Country Life = A Special Night

Something very special happened at our fair the other evening. I shared it on my facebook page, because I thought some of my local customers and followers who weren't at the fair would enjoy reading about what happened.

I never dreamed it would get the response it did! Many, many folks were touched by it. So, I thought I would share it here as well:

I had the honor of being a part of something last night that I wish you all could have witnessed. We were at the Marshall Co. Fair Livestock Auction, which is made up of 4-H & FFA kids. One of those kids, Matt, is 17. And in the hospital with leukemia. During the auction, a girl showing a lamb said that 10% of the sale of her lamb would go to Matt's family for expenses. Accessories Ltd. from Moundsville bought the lamb, and the owner announced that he was donating $100 to Matt's family, & he challenged the audience to do the same.

What happened next was beautiful. The bidding cards started going up in the air. The auction of livestock stopped, and the donations started pouring in. The ringmen simply stood there, looking around the arena & calling out the numbers, while the announcers took the numbers, then called out the name of the business or individual who was donating. In 10 minutes or so, $6200 was raised! And it didn't stop there. The donations kept coming the rest of the evening, and several more kids donated a percentage of their sale to Matt. 

The Livestock Sale is always a special time. Those kids work so hard, and it shows. They have lots of support from adults who teach them all about raising animals, and later from adults who buy at the sale. Every year, lots of money is donated to their Scholarship Fund. But this year, the Sale truly went above and beyond. It was a great night to be a member of the Marshall County, WV community.

One of the ladies who commented said that the same thing had happened at the Goat and Rabbit Auction, and that they had raised $3000 for Matt. How wonderful!


If you listen to the news, it's easy to think that there's no good people anymore.

Don't believe it.

If you listen to the news, it's easy to think every teenager is hooked on drugs, and doesn't care about anyone.

Don't believe it.

The kids that are involved in the fair are amazing to watch. We watched a little girl pushing a wheelbarrow full of bedding for her animal. It was quite the struggle to make a turn. The wheelbarrow was much bigger than she was, and when George saw her, he jumped in and helped her get it around the turn. But then off she went, full of determination.

We watched the college kids humbly accept scholarships set up for them through the Livestock Club Scholarship Fund, which gets it's money in part from the many donations from members of the business community and individuals who want to support them.

I'm sure we aren't alone in this. I'm sure it's repeated in many counties across rural America. 

May God bless all of them.

May God bless all those who so generously donated money to help Matt's family with expenses.

And most especially right now, we pray for Matt himself.

Amen.

A desk no more

A couple posts back, I showed you some drawers I painted that had been part of a big desk. You can see them here.

I decided to tear apart another one of the drawers and make signs......

The 2 long pieces were the side of the drawer, Going to the Chapel was the back, and the Office sign was the front.

While I was at it, I painted the board that slides out above the drawers for an extra flat surface. Does that thing have a name?

The blue on the board was the blue that was on the desk when son Kevin brought it home from an estate auction. I'm sure you've been dying to know where the drawers and slide came from. (ha!)

Well, they came from this....

A large desk, maybe a teachers desk? Very cool, very shabby. But, too big for me to hang onto for very long. I just don't have that kind of room in the shop anymore. (that's a good thing!).

So, when it didn't sell in 2 or 3 weeks, it had to go. Lots of new stuff has been coming in, and I needed that space.

The top piece is one solid piece. Heavy! A friend bought it  - she already had a set of cast iron legs. She is going to mount the top to the legs for a unique dining table. She also bought a couple chairs, and is going to find some more, so that she will have 6 unmatched chairs to go with the table. Unmatched in style, but her plan is to paint them all the same color to unify them. She's a woman with a vision! She has booths in a couple antique shops, so the newly finished table and chairs will make a public appearance sometime soon.

Sometimes the key to saving old furniture, instead of sending it to the landfill or a burn pile is a simple little thing called creativity.

And a vision.

Quilt treasure

For the last month of so, our internet service at home has been horrendous. If we were lucky, we could get online for a couple hours in the early morning. After that, it might come in for a minute or two here & there, but never long enough or strong enough to do anything.

To top it off, we found out we were paying WAYYYY too much compared to what others around us were paying that provider.

Great big bill. Itty bitty service.

Not happy.

Couldn't update the blog. Or facebook. Well, once in awhile I could update facebook. If I had the patience to try to load one picture several times. I'm not exaggerating when I say it could take 20 minutes or so to upload one picture. If I could at all.

To keep facebook up to date, I did most of my recent posting at the store. Where my old computer is dying. There was a "blue screen" moment the other day. But it came back. Albeit it slower than ever.

It was enough of an effort to keep facebook updated. My blog had to wait.

DISH internet to the rescue! It was installed today, and so far.............. it's working great! It's actually high speed like it's supposed to be! Yay! And for considerably less money per month! Double Yay!!!

So, let's get this blog rolling again!

We'll start with this quilt we bought at a recent antiques auction. There was a note on the quilt that said it was made in 1869. By a 9 year old girl! Her name was also on the quilt, but I won't include that for privacy reasons.

Can't you just see the girl working on this, with her mama sitting beside her, guiding her and teaching her? It makes me smile.

I seldom buy for myself at an auction. Just about everything goes to the store to sell. But not this quilt. It's a keeper!

Country Life = A Quiet 4th of July

Happy 4th of July!

It's quiet here today. Brian & Jessica decided not to make the trip home to WV since they are going to the beach for a few days soon with Brian's family.

Kevin & Katie are spending the day with her family in PA.

George was supposed to have the day off, but ended up working a double!

We planned to go to fireworks last night at Oglebay Park in Wheeling, but those plans fell through.

George & I had hoped to go to our favorite fireworks show tonight in downtown Wheeling, but as I said, he's now working. And besides that, it's raining. And thundering.

I did grill some burgers for our lunch before he left for work, but I burned the burgers. We were able to salvage them, but they weren't the best we've ever had by any stretch of the imagination.

Does it sound like I'm complaining? I'm really not. We've had lots of great 4th of July celebrations in the past, and Lord willing, there will be more to come in the future. And I'm truly thankful to be living in this great nation, today and every other day of the year.

So, for this year, at our house, the chickens ended up with the biggest celebration. Any day they get watermelon is a day to celebrate!

And we still may get to see fireworks for the 4th. They are supposed to have them this Sunday night in Moundsville. Though I'm not entirely sure that will happen either. The fairgrounds there along with the surrounding areas had some severe flash flooding a couple nights ago. A baseball tournament had to be cancelled at the last minute. So maybe there will be fireworks, and maybe there won't.

But if there is, Kevin and Katie would appreciate it. It's not every one who gets to see fireworks for their first anniversary!

Upcycled drawers

When we pick up a piece of furniture that can no longer be used "as is", we take it apart. There's usually several pieces that can be used for signs and other projects. I was starting to get quite a collection of drawers, and they were taking over my work space. It was time to come up with some ideas.

 

These were the first ones I painted........

 

After painting them, I added hangers to the back.

They can now be used either on the wall as shadowboxes or shelves, or on a table.

 

 

This one was from a desk, and it was already a pretty bluish/gray.

For something different, I turned it into a sign of sorts.

I left room at the bottom for some of those precious memories.

Perhaps a picture, or a treasure memento.

 

 

While I was at it, I did another one the same way.

These can either hang or sit.

 

 

For this one, I got out the chalkboard paint.

The whole thing is now a chalkboard.

Even the top and sides.

It too will either hang or sit.

 

I've got more to do something else with.

Might be time to go to Pinterest for inspiration!