Flea market finds, tantrums and things that go

Being nearly 9 months pregnant DID NOT stop me from buying this beautiful cabinet when I spotted it at a garage sale on Friday.

Thankfully Dave was able to move it mostly by himself. But oy! the belly is a hindrance to junking. :-)

It's a bit of a wreck right now, and sitting in my (getting messier every day) garage until after this baby is born so I can do something about it.

It just had that lovely, old, shabby, perfect glow that said take me home. It has doors for that top section too...
Which have the same panels as the bottom doors, complete with roses!

Shut the front door. Those roses sold me. The more I look at it, the more I see to love though. The hardware is beautiful. The imperfections are beautiful.

We went to the flea yesterday and I have to confess I am starting to worry. I have been going to that flea since high school and I never remember it being as DEAD as it was yesterday. I think only 40% of the vendor spaces were full. We were nearly back to the car when I spotted this quilt top covering a table.

Those of you who have been hanging out here awhile know that I am not afraid to ask people to sell things they thought they were using for something practical. (Boxes holding tools, quilts being used as tablecloths.)

It looks bizarre here because it started to POUR down rain when I had it on the laundry line so I had to dry it in the (messy) garage over a ladder.

It is the perfect shade of green.
And the flowers are as sweet as can be.

Just the day before I oogling a similar flowery quilt on Sarah's Summer House on HGTV.

Now I am pondering a way to display more than one in the living at a time.
I also picked up a big bundle of vintage fabric that was marked "curtains". It turned out to be a set of curtains and a TON of this wonderful fabric in the form of a twin sized dust ruffle.
It's perfectly minty green and going up in Sam's room as soon as I remember to pick up a different curtain rod. (It looks washed out because of said rain.)

From the time Jack was about 18 months old he LOVED riding his "vroom vroom". He would ride that thing all around our house for house a day.

I kept it after it he had outgrown it because it is full of my sweetest toddler memories of him.

During the worst bits of my infertility journey that little old scooter was a beacon of hope to me. It was the one thing I would never, ever part with, no matter how dark those days were, or how hard it was to look at baby stuff.

And there it sat for many years.
This week I have FINALLY managed to teach Sam how to use it. She doesn't want to ride it all day like Jack did, but oh man, does it make my heart so happy to see another little body riding that scooter around our house.
And about Sam. Ugh. She has decided she is in a difficult period. No sleeping (18 month sleep disturbance anyone?) without plenty of crying and screaming and carrying on.

And tantrums.

Rolling on the floor screaming and carrying on tantrums.

Over.every.little.thing.on.earth.

I have a feeling life is about to be VERY interesting for a few months. LOL

Itching

It's no surprise I am itching for fall.

No heat? Yes please. (Even though the weatherman says the heat and drought are going to continue well into November.)

No more pregnant? Yes please!
Jack picked up a red leaf in the yard this morning, so it's at least getting closer.

But I am also ITCHING to start putting out some Halloween stuff.

So when I picked up this stuff at a yard sale, I didn't bother putting it away. As soon as I find some poster putty it's going up.
A hallmark owl card.
A set of the cutest pumpkins.
And a pair of kitties.

Meow.

I have been up since 3 with a headache and Sam is super, super whiny again today. Ugh.

At least it's Friday?

The only DIY I can manage right now

A month or so ago I decided I was completely sick of the shoes being all over the front hallway. We had been using a smallish basket, but it just didn't fit our shoes anymore.

I had an old dresser in the basement and I was going to have Dave take out the drawers and put in shelves to hold shoes.
It was dark and beat up.
And I don't have a great before picture.

But it was too imposing in the hallway.

So I made Dave move all the living room furniture around and when it landed here I loved it.
Some white spray paint.
Some old shelf paper glued to the front of the drawers and now it is lovely.

And holding all my books and magazines and keeping them safely away from Sam.

I think it needs yellow knobs though.
As far as the shoe problem, I stuck some (not even bothered to paint them yet) legs on this bookshelf that I have been carting around since I was 18 and stuck it in the foyer. It's a little close to the coats on the rack, but it does a much better job of holding loads of shoes. (If we moved the shoe rack any higher no one would be able to hang up their coats other than Dave.)

And it's the only DIY I can manage right now. I am getting sloooooowwwwwer and sloooower with every passing day.

I can't even bring myself to cut out four triangles so I can finish piecing TBA's quilt top.

