Find Joy

Anyone else get a thrill out of a fresh jar of peanut butter?

I love that fresh first scoop with my vintage spatula.

Making a simple place setting to enjoy

the start of the day.

More often than not, I love to do dishes by hand,

except on Thanksgiving.

 Fresh folded laundry

I like to see fresh fruit displayed.

Makes me want to eat it.

A cone free dog is a simple joy,

on the mat that helps guide her through the doorway.

Happy pals waiting for a treat.

Choose Simple Joys today

..till somebody gets a cone

"It's all fun and games until somebody gets a cone.

 Poor Justice."

via c.Joy's comment yesterday

Ok that's hilarious

and cracked me up.

Things are returning to normal.

The two compadres.

Drumroll

The winners are 

#5 Abbey's Paperie Garden

# 70 Evi

Congratulations Ladies!

Get me your addresses 

and the book will be on it's way

to you ASAP

I'm headed for a nap..Miss Justice had me up at 3am

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

the inJUSTICE of it all

AS if being nearly blind and deaf and covered

 in over 200 warts were not

 enough hardship on our girl Justice,

she started to grow an enormous cyst

 on her flank in December

 and today I realized I could not hesitate

 any longer as it was now growing at warp speed.

Off to see our beloved Vet

we went.  He had a pretty open afternoon and 

since he was afraid to put her under,

 he did a local and 45 minutes later

 I picked our old girl up and brought her home.

We love DR T and I told him so today.

She is very restless, and the cone on a blind dog

 is even more complicated.

I snapped this series of photos in under 2 minutes as she 

tried to get comfortable. I moved a donut bed into the room

for ease of maneuverability and then when she whined for her 

regular brown sided one I moved that in next to her.

I also lay down a dog car mat to protect the white wool rug...

Then she decided three separate times 

to lie behind the curtain,

and became caught up in it and the cone each time.

Round and round we went from round bed

 to regular bed,

 to floor, to tangled, UNTIL... 

(You can see her sizable new bald spot,

told you that thing was large)

she walked under the desk and stole Howie's bed,

quite an acrobatic feat with a small front opening.

He chuffed at her ( BAD HOWIE!) until she 

relocated out to the living room.

My poor girl.

It's gonna be a long night folks.

Justice will be 12 on March 3rd.

She's a trooper.

Tomorrow evening I'll pull the two winners 

from the giveaway...so still time to enter.

good luck to all and a special thanks

 to those sweet pals who posted about it

and said such kind words.

damn... bloggie pals are wonderful.

In other quick news

Hannah finished filming her final short film 

Monday morning and all went well.

After having Sandy delay the shoot in December,

and ripple down to losing her DP 

and a couple actors etc and having

 to find a totally new local etc..my girl pulled it off.

Including buying all the food and catering the crew

herself to save money. She came in way under budget,

and the crew loved her.

Ben did a shoot a week ago but I don't know the details of

that or I'd be braggin' on him also.

Mama is so proud of her bambinos.

see you tomorrow evening 

Z

When Jo Writes

Jo Packham wrote me last week to see if I 

wished to give away a couple books

from my blog.

Of course, I would love to, 

and they arrived today!

When Jo came to shoot my studio for 

WWC magazine, she also got 

lots of shots for this book. 

I was thrilled to meet her and yes,

Jo is very special like everyone says.

This is a fabulous book;

25 organized women with 

loads of ideas to inspire.

I have two books to give away

and will draw two winners

a week from now.

Already own? 

It would also make a great gift,

so enter anyway.

We'll do the basic OK?

1 entry for commenting on this post

2 entries if you're also a follower

3 entries if you post about it

or put a link on your blog.

(please let me know # of entries in your comment)

Make sure I can contact you.

This is a good time to remind all those new 

to blogging about "no reply".

Your email must be IN your profile in order for 

any blog host to be able to respond

 to your comments or contact you.

Otherwise you appear to us as 

"no reply blogger".

Good luck to all

Z

Closing at 4 pm pacific time Wednesday the 27th

Asis

Her name for now is Asis..yeah, yeah so creative...hehe

I'm leaning toward Della, Nettie or Etta

after relatives... Yeah a miracle I was named Suzan eh?

I did get the Z though..

So which of the three do you think fits her?

