. 

I left there and drove to Vienna to an estate sale I read about and the prices were so good down there, I bought just about everything they had left!  Ten cents, fifty cents.  You can't beat that.  And cute things, too!!  A Homer Laughlin Virginia Rose sugar bowl and a Noritake sugar bowl, a Lenox ivory and gold Santa figurine, some tiny cups and saucers and my favorite, a Marigold Carnival glass flower dish.  I loaded up and spent $10.  :)

On my way out of town, I spied a little hole in the wall (and I do mean HOLE) thrift store and I decided to stop.  I am SO glad I did!!  As soon as I walked in and my brain and eyes connected and told me there was a PYREX SNOWFLAKE DIVIDED CASSEROLE DISH WITH THE LID on that table covered in dust and dirt, I grabbed it up and held it to my breast like it was my long-lost child.  I almost peed in my pants right there.  I have wanted a Snowflake for months!  I've never seen one in the wild, just on eBay and Etsy and then they were $25 and up, plus shipping.  I ain't doing that.  This one had the sweetest little price tag on it.  FOUR dollars.  I'm telling y'all, I was about to cry.  The lady who runs the place (and there was NO A/C in there but I don't even think I noticed until I was paying her for my stuff) started telling me that it was hers and she'd NEVER EVEN USED IT and it sat in her dish cabinet for 45 years.  What the what???  I never even put it down.  I felt so bad about paying her $4 for it that I bought everything else she had on that table.  That's a good woman right there.  I got more little teacups and saucers and a platter with roses on it and several milk glass pieces (I got 'em home, washed 'em, Googled 'em and found out that one of the dishes is a Hazel Atlas Diamond milk glass candy dish so more squeeeee!).  She charged me $10 for ALL of it.  I'd tell you to go see her but her store doesn't even have a name.  All I can tell you is I think it's on 7th Street and it's right next door to her son's auto parts store.  I thanked her profusely, swore to never put that baby in the dishwasher and left, thanking the Lord all the way.  See, He did have something better than that Americana planned for me today!

I got back to Perry and hit the New Perry Hotel liquidation sale and I got pretty pillowcases out the eyeballs and some wine glasses even though we don't even drink.  They were lovely and a piece of local history so I got 'em.

Here are some pics of my treasures!!

 

 I still can't believe I got this thing for four dollars.

Forty-eight

I had a wonderful birthday yesterday!  All those boxes were Pyrex!  Larry got me six new pieces, four of them were pink gooseberry Cinderella mixing bowls.  The whole set!!  I didn't have a whole set of anything and to have pink, well, y'all know how I feel about pink.  :)

He got me another loaf pan to replace the one that broke last Saturday when I baked a banana nut bread to take to the hospital for Rhiana.  As soon as I turned the bread out to cool on a towel, the pan cracked and broke in half.  I guess it was too old, got too hot, that bread was just too good, I don't know, but it was 40+ years old.  I've never had a piece break on me like that.  I guess it was bound to happen.

The loaf pan he got is a FireKing Peach Luster, that really pretty peachy-pink iridescent color.  I used it tonight when I baked zucchini bread, along with the meat loaf pan I picked up when we did the Peaches to Beaches yard sale in March.

We went to Casa Mexico for supper.  That's my favorite place around here to eat!  I love their fish tacos.  Like SO much.  There was a little girl there who was turning 8 and I was turning 48 so they brought out these beautiful sombreros for us to wear and a delicious sopapilla and sang Happy Birthday to us.  It was great!  Larry was SO impressed with the sombrero!!

Juan, Elizabeth, Emma and I did a Birthday FaceTime call while we were at the restaurant.  They just wanted to tell me happy birthday!!  That was so sweet.  First time anybody besides Larry has called me to do that.  It was fun!!

I had 207 happy birthday wishes on Facebook that I was completely blown away by!!  I had a bubble bath, a nap and the day off work.  I painted my toenails and curled my hair.  It was a fabulous day!!  