The joys of pregnancy when you are an old lady. :-)

A gift for Sammi

It's quiet around here without Jack.

But I am enjoying these last few weeks before the new baby to just sit and watch Sammi play. I had so many years to do that with Jack, and I am acutely aware that I will have a lot less of that kind of time with Sam.

I think I haven't mentioned this much on the blog but Sam seems to have a bit of a speech delay. She has excellent receptive language, but her expressive vocabulary is really, really tiny.*

One of the few words she does say is cat and meow. She loves all things kitty. (She also hisses at the cats and knows how to click her tongue to call our cats to her.)

Rachel very kindly made her a sweet kitty and a baby kitty after I spotted them on her pinterest feed.
They are so sweet!


She loves to carry them around and MEOW!
(If you would like a kitty for you little one you can find Rachel at vintagemama4@live.com!)

*I am not terribly worried about it yet. She seems to be very focused on motor skills instead.

Oh yes I did

Thank you for your sweet words. I definitely think something like an on call nanny is the way to go, but I have to figure out how to actually hire an on call nanny. Ugh.

I bought another quilt at a yard sale on Friday.

Is anyone else starting to wonder how many of these I own at this point? I think I am afraid to count.

This is my most favorite quilt pattern ever. I searched for years and years for one I could afford. I bought one on Ebay a few years ago and never expected to find another one to call my own.
Then there she was. Shining at me from the street like a beacon.

I didn't really spend a lot of time examining it, so I thought it was in way worse shape than it really is.

But when she refused to negotiate on the price I knew I was buying it anyway.
Every single flower has the most amazing prints. And I think less than 5 of the flowers have been lost to shattering. The edges have been rebound at some point, but so what?
Fabulous I tell you.
And fussy cut.
And pretty in pink. (The outside is a pale yellow, the sun is too bright right now for good photos.)
I also bought this beautiful little bonnet.
Which opens up to reveal a sweet needle case (the bonnet part is holding bobbins of thread).
And the tiniest (perfectly pale pink) buttons I have ever seen.

I have a DIY to show you this week, another amazing flea market find, and a sweet gift for Sam. Hopefully I can pull off some blogging.

*Even though we are so close to baby time I broke down and bought myself some decent shirts yesterday. My maternity clothes are getting so short and so holey it is looking like people of wal-mart in here. THAT is not helping me at all. I should probably get a haircut too.

** I also bought every single Halloween magazine in Costco. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

A fun toy and a not so fun week

This old swedish school house toy is the last of the stuff I bought last week.
It was love at first sight.

The teacher and the desks...
The playground equipment that actually holds the kids.

Way too cute.

This week has been utter crap.

The school has added so many stops to the bus route that Jack does not get home from school until FIVE pm.

Yes, FIVE PM. I have had argument after argument with them about this as it means 1) they are late to school every day and 2) by the time he gets home he is beside himself.

On the upside, I saw the OB this week and he thinks this baby will be out sooner rather than later. He said to start looking for a baby any time after Labor Day. I am not *that* optimistic (nor in *that* big of a hurry), but we are about 4 weeks from 38 weeks and that would do me just fine. Yes indeed.

On the downside I hauled myself to Target after being without trash bags for two days only to come home and find I had bought the wrong damn trash bags. I am getting so slow and having so much pelvic pain that doing ANYTHING is becoming quite the chore.

And the insanity with my mother continues.

For starters it has meant a lot of scrambling trying to find someone who can help care for the kids when the new baby does arrive. So far? Not much luck. I don't have the first clue how to find someone to hire to stay in my house with my kids for two days while I am in the hospital. (I KNOW you are all going to suggest the ILs or my father or on and on. For a million reasons those things will not work out. Aside from a girlfriend who has offered to help, I really think this is going to come down to a stranger. I am pretty sure I don't even have to mention how upsetting/disappointing THAT is.)

Which is leading to a lot of anxiety for me.

And my mother herself continues to deny that she has ANY PROBLEMS AT ALL. I am desperately trying to avoid her as I am at the end of my emotional rope*. She refuses to speak to my brother at all (why she thinks I am an easier target I don't know, she is dead wrong there). And she keeps asking me when I am going to bring Jack around. Umm, I am not. I keep telling you that.

Of course this is all stressful for Jack too, who until now has had a very solid, rather normal relationship with her.

