Going for the Wall!

It's a prison break! One more week and I'm bailing out of Etsy. 

Hi, friends... Yeah, I know. This blog has been out of sight and out of mind (out of MY mind!--but what else is new?) for months now, but there is hope of it being revived. The reason is, I've decided to chuck my Etsy shop. For real, this time! Only about a week to go and then I'm "going for the wall". Hallelujah!

I decided to bail out a couple of months ago and have been listing new items madly in a last gasp to clear out the excess vintage clutter around the place. I've put the shop into sale mode and I'm boxing stuff up madly and shipping it out. It's a bit frantic right now, but the prospect of (Dare I breathe it? Gasp!) FREE TIME is beckoning to me like a oasis mirage in the middle of the Sahara and I'm dragging myself toward it with all the waning strength I can muster.

The stuff that doesn't sell will be divied out to family members and friends or donated to the local humane society thrift shop. 

And how will I spend my nobly won free time, you ask? Doing everything and anything I jolly well want to, that's what! Going with the whim of the moment. Making things again. (It's been forever, it seems.) Reading. Maybe even taking up a musical instrument. Going for lots of walks with my dear, dear dogs. Maybe even resuming this blog! I have no fixed plans. I'm getting out of the loop, and I'm going to like it! 

Lollia and Wickham, now 11 years old.

So, anyway, that's the scoop. Just wanted to let you know, and do a little last-gasp shameless promotion of the shop. Still have over 300 vintage gems to part with and I hope you'll head over and check 'em out. 

Tune in next time for what might actually be a post worth reading, for a change! And thanks for hanging in here with me.

SheerTrashRoadshow.etsy.com

Glued to the Computer

Howdy, Pardner! (I had to sneak in this picture of my granddaughter!)

It's been a fascinating week thus far. I've been hard pressed to keep up with all the terrific Epsteam treasuries featuring Peppy's shop, and I've had fun making my own treasuries to return the favor to the many team members who've been so enthusiastic in their support. 



Occasionally the fur kids have felt a little neglected, but they're generally good sports. They have their individual ways of letting me know when they've wearied of my staring the computer screen: Lollia will simply sit beside me and bore into me with her plaintive dark eyes until I look around, Wickham will hop up a few times and bat me with a paw, making a sort of "harrumph"-ing sound, and Pep, who is not a barker unless there are people or cars about that he's not familiar with, will fix me in his gaze and give a quiet rumbling "grrr" low in  his throat. 

When the poms start giving me this treatment, I know I've forgotten something important, such as those all-important bathroom-and-chase-the-squirrels breaks, Carrot Time (I capitalize it because that's how they think of it--every day at noon, they must have their raw carrot pieces), "Mom, you're supposed to cram yourself into the armchair with us and read the Bible" time or, of course, SUPPER. 

I think they'll be relieved when life gets back to normal, or what passes for normal around here. Right now, after waking me up at 5:20 a.m. for the morning trip outside and an early breakfast, they're all dozing and waiting for me to do something they consider interesting. 

Here's a look at Peppy, lying beneath the counter at my feet:

He's partly sleepy, and partly just annoyed with me at the moment.
Cameras... computers... sheesh!

 Lollia is looking relaxed in a cozy nest she's scraped up for herself in a little blanket. (The nest thing is something all three of these dogs like to do. I wonder if it's a pomeranian trait or if all dogs like it? Nothing pleases them better than to paw through a pile of laundry I'm sorting or towels that have been dropped on the floor by certain menfolk who shall remain nameless, and shaping them into a little rumpled napping spots.)

 Wicky looked up sleepily from his snooze on the couch nearest the door. He's the Chief Watchman and likes to be able to keep an eye on the window to alert us to anything happening outside. Wickham's definitely a big dog in a small body, and he likes to do his rounds and is wonderfully,  happily curious about everything. He looks rather fuzzy this morning even though he had a thorough brushing last night. He has a huge puffball coat and one sprint through dewy grass in the morning causes it to curl and kink all over again. He's such a softie, and so squeezable! I find him irresistable, like Mr. Whipple does the Charmin bathroom tissue.