I used my Kohl's birthday gift card to buy candles and pillows!  New bed pillows and this sweet little one.  Larry has always called me Sunshine, since the very beginning.  

I thought it was just perfect.

My Almost-Birthday Goodies!

Larry has left little presents on my birthday tea cart this week.  And both days he had to ask me what that was on my tea cart.  Duh!  I understand yesterday but today, too??  Golleeee.

Yesterday there was this amazing piece of Biblical history!  It's a widow's mite and was struck by hand in Zero A.D., the year believed to be the year Jesus was born.  So it circulated during His life!!  It might have even been one of the two!!!  That would be so awesome.  In case you don't know the story, it's in Luke and Mark but here's Mark's take on it:

Mark 12:38-44  King James Version (KJV)

³⁸ And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces,
³⁹ And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts:
⁴⁰ Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.
⁴¹ And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.
⁴² And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.
⁴³ And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:
⁴⁴ For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.

Jesus was not at all impressed with all those rich folks throwing money in, money that was really just a portion of their wealth and He knew they were pretty much just showing off.  But He was very happy with this poor widow woman gave every bit she had, willingly and without hesitation.  I think my little mite is one of her two.  That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.  :)

 
Today, there was this adorable vintage bookends set with a little boy holding an ice cream cone and a little girl holding a present looking like they're going to a birthday party and they're kissing!!  

Sooooo cute!  I probably won't have the heart to put tiny books between them and separate them. 

These are my presents for tomorrow!  He let me open one tonight, though.  I'll give y'all one guess...

Yep!  Pyrex!!  A bowl with handles in the Old Orchard pattern.  I only had the one piece in that pattern.  Yay!!  Can't wait to see what's in the other boxes!

The squash struggle is real

I planted my new squash plants one week ago today.  Look how much they have grown!!

Wow, huh??

I am determined to grow my stuff the organic way, with no pesticides or chemicals.  I've done a lot of organic gardening research.  I have become an expert.  I has a smart about this stuff now.

And now my squash is wearing pantyhose.

I read that nylons are a perfect barrier to put between your squash and that flying nasty little heifer with the green wings who lays her fat grub baby eggs right at the stem.  I have been there, done that with the pantyhose.  In the nineties.  Don't even own one pair that I could have cut into strips to use.  So I went and bought a pack of knee highs that worked beautifully.

My squash (and tomatoes and cucumbers) are dusted with diatomaceous earth every day after they get watered.  I have used DE for years outside for bugs, ants and wasps.  It works.

And I have set traps for that flying nasty little heifer with the green wings, too.  She likes yellow.  Yellow is her favorite color.  She waits for the yellow squash flowers to bloom and that's when she strikes with her egg-laying nonsense.

There are no blooms yet but I set three little yellow dishes out (two of my Pyrex fridgies!) to trick her little butt into drowning.  If I find her and any of her sisters in my bowls, then I'll know they're swarming and I can crank up the defense and by crank up I mean catch the others with a butterfly net and squish their little bodies until they pop.

So, yes, the squash struggle is real.  I am determined to grow squash!  They are the only thing this year that I've had any trouble with!  I want squash and I'm determined to do it naturally, no matter how hard I have to work to get there.

Stay tuned...

A Birth Day, a birthday and Daddy's day

What a weekend we have had!  Baby Charlotte was born yesterday afternoon, six weeks early and just over three pounds.  As was to be expected due to her age, she got off to a pretty rocky start but we are in constant prayer for her to grow stronger and for every little thing that's running behind to catch up so that she can join her very excited big sisters at home.

Here's a picture I took of her in the NICU.  She is soooo tiny and was struggling so hard to breathe.  It was the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen.  Larry and I got to touch her and talk to her.  I reached in to touch her little head and said, "Hey, Booga" and she opened her eyes right then and I snapped this picture.  :)

Charlotte Rose Renee Villegas-Schneider
Born June 20, 2015
3 lbs 1 oz
17 inches long

Welcome to the world, Charlie Rose!  PawPaw and Gama love you so much already.

