A Few Of My Favorite Things

There is a website that I keep in my favorites folder.  It is mainly a place I go to, when I get a chance to dream. They have wonderful artwork like this…. . This place is called Cottage Chic and you will see things like this…. and this…..Got your attention yet? If it has, check out their website here…..Cottage Chic  You will adore it if you love French Country and The cottage look like I do. I just wish I could afford their items……oh well….someday maybe.

Years ago, I ended up at a lady’s home here in my town. She was showing me around her cottage style home. As we got to the bathroom, I was pulled in by this wonderful aroma massaging my nostrils. Oh my Lord, what is that amazing smell? She had a beautiful old claw foot tub like this…. and there were candles and bath salts all around….but that wasn’t it. It was coming from the area behind the toilet. On the back of the toilet tank, she has an antique dish filled with these unusual soaps. That’s where it was coming from!! “WHAT is that?” ….I asked her??? “Oh those are Zumbars”….she said. Zum what? Long story short, I had just found the soap and the perfume that I would use and wear for the rest of my life. It’s an odd looking soap. It looks like this…. well here’s a closer look….It’s called Frankincense & Myrrh and it is made by a company called Indigo Wild. They make all natural products. Their soaps are made with goats milk. This is their all time bestseller and I can’t live without it. It has been a part of my life for over 10 years. I don’t always have the soap but I DO always have the perfume…..either this….body spray or this….roll on perfume called Eau de Zum. I get compliments all the time. People want to know what it is. I hear things like “who is it that smells so nice?” I usually don’t say anything and they end up narrowing it down to me. That’s kind of nice because I forget I have it on….I wear it every day. They have many other natural scents and products….check them out….Indigo Wild .  Egads! I am starting to sound like Oprah…..doing My Favorite Things!! Oh well….I do like sharing! Let’s see…what else do I like….Ok….here’s a link I have saved for years. It is Chapman’s Cottage….Love looking at this one….here….take a lookie……Chapman Cottage Now wasn’t that cool? Another place I like to go and dream is a place where they sell lovely material for sewing. It is Hancocks Of Paducah  I am sure you have all seen this site? Oh my goodness the material they have is beautiful!

And last but not least is a blog that I go and visit for inspiration from time to time. I keep thinking that someday I will be able to go there and download some of her wonderfully gifted and generous tutorials. Feathered Nest is a beautiful blog. A couple others I frequent occasionally are The Kitschy home of Deanne Zweig and this photo that I can’t seem to delete. I found it somewhere in  my travels online>>>and have kept in my files forever….There’s something about this room that draws me in. It’s grandma meets cottage design with a twist….isn’t it cute?

Another site I have in my favorites, is a video library of embroidery stitches.   What a wonderful website this one is. It has been hugely helpful to me in the past. I sometimes forget I have it in my favorites. Check it out….Needle N Thread . There is also a great place to go for crochet called My Picot. I think it is wonderful when people offer free patterns for things….don’t you?

Here’s one I have gazed at for some time called Victorian Sewing Accessories . Free patterns for things like this…. and ………..

this….. Search around the site to find many other helpful hints. And last but not least….A friend of mine makes these night light shades… with safety pins and beads. Each one is different…and they come in many colors……    She asked me to find a place where she could get beads and supplies like this to make them. I found a great place online and it was less expensive than many others. It’s called Craft King . Here you can get just about any craft item you can think of! So….there you have it….you have taken a walk through my favorites folder with me! I hope you found something you have to have like I did!! Enjoy…….

 

More Marbles…Black Ops….& Fables….

 Well our friend’s marbles did so well, he gave us some more to post on Ebay for him. I took the opportunity to put some of my own items on as well. Here’s a link to my auction…… Debbie's Auction  The purses I have had for some time. I have posted about them in the past. Since we are redoing the house, it has put me in the mood to downsize. The cups are from my childhood. I’ve been looking at them in my mom’s old china closet for years and I never use them. I had to empty the china closet last week so I could bring it upstairs to my room. It gave me a chance to  look at everything in there….and there’s a lot of stuff! So I will be adding some to the auction here and there.

Both my husband and I like to play video games….especially in the winter….it’s a long winter here in Maine. We ordered up two new ones. His is…

this game…..         and mine is……..this game……    His is a shoot-em-up type game that I enjoy watching him play, and mine is a bit more like a legendary story I guess. We’ll have fun with them. My father and mother in law have Fable III too. We can actually jump in onto a game they are playing and play alongside! Isn’t that cool? They can do the same to us.

Obie is doing pretty good these days.For those of you that do not know, he is diabetic. We give him insulin twice a day by injection and he is on a strict diet most of the time. That is so it does not mess with his blood sugar. No…no…no….we don’t want to mess with blood sugar….because the consequences are not good! It involves massive drinking of water and massive urinating and panting and hiccoughing. We’d rather not deal with any of that. So, we have adapted our lives to Obie’s new diabetic life. What’s new? We have two baby gates. Wherever we are, Obie is too and the gate goes in the doorway. This way, we can keep an eye on him if he needs to go to the bathroom. He stopped “asking” to go out about 6 months ago. Oh he’ll go to the door, but he won’t bark, and that doesn’t work for us in the middle of the night! The gate works great! We did have to add something else in the bedroom. We gated him in with us each night when we went to bed. That worked for a while. On the occasion that he had to pee in the middle of the night, we couldn’t hear him. Remember?….he stopped barking….so he peed once on the rug. After shampooing the rug and making it nice and clean once again, my husband had an idea??? Let’s put down some kind of plastic to protect the rug until we decide to pull up the rug and replace it someday. Like we need more renovating? So, as much as I hate it, we have temporary plastic in there on the floor. Guess what? He hasn’t peed there since we did that. Yay! The other dilemma we have with our furry friend is that he hates guns!! Nail guns, shot guns, rifles, anything that sounds like a gun! I am the doggie sitter when the carpenter comes. I have to take him out of the house and we go for rides…etc. That can get a little stressful at 9:00 at night. That’s when our carpenter comes sometimes. Obie and I will be glad when we are done….so will my husband.

