Jeannie Marie & Company

My sister Karan and I took an afternoon and had lunch out and checked out some new thrift shops.  She scored a few special finds and I found these: I'm always needing buttons, so this was the first blouse I bought for the buttons. When I cut the buttons off I immediately re-purposed into a bag because I absolutely loved the pattern and the stretchy cotton fabric. Had I known I would do that I would have taken a "before" picture of the blouse!  $3.77 The square buttons are an inch square and they are carved!  Look how many were on the blouse! We squealed over this find! A Coldwater Creek Felted Vest with appliqued Snowman and embroidered trees and snowflakes!  $3.77  Yellow tags were half price on Tuesday And I picked up two of these shell sweaters for half price so both together were $3.39. I already turned the orange one into a bag last Tuesday when we shopped.  I should have taken it this morning when I was rockin' all that orange but I forgot I had it.  I

I didn't wear Thanksgiving colors for the big day but really, this is still a harvest weekend and I like orange!   We even visited Harvest Baptist Church today on our quest to find a church home.  If I ever found a duplicate Community Baptist Church from Saginaw, Michigan I found it here.  Even down to the Sword of the Lord publication in the foyer.   Every woman there wore a skirt.  No exceptions.  Oh, except me.  The preacher used expressions that I haven't heard in awhile like "Under Conviction" and "slip up your hand" several times.  The hymns were the old favorites and the the church activities were the same "The Ladies Missionary Fellowship", "Soul Winning", and they have services, Sunday School, Sunday Worship, Sunday Evening and Wednesday Night with Fellowships once a month.   I talked to a teen about the music they liked and Casting Crowns was very edgy for them.  I mentioned Underoath was from this area and did they like

I was thankful all day.   The turkey went in on time.  I whiled away the hours it baked making a bag from the sweater I felted yesterday: I love the color!  Inside are two big pockets and a loop around the middle flower keeps it closed. I wore traditional Thanksgiving colors  Not!  And we feasted at Mom's house! ...who also baked pies yesterday!   Lest you suspect we only had turkey and pie I will give your our menu.  It's very traditional. Roast Turkey w/cranberry sauce Spiral Ham Mashed Potatoes & gravy Sweet Potato Caserole Sage & Apple Dressing Broccoli w/cheese sauce Corn Relishes Tray w/olives, veggies & dip Deviled Eggs Squash Soup Rolls & Butter Sangria or Ginger Ale Apple, Pumpkin or Chocolate Pie Orange cake frosted with chocolate  Uncle Bob still managed to have room for dessert after a full plate!  Go UB!  Looking pretty good with his 89th birthday just on the horizon As with all family gatherings, a four generation photo has be

 It's so easy to order your Thanksgiving pie from your favorite restaurant or bake your own from the freezer at the grocery it's a wonder people still bake from scratch.  The fact is they asked me to bring a ready made pie but I scoffed at that and said, oh...I'll just make some, pie crust is easy. And it was. It's the aftermath!   It's also the shock of discovering that in the attempt to scale down I only brought two pie pans with me to Florida, but volunteered to make three pies. Hence, my pretty baking dish from Shelly, that I have kept almost pristine by NOT baking in it was pressed into service for the apple pie. The pumpkin pie filling was fun to do.   Even though they were baked in weirdest pie pans ever.  I found them in the back of the cupboard in Ohio, brand new with the tags still on them so I left my Pyrex and my good metal pans behind and opted to keep the new ones that had a nonstick coating.    For the li

I love that we can quickly email a message. We can Tweet in a heartbeat and some people even still fax. Phone calls on smart phones can send images while we speak. But there was something special about real mail.  The mail we hike out to the end of the driveway to get.  Today it contained a letter, hand addressed...in gold ink...with sealing wax. How often has that appeared in your mailbox?  For me, very rarely.  Even before the electronic age.  It was so charming, so unexpected I was reluctant to open the envelope.  But I did.  Preserving the sealing wax, of course. This special envelope did include a delightful letter! Isn't this better than email?  This is an actual hand print, I can feel the ridges.  The lace behind our great niece's picture is real.  The poem is personal.   Thank you, Holly!  You really brightened our day!   Happy Holly Days back to you! (And I'm saving the sealing wax too)