We celebrated Charlie's birth day yesterday and we celebrated my birthday today with my daddy on Father's Day.  My birthday's not until Wednesday but y'all know I celebrate the entire month of June and now I can take Charlie along for the ride!

Daddy and I got some gift cards.  He's going to Lowe's and I'm going to Old Navy and Kohl's.  Larry had already given me another shelf to put my Pyrex on last week and today he gave me a Troy's t-shirt that he bought when I wasn't with him, when he and Brian went to get some hamburgers before Mama and Daddy's anniversary party.  Sneaky-sneak.

Here's the shelf!  The one on the left, to match the one I already had on the right.  I know. I should probably try to get some help or something.

 And here's my PINK Troy's shirt!

Ami gave me this beautiful mixed media art that she created and I just love it.  Already have it hanging on our bedroom wall.

Mama's oven is under the weather right now so she had my sweet friend, Nancy, make my birthday cake for me.  I wanted a cherry cake with pink icing and that's what I got!  Big old fat cherries all in it and the prettiest pinkest icing you ever saw.  It was delicious!!

Once upon a time, in a land not too very far from here, Nancy and I used to swing in a tire my daddy hung from an oak tree in our backyard and we would listen to Alabama on my old beat up boom box.  Never even crossed my mind that that girl would one day make a cake like this one here.  It was pretty dang awesome.

Here's a picture of me and my daddy when I was a baby.  I love everything about it.  The vinyl couch, the plastic curtains, that Sir Henry Raeburn Boy And Rabbit painting that I look for at estate sales everywhere because of this one that belonged to my Maw, the way Daddy is looking up and how fat my cheeks are.  But the best thing?  The thing I love the most?  Is the sweet way he's cradling me, with his fingers wrapped around my foot.  I was the safest I've ever been right there, a few months old with my very young daddy.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!  I may be pushing 50 these days but I will always, always be your baby girl.

The hippie curtain

 
I found this ahhhhh-dorable 1970's Flower Power cafe curtain at an estate sale, stuck waaaaaay back in the linens and the aprons for FOUR DOLLARS.

I had every intention of it being our kitchen curtain but alas, windows nowadays are wider, taller and generally not so flower-powery.  I had a sad about it.

But leave it to my wonderful husband to come up with a solution!!  I got home from work today and he had put it up over the window on the kitchen door, the door that leads into our sun room (or mud room, depending on what season we're in!).  I love it there.

 I could just eat this fabric.

Garden update!

Here's our garden today, with that big old gaping hole where the squash used to be.  :(  But we live and we learn and we move on, right?  Our tomatoes are doing fabulous (if they will just start turning!  I picked four big green ones to fry for supper, hoping that would help the turning-red process for the rest of them.) and the peppers are producing about one a week now.  The lemon balm, peppermint, rosemary and lavender are growing like crazy, too.

These are our container veggies, flowers, herbs and the blueberry bush we're going to plant out by the clothesline sometime this week.  There's cherry tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, calendula, basil, the new squash plants and two of our old squash plants that I hope to salvage if I can get them to root.  I had to cut out all the bad stem and scrape out all the destruction that the grub left behind.  We'll see...  Crossed fingers!  I still want an organic garden, grown with no chemicals, so I've got some diatomaceous earth and peppermint essential oil to make a spray that I'm going to use to fight the squash bugs when they come back (and they will) as well as any other bugs that show up.  So far, none of the other plants have been affected by anything so I haven't had to really do anything.

This cucumber is pretty much a showstopper.  I can't believe how this thing has thrived.  I counted 48 baby cucumbers today!  There's cilantro and sweet peppers in there, too.

The sunflowers are coming up by the fence and I hope to have a flower by August!

