Booth Update

I have had my antique booth for 3 full months now and I have been enjoying it very much. Make no mistake, it is hard work to maintain, but it's a labor of love. Here's a look at what the booth looked like on August 1st, three months ago:

Pretty bare, huh? 

The space felt HUGE and I had fears that I wasn't going to have enough stuff to fill up all the shelves! 

Despite such a bare booth, I did really well that first week, which was very encouraging and I kept going through my boxes, re-discovering stuff I bought years ago, and hitting every yard sale I could find to get more stuff! This was great!!  I finally had a legitimate excuse to go yard sale-ing!!

Here's what my booth looked like on November 5th:

 What a difference!!

I find it really hard to cram things in there, so I keep it kind of open, space-wise. I don't have stuff piled on top of stuff because when I think of my own shopping preferences, I never really enjoy having to move stuff around to get to something all the way in the back of the shelf.  I'm clumsy, so I'm always worried I'll knock something over and then I'll have to pay for something I broke. As a klutzy person, I prefer to keep it light, but with enough stuff in there to keep you interested. 

I'm doing pretty good-- I don't know what is average monthly sales that other booths make, but I'm satisfied with what I am making.  I have exceeded my expectations and I'm not stopping anytime soon! We have been diligently going to every yard sale and thrift shop and trying to buy extra to last us through the winter until next yard sale season. I feel like I have enough inventory to last me through the winter. 

In fact, I feel like I've been doing so well, I opened up another booth at another antique mall!

Here's the second booth:

 A smaller space in a larger, busier mall. So far, I'm not making what I make at the other place. I moved in October 1st, and have only made a quarter of what I made at the other booth for October. Hmm.. I need to figure out what sells here! I just added over 50 items on Monday; then we had Election Tuesday with zero sales at both places; Wednesdays, this mall is closed... There's a Holiday open house at the mall this weekend, hopefully I'll have good sales and figure out what sells and bring in more of that.

I have a few holidays pieces at both booths, but this weekend, I plan to work on a few more items and bring those in next week.  I'm not going to go all out green, red, and gold, but I will have some nice decor items to scatter among the shelves. I want to sell not just decoration pieces, but gift items as well. A lot of things I sell would make nice little hostess gifts or if you know someone that loves vintage kitchen items, you could find something here to give. I sell what I love, so that if it doesn't sell, I'm happy to take it back home with me! 

There's my booth update!

Anyone looking for anything, maybe I have it! 

Halloween 2012

Before Halloween becomes old(er) news, here's the pictures of the kids in their completed costumes:

It all came together so easy this year, I can only hope future Halloweens will be this smooth!

Meet Little Girl Ready For Bed, Witch, Kitty Cat, and Shark!

My little girl dressing up as a Little Girl.

  She'll always be my little girl, no matter how big she gets! An easy costume- warm pj's, pigtails, freckles and... done!

Maybe this should be Silly Witch!

Even easier costume than the Little Girl: a store-bought costume we had already for dress-up, and all we needed was a witch hat, which we got from the dollar aisle at Target. It's attached to a headband and it's the cutest little witch hat ever!

Kitty Cat, meow! 

Leopard print pants and shirt, kitty ears from Target and all I needed to make was a tail from an old black shirt.  I made it belted-style, so she can continue to wear it in imaginary play. She likes pretending she's a cat pretty often these days. When we got the kitty ears a couple weeks ago, I predicted they'd break before Halloween came about, and sure enough, Peter broke the headband part of it yesterday. Have no tears, sewing mama to the rescue! I had a repair plan for just the break I imagined and added elastic to turn the head band into an elastic headband. Phew, disaster averted!

Shark boy!

He ended up really enjoying wearing the fin hat and teeth and I'm so glad people played along with him when they figured out what he was. One lady asked him if he would bite her if she put candy in his bucket and he vigorously nodded yes! So funny!  He kept the hat and teeth on the entire time!

Andrew joined in on the fun with these silly glasses! Sort of what Harry Potter would look like if he was older, eh? I like that we can laugh at ourselves and play along with the kids!

Living out in the country, there's really no place to trick-or-treat, so I can appreciate when churches and other organizations host 'Trunk or Treats' in the parking lots. We went to two such gatherings, one at the local elementary school and one at the church in town. The kids came away with big smiles and nearly full bags of candy and treats! The nice thing with the church is that it's not all candy-- there are pencils and little games, rubber band bracelets and bouncy balls, little Halloween activity books and even a full-sized bible for every kid! 

