Tagged and a final Maren update

We received confirmation from the lab yesterday that Maren did indeed have Salmonella. Not that it really matters at this point, as she's about 94% recovered, but it is nice to know for sure. When we went back in on Saturday morning the PA said it looked like the skin had developed a yeast infection, simply from being so wet for so long, and prescribed us another cream to use. It has worked well and Maren is almost back to normal, which is a relief to all of us! If ever a week convinced me to renew my efforts on the potty-training front, this was it. Changing diapers every 30 minutes for 8 straight days will do that to a person. I'm also happy to report that the George Curious party was a success! We only had a few little guests and the weather was so nice that the girls spent most of the time playing outside, which was fine with me! Maren had fun and Mommy didn't get stressed out, so that makes it a success in my books.

I was tagged a few days ago by the lovely Kristin! I love her blog and seeing the pictures of her house and her decorations makes me 1) drool and 2) feel inspired. Kristin tagged me to share 7 random things about myself, so this time I thought I'd share with you 7 things I'd like to do:

1. Learn to do the splits. Silly, I know, but it's just something I've always wished I could do! I actually have dreams sometimes that I can do the splits. Better get stretching!

2. Learn to do pickups/pullbacks in tap dancing. This is a step that I've tried and tried and just can't seem to get the hang of it! It drives me nuts. Everyone tells me that it's one of those things that once you figure it out, it just "clicks" and then you can always do it. I'm still waiting for the click.

3. Visit Washington D.C. when the cherry blossoms are in bloom. Every year I see pictures of this and am just agog at the gorgeous pink blossoms.

4. Conquer my fear of making yeast breads. I've only tried a couple of times but in every instance the results were very, very sad. I love to eat fresh, homemade bread so it would behoove all of us if I'd learn to make it, but my previous failures have me a bit gun-shy.

5. Visit Australia and/or New Zealand. Maybe someday we'll get to go on an adventure!

6. Teach my kids all about early U.S. History and then take everybody on a huge road trip to visit the sites: Boston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. Maybe we can do it in the spring and kill two birds with one stone (see #3 above).

7. Finish the scrapbook of my study abroad to London. I went in fall of 1998, so I'm only 10 years behind! I'd love to be able to look through all my photos and memorabilia and the only way I can do that now is to go through about a hundred different page sleeves where I've separated all the photos by event. I've got to get working on this one.

If you need something to blog about this week, consider yourself tagged!

Update on Maren

Thank you all so very much for your well wishes for Maren and your sympathy for me. :) Some of you have wondered how she got salmonella. Well, remember that little trip I took to visit my grandparents a couple of weekends ago? That was the weekend all of this started to go down, although no one knew it was happening at the time. My grandparents called several days after we returned home when the news broke, to see if we were sick. We seemed to be fine--or so I thought. Maren started to show symptoms on Saturday, although I never have gotten sick and I drank considerably more water that weekend than she did. It hasn't been confirmed by the lab yet that what she has is salmonella, but the timing is just right and the symptoms all match, and if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck (and in our case, poops like a duck), well you know how it goes. If it's something else (like rotavirus) then the timing is just a very strange coincidence.

She was still bad today (so that would make seven straight days of diarrhea every 30 minutes, if you can imagine) and this afternoon it looked like the sores on her bottom had actually opened up, so I called the doctor and we have an appointment for early tomorrow morning. However, since that call at 5:00 p.m. things have gotten more ~ahem~ solid, and the skin on her bottom actually looks slightly better too. I still want to keep the appointment, but it gives me hope that maybe things are actually looking up. I'm not sure any of us can take this for much longer. I'm SO ready to hang up my Poopsmith gloves and shovel.

Maren's apparent improvement comes not a moment too soon, as her birthday party is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. tomorrow morning! She chose a Curious George theme (actually, Maren refers to him as "George Curious") and we only invited four other little girls, so it shouldn't be too wild. We're going to feed them lunch and do a few little George Curious activities, then have cupcakes and let the Birthday Girl open presents and the kids can all play. Should be fun and relatively stress-free. And with that, I'm off to put together the party favors!