Which pushes me even farther over the edge.

On top of all that I am feeling really disappointed in some other relationship situations where it feels like all give and no take.

So I started just telling people off.

While it IS cathartic I am not sure I will be happy with that decision a few months from now. I have worked hard to rid myself of that loud mouthed, hot headed person I was for a long time.

But I am absolutely, positively out of patience with people right now.

So. There you have it.

*Oh the crying. I mean really. For a non crier I am spending an awful of lot of time this week crying in my cheerios.

First day of second grade

The big yellow angel came for Jack this morning, off to second grade he goes.

He informed me yesterday after we met his new teacher that "he is not that shy anymore" when I told him I had forgotten to tell her he prefers to be called Jack and that he would have to just speak up for himself.

The FOURTH quarter word list includes words like tree, should, drink and might.

Sigh.

I guess I should just give up. He doesn't want to homeschool (for friend reasons), and because he is now in second grade there is no visit the third grade for a few subjects option. (This school is only K-2).

It will be interesting to see how this year pans out I suppose.

Onward and upward we go!

More of that lucky streak

More stuff, but first some other stuff.

*My blogger navigation bar is gone. Just poof! No longer any way to search the blog or more importantly, log in. WTH?

*I freshened up the blog - changed the header, updated the blog links, etc. I also freshened up my google reader, deleting more than 60 blogs that had not been updated in more than 6 months. Then I added some fresh stuff to my pinterest. Just in case you like to poke around that stuff. (Perhaps I rid myself of that nav bar on accident. Hmmm.)

*I want to throttle the children! They cannot even entertain themselves for 12 seconds right now. We have been having drama over playdoh for an hour. Playdoh! Seriously. GO OUTSIDE.

*I choked on a piece of toast this morning. Full on choking. (Complete with peeing my pants, oh yea! Keeping it real around here.) The kids would.not.get.out.of.my.way. so I could get to the sink to get water. Jack wanted to stand around discussing it for hours. JUST MOVE IT! I am pretty sure they are glued to me. Permanently.

*In more pleasant news, the extended weather forecast has a whole weekend with highs of only 78!

Okay, on to the stuff:

Another doll bed. What am I going to do with another doll bed?

I have no clue. But I do know it is the PERFECT vintage green.
This is the second one I have bought with no apparent way of keeping the dolls in the beds. What's missing? Only the two side edges line up, (exact same with the other one I have) and I cannot figure out how these were meant to be engineered originally.
A piece of McCoy pottery.
Some old stuffies I thought would be fun for Easter. I think the duck is stuffed with old nylons.
A pair of pine cone elves.
A pair of hong kong witches. (What are those toys that collapse when you push the bottom button called? That's what they are.)
And a BEAUTIFUL (and free) watercolor dated 1935.

I am seriously crushing on it.

We have had about 10 other catastrophes while I have been trying to post this darn thing, so off with me to finish the damn school supply list. :-)

The early bird gets the feedsacks

Early last week I spotted a yard sale ad that included vintage fabric.

Before all the stuff happened with my mother I had been DETERMINED to be first in line when they opened. But by Saturday morning I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted to get out of bed at 6 am and drive 40 minutes for what could very well be a useless wild goose chase.

I got up and went anyway.

And this early bird grabbed all the feedsacks. Not a huge haul, but at least I didn't regret getting up!

Love, love this dotty one.
A flowery one.
A pink one.
A very sweet border print. (My photo doesn't really do this print justice.)
And a who knows what kind of print?

I also picked up a solid pink and a solid green.

The junk gods smiled on me that day when I scored these:

Four HUGE vintage glass canisters. This is the size that would have held flour and stuff in a Hoosier cabinet. No lids, but it turns out that the lids from the costco sized pretzels my kids devour fit just fine. I will spray paint them to disguise the plastic.
Hmmmm, how did she sneak in there?
Oh, right! She was showing you the size of the frame I also bought.

Huge and fun for photos of the kids methinks.
Pretty.

There is a ton more. Enough to warrant another post. Or two.

It's about time some junk started flowing.

*Jack and Dave got up at 1 30 am to go watch the meteors. Jack says he saw 20 of them! I am jealous, I have seen ZERO of them in my entire lifetime. The heat has also been gone for a few days. It's lovely to be able to stand being outside. And it's rained a few times! The grass is actually growing and back to green.