Long Time - No See

Let’s see if I can remember how to do this. First of all…Hellooo! I’ve missed you guys!  I have not done anything on this poor little neglected blog for months and months. So what have you guys been up to? I’ve been busy working on some projects that are now finished. Thank goodness. I’ve also put myself in self imposed isolation. Nope – I don’t have ebola but I have not only neglected the blog…I’ve neglected the house so I’m not going anywhere until I get things back in order.  I’m still paring down all the “stuff” and every time I decorate I’m trying to only keep a couple of boxes. Anyway – I got the Halloween/Fall “stuff” out in time for all the Halloween Hops!
What would I do without these round shelves? I just don’t seem to have the places to put things anymore! That’s my little grandson dressed up as Buzz Lightyear for Halloween….Halloween 1997! Still one of my favorite pictures of him.

That Pumpkin Man I had forgotten about. He probably wondered if he was on the purge list and now he’s got that scaredy cat grin on his face thinking he dodged the bullet!

I love this guy – so he’s safe while I’m around. Now see the dust on that Mary Englebreit chair? I thought I cleaned it so it’s a good thing I’m blogging to catch myself on these oversights – haha.

Remember this piece? I bought this at an auction dirt cheap because the glass doors on each end were broken. It’s narrow so it works for me in this room. How about the Dave Ramsey book on one end and the ledger books on the opposite end? I should have had that book about 50 years ago because those ledger books don’t contain  financial plans or budget…I’ve turned them into picture albums of my grandkids!

Great way to save all those years and years of school pictures and prom pictures of the kids and grandkids.

I love this tiny little painting but with the orange color it doesn’t go with anything in my house except in the fall.
 
So I just keep it with that stuff and bring it out once a year!

Same thing with the Jim  Shore cat! I picked him up for nothing at a Goodwill and he comes out once a year. I think a lot of people must get Jim Shore things who have no idea of the value or just don’t like his work because they seem to be easy to find!

The ME teapot and cups stay out most of the year. Black and white dots or checks??? They go with everything. That’s it for my tour de halloween today! I hope to stop by and see what everyone else has been doing.
xoxo and yours truly, I Once Was Lost But Now I’m Found Nancy!
Joining Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for Pink Saturday !

All Good Things Must Come To An End

Yes - sadly there are several things coming to an end.  My computer - a corupt file uploaded to my computer from ... of all places...my McAfee program.  It completely wiped out wireless detection.  I was fortunate that I really didn't lose anything important like my photos but I did lose some programs.  It also wiped out my husband's wireless, my Kindle wireless, my phone wireless and McAfees fix did not work.  I was crippled without my computer - addresses, appointments and oh yeah...the wireless printer so I had to actually go to the post office and physically pay for postage. I got the new Dell back in time to post my pictures of  Susan's Heart To Heart Journal.
Pink was one of the colors she preferred for her Journal. I made a word cloud shaped like a heart using words from her blog.  "Read" was her top word so I placed it on a book cover.

From me it goes to LaVerne, then to Shelia  and finally back to Susan so that's another good thing coming to an end...our journals.

And then there is The Roost.  We're closing it at the Round Rock Mall and will only be at the Austin Antique Mall.  We'll still have the Vintage Roost online but it makes me sad that I haven't been able to work at keeping it up like I did originally.  So - for now we'll just have Oodles which has been outselling the Roost 3 to 1.  Another good thing coming to an end. Sigh....And tonight at my grandson's football game the seniors will be honored.  I'm still trying to figure out how he was just starting kinder... 

 

and all of a sudden he's a senior in high school. #52

I've loved every minute of the past seventeen years and the joy he's brought to our lives. Okie Dokie.  That's it for me for Beverly's Pink Saturday.  I've got to get ready for the big game tonight.  BTW...they won last week 43 to 7! Go Raiders.

Here's to Good Things...beginning or ending! xoxo Nancy 

6 Years of Pink Saturday

Beverly has faithfully hosted Pink Saturday for six years now. Her blog is How Sweet The Sound and on that site I have met some of my best blog, Facebook and art buddies.  Thank you Beverly for bringing me into your World of Pink! Were it not for Pink Saturday I probably would have stopped blogging completely by now.  I’ve written just under 600 posts over six years now. When we had the antique store I always had things to write about and some really interesting pictures. So rather than just stop completely I’m just posting a lot less frequently these days. Unfortunately for you guys…I will never run out of my old pictures that I can show on here! So on that note….