Today our floors get sanded.   It will take three days and four coats of poly. They will be done by Wednesday if all goes well. I’ll get pictures! We will be without heat. Our monitor heater happens to be on that floor so it has to come out this morning. The monitor guy is coming in about 45 minutes to do that.

Because of all of this, we are not having Thanksgiving here at home. It will be at my brother in law Joe’s home! Yay! He will make the turkey and the rest of us will bring the fixings! My mother in law makes the best peach/pork stuffing! We are looking forward to it. Hope you are all going to have a wonderful holiday.

Those Chilean Miners!!

By now you all have seen a story or two about those Chilean Miners that were rescued recently…

 It was quite a story. But when I found this on Youtube……I laughed so hard that I had to play it 3 and then 4 times…what a riot this guy is. What a wonderful life…..he is stuck down in those mines for all those weeks….miles beneath the earth…..not knowing his fate or the fate of his fellow miners…..and then he ends up on the Letterman show doing this……    

CHILEAN MINER

Only in America!!……….What a riot!!

 

Oh by the way……my marbles I put on Ebay for my friend did really well!! We watched them all week and they seemed to be hanging around at $17.00….then they jumped up to about 48.00 and stayed there until the last 45 minutes of the auction. Guess what they sold for?? I was completely shocked and thrilled…..they ended up selling for……….ready?????…………………..

$166.66 …….can you believe it?? I am not a fan of that number, but we did good! Our friend was pleased, and now he wants us to put on two more lots for him. I have been getting together another auction of my things to start hopefully sometime this week. Our carpenter is back and we had two good days of working on the beam…it’s awesome! His shoulder is better. He did such a great job this week, I made him an apple crumb pie! Of course both my husband and I totally forgot his wife and two kids are allergic to flour, wheat and dairy!! Poor guy had to eat the whole pie himself!! Do I hear a big AWE???? He loved it.This week is a big push for us to get our beam done, dining room painted, baseboards in dining room put down…etc…..and emptying out dining room, for the floor guy, who is coming on the 15th, to sand. It’s not over yet! I am taking pictures and will share when the whole thing is done! Hope all is well with all of you?!

Temporary Setback And Marbles…..

 

Our carpenter and friend David fell from a 14 foot ladder last week. He hurt his shoulder and arm and is trying his best to take it easy. He’s not the sit still type! We are hoping he is feeling better and pain free soon. Meanwhile, we are on hold finishing up our kitchen. It’s frustrating but we’ll be fine. November 15th, our dining room floor will be sanded. It’s been probably 20 plus years since that has been done. It ‘s fairly small but a tricky one. There is a half round hearth that jots out onto the floor. We have a monitor heater on it that will be removed at 8:00 a.m. on the 15th by our monitor guy Ken. That will stay off the floor for 3 days, meaning we will have no heat…..well the sand guy Matt says he’s bringing a space heater….not exactly sure what that  is?  When the entire redo is done, I will share photos….instead of each step along the way. It’s just too slow right now.

A friend of ours asked us if we would put some old marbles on Ebay for him. We used to do Ebay auctions all the time. We would purchase things from yard sales and put on an auction. I haven’t done it in a long time. So…I took a bunch of pictures of the marbles and put it on.  Here’s a link to it.    Marbles Auction    My Ebay name is Treasure-Keeper. I got hooked on it years ago when my cousin asked me to go to a yard sale with her. At that yard sale I found a rare Wendell August Forge Aluminum calendar plate inside an old barn. It had  a very muscular man forging iron and you could barely see him because of the drips of old paint all over him. I took it home and cleaned it up. I paid .15 for it and my cousin put it on Ebay for me. I went by her house when the auction was ready to close. We watched it together. She showed me how to hit the  “refresh” button to see if the bid had changed. That calendar plate went from 4.99 to 60.00 in a matter of minutes before it ended and I was hooked! That was the  reason my husband and I purchased a computer eventually! Now he rebuilds them! Weird huh?  Here’s a link to some lovely Wendell August Forge items they make today……Wendell August

So when my friend asked us to put those old marbles on for him, it brought back some cool memories. I have been getting together a bunch of stuff to put on my own auction. An old ouija board from the sixties, a vintage beaded purse…….and whatever else I come up with. I have too much stuff and it’s beginning to look like a yard sale in my house. It may take a couple of weeks to get together but it will be fun. Meanwhile we will be watching these……… And hoping they get some good bids. Our friend is called the marble man. He has been collecting for years. He claims these are worth one hundred dollars….we’ll see!