03-26-08

Sorry for the blog absence. This has been me for the past few days:


In case you are unacquainted with the brilliance that is Homestarrunner.com, that fellow there is the Poopsmith. We're dealing with possible Salmonella issues for Maren (still waiting on the lab results) that have resulted in me feeling like all I've done for 5 days straight is shovel sh*t, if you know what I mean. I'll spare you all the gory details, but suffice it to say, it hasn't been pretty.

Enough of the poo talk! Lets see something sparkly:


I found these pretties last week when I had a rare solo trip to the thrift on 25% off day. Now, normally this thrift prices anything sparkly at a minimum of $5.95 (for earrings, pins are usually $9.95 and up), regardless of quality. I noticed their prices that day were significantly lower so maybe they have somebody new doing the pricing, and if so--hurrah! and I see more jewelry purchases in the future. The leaf-shaped pin and the flower pin were both $2.95, the tiny turquoise pin was 95¢, and the necklace was $4.95, all less 25%. The necklace is perfect--great AB crystals and milky white glass beads, and I know I'll be wearing it often because it will go with a lot of different outfits. I may be a SAHM but that doesn't mean I don't wear bling! I had spotted the crown brooch when I was in the week before but didn't want to pay full price. I was quite surprised that it was still there when I returned, so I snapped it up. It's not vintage but who can resist a sparkly crown? Maybe wearing a rhinestone crown brooch will take some of the drudgery out of Poopsmithing in the days to come.

Happy Easter!

Blessings to you and those you love! He is risen!

How to make Marshmallow Eggs: A tutorial

When I was visiting my grandparents last week I got this recipe from my Grammy for how to make homemade chocolate-covered marshmallow Easter eggs. She had gotten the recipe from an older woman at church a long time ago and has made it herself. She even gave me her plastic egg molds so I would have everything I needed.

Step 1: Prepare your molds.

The molds for these eggs are made by using a pan of flour and then pressing half of a plastic egg into the flour to make an impression. I've seen this same technique used on "Unwrapped" only the big companies use cornstarch. The marshmallow won't stick to the flour so you have no clean-up; just brush any stray flour off the eggs after they've set up and you're ready to dip them in chocolate.

Step 2: Make syrup
Begin by blooming gelatin in water and setting aside. Next, boil sugar and water together until it hits soft ball stage. Don't forget (like I did) to wash down the sides of the pan with a wet brush to eliminate any sugar crystals in the syrup.

Step 3: Whipping

Add gelatin, salt and vanilla to sugar syrup. Add just a touch of pink food coloring to tint the marshies a lovely shade of blush to coordinate with the brown chocolate. Transfer to the bowl of your trusty KitchenAid mixer (Hi Ruby, you love, you!) and start beating on High. Mixture will turn opaque and glossy when it is ready.

Step 4: Pouring into molds

Spray a rubber spatula with cooking spray to combat some of the stickiness. Scoop spoonfuls of the marshmallow mixture into the flour egg molds. Get strings of marshmallow stuck to your fingers, the spatula, the bowl, the marshmallows already in the flour and everything else you touch. Laugh hysterically as you make your kitchen and your hands into the stringiest, stickiest mess ever, while only managing to make sad little plops of marshmallow that don't remotely resemble eggs. Dump the sticky pans in the sink and resolve to let Mr. Stover handle the chocolate-covered-marshmallow-egg-making business from now on.

Seriously, what was I thinking? I've made marshmallows before so I well know how sticky they are when you are trying to get them into the pan, but for some reason I thought I could manage this. "Homemade chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs, how charming and old-fashioned! I can make some for the neighbors and they'll be so impressed. I am SO domestic." Riiiight. Actually, I am now reminded of the fact that several years ago Martha Stewart Living had an article in an April issue on how to make your own Peeps. I remember reading it and thinking, "what kind of freaky overachieving-Martha-lover makes their own Peeps, for crying out loud?" And now I think we all know the answer to that: People who have clearly lost their minds. People much like myself.