We put this old Mexican blanket down for Tabbie Hoffman and Banjo to lay on when they're on the front porch, to keep them off the concrete and make it a little more comfortable for them.  Y'all see where Tabbie laid.  :)

Sucker-punched by a moth

In my endeavors to have a 100% organic garden, I lost my squash.  :(  I am absolutely heartbroken over it but I'm better today than I was last week when I discovered it.

See, there's this nasty heifer moth that lays her eggs near your beloved baby squash plants and then waits.  Her eggs turn into nasty little fat grub worms who bore into your baby squash stems and commence to munching, killing your plant from the inside out.

Nasty heifer looks like this:

Her nasty little fat grub worm baby looks like this:

And your beloved little squash plants begin to wilt and die.  I noticed ours weren't making squash a couple of weeks ago.  They looked sad and wilty but were still covered in blooms.  When I investigated a little closer last week, I found the worms and after Googling "what the hell??", I pulled up my plants and cried a little bit.  I didn't know anything about these things!  My daddy grew squash every summer of my life and I'd never even heard about this.  I called myself watching for bugs.  I had a natural bug repellent that I made and I waited for signs that my garden was being bugged but never saw any.  That's because THIS BUG does his dirty work on the inside and by the time you notice the plants wilting, it's too late. 

Thank goodness my tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers are untouched.  Even without any chemicals.  Nothing's bugging them!

Larry and I went and bought new squash plants today.  I'm trying again.  We may not have squash until September but that's okay.  I'm not giving up.  I put them in a pot since they can't go into the garden bed.  Those things burrow and will come back.  We can't even plant squash there again next year either.  So I put 'em in a pot on the deck.  Our container gardens are doing so well.  We have cucumbers, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, cilantro, basil and I planted more spinach today, all in pots. 

You are safe, squash babies.  I will watch over you like a crazy mama with a can of Sevin dust.  (BTW, if anybody out there knows an organic alternative to Sevin dust, please leave me a comment.  I read a solution of onion, garlic and water sprayed at the base will do it but I don't know.  I'd appreciate any help!!)

My Birthday Tea Cart update, some vintage love and a turkey!

Ten more days till my birthday!  Here's my tea cart today.

Some of the things I've added are a vintage white beaded cake plate that I picked up for two dollars at a moving sale; my favorite book from my childhood, Peggy and Me, that my daddy used to read to me; a very old (1948!) birthday rhyme book that I also got for two dollars at an estate sale; a vintage 1970's Florida Bird Orange Bank that replaced the one I had as a child (I found it on eBay months ago) and a birthday clown that Larry and I found at Smiley's last weekend.

And these two little girl figurines.  The one of the right holding the presents is the most darling little thing!!  I got her at an estate sale along with her sister who's holding a broom, both of them for $4.  They were made in Japan by Ucagco in the 1950's.

Here's her sister.  I put her in the window sill over the kitchen sink.  She reminds me of me, always cleaning something.  She looks happy about it, though!  :)

I finally, finally, finally got me a vintage granny square afghan to go on the back of my sofa.  My life is complete now.  Can you believe $10 at an estate sale??  Sho' was!  It's a beaut, too.  I think it was made and then just placed in a closet for 40 years because it's perfect.

I picked up this vintage GE hand mixer at that same moving sale for SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS.  It's avocado green, my favorite vintage color.  Avocado green draws me like a moth to a flame every time.  This mixer was a wedding gift for the couple having the sale and they've been married 39 years.  It's in excellent condition and every single speed works beautifully.  I still can't believe it.  

I got this pretty trivet at a yard sale/estate sale/cleaning out Grandma's house sale basically for free.  The grandson let me have this trivet, a beautiful vintage yellow floral sheet and two pillowcases, two precious Cannon honest-to-goodness MADE IN THE USA towels and two wash cloths, a Napco milk glass candy dish and a Japanese Satsuma vase, all for $2.  TWO DOLLA.