The local shopping center gets in on the fun, too, and we stopped by to get more milk and juice, and then to each of the stores for more treats.  It's fun to see the people that work there all dressed up and seeing them out of their usual work outfits.

It was a fun night and the kids happily sorted through their candy when we got home. They traded what they didn't like and after being allowed a couple pieces to eat, I hid all the candy, to be doled out little by little.

Hope your Halloween was just as fun!!

Happy November!! 

Sewing Halloween

Halloween costumes this year are pretty easy for me. The kids have all picked something that requires minimal help from me, very little sewing, and very little store-bought accessories. Win-win if you ask me!

Though I like to sew, sewing for the kids is not always easy, especially when they breathe down my neck, ready to snatch away finished product as soon as I clip the last thread. Or I can barely get them to stand still while I measure and check, double-check and triple-check the fit. 

This Halloween, Evelyn wanted to be a ghost, then a zombie, and as of today, with her looking like she's coming down with a cold and possibly not going trick-or-treating tomorrow, we've decided she'll use her warmest pajamas (with something even warmer underneath), dot her face with freckles, put her hair into pigtails, and she'll carry around a teddy bear, as if she is a little girl ready for bed. Much easier and less complicated than a zombie. Hopefully she'll feel better tomorrow, fingers crossed.

Gretchen is going to be a witch, using an old costume we already have. The only thing we needed was a witch hat, which we found in the dollar aisle at Target. I'm making her wear tights and a heavy black skirt underneath the costume for warmth, which she is protesting, but as soon as I mentioned, "no tights, no trick-or-treating," she quickly agreed.

Sylvia is a cat. While yard sale-ing one day, I jokingly held up leopard-print pants and shirts and asked if anyone wanted them and Sylvia immediately grabbed for them! Shocked me, for sure. She's been wearing them non-stop and all I needed to do was make a black tail for her and the Target dollar aisle gave us leopard-print cat ears headband. Make-up on her face for whiskers and a kitty nose and we are done!

Peter wants to be a shark. He loves anything fish and for months he has been talking about being a shark.

Easy enough-- dress him all in grey and I'd make a grey skull cap from a grey shirt and a shark fin to attach to the back of his shirt. But it's cold now, thanks to Hurricane Sandy, and I realized the fin won't be visible underneath his coat. Thinking, thinking.. light bulb!

Using an old grey shirt, I cut the long sleeve off and used the wider top part as a skull cap. Cut a thick card board fin and fitted it inside the cap and traced the shape, sewed along the shape and a shark fin cap was born! He loved it! Ran off as soon as I slipped it on his head! 

My sister mentioned seeing a teeth-y mask made with a paper plate, but I thought I could do one better using thick white felt and a bit of the old shirt. I measured around his head and cut a slit into a rectangle piece of fabric, sewed a length of felt on both sides of the slit, turned and stitched a top-stitch to keep the teeth from flopping once on. Added some snaps to the ends to attach in the back and it's pretty cute.

I tried to make the top teeth sit on his upper lip- done; and the bottom teeth sit on his chin, but the bottom isn't cooperating with me. In the end, we all agree that the teeth hanging wide open look pretty good.

Of course, now that I've finished the sewing bit for Shark boy, he declares he doesn't like it and won't wear it. -sigh- Andrew said he won't go trick-or-treating if he won't wear it, so Peter has changed his tune and loves it again. Fickle kid!

More costume pictures later! Happy Halloween!

If it happens, it happens.

We didn't have too much to do, but we are prepared for Sandy and whatever she may bring our way. The biggest thing is that our roof has not been replaced yet-- argh!  It is scheduled to be worked on in the beginning of November! We've been lucky with only light rains so far, but the weather forecast is predicting 3 full days of rain coming up and that does not bode well for the roof and what lies beneath it.

So we pulled out all the plastic tarps we could find, culled the biggest pieces and climbed on the roof to cover the leaky spots. I know it probably won't keep out all the water, but it will deflect a lot of it, and help keep the insulation in the attic from getting soaked.  We already will have to replace the insulation in spots here and there, so any further damage we can prevent will help. Hopefully, the rain doesn't fall too heavy and we'll be ok.

