Baby Peeps Introductions

Remember these little guys.....oops - I mean girls?



That was 4 weeks ago. You can read about the day Kevin and Jessica brought them home here. Let me tell you, spring peeps turn VERY quickly into spring chickens! They have grown faster than bad weeds, and this past weekend, they moved from a big tub in Kevin's basement and got introduced to their permanent home - the brand new coop.

They have lots of room now to spread out, test their wings, peck on new things.

Ummm....girls.... you can spread out now.
Guess they still have that 'bird's of a feather flock together' thing going strong.

They also got introduced to Billy.

Yep, we'll be keeping chicken wire between cat and bird.
Although truth be told, Billy isn't too awfully interested in them.
He's a great hunter, he can catch birds and mice with the best of them.
But, he seems to be a little intimidated by 40 peeping chicks who are growing by leaps & bounds.

The first evening they were in the coop, they were just a little skittish around us strange humans, but they quickly got over that once they discovered the ultimate toy...........shoe strings.

Good thing I had on old shoes and old jeans. Once one found my shoestrings, the others quickly joined in on the fun.

They had my shoes untied in no time!

How do I train them to tie my shoes back up?

Jessica hadn't seen them in person since the weekend she and Kevin brought them home. She had to go back to her life in the big city. But Easter brought her home to the country again, and she wasted no time getting reacquainted.

We've got to get that girl back to her country roots more often!

Jessica is Always Thinking

One day Jessica & Brian were talking about their future, and their dreams of buying their own house. She said he listened patiently while she went into detail about how she would decorate each  room.

When she was done, he asked, "when do you have time to come up with all this?"

Her answer?

"You know those times when I'm being quiet? I'm decorating in my head."

Ahhh, I think many of us ladies can identify with that!

Our Family Thinks Outside the Box

Country & primitive decorating lends itself to thinking outside the box. That fits very well into our life, since George & I tend to walk a little different path than most folks.

Maybe we're wired different, I don't know. I do know that we tend to do things our own way. (Some may think we do it the HARD way, and they may be right!). And, the old ways appeal to us.

For better or worse, we passed those traits on to Jessica & Kevin. When they get together, they spend their time dreaming & conspiring & planning all things country & farm related. Probably not a real common thing for early 20 somethings in this day and age!

Jessica's husband Brian was quite amused when on a trip to Washington DC, we didn't have much time left. We left the decision up to Kevin - do we go to the Capitol Museum, or the Botanical Gardens? Guess which one he chose.........

Besides, we could see the Capitol from the Botanical Gardens.

Jessica proved she loved country and could think outside the box when she was a teenager. We ran across an old Hoosier cupboard similar to this one. It was dirty and cheap, and she had to have it. We had no where to store it, so what did she do? She painted it, then put it in her bedroom. It became her dresser! I doubt too many Hoosier's sit in a teenage girls bedroom...full of clothes.

And Kevin? His living and dining rooms are decorated with lots of feed sacks. One is framed, similar to the one above we have for sale in the store.

But most are just hung on the walls, like this one in the store. It really looks cool, and country. When Kevin and his cousin were discussing something or other, and Kevin gave an opinion, his cousin said, "Oh Kevin, what do you know, you have feed sacks on your wall". Hee hee.

Look at the farm scenes to the right of the feed sack. It's becoming very popular to hang canvas prints without frames. Thinking outside the box.

Speaking of boxes:

Old wood boxes are great hung on the wall. Just make sure your nail is in a stud.

Or how about hanging this tray from an old trunk on the wall? It could hang as shown, or turned the other way. Instant shadow box.

Wood trunks or tool boxes make great coffee tables. Or storage in a mud room. Or any other room.

These stars and hearts are cut from a rusty metal taken off my father-in-laws barn. Let me tell you, he thought we were crazy when we wanted to keep the metal and barn wood. He stopped in the shop one day and looked at things we had made from some of it. He just shook his head.



It may be hard to see in this pic, but George built this display shelf, using 2 old shutters for the ends.

I'm sure most people would think this rusty locker door should be scrapped. But I think it has potential. How about a backdrop in a flower bed?



Painted Ironing Board

I keep a supply of ironing boards on hand at the store, mainly for display purposes. I keep them in the back, and if a piece of furniture sells, I can grab one of the ironing boards and fill in with it till I get something else to fill in the hole.

This one had issues. It sits fine in the folded-up position you see here, but if you try to set it up as if you were going to iron on it, it doesn't sit correctly. It leans.

So... I decided to paint it. I'm happy with my first attempt at painting an ironing board. May have to do it again!

Those Peeps are Growing Up...Fast!

My how they grow! Remember these little peeps?

This was taken on March 26.

Look at them now!

Just a week and a half later on April 6.

I'm glad our kids didn't grow that fast!

My mama's birthday

You might say we lost my mom twice, first to Alzheimer's Disease, then to death in 2005. As hard as it was to lose her to death, we knew that also brought release to her, and she could go home to heaven.  She struggled with Alzheimer's for many years, and as anyone who has gone through that knows, it's a terrible time of watching your loved one forget how to function, forget who you even are.

Mom, me (on her lap) and my sister. Isn't mom beautiful!

But mercifully, time heals, and now each day I remember the good times.

Her laughter.
Her smile.
Her kind words.
Her faith in God.

She's flipping through magazines while she eats corn flakes for breakfast.
Kneading bread dough, then baking it till it's golden brown.
Picking apples, and canning applesauce.