Thrift Thursday

One of the things I love best about visiting my grandparents is the opportunity for some small-town thrifting, and this latest trip didn't disappoint! I visited 4 different thrifts and found something to buy at each. Because they're all small and independently run, prices were pretty darn cheap, something I don't see much around these parts! That made shopping even more fun. Here's what I was able to find in between bouts of wrestling with Maren:

The two planters were $3 each, but I think the round one was actually 50% off that because it is green (in honor of St. Patrick's day, I guess). Heck, maybe the other one was too--I can't remember! The round one is really much more green than the aqua that I prefer, but it has enough blue to it that I think it still looks okay. I do know that the two rolls of gorgeous vintage ribbon were $1 each. There were more and I was tempted to buy them, but I refrained because I couldn't think what to do with them. Someday I'll regret that, I'm quite sure. Here's the neat old label on the ribbon:

Pretty, right? These next items were from a thrift shop which is right next door to the one where I bought the above items. They are both church-run and both opened up last August. I can't imagine how they both stay in business, especially considering there's another thrift about a block away--and all of this in a town of about 4500 people!

The cheesy souvenir plate is for my guest room wall and was 25¢. The little green ceramic piece had a label on it from an antique store stating that it was a wall pocket and with a price of $14.30. The thrift store had it priced at $1.43! There's nothing wrong with it and I think it's just darling with the little blue birdie on the front. I also bought something else fun at this thrift but I don't have a picture of it yet. The prices in this thrift were amazingly cheap--I wish I could have found more to buy!

Then it was on to thrift #3. It was small but absolutely jam-packed. I started out by looking at the collectibles & dishes and was quickly discouraged when I found that they had anything that was collectible or old-looking priced very high. Most of everything else was just junk, and I thought I would be leaving empty-handed--that is, until I found the craft section! It was a mess so I had to dig while trying to keep one eye on Maren, but I managed to find all of the cards of seam binding and the package of unopened twill tape. The cards of rickrack and rolls of ribbon came from store #4.

I also found this cool old crepe paper lei and the old floral picks--little green hats for St. Patrick's Day and hearts that say "Mother" as well as

All of these fun Easter picks! I adore the little chenille chickies with feather tails! If only Easter weren't so early this year, I might be tempted to open an etsy shop just to sell these cuties! Maybe next year.
This bag of flower pins was $2.00. The yellow and pink roses are made of velvet and the stems are made of some weird green plastic tubing. I thought they might be pretty pinned on a bag. And the last things from that thrift were these:

An old shaker jar of green glitter and two very old printed nut cups. I only found these two and they were with the Easter stuff, so I wonder if maybe there weren't more lurking around somewhere. They were flat when I found them but they fold up rather ingeniously. When I put them together to take the photo I realized that they are damaged. If you look closely at the cup on the right, you can see a girl's shoes and the bottom of her dress--so there was a little girl there that sadly has since been torn off. Rats! They're still quite pretty and maybe I can think of a way to use them without that part showing.

Store #4 is actually a sister store to #3, just in a different town. That thrift store has an antique shop attached to it so they immediately cull any donations they receive of anything remotely old or of any value whatsoever and mark it up to sell at the antique store. Now, I realize that this is their prerogative and it makes them more money for the charity they support, but it still drives me nuts because that means that the stuff that makes it to the shelves is 98% pure JUNK. Really--it's pretty yucky stuff. They used to have a section up front with all their holiday items year-round, which was rare for me because all thrifts here just put out holiday items before the corresponding holiday. This is what enabled me to score a $4 vintage tinsel Christmas tree there a couple of summers ago, but when I went back last weekend they'd cleaned it all out and only had a few lame Easter items displayed. I did find the rickrack and ribbon pictured above and a package with several large rolls of colored thin metal foil--all of it for a grand total of $1.00.

On my way out through the attached antique shop, I saw this:

I first spotted this item in that store at least a year ago. I know it was there in February 2007 when I was in town and I saw it again last August as well. It was originally priced at $5 and because I am cheap, that was way too much. When I went in again last weekend there it was, marked down to $3. Still probably too much, but I figured that maybe because it has been there all this time and has caught my eye every time, that it was meant to come home with me. :) Here's what it looks like spread out:

I'm really not sure what it's supposed to be--there is fringe on both sides so I don't think that it's supposed to be a flag. Whatever it is, it will be cool with my 4th of July decorations this summer!

The last treasure I brought home was actually a gift from my Gram who understands and shares my love of vintage Christmas ornaments.