I’m pulling out one of my most favorite pink pictures today. This is over 18 years ago at a nursery in Austin. What’s not to love about a herd of Pink Flamingos with my little grandson in the middle of them.

 

He was absolutely adorable! I’ve been putting my 50+ years of pictures in order and I can’t believe that I’m almost done. I finished my Christmas book which was a huge accomplishment! In another unfinished art album from an online class I took and completed one page….I converted into a timeline of wallet and school pictures of my two sons and grandsons. And then since I was on a roll I made an album out of an old accounting ledger and filled it with those 3 x 5 and 5 x 7 portraits. The 4 x 6 prints of which I have multiple prints of the same thing went into different sets for various people. I punched a hole in the corner, put them in order by date and ran a ribbon through them or used a binder ring.

“I've at times in my past been so unhappy, and thought, like, 'I would give anything for this not to be happening.' And, you know, as people say, time passes, and then you think, 'I'm kind of glad that happened to me.”

That is what I tried to tell my little guy in the middle of the flamingos  this week as he worries about his college angst. Some of the best things and people in my life came out of circumstances I absolutely didn’t want to happen and now…I wouldn’t change a thing.

to all of my blog friends along with Beverly for sharing ideas, projects, your kids and grandkids, and your homes with me. And thanks for allowing me to share my life with you!

xoxo Nancy

The Snowbabies Are Back!

Finally. These guys made it out of their boxes and down the stairs. Aren’t they the cutest things?

I love their sweet little faces and the way they spend their time…smelling flowers, inspecting caterpillars, transporting carrots and playing with bluebirds.

 

I still have a thing for ‘50s Made In Japan pieces. They all have the sweetest faces.

Sharing a little Eastery cheer for Pink Saturday. Is spring at your house yet? We’re full on spring here in Central Texas and it is sooo beautiful. The bluebonnets and wildflowers were spectacular this year.

This field was on the way to see some Painted Churches of Texas. If you ever have a chance to visit any it’s well worth it.

Have a great weekend. Lilly, Iris and Nancy

Yellow Tulips For Pink Saturday

These are almost a week old. LaVerne  brought them last weekend and they are just starting to open and droop. They’re perfect in front of the forsythia Jeff painted back in the ‘70s. I actually had a post for Pink Saturday but with the new design the Linksky says I have no pictures. Maybe posting from Windows Live Writer will work.

It didn’t – I just uploaded a picture to the link from my computer. (The bunnies made it downstairs and onto the swirly tree this year)

This is another of the Easter ornaments/baskets we made last month with LaVerne. They are so pretty and much easier to make with craft tools from the 21st century as opposed to the instructions from 1950! They’re still a lot of work but much fun to make with the Ya-Yas.

Looks like we made them after Valentine’s Day and they only shared the swirly tree for picture taking purposes!

 

 

Wouldn’t they be darling for just about any holiday? Coppery tones for fall with little pumpkins. Egg Carton ornaments…design by LaVerne and the Ya-Yas!

I have another post below this one that just went to waste .  Go visit Beverly for oodles of Eastery inspiration. xo Nancy

New Dynamic Layout...Hmmmm.

So what do you think of this new blogger layout. I'm curious to see if it is indeed easier to navigate. To me it seems like it takes longer to load.

 

You can add pictures from your Google Pictures. They added the snow - haven't a clue how or why!
You can add pictures from your phone  although I don't recall taking the snow image with my phone.
Or you can upload from your computer. I'll look around and see more settings on it and see how it works out. (Didn't but I did figure out why the text was on the side)

I'm joining Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for Pink Saturday.


Happy Spring!