 

Here's one of the towels!  Soooo pretty.  You just can't find towels like this anymore.  Unless you go to somebody's grandma's house.

 

And here are the two wash cloths.  I always squeal when I see Cannon on a tag!!  That's that pretty yellow flowered sheet hanging in the background.

 

We got this giant blow-up turkey at that same moving sale for $8!  I'm so glad Larry saw it because I had walked right on past him, headed to the kitchen stuff.  I cannot wait to put this thing in the yard.  As soon as the Halloween stuff comes down, Tom is going up!

I think Larry's glad he saw Tom, too!

Fifty

Yesterday was Mama and Daddy's 50th wedding anniversary and we threw a somewhat-of-a-surprise reception for them.  The hardest part was getting them out of the house so we could set everything up and decorate and since it was their 50th anniversary, they knew we were up to something, just weren't sure exactly what.  Ami and I had been planning this party for weeks.  I wanted to do a vintage 1965 wedding reception or get as close to that as we could.  We invited everybody who was at their wedding and we had a simple reception with cake, punch, mints, nuts, finger sandwiches and wedding cookies.  

I got Robin Walton from Make It Cake to do the cake for us and she did a fabulous job!  If you're local and need a cake, call Robin.  I knew what I wanted and after big fat flops at local bakeries, Publix and Kroger, I found her on Facebook.  I called her and just described what I wanted, what we were doing and she came up with this beauty.  And it was just as delicious as it was beautiful.  Vanilla pound cake with buttercream icing.  Ami added the gold "50" topper.  It was just perfect.  Exactly what I had envisioned!

Ami, Margie and I spoke a few words about what these two mean to us.  I just love how Daddy's looking at me in this picture.  This is what I said (give or take a word or two!):

First of all, I just want to thank y'all for being here today to help us celebrate Mama and Daddy's 50th wedding anniversary.  They call the 50th the "Golden" anniversary and that couldn't be more fitting for Mama and Daddy because they are a golden beacon for everybody who knows them, role models for anyone who wants to believe in having that one true love that lasts a lifetime.  The three of us do because of you.  The Bible tells us that two are better than one.  If one falls down, the other is there to pick him up.  If two lie down together, they are able to stay warm.  We could not have picked two better folks to have been born to.  Thank you both so much for all the sacrifices you made for us, the tears you cried, the pennies you pinched just so we could have all the childish things we thought we had to have.  Thank you for all the support you gave us growing up, for loving us enough to teach us about life, how to take care of ourselves, how to pray, how to grow squash and tomatoes in the summertime, how to cook chicken and rice and how to bait a hook.  Y'all love everybody.  You take care of everybody.  You raised your own three children plus you had a hand in raising a hundred others.  Today is for you.  Thank you both for everything you've done for us, for ALL of us here today.  I hope the coming years continue to be golden and I hope that you both are blessed with good health and happy days.  I love you both very much.  Happy Anniversary.

I only had to stop and squash my tears a couple of times.  :)

Ami gave the sweetest speech, explaining that hers was twenty years in the making.  She was an absolute freak for Debbie Gibson's music in the 90's and Debbie recorded a song called "Two Young Kids" waaaaaay back in 1995 that struck Ami's heart and soul and she decided right then and there, that that song was going to be a part of Mama and Daddy's 50th anniversary.  She played it for us and it was beautiful.  I was just a'squalling!

Mama and Daddy were touched as well.  :)

  

They got some lovely gifts, too!  Thanks to everybody who was there to help us celebrate!  

I snapped this picture when it was all over and I was sitting at the table with Jessi's babies running around.  When I realized Beanie was in the picture, my eyes welled up again.  What an amazing, full life the past 50 years have given them!  They have great-grandbabies now.

Happy Anniversary,  you two beautiful, amazing, wonderful young'uns!  I am so proud to belong to you.

You're looking natural in my eyes
We found life's wonderful surprise
And someday two young kids
Will be wishing they were us

(Debbie Gibson)