Gram bought all of these at a little antique store in town around Christmastime. Do you see the big ball that is red with turquoise and silver stripes? Perfect! They're all beautiful--the lanterns, the indents, the stripes, the bells--they are like jewels to me! Oh and Dad--I'll split these with you, but I have dibs on the red & turquoise one. :)

Green, Eggs & a Ham

Okay, I'll be honest. I really can't get too excited about St. Patrick's Day as a holiday. I'm not Irish, I'm not Catholic, I don't drink, and I don't live in a place with a lot of Irish heritage. At least when we lived in Savannah the latter was true so I could have fun with the parade and other peripheral madness. Here in Denver, I'm just not feeling it. I'm not even wearing any green today. Even so, I never pass up an opportunity to use one of my cute Dover clipart images!

This weekend was the fourth weekend in a row that either DH or I have been out of town. He had to work on Saturday & Sunday so I packed up Maren and we drove 4 hours south to visit my grandparents for a few days. It was wonderful to see them and just hang out. And there was thrifting! I'll share photos later this week when I get it all unpacked.

I did promise to show photos of the glass glitter eggs I made last week.

Here's how I have them displayed; the silver bowl is thrifted and they are sitting in a nest of Spanish Moss. I'm not sure that I love it though--I think it's just a bit too monochromatic for my taste. I used the moss because I wanted something more rough and organic to offset the glittery eggs, but it's all just a little boring to look at. I may have to dig through the cupboards to see if I can find a different bowl with some color to it. Here's a close-up of the eggs so you can sort of see how sparkly they really are.

Here's a tip for working with glass glitter that I've found useful: I try to keep the glitter contained when I'm using it but inevitably some ends up on my work surface. Normally I'd just swipe it off with my hand but when I'm using glass glitter (especially the very coarse grade, like on these eggs) the last thing I want to do is to embed tiny shards of glass into the fleshy part of my hand. I've been using one of those sticky lint roller things (the kind with the tear-off sheets) to run over my desk and pick up all the stray glitter. It works like a charm! I've also used this same tool when I've dropped a light bulb, Christmas ornament or anything else where tiny slivers of glass are involved.

All right, we've covered the Green, the Eggs and now for the Ham!

This is Maren's "Fake Smile". It totally cracks me up every time! You try telling a three-year-old to smile naturally! This photo was taken when we were in SLC and Maren dyed eggs with my mom, who incidentally, she also calls "Ham." If you click to enlarge the photo you can also see Maren's blue-dye mustache. Love it.

Amazing Discoveries

Today, from the "Just when you think you've seen it all" file, comes this:
Yes friends, that is pancake batter in a squirt can! Unbelievable, right? My neighbor was at Costco yesterday where they were demo-ing this product and selling 3-packs of cans for a mere 99¢ each, so she bought two packs and shared a few cans with us. Hey, I'm always up for squirting my breakfast out of a can, so I tried it this morning. The verdict: eh. The pancakes tasted good, but were a bit thin, whereas I like mine nice and fluffy ala IHOP. I also had trouble getting the pan to the right temperature so they were too dark, but that is operator error--however, it would have been nice to have a heat setting listed on the can (lest you think I'm a total cooking dunce, I normally make pancakes on a big griddle with a temperature dial. Today I just wanted to use a frying pan and I don't know how lo/med/hi on my stove translates to degrees).

However, the awesome novelty factor of squirting your pancakes out of a can sort of makes up for the lackluster taste & texture. Just don't mistake this can for the whipped cream when you wander to the fridge for a midnight snack and shoot it straight down your gullet. That'll wake you up right quick.

The next AMAZING DISCOVERY for today is not something I actually discovered. Santa-Grammy Pam brought it to Maren for Christmas but heck, it might as well have had my name on the tag as well for as much as I've played with it.
It's a good thing I love this toy, because that is the only thing that is keeping me from pitching the WHOLE JAR straight into the trash this very second, because Maren just dumped it out again. For the sixth time in about two days. Literally, I had to clean up the beads to take this photo 15 minutes ago and then right after that, she dumped them all out again. This time, outside on the back deck. That earned her a little trip to her bedroom for Time Out, so at least I'm typing in peace.

ANYWAY. Santa brought these awesome pop beads for Christmas. I have played with pop beads before, but never a set that had such pretty colors or interested shapes as these! Included in the set are bracelets, rings, charms, and pendants that you can decorate with the pop beads.

