{ A Rainy Day in the Garden, and a few antique store finds }

 

The sun has just come out, the skies are a beautiful pale blue, and the rain has moved on.

 

But earlier today, it poured, and when I say it poured, I mean it really poured down.

I had dropped Jasmine off and was on the way back home, when it started.  Within 2 minutes, I had my windshield wipers on full blast and still struggling to see the road ahead.  When the weather gets like this, I slow down, it doesn't matter what the speed limit is, I believe in being cautious, so I take my time.

It doesn't help that my car also seems to hate wet roads, and has a tendency to slide.  It makes me so nervous every time it does, because no matter how slow I'm going, it hits water on the road and starts sliding.  Nerve wrecking!

I made it home safe and sound, parked in the driveway, and then ran for the porch.  I still ended up looking like a drowned rat, that's how hard it was raining.

 

I've mentioned before how both Marley and Elliott are scared of storms, and even though Nick was up and in the office, on his computer, they were both at the front door waiting for me to return. 

 

I had no sooner opened the door, when a loud thunder and lightning cracked right in the front yard, sending me running into the house with a scream.

 

Marley scattered one way in fear, Elliott ran to hide so fast, it was almost a blur.  My goodness, the storms in Texas are intimidating.

 

Scary but beautiful at the same time. I love stepping outside to see not only the rain falling, but the aftermath. 

 

Sparkly drops hanging on flower petals, or just at the tip of a leaf, dangling, waiting to fall to the ground.  

These are the moments I grab my camera and am thankful for not only loving photography, but being able to capture such lovely snapshots of an otherwise normal day.

How many times do you actually stop to look at raindrops on a flower, or a blade of grass?  I never used to, until I started blogging and then it became normal, to always have the camera nearby for times such as these.

The garden is loving all the rain, as is expected.  The flowers are blooming and showing off their gorgeous colors and designs, the vegetables are growing in leaps and bounds, matter of fact, I've already harvested lettuce and green onions.  

So pretty!!!

 

Of course, the birds are also loving the warm weather, and it's quite interesting watching them during rain storms.  Some hide in trees , while others take that moment to do fly bys in the yard, back and forth, landing on the fences and fluffing their feathers.

 

Before I show you the few things I got at the antique store this weekend, let me show you our Elliott. He is so cute, naughty, but cute. Hahahah 

The first thing I got was this little sign.  It is handmade as you can tell, but I love imperfect things items.  I don't like anything to look pristine and new, because I find that the more imperfect they look, the more they fit in with my simplistic country/primitive look.

I have been looking for some baskets to reorganize my pantry, and these were pretty cheap, so got two.

You'll have to excuse the Elliott foot, you know cats, they have to be in every basket they find.  

Then I saw this book, and immediately grabbed it.  It was just a dollar.

Little Women is one of my favorite books of all time, and the fact that it is an old book, just makes it that much more appealing.  It's going right on my shelf along with the other old books I've collected over the years.

It wasn't a lot of things, but they were things that caught my eye and will be used and loved here in our home.

 

I hope you enjoyed the flowers, the rain shots and seeing what I picked up over the weekend.   

{ Antique stores and more books to read }

If you love antique stores, raise your hand up, wayyyyyy up high.

 

Y'all, we love browsing around our local antique stores, and we have quite a few good ones in our town.  Matter of fact, Curt and I tend to do this as a date, we go out shopping, sometimes we get some good finds, sometimes we just look and come home empty handed.  

 

Either way, we love doing this together, it's a great way to spend quality time and since the kids are now adults and not interested in hanging out with their parents, we just do our own thing.  HA!!!

We went out to get Jasmine from work, but decided to leave an hour earlier and just pop into some of our local antique places.  We stopped at two, took a look around and then remembered that one of our favorites recently moved, and we hadn't yet visited the new location.

 

My goodness were we in for a treat.  A huge building, two story high jam packed with all sorts of treasures.   We didn't get to see much, however, because by the time we arrived we had about 10 minutes before Jasmine clocked out.