A Half Century of…

For years I have talked about making a Christmas book of all the Christmases we have had together which was 49 last year. Every so often I would get a few pictures organized and then would lose track of them and more years would go by. Several years ago I bought a program that scanned my old slides into my computer.  This year I’ve tackled the never ending boxes of photos.  I sorted through boxes and boxes of pictures and put them somewhat in order. Then I started scanning and editing and uploading to Walgreens. I tried Snapfish and it was sooo slow. Then I tried Walgreens and it was lightning fast so I that’s who I decided to use. It took time, lots of time, to figure out how I wanted to arrange them, write what I wanted to write and choose which pictures I wanted to used.  I liked the backgrounds Walgreens had but didn’t like them not having embellishments you could add. And just like magic about half way through they added a new feature…embellishments! So of course I had to go back and add some. Then, for some reason most of them disappeared! I already had a bunch in my “folder” and they were okay but I wish I had grabbed more while they were there!
Anyway, it turned out like a timeline of our life together and just amazed me to look at the screen of all the pages at once. I mostly have a page for each year and hit the highlights – where we lived and when we moved. The birth of our sons…and then our grandsons. I took a screenshot to show you!

For some reason I had trouble with  a few ‘90s years so I consolidated those. I wanted to use a picture of our old house in Ohio as a background for a page and it just wouldn’t work so I just made the page in Photoscape in an 8 x 8 size and uploaded the whole thing and OH MY GOSH…hindsight.  That’s the way to go. This was an edit so all the pages were done by then!

Then I just added some more writing and embellishments once I uploaded it. I wanted the borders of the pictures to show with dates on a few but most were cropped.

See the Santa in the wagon? It was from my son’s great grandparents that year…

for his first Christmas – 1967. ( Flashcube picture!)

Here he is three years later in 1970 with the Santa.

And here’s my grandson 31 years after that  in 2001 with the old Santa. There’s Big Lilly – she always wore a pink bow. That’s something else I worked in…all of our dogs.

1980 – I couldn’t find a family picture so I used one of those we had taken at one of those dress up studios where you don’t smile and added a frame and holly and used it. I do have a picture of our tree from every year from ‘65 to 2013.
I can’t wait to get this book and now I’m regretting not shipping 2 day but after all the work I ordered the lay flat extra thick pages, custom cover and I had 44 pages which made the shipping double so the whole thing got pricy even with 40% off it was $70. I’ll add one page on the back cover next Christmas so the title will be true…A Half Century of Christmases!
Joining Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for Pink Saturday and Show and Tell Friday.  You should, too!
xoxo Nancy

Two Score and Eight Years Ago

Remember my Daily Logbook I talked about keeping this year on Jan 1st? I haven’t written in it since mid January. After two weeks of writing down daily activities I realized I didn’t want to leave anything behind chronicling just how mundane my day to day life is! I’ve moved on to bigger more lofty goals…organizing, dating and scanning pictures of the last 48 years of married life.  If you are newlyweds of 10 or 20 years or have a new baby (or puppy) for God’s sake date those prints. Keep them in one place and beware of making 5 prints of the same picture because it’s really hard to pitch them even though you have three more just like them. I really love digital pictures – 20K images on your computer take up a lot less room than 20 boxes of prints! Here’s one I loved but hated to keep because of some ex in laws.

This gives you a really bad example of “photoshopping”. My husband and two sons are the three on the left – me on the right (in pink!) and 2/3’s of the Trevino family sandwiched in between. I had to move one son over and remove the body of the other
which caused a wardrobe malfunction for Taryn! Anyway I saved what I wanted and it can go in my timeline of happy memories!
I’m doing a box of pictures for each son and grandson and I’m going to bind them together by decade or occasion and give them to them. I keep finding pictures of friends along the way and the really old ones I’m scanning and sending them in an album on FB or emailing.
 
I had forgotten about these from pre marriage 1964 pics  and still living in the past in 1990! One is Mad Men in real life and the other a middle age sock hop! That’s me on the left and in the middle. I can also keep a chart of my weight gain and loss over the years.

This is a good example of the weight chart or maybe the stock market or possibly seismic activity! Up down, up down, down down, up up up!

and my Rosanne Roseanna Danna hairdos!

Reunions were “weight down” years!

Lessons I’m learning about myself? One – I have never lost my love of big hair and two…when I’m with my girlfriends I’m just about always laughing. Those will have to wait.
I’m chronicling some of these here and trying to find a little something pink to share for Pink Saturday.
Have a great week, or decade…or score!
xoxo Nancy