We haven't needed to use our generator in years and Andrew declared it unfit to use this week should our power go out. We'll have to tinker around with it later on, see if we can get it going again.  Perhaps it will be a winter project for Andrew when there is snow on the ground and he can putter around in the shop.

Our pantry is well-stocked.  Several cases of bottled water to drink and I filled every empty gallon-sized container I had on hand with water. We'll also fill the bathtub with water just in case-- after everyone has gotten a shower in tonight. I re-organized the freezer, to make it easier to transfer stuff from the fridge freezer to the big freezer if needed. I'll also be freezing water in several old milk containers so they'll help keep the freezer cold if the power goes out.

Bought more flashlights, the ones the kids had have taken a beating and some of them don't work anymore. Plenty of batteries and candles, too. Caught up on all the laundry in case I can't do laundry for a couple of days.

Except for the roof, we're not really too worried about Sandy. If she comes, she comes.  If the power goes out, it goes out.  We'll cook on the grill or over a campfire. We'll do what we usually do, except it will be by candlelight or flashlight.

Halloween will be interesting.  If it is raining then we'll go trick or treating elsewhere. Or maybe we'll do what we did one year, and let the kids trick or treat at home-- knocking on bedroom doors and Andrew, Mom, or I will answer and pass out candy. Wait and see.

Stay safe.

Good-Bye, Friend

Before the title of this post gets anyone in a tizzy, thinking I'm saying good-bye to this here blog, let me quickly say, I'm not. Still here. Not going anywhere.

We're saying, or already said, good-bye to our lovely and lonely duck, Cheese. Or maybe it's Quackers. Never could tell them apart. But the girls have decided it's Cheese, so it's good-bye Cheese.

Sometime last week, while we were all asleep, warm and safe in our beds, something attacked and killed one of the ducks. Andrew woke me early in the morning to deliver the bad news. The kids didn't know yet, so I hurriedly dressed, then slipped out quietly.

Poor Cheese, he was walking around and around Quackers. His body still and white feathers scattered all around him. I gathered his body and as much of his feathers as I could and laid his body to rest in the woods.  Then I went about and did my usual morning things, fed the chickens and the ducks, excuse me, duck, and burst into tears at the sight of just one lonely duck.

And he was definitely lonely. Those two ducks were the best of pals, maybe they were brothers, and you never saw one without the other. They teamed up and chased after the cats, the chickens, the dog. They'd waddle away, quite pleased they succeeded in their chase, quack, quack, quacking loudly. They roamed the homestead together, happily splashing in their little pool and came as fast as their webbed feet could carry them when I came out with food and scraps.

After Quackers was gone, Cheese tried to pair up with one of the cats, but the cat just ran away.

Cheese tried to pair up with the old Rooster, but he ran away, looking back as if to say, go away you pesky thing!

He tried to hang out with the chickens, but they ignored him, merely tolerating his presence, but I'm sure, as soon as Cheese was out of earshot, the hens cackled behind his back.

Poor Cheese. 

We didn't want to get another duck, but we knew poor Cheese needed a buddy. There's a lovely little pond, about 20 miles from us, I spotted it while out yard sale-ing, and I remembered there were a bunch of white ducks there. I had the children with me that day and we stopped to ohh and aw over them. Let's take Cheese there, we all agreed. Sunday took us to the pond, and it was, indeed, a lovely little pond, and there were the ducks, all hanging out in the shade of the trees. Cheese would be happy here, we knew. 

Knocking on the door of the house closest to the pond, Andrew explained to the owner about Cheese and what had happened to Quackers, and wondered if it was possible to bring Cheese here and leave him with the other ducks. "Why of course we could," he said!

The next day, we took our last pictures of Cheese with the children, said our good-byes, then Andrew drove off with Cheese in a cage in the back of the truck. He opened the door near the water and stepped away, Cheese poked his head out and looked around, spotted the water, then spotted the ducks in the water on the other side of the pond and took off like a shot into the water! He swam right over to the ducks, and Andrew caught this last picture of Cheese about to join the other ducks, then once he was with them, he lost track of Cheese, for he blended right in with the other ducks.

I think he'll be happy here, with other ducks, swimming in a real pond. There are even girl ducks! The owner said they had 4 girls and 3 boys, and Cheese makes 4 boys, so he might even get a girlfriend! We'll come and visit now and then, say hello, and maybe, if we're lucky, come Spring, we'll see baby ducks and one of the proud papas will be Cheese! 