I still managed to grab some books, which I'll show you below.

I have this thing, where I could spend hours inside these places, just looking over every thing, imagining who the previous owner could have been, or trying to figure out the story that goes along with that specific item.

For me it is almost like a step back in time.  I said to Curt today that one day I'm going to have a small room in our house, that I will decorate with a ton of antiques to make it look like you have just been transported back in time.  Yes, I will!

Aside from all the cool gadgets and knick knacks, one of the things I always gravitate to, are the old books.  I would love to have a wall to wall shelf filled with old books, of all sizes and colors.

This one below was falling apart, just like it's friends behind on the shelf.  You almost are too scared to pick them up and look through them, but I did nonetheless. 

I wish I had had more time to sit and look through them all, but like I said above, we had to leave shortly after arriving.  We will be back on Monday morning though, Curt is off work so we have planned to go back and really take our time looking through everything.

Now let me show you what I picked up from the two stores we were in.  

A pecan cracker.  We have been talking about getting one for pecan season which is this year, and were going to order it online, but luckily for us, there was one just sitting there waiting.  So it came home with us.

My little haul today, mostly books as you can see.  A pecan cracker and a little doily.

Good Housekeeping Meals Tested, Tasted and Approved.  It was released in January 1, 1930, and it's this really cute vintage cookbook.  It is in very good condition for the year it was released.  

This one is not vintage by any means, but I love anything to do with the pioneers, the wagon trains and so on.  It looked like something I would enjoy, so I grabbed it.   

 

This one is also not vintage, but I just had to get it.  It was just $1 and since I make all of Marley's food, I thought it would be a great addition to my cookbook collection.  Can't wait to see the recipes inside.

 

 

This one I was super excited to get too.  It is in amazing condition and was only $8.  It was published in 1950 and as I quickly flipped through the pages, I knew I had to have it.  

 

I believe there is nothing like old cookbooks, the kind my great grandma used to cook from and refer to.  I still remember she had this green book similar to this one, that I wanted so badly, but she gave it to my uncle, and after he passed I have no idea what his wife did with the book.  Broke my heart that I wasn't able to keep it, but since then I have been on the look out for something similar.

 

 

These 4, I was soooooooo and I mean SO happy to find.  I bought one from this collection, at a thrift store, many years ago.  I've actually shown it to you a couple times.  It is called Women, and is such a neat book, filled with information and history, just the perfect book for this history nerd.

 

I had no clue it was part of a collection, and when I say a collection, I don't mean just 5 or 6 books, apparently this collection is huge.  The one antique store had I guess, the full collection, and I had to tell myself NO multiple times.  I will get them all eventually, but not in one go.  

 

And if I'm meant to have them, then God will keep them there, if not, then that is fine too.  

 

By the way, if you're wondering, they are part of The Old West Series.

 

 

The Gunfighters.....yeah, I'm reading that one first because it talks about Tombstone and the James brothers, Butch Cassidy and all those interesting gunslingers.

 

The Chroniclers, The Indians and The Loggers.

 

Apparently there are 26 books in this series, and I don't know, but I think it would be a great collection to have on the bookshelf, especially if you like history as much as I do.

 

So that was my little haul.  I spent less than $20 on all these items, I don't remember the exact prices, but they were dirt cheap for sure.

 

I can't wait to get back on Monday to see what else we come across, and if we do bring anything home, I'll show you.

Finally, wanted to show you these two books below, which I've added to my read list for the year of 2021.  The first one is All Creatures Great and Small, and I got it for review many years ago.  It is one of my favorite books and since I recently watched the new tv series adaption, I felt like reading it again.

 

 

 

Cilka's Journey, is one that I have wanted for a while, ever since I read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, last year.  Curt knew I was looking for it, and got it for me this past week.  

 

I am so looking forward to getting started on it.  

 

Anyway, this post has gone on long enough, I'm sorry it is so long and filled with so many photos, but it's been a while since I've gone to an antique store, or brought any goodies home, and I was excited to show you.

