Life

I came upon this picture of Duhgall and Fiona and just thought I’d share it. This is the day that we went out to have Doogie meet his baby sister. He wasn’t quite sure what to think of her, but now they are best buddies. I love the look on his face! Cracks me up each time I look at this picture.

Because life is a bit chaotic these days, I am taking a bit of a blogging break for awhile to take care of my son who is on the mend from having surgery. Thank you to those who have been praying for him ~ my family sincerely appreciates all the prayers.

Till next time, xo.

This, That and The Other & Thoughts About Pinterest

Hello! Just a little catching up to do here on the posts!

The past few weeks I’ve been rather busy preparing my spaces for a huge event that both shops that I sell at were participating in. The event was a “Boutique Crawl” - a fun “shopping day” for 100 women who are chauffeured around to several local towns and shop at some fun stores who participate in the event. Now that it is over, I can do some catching up – and attack some house chores as well. I am sure that many of you have been busy decorating your homes for spring and Easter. Nothing like making the home feel fresh and clean!

I have also made the decision to delete my Pinterest account. There are so many grey areas about copyright and infringements so I have just decided to keep it simple and not even have an account. I am not opposed to having you copy any of my pictures and save to your Pinterest boards. So feel free to do so. I won’t send out the cops to your house if you do so because that just wouldn’t be cool.

I loved my boards so much and had a lot of inspiration photos stored there, but the dealie is that I can always save a photo to my photo files rather than having a public board. Pretty simple.

I like simple.

To me, saving a picture is like dog-earring a page to a favorite photo in a magazine so that I can easily find it if I want to revisit it. As a means to avoid disrespecting any folks out there in the land o’internet, I just opted to personally not have an account.

What are your thoughts on Pinterest?

Goodness, spring is here! I found this cute little rabbit to springy-fy the shelf. He is quite the poser and sports a cute basket on his back with eggs. Love him!

And speaking of love him….My precious Duhgall had his 6th birthday the other day! I cannot believe that my Scottie Boy is already 6. Time sure flies! Happy Birthday, Doogie Boy!! He is catching a snooze here.

Duhgall gets all happy when there are presents to open. His whole body shakes in excitement. It is really sweet to watch him be so content and happy, even with just a bag of dog jerky and a stuffy with a squeaker. Life is good with presents.

So this sums it up for now. I am going to have a few giveaways in the not-so-distant future. A friend of mine makes the most awesome jewelry and wants to donate something fun for my blog readers. She is so sweet like that.

Till next time, Happy Spring everyone!

Tick Tock

One of my favorite idioms is “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” – meaning different people have different ideas about what they find to be beautiful. That is what makes us unique from each other.

Some folks think that old things should be tossed away in landfills, like these old clocks. I love them and have them scattered around in my home for display. Someone else may think they are hideous because they don’t work or have a rusty and worn metal body and might ask what good are they if they don’t keep time? Sure, I guess that makes sense, but look further than their intended purpose. These old clocks gleam in the light and have bright and cheerful faces – almost as if they are smiling back at us. They are handsome, sturdy and a tad bit whimsical.

Marvel, Ring, Tix…..perfect words for old clock faces. In a group they make for quite an impressive vignette, lined up like a chorus line, ready to break into a rendition of “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by WHAM. Their metal frames are pitted, worn and a bit wobbly, like a tipsy seaman. But I love them, they are imperfect and get better with age. (Like us!)

Beautiful little pieces of art from the olden days. This little charmer is from Germany and has the most adorable chipped enameled sides with a scattering of delicate flowers. And it doesn’t work, but it’s perfectly beautiful nevertheless.I am nostalgic when it comes to old bits and bobs. They are beautiful to me and that is that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I will leave you with this today:

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh, and don’t forget to “spring forward” for the time change tonight.

Till next time….tootles.

For The Love Of Linens

When I was a young girl, going over to spend time with my grandmothers was always such a treat. One of my fondest memories was to sit next to them on the sofa and watch them crochet or knit. I could not believe how they could have one eye on their soap opera and one eye on their project. How could they wrap the thread, count the loops and make something turn out so beautifully straight and perfect AND watch TV at the same time. Mind boggling, to say the least.

Nowadays I see creations that are being sold at garage sales and tag sales for next to nothing. Knowing how much time went into making a piece of crochet, tatting or knitting and seeing it sold for dirt cheap pretty much breaks my heart. Cast offs of grandma’s work that nobody wanted. Such a shame. I guess that this is why I am so drawn to linens – towels, runners, tablecloths, pillow shams – you name it, I love it. (Well not all…not the hot pinks or garish eye-blinding polyesters.) Call it textile rescue, if you will. Some I keep, others I offer for sale, however SOME are really hard to put a price tag on – but I cannot keep everything. Don’t I wish….

Last weekend I hit the mother lode of linens. Here are just a few of the finds for the day. The heart runner and the Swiss pillow cover are keepers.

That’s it for now. Off to iron some of these pieces and get them in the shop.

Looking forward to the weekend? Looks like it will be a wet one here in Northern Cali. But that’s all good..we need the rain.

Tootles….

Becky

For Good Measure

Often times when I am out scouting for old things to buy, I hear folks talking about “how things just aren’t made like they used to be.” There are complaints about how their washing machine stopped running after having it for seven years or that some tool made in China broke after using it two times. The conversation will then turn to how their parents had household items for years and years and never gave up the ghost. Refrigerators would run for twenty umpteen years and hand tools would last for generations. The pride of craftsmanship was evident in the by-gone days and items were built to last for a good long time.

Every once in awhile I will join in on some of the conversations or just give a subtle head nod in agreement with them. Walking away, I chuckle and think I may be an old soul because I am so drawn to old things with character and beauty.

My recent quest for that “sturdy and well made old thing” landed me some wonderful scales – some household scales and smaller postage scales.

I even found an old rusty metal gauge of some kind that has a handsome and rugged industrial look to it with nice numbers on the face. Fun colors of green, rusty brown metal… …and aged to perfection, like the freckled spotted face on the one above. Oh, and might I add, that all of these were made in the USA.Old scales look great displayed in a group or simply set something on top of them for a lovely vignette, such as shown in the photos below.

Pinterest: acottageinthewoods.tumblr.com

Pinterest: heatherbullard.com

Pinterest: Flickr.com

Lovely old treasures…wonderfully crafted and aged to perfection. So here’s to a measure of recognition for all of the good things that were built to last and withstand the test of time.

Morning Delights

Every morning we have a routine and one of them requires tossing the little red ball around for Miss Fiona. She loves nothing more than to chase her ball or chew on her orange chew toy. In fact, she will sit for the longest time just staring at her ball and hoping for me to toss it for her. I love this little girl! She is so intense!

Ok, Fee, let’s play some ball now!

Farmhouse Friday

For today we are hopping on our farmhouse tractor and taking a little cruise around the good ol’ USA for some farmhouse viewing. Here are some lovely homes that I thought I would share with you that I found today via the internet. My favorite is the first one as it has gorgeous bones and a stunning backyard with a million dollar view. So come along and take a little drive around the old homesteads with me.

Which one did you like?

Till next time, y’all have a lovely weekend!