1 Potato, 2 Potato, 3 Potato, 4...

   We grew potatoes in the garden this year, but it's not enough to sustain this 7- member family of mine.

We eat potatoes in nearly every meal or, at least, once a day. After discovering how much we harvested from the garden, I was a little disappointed. I'm still learning how much I need to plant to grow enough food to feed my family for a year, so I'm looking at this as a learning experience. But still, in the end, it's just not enough to feed us for this season, so when I saw a simple ad in the local paper advertising potatoes, I just had to call. 

    A bushel of potatoes for $15. The average bushel weighs 60+ pounds. That equals out to .25 cents a pound. Pretty good deal to me.  We went to look at the potatoes, grown by a local farmer 10 miles from us and they were beautiful.  As beautiful as potatoes can be.  Thin-skinned and huge, nothing like the potatoes we grew! They were obviously sorted, because none of theirs had blemishes or worm holes. I bet they kept the poorer potatoes to keep and eat and sold the nicer looking ones to customers.

   Four bushels of potatoes came home with us and we spent the next couple of days working on one bushel, turning them into potato skins to freeze and canning irish potatoes for later. We also ate potatoes morning, noon, and night, and today, I can safely say, we are all potatoed out! The rest of the potatoes will go into storage in the basement and hopefully, last us through the winter.

 Simultaneously pressure canning irish potatoes and baking potatoes in the oven for potato skins.

 Peeling and chopping potatoes for irish potatoes. Potatoes get pre-cooked in boiling water for 10 minutes, then loosely packed in quart jars and pressure canned for 40 minutes. I figure on 2 quarts getting cooked up for every meal, so I'm hoping to put away 50 quarts of irish potatoes, which will equal 25 meals.

I can only pressure can 7 quarts at a time, so I've got 28 jars done, so far. Halfway there!

 Lost count of how many potato skins we have in the freezer now.  Andrew cooked up so many packages of bacon for the skins, and still did not put a dent in our bacon stock in the freezer! I know for sure, there are over 100 skins in the freezer, vacuumed-packed in batches of 6. We had a meal one night of nothing but potato skins.  Did you ever do that, eating out at a restaurant and ordering the potato skins appetizer as a meal? I used to do that a lot. I love me some potato skins!

The potato "guts" scooped from the skins got vacuum-packed, too, and will be turned into potato soup or mashed potatoes later on. I didn't measure the potatoes when I packed them, just eye-balled it, knowing by now, just how much my family can eat in one meal. I thought about making and canning potato soup, but my supply of jars is getting low, and making soup from scratch is pretty easy, especially now that I have pre-cooked potatoes in the freezer!

   I am *this* close to buying another bushel. I saw another farmer with a sign at the end of his driveway selling his potatoes for $12 a bushel! *smacks head!* That would have been .20 cents a pound! But by the time I came back to his farm to buy some, the sign was gone, too late! I think I'll be making another trip back to the first farmer and buy one more bushel, just in case. I'd rather have too much, than not enough.

Taking the Bad With the Good

When I first started this blog, I aspired to be widely-read and have millions of hits every month. I imagined getting sponsors and book deals and I'd never have to worry about money. My problem was coming up with fresh ideas every day, to keep people hungry and coming back for more! I can barely come up with an idea for a post once a month these days and even then, they garner no interest. I've long accepted that I'm not fame-worthy, and that's alright.  In my little part of the world, my children view me as the World's Greatest, Most Beautiful and Bestest Mom Ever! And my husband tells me I am The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, I am sexy and hot and the way he tells it, I've stepped right out of the pages of Playboy! And the chickens, they flock to me all happy and bow down at my feet every single day, without fail. OK, so they're pecking at the bread I've tossed, but it's my world, so let me be!

My point is, I'm happy. I love my family, my home, my life, and I am not some crafting genius or a whiz at coming up with original ideas. I constantly glean inspiration from other people but rarely come up with an idea of my own.  I'm just not creative that way. So often I see something and smack my head and ask myself, "why didn't I think of that?!"  Andrew and I talk about needing to invent something people can't live without, and then we'd be set for the rest of our lives, like whoever came up with the toilet brush? It's found in nearly every bathroom! And how about the guy that came up with Beanie Babies? Holy cow, that guy must be lying on a beach somewhere, sipping margaritas, calling to the help, "How much did I make today?"