Well, what I wore was a semi-fail really.  Bill was complimentary when I came out and twirled and he took my picture this morning:  But I had an issue with the Grasshoppers.    There is Velcro across the top of the shoe.  It's designed so you can adjust the shoe for a wider or narrower toe.  I adjusted it and when I climbed into the truck one of the toe straps popped open!  I reattached it (puffing a little) and we left.   We stopped for mints and I went in to get them and when I got out of the truck, it popped again!  Rats!  I ignored it.  Big mistake.  The shoe flapped as I walked in and I felt like I did when I was 10 and my saddle shoe sole flapped.   Inside at the register I pretended I dropped something, hurried and reattached it, paid for my gum and left.  It popped open on the way to the truck...flap, flap, flap.   By this time I felt hot and out of sorts.  The windows had to be down and we discovered the new church we were visiting was on a dirt road.  Choking on the du

So, I've been visiting a number of blogs where it has been fascinating to see them post what they are wearing. One blog adds up the cost of her outfit each day.   It naturally inspired me to put together an outfit for my blog.  Since tomorrow is Sunday, it's natural to dress up for church and we are going out to lunch afterwards.  So below is the outfit I put together tonight to wear. I found these great Grasshopper sandals while thrifting today.  It's November, I know, but its going to be in the 80's by noon so they will be perfect.  $2.99  This skirt is long and swirly.  It is fully lined with a soft spandex lining.  I love it.  $5.49.  A bit pricy at the thrift shop but it came home with me anyway.  I love the bright pink in the center of the flowers. This scarf belonged to my Grandmother.  I have never worn it, but decided it needed a bit of airing.  My Aunt Pat sent it to me along with several others a few years ago.  Earlier this fall I picked up several tank

Thrifting will score you books from your childhood that you always wished you could own!  Yesterdays post was about the triplets Flicka, Ricka, Dick that Maj Lindman wrote about. Today I bring you the companion books to them, a series of books about Snipp, Snapp, Snurr!  This series was just as entertaining to me as a child even though it was all boy adventures.  The boys seem to get into more misadventures than the girls!  Isn't she a comfortable looking Nanny?  I would trust her in a heartbeat! Keeping track of three little boys, though, isn't easy at her age! They push the washtub into the water and off they go!  So off they sail, out into the sea and Nanny is frightened, but they are rescued.  Suddenly the summer turns into swimming lessons for the boys.   I like how the author, Maj Lindman shows why there is need for learning how to swim and then the practical application.   The boys can be as kind as we saw Flicka, Ricka, Dicka behave in yesterdays post, n

Who couldn't love these three little girls from Sweden?  This was my very first favorite book series.  These and Snipp, Snapp & Snurr of course! Both series were written and illustrated by Maj Lindman The colorful and full page illustrations really spoke to me.  I poured over them, noting every detail. The bold print was large and easy to read, once I learned. They were perfect for five year old me.  You could "read" the story just from the illustration.  But when I learned to read, I read this series over and over.  The prose was simple but not childish.  The books never talked down to children. I liked the idea of being a triplet, but with sisters close in age on either side of me, I felt like one.  I'm glad they are in print again, but I love the old library copies best. 

I've always been a thrifter, even as a child my favorite store was what we called the junk store on Chestnut Avenue.  This was in the days before yard sales or before I knew about them.  I loved to sift through the tables piled high with old junk that I remember being mainly car parts and boy stuff.  But there were tiny treasures to be had, old broken jewelry, treasure boxes, comics by the bundle.  The store was dark and dusty and the proprietor didn't mind children picking things up and moving them.  I filled house after house over the years with my yard sale finds, a perfect quilt from the 30's back in 1975 for $5.00 from an elderly person who was sick and tired of it being on her guestroom bed, a curved top trunk I kept for more than 40 years that sold for more than I paid for it and necessary items, like clothing, that we wore and resold. Now I have downsized and sold and given away more than half of what I owned, I love the freedom of not having so much "st