See, aren't they cool? All different shapes, sizes and textures. The label on the jar recommends them for ages 4+ and I agree that Maren is still a little young. She's past the putting things in her mouth stage so I'm not really worried about the choking factor, but it's difficult for her to get the little beads to snap together--she just doesn't quite have the dexterity yet. Also, you might want to make sure your kid is old enough to CLEAN THEM ALL UP without requiring punishment first. That is, unless you enjoy picking up tiny beads from your floor (or deck) over, and over, and over again.

03-11-08

This, my friends, is what obsession looks like:

That would be 30 tubes of Mentholatum Natural Ice, the only lip balm that I will use. I can't buy it around here anymore--believe me, I looked in every store in a 10-mile radius and came up with nothing. I read a rumor somewhere online that it is discontinued, a fact (if it is true) that is enough to send me alternately into full-body convulsions and screaming, crying fits. Folks, I am SERIOUS about my lip balm. I did find an online drugstore that sells it in boxes of 15 and I bought two. I need to do more investigating to see if that ugly rumor is true and if so, I need to order every tube I can get my shaking little hands on. Seriously. If the Apocalypse comes and I don't have any Mentholatum, I'm going to wish I was dead anyway.

In other, not so obsessive news, I finished the glittered eggs and will post a pic soon. They're pretty but I still think they'd be really great in pastels. Next, it's on to stacks of glittered boxes. Shortly after, I'll be glittering anything that will stand still long enough for me to slap some glue on with a paintbrush.

Are these not the cutest skirts? I found this link via Petula Darling and now I am quite sure that I need the red and white scherenschnitte skirt, the red and white toadstool skirt and the green apple skirt and the red and yellow tulip skirt as well. Oh my gosh, those are cute. Wow. I luuurrrrve them.

And because this thread needs another picture, Gratuitous Cute Kid Photo Alert!


This is Maren enjoying the spring sunshine when we were visiting my folks a few weeks ago. I love her big movie star sunglasses. So glamorous!

03-07-08

Thank you all for your great suggestions for what I should do with my shelf. It always helps to have a fresh pair (or a dozen! LOL) of eyes, doesn't it? I'll keep playing with it and rearranging and I'll let you know what I finally come up with.

Today I have a few crafty things to share. I chose not to participate in any Easter swaps this year. I did too much for Valentine's Day and ended up a bit burnt out, so it has been nice to be able to craft without a deadline. When I was home last week my mom and I made our customary pilgrimage to my most favorite store in the whole world. Even though I didn't actually buy anything, just looking at the beautiful, unusual displays was inspiring. I did see a few interesting things that I knew I could recreate at home.


This is a papier mache letter that my mom got at Paper Source, and I know there are other stores who sell similar large letters and shapes. I simply squirted tacky glue all over, smoothed it out with a sponge brush, then dumped silver glass glitter all over the letter. The key is that I used very coarse glitter--it looks like little shards of silver. I ordered it last year with no idea that it would be quite so coarse and when I received it I was disappointed; I just couldn't see what I could possibly use it for. Now I'm so glad I have it! After I dumped off the excess coarse glitter, I then dumped fine glass glitter over it to fill in any open areas of glue and to add an extra layer of sparkle. I wish I could show you how truly sparkly it is in person--it just doesn't translate well to a still photo. Here's the best I could do:


In person, it glitters as if it's covered in thousands of tiny mirrors! One thing I learned is that you should do any inside or hard to reach areas first--I saved the inside of the H for last and it was tricky to get the paintbrush in there while holding onto the the outside. The glitter is so coarse that it's kind of poky, plus I didn't want to knock the glitter off the already-glued portions by handling it too roughly. Dear Lizzie also sold a line of boxes completely covered in the glitter and as soon as I can run to Hobby Lobby, I'm going to buy a few boxes of my own. I found some thrifted wooden eggs rolling around in my box of Easter decor so I did the same treatment to those as well. They're drying right now and they look great! Now I wish I had other colors of the coarse glitter besides silver. Wouldn't a whole bowl of pastel-colored glittery eggs be pretty?

The other crafty thing I have to share is for a church party in a few weeks. The women's organization is having a dinner with a birthday theme and we made favors to put on the tables.