She's working in the garden.
Canning and freezing the harvest for winter.
Cooking glorious meals.

She's taking care of the cats.
The dogs.
Her grandchildren, who were her pride and joy.

She's beating me at Scrabble.
Laughing till there's tears in her eyes playing cards.
Teaching me funny little songs.

She's proof-reading my homework.
Giving me much needed advice.
On school...on friends...on family...on boys.........on life.

She's pinning a pattern to fabric.
Sewing new clothes.
Making my wedding gown.

She's helping dad in his business.
Laughing at something he said.
Sitting on the love seat, holding his hand.

She's a wonderful mother, and my best friend.

If you read my post yesterday, you'll know it was my 28th wedding anniversary. We got married on April 2, and mom's birthday was April 3. George told her she wasn't losing a daughter, she was gaining a son for her birthday. And she agreed.

Jo Ellen & I miss you mom, as do Jessica & Kevin, George & Terry & many others.

But we're so very thankful we had you in our life.

 We rest assured that you & dad are sitting together in heaven, still holding hands.

We love you.

28 years together, and going strong

George & I have been married 28 years today. Goodness, where did the time go?

We met in July of 1981, and got engaged just 3 months later.

Bit of advice! If you ever pull a stunt like that - don't tell your kids. Jessica & Kevin delight in rubbing that fact in any chance they get. Especially if we try to tell them to take their time on something.

But...we didn't get married until April 2, 1983, a year and a half later. So, we may have been engaged, but we still had plenty of time to change our minds! Not that we wanted to.

We didn't have much money, but that was ok. Young...poor...in love. Knowing nothing was more important than being together.

We had a wonderful honeymoon in the mountains of WV, staying in a little motel. 25 years later, we vacationed in the same mountains, only this time Jessica, her boyfriend Brian (now her husband) and Kevin were with us.

In 1983, I'm not sure if we had even heard of the internet. In 2008, I used the internet to plan our vacation. I looked up the motel we had honeymooned in. I found some very unflattering reviews, including one that said, "our stay there was the vacation from hell".

I guess 25 years can make a difference. I'm glad our marriage held up better than that!

We ended up staying at the Blackwater Lodge, where Jessica took this picture of us.

How are we spending our anniversary? Apart! Well, we had a little time together this morning, but then I went to work, and when I get home, he will be at work.

At least we were able to go out for dinner last night to celebrate. That hasn't always been the case. Somehow our anniversaries seem to invite trouble.

One year the toilet at the store picked that day to more or less explode, so that evening was spent frantically buying and installing a new one, and cleaning up from the old one.

That was romantic.

For our 25th, we waited till October to take an anniversary trip. On our way there, we stopped at Jessica and Brian's for a couple days. While there, we got the frantic phone call that Kevin had been stung and was in the ER. Turns out he is severely allergic to bees, and he almost died. Needless to say, we didn't take the rest of the anniversary trip. Maybe for our 30th.

So.....our anniversary celebrations don't always turn out like a fairy tale. Oh well...our marriage is strong, and we look forward to more time together. Jessica paid us quite the compliment a few days ago when she told her dad & I that she thought we had the ideal marriage. We were flattered...and humbled.

Is our marriage ideal? Well, I know he's ideal for me, and he says I'm ideal for him.

In this day of easy divorces, what makes our marriage work? Well, among other things....
We made a conscience decision to make God the head of our home.
We laugh with each other. A lot.
We respect each other. A lot.
We say I love you. A lot.
And mean it.

Happy Anniversary George! And hey, I loved your poem you recited to me this morning.

In case you have an anniversary coming up, and are in need of a poem, feel free to use George's.

It's quite original.

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
It's been 28 years.
And I still love you.

Ahh, he's a true romantic!

Vintage Baby Clothes and Baby Chicks

What fun it was to go through 2 bags of vintage baby clothes! The cute factor was in full force.

The clothes had belonged to a 91 year old woman. I can only assume that she had dressed her babies, and/or grandbabies in these.

Awwww! How sweet are those little booties!!! And the bibs at the top left of the picture! There's entirely too much work in those just for a baby to drool on them!

The dresses are store-bought, but the gowns are handmade, complete with snaps.

One word for these tiny pink sweaters - adorable!

These are a bit of a mystery. Another time when I had just a few vintage baby clothes, there were a couple of these in with them. We assumed they were diapers. We may have assumed wrong.

The lady I bought these from thinks they may have been umbilical wraps. I had never heard of such a thing, but she said in the old days, you would wrap a cloth around the babies tummy for a few days to protect the umbilical cord.

I told her we had thought they were diapers, she said could be, but she's still leaning toward an umbilical wrap. A quick google search on umbilical wraps didn't answer the question for sure, but she may be right. Again, if only the antiques could talk!

UPDATE: A customer was looking at these, and she immediately said she remembered using those umbilical wraps on babies. So, I guess that solves the mystery!!

And speaking of babies - our peeps are growing like bad weeds!

Why are they red? They are huddled under a red heat lamp.

Sometimes the pics come out red, sometimes not.

When I walked in, they were napping under the light. My presence caused the inner alarms to go off.

"Aack! Someone is looking at us. Hide!"

                                   

There's always a sensible one in the crowd.

"Hey! She's a human. Human's feed us. I'll just wait patiently for some new food."

And a curious one.

"Hello. I'm Peep. What's your name?" 

"Don't you think my feathers are coming in nicely?" 

"Hey! Look what I can do!"