My life might be normal, same thing day in and day out, pretty mundane, really. Boring, even. But there is stuff that happens here that shakes our life up and makes it fun. Nothing wild and crazy, but just enough to jiggle things around and make us laugh, drive us crazy, cause sleepless nights. Leaky roofs can drive one crazy. Cause us sleepless nights wondering how much it will cost to fix and if we can afford it. But at least we have a roof, right? So what if we have buckets and bowls and trashcans to catch the rain all over the attic floor, it's a lot more than some people have, and for that, I am grateful and thankful and I still can laugh at the sight of all those containers, looking very much like a scene out of those old cartoons I used to watch as a kid.

To shake things up a little bit and add some excitement to our lives, we decided to go to the county fair with the kids.  Not our little one, but a bigger one with more rides and a circus and lots more animals and events than our small town has.  We haven't gone anywhere this summer, just once to the little beach on the lake not too far from us, and so we felt like the kids deserved some fun. They have been hearing about friends going to amusement parks and vacations at the beach and camping trips, and we felt kind of bad that we couldn't afford any of that, yet we aren't apologetic about it, because there are times in one's life where you just can't do any of those things.  But the county fair, we could swing that.

We gathered up the kids, told them we were going to buy tickets and let them go on the rides all night long!  How excited they were!  Cheers went up! Yay for Daddy and Mama!!  We were cool.  We were awesome! We were the BEST PARENTS EVER! And it was great!  Lots of fun!  I took pictures of them on the rides and we saw the animals and exhibits. They went crazy over the long, tall slide and climbed what must have been hundreds of steps all the way to the top, just to slide down what took only seconds to get to the bottom, yet bounce up, that wild giddy look in their eyes and say, "Let's do that again!" Then the circus started and we watched a small family do amazing tricks with dogs, trampoline jumping, juggling, clown acts and a crazy round and round dare-devil act. It was fun!

Then 5 o'clock came and all of a sudden, the four wristbands the kids wore, that let them have unlimited access to the rides, the ones we paid a hard-earned $60 for, were no good. Imagine a giant buzzer sounding. Imagine all the rides and lights and music slowly grinding to a halt and the laughter and smiles quickly turning to tears and frowns and disappointment. It's safe to say that I was just as disappointed. Stupid, cheating, no-good fair! Those wristbands were only good until 5, then one had to buy new ones for an extra $3 each for a grand total of $72 for four tickets, just to continue riding until closing time. Not even a sign to caution people buying tickets before 5 o'clock. Stupid, cheating, no-good fair!

I can't look at the fair pictures without feeling that same disappointment we felt when we were not allowed to go on any more rides. Andrew and I tried to cheer the kids up, tell them we could still see the animals and the other exhibits we hadn't seen yet, but it was no good.  The thrill was gone. Feet were heavy and it took such effort to get them to the barns and even the sight of baby pigs didn't elicit any "aws" from the kids. Kettle corn didn't taste as good. It got hot and dusty and sticky. The kids complained they were tired and wanted to go home. And so we did. It was a grumpy ride home. The kids fought, we yelled. It was not the tired-but-happy-falling-asleep trip home I thought it would be. Stupid fair.

Here's the only picture I took at the fair after 5 o'clock:

Don't let that smile deceive you, believe me, it was a struggle to get them to pose for me. Right next to it, you can just see part of it, is a fake cow-milking display, where you can see what it's sort of like to milk a cow! I was pretty excited about it, but no one wanted to do it. I got Gretchen to give it a squeeze, but it was poor attempt, mostly just to appease me. Shortly after this, we left.

I share this because I want to remember this day. Even though it ended poorly, it was such a good day. I need to remind myself that I shouldn't dwell on the disappointments, but look at the fun bits! It was fun!  We were having a ball! They got to go on about 15 different rides, and see a circus, and just have fun together.  And they were awesome together-- watching out for each other and making sure Peter was right there with them. They held hands and sat together on the rides and encouraged one another when one of them was a little too scared. Those are the moments I need to remember. There are good and bad parts to each day, the trick is to focus on the good parts.

So what did I learn from this? For one thing, the next time we go to any sort of place that has rides, we're definitely asking if there's a time limit on those tickets we're about to pay for. But mostly, that even when we're feeling sad or disappointed, we still have each other, we still love each other and tomorrow is a brand new day.