Trick or TREAT!

Happy Halloween fellow bloggers! Email me your address and I will send you a treat! Really! Could be yellowed dictionary pages for collage, a charm, some fiber, vintage postage or whatever happens to pop into view when I open a box or drawer. Could be all of the above. I love to share my stash!

I'VE BEEN TAGGED!

Me in Junior High circa 1976 and then a photo 12 or so years later where I am hostessing a wedding shower in my lovely antiques and clutter filled first home. Um, er, no current photo available. heehee.

I have been tagged by Nita (thank YOU!). I am supposed to list 7 weird, random, and or interesting facts about myself and then tag 7 other bloggers to do the same.

I will be honest and say that these are mostly reprinted from when I was tagged over a month ago and I was such a new blogger then that I know my dear, loyal, got-me-started-blogging, friend Linda was probably the only one to ever read my list, so I am pulling it out of my archive vault back into daylight!

1. I was born in Louvaine, Belgium. To an American mother and an Australian father.

2. I was a "boat child". Crossed the Atlantic when I was about 1 year old.

3. I married a Thompson, but my maiden name is Bakunovich. Pronounced like it's spelled! The weird thing is, people still ask me how to spell Thompson! With an "h" and a "p"?

4. Weird: I have a dimple in my right hand pinky finger, right under the nail. I've always had it. When I was a kid, I wondered if a doctor had stuck me with a needle when I was born and it healed badly.

5. I have met Martha Stewart, dined with Joan Walsh Anglund, have a picture drawn by Chuck Jones, signatures from Jim Davis, Mr. Rogers, Sam Butcher, Friz Freleng, lunched with Mary Englebreit, and attended workshops with Marjolein Bastin; just to name a few, all while working at Hallmark Cards, Inc. as an artist.

6. I love the lingering smell of marigolds on my hands after I deadhead the spent blooms. Likewise, I also love the smell of tomatoe plants, basil, dill and lavender. Oh, and sage brush! All intoxicating scents to me. (deep breath, exhale) Aaaaaaaaaah.

7. Oh, "interesting": English was not my first language.

The following are people who intrigue me and whose sites I admire. I am tagging:
Useful Books (for putting things in)
Thrifty Collage Artist
Maude and Mozart
Altered Antiquity
Art Junk Girl
Holly Loves Art
Gathering Dust

Can't wait to read your weird/random/interesting facts!

DAK: Deliberate Act of Kindness

A bookmark for a friend. I love sending out fun mail as much as I love receiving it. Maybe even more! Especially to someone who needs encouragement.

Art Lessons

Rebecca and I painted this pumpkin yesterday. Well I painted the pumkin and then showed her how to spatter paint. MISTAKE! Really, WHAT was I thinking? She spattered the coffee table (where we were working) the floor (thank God for hardwood) and would have spattered the dog if Lucy hadn't been outside enjoying the sunny day. Thank goodness it was water color. Rebecca also added the finger painted details. We did 2 more paintings together, then I left her alone and she did one more using nothing but BLACK paint, then spilled the can of water and then we were DONE. The water spill cleaned up the spattered paint. Really, it's a wonder I am a creative person at all because I am SO uptight about messes! LOL

Autumn

I practically gave this vintage hanky away on ebay, after subtracting my fees from too low an opening bid, but I am hoping the appreciative recipient will not just keep it tucked away in an underwear drawer, like I did, but USE it! Really, doesn't this gorgeous hanky just make you think of blustery days and breathtaking colors in the trees and crunchy leaves under foot and the smell of wood smoke in the air and drinking hot beverages (spiced chai or amaretto coffee)? I love to walk bare headed, but bundled up in a wool sweater and scarf so my hair gets mangled by the wind, my cheeks tingle from the chilly air and yet my body is toasty warm. What stirs your senses at this time of year?

More of Rebecca's Toes

Rebecca makes "shoes" on a regular basis using blue painters' tape. This time she let me take a picture. Normally the tape wraps a couple times around the instep and she has me lace them around her ankles like ballet slippers. The game only lasts a couple minutes and then she tears off her creations.

Do I hear Prada calling?

Treasure

I love sewing boxes and tins of buttons, because they are unwitting time capsuls for domestic divas of a bygone era. Pictured: what I found among the buttons in a rusted cookie tin other relatives did not see worthy to keep for themselves. Thank you God for the vision to see beauty in what others cast off! Yeah, the buttons were pretty wonderful too (after a good washing), but it's the other bonus bits that get me excited. The old keys that once locked up something important, the glazed clay marble that belonged to Uncle Larry when he was a kid, the 1953 wheat penny that never got spent because it was forgotten among the buttons and (now) rusted brads that Grandpa dumped into the tin because it was handy.