She resides at the top of the stairs

crowning my Dad's copper lined smoking stand

and his favorite hand painted black chair.

Two of my quilts folded there.

Darling daughter and dearest son photos from many years ago.

Her shoulders draped with antimacassars

 from my Dad's Mom, her skirt

topped with vintage bullion and lace snippets from an Aunt.

Drape her in some wool roses, chain and pearls laying around the studio and for now she is presentable.

40 bucks, not too shabby

Ms Della, Nettie or Etta...

Have a great week guys.

Z 

Linking up with The Polka Dot Closet 

Dress Form Ball

(Etta's first dance)

AS IS

 

Missing her base

very new, white and clean

AS IS

Concoctions and lots of mess

Quite saturated and crusty 

Next morning stained and worn

Love how she aged

now to give her a stand or not and

how should she be dressed?

playtime

Hearfelt

Still trying to recover

7 weeks and counting

Studio time in my pajamas

 Several yards of distressed burlap,

jute, buttons and wool.

a mended heart

Feels good to hear the whir of the machine

 and feel the rough/soft juxtaposition of fabrics.

Anthropologie candle burning, twinkle lights on.

I need to spend more time here.

Perhaps that is the prescription I need.

i belong to you

you belong to me

you're my sweetheart

wools felted in

and yes I'm selling,

perhaps reopening my shop..

day by day

waiting to see where I'm going.

a few hearts here and there around oldgreymare

Happy Valentines Day

Speculoos

I feel bad about doing this.

I do not wish to add poundage to anyone,

but so many of you asked...

and I could not reply via email

(will be repaired soon WoOt)

so Tada!

Cookie Butter

"A deliciously unusual spread reminiscent

of gingerbread and made with crushed biscuits"

a la Trader Joes

it's grainy and sweet but not too sweet

celery, apples, ice cream, pretzels

spoons

now here is the disclaimer..

several pals have tried with 

mixed opinions...

for me?

Hand me the engraved vintage spoon...

THANK YOU

in bold and italics

for all the loving comments and emails last week.

Since I was unable to reply to most of you

please accept this group hug

from me to all of you.

I tried nearly all of your suggested remedies

and something worked, 

or I simply survived the required 7 days.

Nighttime cold syrup chugged

straight from the bottle.

Now THERE is a remedy. wink

Sleeping Babies

I have been either watching tv or stalking blogs

 and tumbler for six phlegm filled days now.

Many blogs have gorgeous images of babies sleeping.

Posie gets Cozy is a favorite.

Then I remembered that over Christmas I 

had captured my babies sleeping.

Is there anything more warming to

a Mama's heart?

My 324 and 264 month old babies.

Home, safe and asleep.

****

Switching from teas

to coffee...

The worst is over,

fingers crossed...

Five Day Disclosure

Five Days

Right Here

2 boxes for Kleenex (new and used)

Remotes at arm length

Bag of cough drops, throat lozenge etc

Jar of cookie butter for comfort

See spoon tucked into tallow berries for cookie butter?

Space Heater

1 quilt

1 down throw

Robe thrown on chair

Empty water bottle discarded for Howie

My "man" slippers

Howie chewing water bottle

After the bottle tussle

A miracle I don't trip

Sick Schmick

Five days 

1 shower half way between

3 frozen dinners ( not worth the 1.88 ea YUCK!)

2 cans of Progresso light chicken noodle

1 box of Mrs Grass's chicken noodle

1/2 jar of spoon fed cookie butter

1/2 container ea - lemon sorbet- dark red cherry sorbet

2.5 boxes of kleenex

10 cups ea of tea/hot lemon water w/ honey

2 bottles of cold medicine 1 day 1 night

Small jar of vicks

12 naps

A zillion movies on tv

last night... Perfect Sense...

this one escaped me in 2011

hmmm? perhaps the subject matter wasn't ideal

for my current condition

(great naked Ewan McGregor though)

I'm done, I surrender...

The cold/flu/bronchial incident of 2013 is the victor

and I thought pneumonia in 2012 kicked my butt...

time for more movies..

happy weekend y'all

and thank you dear hearts for all the well wishes

they warm my heart like the

space heater does my tootsies

z

added injury:

my ability to answer emails has failed

thank you cox cable -

some magic fingers in Atlanta

need to repair it they tell me

and since it's the weekend already there

they may get to it by next Tuesday.

