A Girl and Her Toys...

When we set up for the craft show in Ocean City several weeks ago,
the booth directly across from us was a dog rescue organization. 
For a donation, you received a goodie bag of dog toys.
I ended up with 2 of these bags...
one for Lucy and one for granddog Dre. 

 I've been giving Lucy a new toy every couple of days...a variety of
colored tennis balls, a frisbee and assorted stuffed toys. 

 Her favorites are the the stuffed animals...
she loves to pull out the fluff.

 And when she's completely exhausted,
she makes sure no one else can play with them while she snoozes.

Country Workshop

Use It Up...Wear It Out

 This is the house where I grew up, just inside the city line of Baltimore, MD.
Lovely old place with 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms with claw foot tubs. 
The kitchen had a wonderful pantry, which had at one time been a back stairway.
The basement was a scary place at night
as you had to go down the stairs in the dark and reach for a string at the bottom,
and pull it to turn on a light. Right in the middle of the basement was a
large, round furnace that had once been fueled by coal,
but had been converted to gas before my
parents purchased the house in the early 1950's. 

 

 And in the dining room was a large register cover, over top of that old furnace,
which was the only place where heat came into the house. 
There was a smaller register in the ceiling, above the one in dining room,
which allowed heat to get to the second floor. 
Yes, it was cold in those upstairs bedrooms and one used the bathroom on
the upper floor very quickly on those very cold days.

 

 This smiley faced child is me, in the dining room, on my 3rd birthday.  To the right of the table is where the grate was in the floor.  My brother, sister and I would get out of bed on cold, winter mornings and run to stand on the register to keep warm.  We also found that if we had been playing in the snow and hats and mittens got wet, we could toss the on the grate and they would sizzle when they hit the hot metal.

 

 Our dalmatian, Penny, would lay on it, as hot as it was, and would always have to be
rescued when the name tag on her collar would get stuck in the grate. 

Years later, after I was married and out of the house,
my parents had a new heating system put in...and every room actually had heat.

The old grate was taken out and wood flooring installed to fill in the hole in the floor.
My Father attached the register cover to an old Singer sewing machine base
and made a table out of it. 
When they moved to Ocean Pines, near Ocean City they took the table with them.
When my Mom moved back to Baltimore, after my Dad passed,
she brought it back with her. Last summer, she moved into a smaller apartment
and didn't have room for this unique piece...it now sits on my patio.

 

Lou thinks we should clean off the rust and spray it black....

I think we should leave it as is.  No matter what we decide, every time 

I stroll pass it on the way to the shop, I see a little bit of my childhood.

 www.countryworkshop.net

Longwood with Friends

On an absolutely lovely spring day, Lou and I went with our neighbors of almost 40 years, to the beautiful Longwood Gardens.  This trip gave us time to visit as it seems we only get to wave and say hellos lately.

 Sharing some photos from the trip...

I'm too old for this...

We have been a bit crazy around here.  Lou and I decided, after over a year of not doing any shows where we set up our display and peddle our wares, to actually book a show in Ocean City, MD.  We have done seasonal consignment shows, where we drop off our products and the owner of the show sells for us and then we pick up what hasn't sold, and wait for a check.

 So for the last several weeks, we've been getting internet orders made
and shipped out and making extra items for the OC show. 
Crazy long hours in the shop and trying to do
normal people things during the rest of the time. 

Daughter, Holly,son-by-love, Chad and the grandbabies offered to come down
to the beach to help us set up and break down the show and also get a few days away. 
However, the Darling D had his end of the year celebration at his pre-school on Friday,
so plans changed a bit and the two old people and
Lucy set up the show on Friday morning.
I do have to say that Lucy was just the perfect pup...She settled down and watched us
lug in the display and the merchandise and took a nap while we set up.

 Holly and Chad, the kids and granddog joined us on Friday evening.  We were able to go out and have dinner together and then back to where we were staying, drop into bed and pass out. 

Up early on Saturday morning and off to the show for Lou and me. 

The kids, grands and the dogs went off on adventures of their own.

After dinner, a stroll on the beach and toes in the water...

 
  and a gorgeous sunset on the bayside.

     Lou and I spent Sunday, again at the show, and when it was over,
we had lots of help breaking down the display and
getting everything back into the truck and trailer.

We had a wonderful time whenever we weren't at the show.
Time with the family is always special.
However, because the weather was gorgeous,
very few customers came through the show.

There are reasons we stopped doing shows and decided to sell online...
like how physically hard it is to set up and
break down and how you can never know
how successful or unsuccessful a craft show can be due
to good weather or bad weather.
Seems in our old age, we forgot those reasons.

Lily of the Valley...

First Lily of the Valley to bloom in the yard.
The scent from these little beauties always takes me back to childhood.
In my parents yard there were hundreds of them every spring.
Funny how a scent can take you back to another time...

5 Minutes in Oz or Where's the Pot of Gold...

 We had a little storm blow through early this evening.  A few drops of rain, one rumble of thunder and it was over.  But for those 5 minutes, we had the most amazing sky.  Dark clouds and a vivid rainbow quickly changed to white clouds and a blue sky.

 

Humming Somewhere Over the Rainbow to myself...

www.countryworkshop.net