At other times I have found paper pillboxes holding collar buttons, a deck of well worn cards, fragile corked "test tubes" of tiny buttons, tattered books of rusted needles (never used) and a beautifully lithographed matchbook. What does my sewing box say about me? Bone crochet hooks only used for repairing snagged sweaters (no time for crocheting), small unicorn decorated tin with pushpins (forgotten), packet of large needles once bought for teddy bear making (now unused), a couple of bundles of elastic (?), gold plated stork scissors I can't bear to part with because they are pretty, but I also don't use them and similiar "treasures" that are entombed for someone to discover when I am pushing up daisies. Don't even get me started on my sewing machine cabinet! I am a sucker for spools of thread in colors I may or may not use, but buy at estate sales because of the wooden spools and beautiful metallic paper labels, scraps of gold lame', batting, Wonder Under, cut up dresser scarf (only part of the embroidered design was used) all stuffed away. All forgotten because I have moved on to other projects.

Can't throw them out though. They may be useful someday. If not to me, then someone else. :)

A Good Day Shopping

Well, after hearing many stories about my thrift store treasures found for a pittence, Amy decided she needed to experience my favorite shops for herself. So yesterday, she arrived with her son, Max (9), and Susan, a mutual thriftshopoholic friend of ours. Their ETA was noon-ish, so I made sure to greet them with food. We feasted on spaghetti tossed with olive oil and dressed with fresh basil, cherry tomatoes (both still growing on my garden) and parmeson cheese. YUM! Glasses of Baltimore Bend's "Last Minute" red wine fortified us for the serious bargain hunting we had ahead of us. I had decided to do some "warm up" shopping before their arrival so I went to Mahnken's and found this lovely birth month angel (50 cents). Probably a lid to a trinket box (now broken), I liked that she came solo. It will be fun to find a sugar bowl or something for her to sit on, but in the mean time she is happily perched inside a teacup in my china cabinet. She may even remain a "teacup fairy".

Mahnken's was closed when we set off shopping, so it was off to Higginsville to the Classic Shop. While Amy hunted down every flower pot and Susan glommed onto a vintage waffle iron (thinking ebay resale) I found this wonderful little glass vile (10 cents!) and my Absolutely Fabulous hand bag for a whole quarter(!) I found a pair of gold toned shoes, but alas, they were too small. Something to hunt for in the future. :)

Vows

We went to a wedding last weekend under protest. My sister-in-law and ex-brother-in-law were retying the knot, after being divorced from each other for 3 years. Last Friday, we had to take our kids out of school, drive a good 3 hours down to Branson, MO to attend a 5:30pm wedding in the Wilderness Chapel in Steal Your Dollar, er Silver Dollar City. ;) My husband thinks his sister is an idiot for remarrying the man who made her miserable enough to divorce him the first time and I think she's making a big mistake too. Although I would like her to prove us all wrong. She has a lot of work ahead of her, being that the groom has become more self centered in the 3 years of bachlorhood he enjoyed immensely and has made few friends in his professional dealings.

That's the surface of my mudslinging. The REAL issues are deeper.

I was wondering, 3 days after the wedding, WHY was I so torn up over them getting married. I mean, their union won't effect me a hill of beans' worth, except that I have to be polite at family gatherings. Last night it hit me. I was JEALOUS! No, I don't have the hots for my broth-in-law. Heaven forbid! No, I am jealous and angry, and hurt even, that my husband and I have stuck it out for almost 13 years for richer (when I had a job), for poorer (when we filed bankruptcy because of a failed business venture), in sickness (when we were just sick of each other) and in health (the birth of 3 kids and all that entails) and there are no kudos for it. Meanwhile my sister-in-law gets married for the 3rd time and there is a big ol' woop de doo for her.

Why is marriage valued so little, and getting married given top prize? Really, it makes me want to throw in the towel and say, "I quit". But I won't. I can't. I couldn't live with myself if I did. I am committed to my husband, come what may. And he is committed to me (although he has often thrown up his hands and said, "I'm DONE!"). He comes around. :) We take our wedding vows seriously, especially the part about, "What God has joined together, let no man [woman] put asunder". We may be old fashioned fools. We may be viewed as oddities, but we plug along. And recently my husband has said that he is falling in love with me all over again. Do you know what it does to you (as a woman) when a man desires you? Well, I glow, for one thing! We are getting our second wind. And there are people looking on with envy. Wishing they had that kind of committed relationship, or could find one. My husband has friends that ask him how it is that we stay married (because they can't get it straight themselves). He tells them, "I don't know". The real answer is simple. It's God. God's grace. We are committed to the vow we took before God and God equips us with what we need to get through a crisis and the unconditional love it takes to keep two headstrong individuals cemented together. Some people do it without God, but I don't know how. Some people call themselves "Christian" and still divorce. Free Will, baby. God can't FORCE two people to stay together is they are determined not to be.

In the ceremony last Friday the minister said, "Marriage is an honorable state ordained by God and is not to be gone into lightly, but soberly..." I am paraphrasing a little, but anyone who has been to more than one wedding (or seen one in a movie!) knows the litany like the Miranda rights. Anyway, I felt a tight knot during that part of the ceremony. Are they taking the words to heart? Are they going to go the distance this time? Are they going to love each other more, forgive more and sacrifice more than they did the last time? I hope to God they do.