&%$?

I can however use incoming email and internet,

thank goodness or this 

wild haired, hacking, mismatched 

missing buttons, pajama wearing, old broad 

would be headed downtown 

to go screaming mimi banshee on someone!

I love the guy I spoke with for 20 minutes.

Totally clueless, and he told me

he had fixed three others today

but couldn't remember how to fix mine,

since I use a Mac

ARGH!!!!

Please continue to talk to me.

it's lonely out here...

A Trip To The Market

so i dragged myself out to store for dog food, since i could not feed the pooches another day of torn up bagel, egg and dog treats as their dinner... with hair that looked like i had stuck my tongue in a socket..and i am not imagining it, people actually stared at me and turned to take another glance as i passed..wild hair with perhaps a few dry leaves matted in, flannel shirt, heavy jacket, thrice wrapped scarf around neck in 65 degrees, no makeup, deep black crescent moons beneath my eyes, a cart piled to overflowing with cough syrups, kleenex and vicks vapo rub, and frozen dinners....buy 10 for reduced price of 1.88ea ... hacking and sneezing with wadded kleenex stuffed up my sleeves and in my hand.... changing the direction they were walking and making a wide arc as i passed..

the clerk actually stepped back from the counter and used a pencil to type in the items and laid the receipt on the counter rather than get within 12 " of my kleenex holding hand 

i think i may be ill

hmmmmmm and &#?

2 pitchers /small shaker

cookie cutters

cookie cutters

vintage blue quilt

corner shelf

3 boxes tree ornaments / gumdrop set

2 bleacher seats

area rug

west elm duvet and 4 shams 

2 duvets PB and west elm

2 repro quilts 

2 European style new PB linen shams SOLD

White beaded and rhinestone tree skirt

Floral sofa  SOLD

So I started a post about the latest group of purge items this morning and then I received another well, snarky email. I had two others this week.

Something so simple, and yet amazing how odd people can be.

I don't wish to focus on negatives here so I won't tell tales, let's just say take your weirdest garage sale experiences that make you tilt your head and say hmmmm? or in my case &#%? and put them in written form...jeez louise. I had several on-line sales that were easy peasy and lovely, and local gals are always dear, so thank you ladies, but the snarky is just not worth it..

So you'll just have to take my word that I will eventually purge 100 items. Already filled two bags of clothing  (40 pieces) this afternoon, headed to charity tomorrow.

I pick my battles. Close friends will tell you that I am a militant warrior when it comes to injustice, but taking crap from unknown people in cyberville is a waste of my time.

So back to regular programming. I hope those of you purging continue to do so with joy, and a sense of accomplishment. I applaud you...and to those very few who find it so difficult to be polite and kind, and are the equivalent of a hoofed mammal of the horse family with longer ears and a braying call.....&#?

Here We Go - PU

1-11

Red Tin w/ glass front - doggie biscuits/laundry detergent? 5.00
3 finials - 2 grey 1 white SOLD
Wooden pumpkin plaque 5.00
Swinging Iron wall candle holder from my family home SOLD
Antique Butter Mold 20.00
Polka Dot clothespin holder 5.00
Type tray 18.00 pick up only
Autumn Greetings Wood Plaque 20.00 pick up only
Large Wood and Iron Display Piece - ornaments not included 30.00 pickup only
Small Burlap wreaths SOLD

12- 19

April Cornell Bird Embossed plates and small pedestal plate 

(snack/dessert size)  15.00 pick up only

PB squirrel salt/pepper cellars  10.00

4 Placemats purchased in Italy 6.00

Set of mouse pad note pads and magnet note pads - new in plastic

Variety Set of Book Plates  SOLD

12 silver finished place card holders and many blank cards-never used 15.00

Book Lender tablets  SOLD

Address Book with beautiful images 4.00

20-21

Halloween Stake with Rod 12.00 pick up only

2 glass jar candle warmers- no flame

22-25

Shawnee USA cream bowl- 10.00

3 Sandra Lee Cookbooks never used 6.00

Tapas Book with Dining CD -never  used 2.00

Stuffed Wool Pumpkins 10.00

Here are the first 25

75 more to go

The next 25 on Sunday the 20th.

This was just a quick swing through 

a few drawers and stuff already set aside in garage.

Email me if interested in anything.

How is your purge going?