We'll be decorating the tables to correspond with the months of the year and using holiday decorations for each month. So, the December table will be Christmas decorations, the February will be Valentine's, and so on. We chose to do the favors in primary colors because then they'll match all the different holiday decor, plus I like bright colors for a birthday party. I got the idea for the little jars from my mom, who sent me a couple filled with pink and red M&Ms for Valentine's Day. I copied her design exactly using the bright colors and used Skittles in the jars instead of M&Ms, just in case of peanut allergies. The little jars are from Michael's and Party America, I used cardstock scraps from my stash to punch all the shapes, and I got self-adhesive rhinestones from the $1 section at Michael's and used my 40% off coupon to buy a box of Glue Dots. We made 56 bottles and the total, including two huge bags of Skittles was somewhere around $40.00! Not bad, eh? I prepped all the pieces and then we put everything together in less than an hour at my meeting the other night. Easy as pie! Now the hard part will be finding a Maren-proof place to stash them until the party on the 19th.

Quin left today for the weekend; he's attending the wedding of a good friend in Georgia. I'm envious that he gets to go somewhere where it will be warm and there are flowers and green leaves. I would like to just skip March and April altogether and head straight to May's warm temperatures, thankyouverymuch. Spring is by far my least favorite season--around here and where I grew up in Utah it's just so wishy washy. Warm one day, snow the next. The crocuses get brave and push their little heads through the cold ground, only to be felled by yet another night of below freezing temperatures. The sun comes out and looks deceptively warm, but the air is still too chilly to spend much time outside without the burden of a coat. Blah. Give me summer or autumn any time! The only good thing about spring for me right now is that it heralds the beginning of yard sale season around here. It's still a bit early but I did see two yard sale signs when I was driving home from the commissary today, so that gives me hope! And you know where I'll be tomorrow morning. :)

03-06-08

You know, I'm sick of trying to come up with clever titles for my blog posts. I think I may steal a page from this blogger and just start dating things.

Thanks for sharing my excitement about my Jadeite find! Here's what I've done with it:


There is a shelf over the pantry door in my kitchen so I put most of the pieces up there along with a few of another collection, my sunburst Ovenex pans. I like it, but it's a little boring, right? It needs some red but I'm not sure how to add that in. What I had up there before was a row of old blue glass canning jars and then I folded some old printed dishcloths into points and had those hanging over the edge, overlapping. Maybe I could do something similar with squares of fabric? Red gingham, maybe? I'd love to hear your suggestions!

I've been on an eBay binge now for a few weeks. Unfortunately it's a buying binge, not a selling binge, which is the kind of binging I really need to do. It was love at first sight when I found this cute sign:

It's a reproduction, but cute nonetheless. It's red, has a heart, looks old and mentions cupcakes so that meant I pretty much HAD to buy it, right? (And let's not even mention my secret shame LOVE for Hostess snack cakes.) I rearranged my kitchen counters so now it lives next to Ruby the red KitchenAid and they make a cute couple. Unfortunately, the eBay seller was lousy and the sign arrived 1) very late and 2) slightly bent due to his poor packing job, so if any of you are looking to buy one of these, contact me and I'll tell you who NOT to buy from.

Who watched the Project Runway finale last night? I knew Christian would win based on his work for the whole season and I think he's incredibly talented and he deserved it, even if he is an arrogant little twerp. I did like Rami's runway collection the best out of the three and I think he'll have a successful career dressing movie stars for red-carpet events. His gowns were gorgeous! Jillian's collection was such a letdown for me--I loved her work all season long, but I thought her stuff last night was ugly and just totally blah. Too bad. Tonight I have a busy evening of "LOST" watching scheduled because I have to catch up on last week's show as well.

Tomorrow I have a few crafty projects to share!

While I was visiting my folks last week I thought it might be fun for my dad and me to hit an estate sale (or perhaps even a garage sale, if the weather held) so I popped on Craigslist to see if any had been listed. Out of curiosity I also checked the 'collectibles' section, to see if anything interesting was posted for sale. I did find a listing for a few days previous for a collection of Jadeite that a woman was asking $125 for. I checked it out, but figured that since it had been a few days it had probably already been spoken for.

On Friday morning I checked again and there was a new listing for the same Jadeite, but this time the seller had brought the price down to $100! The listing was for 20 pieces of Jadeite, so that made each piece $5--a bargain, considering the prices I'd seen on the Jadeite items at the antique mall the day before.