 

Hope you enjoyed it.  Let me know what you think of my finds, and let me know if you also enjoy antiquing as much as we do. 

Day out with my loves

When we lived in Arizona, we used to go out and do family things, all the time.

We weren't spending a lot of money, but we lived right in the middle of Glendale and so close to shopping, restaurants, and all sorts of fun activity things, that we always had somewhere to go.

After Curt retired and we moved to Idaho, life became tough, in many ways.  The change alone of going from military active duty family to civilian family, is overwhelming.  When you throw in finances, trying to adjust, finding a new home and jobs and all that stuff, going out and doing fun things, suddenly takes a backseat.

Then we moved to Texas, and it was another adjustment, another financial burden, add in a lot of stress, family deaths, my daughter's fight with depression and anxiety, and it really just became all about surviving and getting from one week to the next, sometimes from day to day.

Antiquing we will go.....

I spent the most perfect morning with my family, in downtown Historic Glendale, in some gorgeous Antique stores.

One, I could have lived in.  I found myself completely overwhelmed by the beautiful items around me, even my husband and children were heard ooohing and aaahing through the store.  It was the best hour I have spent in a long time.

One of my favorite decorating styles is primitive and I'm always looking to add pieces to my house, but they can be quite expensive so I don't buy many. But goodness, how can a girl resist all of this?

Much as I love color, and you KNOW I love color, I also love the darker reds, blacks and browns of primitive decor.  They're very earthy tones in my opinion, and go perfectly in any home.

*sigh*   I would love a cabinet like this in my home, a place I could stash quilts and fabrics.

The store I was in was huge, and every single wall, every nook and every cranny had a treasure.  I actually saw a pie cupboard that I fell in love with, it was SO expensive, that I wanted to cry.  And I found an old Singer Sewing Machine with the case, for $150 which is actually not bad at all.

It was almost too much at times.  Hubby told me to pick a few things and I kept saying "but I don't know what I want....how can I pick from all of these?". 

Quilts, candles, tins, beautiful chairs, paintings, country sayings, dishes, dolls, fabric, antique wooden chests, writing desks...soaps and lotions and anything you could think of for your home.

It took me a while.  I looked and looked some more, and my family looked along with me and they all decided that for my birthday they will be shopping there.

I ended up picking a few things and am so thrilled with them.

HAD to have this one. I just had to, there is something so wonderful about this old tin plate with the hard tack, I couldn't leave it behind.

Also bought myself an old cutting board which I've wanted for quite a long time.

Two small candle holders and two small candles which smell amazing

They all look just right on my wood stove cover.

I would have bought many many more things, but like I said, some were quite expensive and it's so hard to pick just a few items when you want to buy that 4 post bed, and that gorgeous $200 quilt, and then add in the pie cupboard for another $300 plus the gorgeous huge wood chest for $395.

I am SO glad my husband can do woodworking, I have some projects lined up for him. He may not be too thrilled with the long list, but I am LOL

We walked around a little, looked at a few more stores, my husband found a comic book store that he fell in love with. He collects comic books and has a gazillion boxes. He picked up 2 comic books and plans on returning for a few others that caught his eye.

It's fun to just go walking through the streets of Downton Historic Glendale. It has a very European feel to it.

You could spend a morning shopping, having tea, or eating a lunch outside in the warm sunlight. Great place for a family outing.

We stopped at another antique store. I kept telling the family to stop taking me into these, but they find it hilarious because I get so happy inside.

Oh if I could have shown you all the old cookbooks I found, even came across a Mrs Beeton's Everyday Cookery published over 100 years ago. But it was a little out of my price range. I did show it to hubby for my birthday LOL

This particular store even had a second floor filled with gorgeous antiques, so I grabbed these for $4.00.

Have wanted wooden pegs like these for a long time too.

And also grabbed the vintage embroidered cloth beneath it for $2.00.

Gorgeous!

All in all, managed to come home with some good finds which make me extremely happy.

I think I'll spend the rest of the day working on my crochet and then taking the pugs for a walk.

Hope you're all having a fantastic Saturday :)