Okay, I really will close for now. This chatty nonsense is getting none of us anywhere we need to go, but I do hope to pop in again later today to share a very special treasury made by a very special friend of mine. And I have high hopes of getting another edition of "Friday's Finds" going again tomorrow. It's been a while; time I got back in gear.

A Time for Giving of Thanks.... He is Risen!

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

--A. E. Houseman (1859 - 1936)

There's something about a proper spring day that makes me aware of my many blessings--not the least of which are my faithful blog readers (all three or four of them!) and my Etsy customers. Thank you for being  you! 

It is a glorious, glorious spring day here in southwest Washington!  And while we no longer have a cherry tree on the place, it's still a joyous thing to have a truly springlike day at last.  Earlier in the week, we had snow (yes, again!) and hail, and I was beginning to think the trees around here would indeed be "hung with snow" for Easter. My husband's been out with his newly acquired tractor, taking out brush, and my youngest son and I have been weeding and edging one of the flower beds. Of course, the poms have been keeping us company.  They dearly love a diversion!

 

Yesterday, Wickham and Lollia had to go to the vet for teeth cleaning and, in Wick's case, an extraction as well. I was astonished to find out he'd already broken one molar and developed a small crack in another one.  No more antlers for him to chew on!  Now I've got a bagful of anti-plaque products and instructions to brush his teeth regularly, a practice that will go over like a lead balloon, I don't doubt.

Earlier this morning I tried a new recipe I found on the King Arthur Flour site--braided lemon bread--and the results look fabulous!  I can't wait to try it, but this is for our church's Easter breakfast tomorrow.  The filling is a combination of cream cheese and lemon curd....mmmmm!

I've got to dash--my son and daughter-in-law have just arrived, bringing my granddaughter Benita.  It's so odd to see her sitting up on the couch beside her grandpa, just like regular company!  She'll be crawling before long.  Oops--I just remembered, I've been sewing her a dress for Easter and I haven't finished it yet!  Oh, dear!  Well, she'll look just as fetching in it next Sunday as this Sunday.

I hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow, remembering the greatest gift of love and sacrifice ever given--that of God's Son, Jesus Christ, who took on the punishment for our guilt and sin so that we could be forgiven and live with Him forever in heaven.  "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)  He proved it, by rising from the dead!  Hallelujah!!  What a Savior! 

 

Boo!

Resident funny man leaves for a day at community college...  It was a toss-up between this hat, his angel wings, or his inflatable sumo wrestler suit.

In honor of All Hallow's Eve, I offer a favorite poem:

A Shropshire Lad

The gas was on in the Institute, The flare was up in the gym, A man was running a mineral line, A lass was singing a hymn, When Captain Webb the Dawley man, Captain Webb from Dawley, Came swimming along the old canal That carried the bricks to Lawley, Swimming along, swimming along, Swimming along from Severn, And paying a call at Dawley Bank While swimming along to Heaven. The sun shone low on the railway line And over the bricks and stacks, And in at the upstairs windows Of the Dawley houses’ backs, When we saw the ghost of Captain Webb, Webb in a water sheeting, Come dripping along in a bathing dress To the Saturday evening meeting. Dripping along, dripping along, To the Congregational Hall; Dripping and still he rose over the sill And faded away in a wall. There wasn’t a man in Oakengates That hadn’t got hold of the tale, And over the valley in Ironbridge, And round by Coalbrookdale, How Captain Webb the Dawley man, Captain Webb from Dawley, Rose rigid and dead from the old canal That carried the bricks to Lawley, Rigid and dead, rigid and dead, To the Saturday congregation, And paying a call at Dawley Bank On his way to his destination. John Betjeman

Hopefully I can get some more sewing done today--I have some silver lame and some blue lace fabric and I want to make some lovely wintery looking bags suitable for Chanukah and other occasions.  And I have some terrific Christmas vintage-inspired fabric all cut out and ready to sew AND some wonderful real vintage fabric of flocked deer on a dark green background...wonderful!  But at some point, I have to wash and groom the staff--!  An all-day job, that.