However, we had guests coming and I didn't have time to contact the seller until after lunchtime when they'd gone home. I was just sure that someone else had beat me to it but I called the seller anyway to check. To my surprise, it was still available! My mom and I loaded Maren into the car and ran to the ATM to get cash, then headed down to the seller's house.

The seller was a sweet woman named Lynda who lived in the coziest little pink and green apartment. I can see where her Jadeite collection fit right into her decor! She told me that since I had spoken to her, she had found a few more pieces of Jadeite that she would add at no additional cost. In fact, as I was leaving she spied a vase on the table, pulled the flowers out of it, and plopped it into the box in my arms! We visited for a few minutes and I told her how tickled I was to find this collection. She told me that she could tell it would be going to a good home, and I assured her that was definitely the case.

So, do you wanna see what I bought?

And this isn't everything! It's just what I could manage to stuff in a carry-on to bring home with me. There are still 4 or 5 large bowls, a drippings jar and another small covered jar that I had to leave behind at my parents' house until one of us drives to visit the other. I thought I was going to have to leave it all until a few minutes before we had to leave for the airport when I had a flash of inspiration. I dumped all of Maren's clothes into my suitcase so that I could pack hers with my bubble-wrapped treasures, which I then carried on to the plane.

I love, love, LOVE my new collection! I've been looking for Jadeite for a long time but have never found anything. I take that back--I once found a chipped dinner plate at a thrift store but I didn't buy it because of the condition, and even then they wanted several dollars for it. Now I have an instant collection! I love that there are a variety of shapes and sizes of items. I think my favorite is probably the large pitcher--won't it look gorgeous with flowers in it? I also love the shape of the small green vase. Now, I have a suspicion that some of the pieces might be reproductions. I'd have to do some research to find out for sure but even if they are, I don't really care! They're for me to enjoy, not to sell, so market value is irrelevant.

If you want to see some closer photos of the items, you can find them on my Flickr page.

Thrifting on the road

While I was in SLC we found time to do a little thrifting, of course! We stopped at a couple of thrift stores and though the pickings were slim, I found a few items worth making room for in my suitcase.
The glass jars are nothing more fancy than old olive or caper jars, but I think I can gussy them up with ribbons, rub ons and pretty treats and they'll be darn cute. None was more than 50¢. The Martha plate holder was also 50¢; I always pick those up when I find them cheap because I use them in my guest room to hold my souvenir plates. This one actually has some nice little details. The old red-handled ice cream scoop was less than a buck and will go with the rest of my collection of Old Utensils with Painted Handles That I Have No Good Way to Display But Cannot Seem to Pass Up. The neat old number stamp in the front was found by my dad somewhere and has a cool green metal knob on top and will be displayed on my desk.

My dad and I made the ambitious (or foolish, you make the call) choice to attempt the antique mall with Maren in tow. I don't think I've ever said "Hold hands!" and "Only touch with ONE finger!" so often in such a short period of time. Still, in between the frantic admonishing I was able to find a few goodies. I was chiefly looking for aqua-colored things to flesh out my new vision for my front room.On the left is a cream soup dish from the Franciscan Coronado pattern. I love the color and the graceful swirls! On the right is a little planter. It's a bit chippy and has a few pinpricks in the glaze but those imperfections don't bother me one bit, and they brought the price down to $2.00! I love color, the roses, the shape of the handles--it's perfect to me! I wrapped them both up in lots of bubble wrap and tucked them in my carry-on bag and thankfully, they made it safely home! I love thrifting on the road!

In like a Lion

Yesterday, it was 70 degrees here in Denver. Today, it looked like this:


When I got up to let the dog out at 5:45 a.m. I opened the door and was hit by a blast of icy cold wind and snow! It was then that I decided maybe today might be a good day to play hooky from church and stay inside where it is warm and cozy instead. We've had a lazy, snuggly day and we've thoroughly enjoyed it. Today is our 6th wedding anniversary and it's been so nice to just be together.

Maren and I got home last night from our trip to Utah. We had a wonderful time visiting family, shopping, and just hanging out. The change of scenery and time with my parents was just what I needed to feel energized and ready to tackle life again. There was thrifting, an awesome score from Craigslist, and a hilarious Broadway musical. Here's a little taste of the show we saw. I'll be back tomorrow with more from our trip!