Speaking of my BIRTHDAY....

I was such a lucky girl to get some "loot" for my birthday so I treated myself to one of my MOST favorite places on earth.... my favorite little shop in the whopping big town (population of about 363) of CARVER!..... this is the famous "Mustard Moon" owned by dealer Jane who has been featured in Country Living Magazine and is about to go national we think! Her shop is in the basement of this wonderful old building... and pretty much feels like a cave once you are inside. Carver is about 5 miles west of Chaska and always was one of my favorite spots to visit... it is quite like Erhard or Elizabeth...only tons more charming! Had I known it existed when I moved to the Twin Cities, this is the place I would have chosen to live.

What kind of fun things did I buy for my birthday with my stash?

Well.... this one's for my Mom... told her there was an antique bowl I had hidden at the Buffalo Nickel until I could get back to purchase it, and here it is Mom! Also was able to get the junior sized one pictured next to it.... Thanks Mom :-)

I also had the great fortune of bringing home a bit of history from one of my favorite shops in Chaska... the 1st pic was taken about 2 yrs ago in front of this shop... note the scalloped window flower box on the left, filled with christmas greens...

several times I had asked the owner if she was going to sell it, and the answer was always a firm "No Sandi, it goes along with the shop as a display!".... so when I arrived last Saturday, I was pretty surprised to notice it was gone... as I got near the back of the shop I saw my little treasure...leaning up against a wall way in the back corner... I ran back out to Linda the owner and said "WHAT???? you took down the front window flower box?"... and she just laughed and said it was time for something new out front.. and then it hit her...she remembered how I had always asked to buy it --- so guess what I came home with? I told her I almost felt guilty taking that fixture out of Chaska, and she assured me there was no one else she would rather see it go home with than me. I had also purchased the bench she had displayed beneath it 2 years ago. Can't wait to find the perfect place for it here in my home or down at the cabin where I have put the bench.

Finally, my favorite new treasure... a birthday gift from my hubby... this old, white, shabby, scalloped cupboard...straight from the farm yard... I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it... and can't wait to decorate it as each season changes.... ya shoulda seen us shoving that thing into the back of the Explorer...! I think this ones going to have to go into the nursing home with me someday :-)

a little of each....

so I had another birthday.... it was great and i even received greetings from nieces and nephews who remembered ! thanks guys! i love getting "real" mail and always try to send out "real" cards to friends and family via "real" mail..something about the surprise of getting mail in your mailbox... so this year I received many, many fun cards. also this year, a few wrote inside the cards the the people pictured on the front reminded them of "ME"... so thought I'd share some of them with you to see what you think!


got this one from jim and johanna... she wrote the "spirit-filled" girl on the front reminded her of me... I kinda have to agree!





got this one from my friend carol who i worked with at moorhead high... and i swear this is just how my grandma christianson looked back in 1952...seriously....i know i inherited her legs...ugh



got this one from my long-time friend jan... and i really think the lady in the green dress on the left has some "sandi" in her....



and finally I got this one from my old boss "DOC" in the cities... and of all them, i think this one most accurately reflects who i think i am... or who i'd like to picture myself as being... a lively, old retired lady just sipping her coffee in the local coffee shop down at the lake, wearing her sun hat, colorful clothing and flip flops....actually I have a pair of sparkly, sequined lime green flips flops just like these!

DON'T I WISH....

richie would buy me this cute little vintage camper that used to be parked by Hwy. 3 on my way to the cabin last summer... it lasted there the whole month of august.... and then when sept. came it was gone! on one of my summer road trips kate and i went to an occasional sale where the gal had a restored one just like this permanently displayed in her back yard where her husband had attached a deck to it and she held her sale in and outside the camper... adorable! don't you just LOVE that turquoise color?

IF i had my own cottage on some land at the lake I'd make this a permanent yard fixture and decorate it up like a dollhouse...just for my grand-daughters to come for a Lucy and Desi Arnez style slumber party!!!

generation gap....

I can tell I'm getting older. And, it's got nothing to do with my birthday arriving yesterday.

I couldn't believe what happened the other night....probably wouldn't have affected me 10 yrs ago...but this just sorta enraged me....

So....Last Friday, I'm ready to head back to Fargo after a one day road trip to Eden Prairie for my quarterly hair color and cut... yes, I know...at $14.95 haircut and $68 worth of gas to get it... that's something like the "priceless" commercial right? well that's another blog entry... but...

I'm leaving the Ridgedale Mall just after 9pm and decide to gas up in the little quick stop station located right there in the parking lot... I get my gas all while the attendant, all of about 20 yrs old, stands outside the little hut where you pay smoking a cigg... he says to me "hey, lady you're dog's really barking"...(I had taken Hazel along with me for the ride to keep me company for the day) to which I think "yeah, well she's just wondering why there's smoke coming out your nostrils".... so he follows me inside and proceeds to ask me if I'm goin all the way back to north dakota tonite... of course to which I think "ALL the way back to ND?"""

So just as I finish paying for my gas this elderly man, complete head of silver hair, nicely dressed, with somewhat of a Jewish accent walks in and asks the attendant "I'm looking for Hwy 12, can you direct me? I've got to find a town called Wayzateeeeee and I'm lost". I sorta chuckle cuz he doesn't even know how to pronounce the name of the town and he so reminds me of my Dad...but, wait, my Dad never would have stopped to ask directions.... OK Mom you can quit nodding your head now...

and this is what enraged me...

the kid goes "well just get back in your car and follow the signs"...

to which I'm thinking and want to shout "what the hell you idiot kid, if the guy could just follow the signs he wouldn't be in here asking you".... I mean, I can clearly see the elderly man is looking for someone to say "you go to the first stop sign and turn right, then turn right at the next stoplight, then stay in the right lane until you veer onto the ramp... then immediately get in the left lane and stay there..... you know that kind of directions... comforting ones at 9 pm at night when you should be asleep in the nursing home.

Anyway, so the elderly man says "well I need Hwy 12 and I don't see it and I've got to get to Maple Plain to my sons"... to which the kids says "well this is Hwy 394 and there's signs out there..." and the poor old man just looks at me...

Now I know how confusing it can be to get out of that mall parking lot and on the right path off 394 to the old Hwy 12 and up through Wayzata, Orono, Long Lake and on the road to Maple Plain. I can see his little wife sitting out in the shiny new gold Cadillac with Arizona license plates, looking concerned so guess what I end up doing?

Yup, I ended up going back to his car with him, telling him to follow me in my big white Explorer and proceeded to lead him out of his darkness and down 394... the opposite direction of heading west down I-94 way back home to ND....

But it felt good when I got him there and could see his big smile and hardy wave goodbye as I turned around...

also made me realize I'm in his generation...those of us without GPS or fancy phones with mapquest :-)

and what was the kid doing as we drove off? standing back outside his hut smoking another cigarette... and I just let Miss Hazel bark all she wanted ---

The Bucket List Lady

This is my new friend Jackie.

She rents Cabin 6, across the yard from our Cabin. She's a woman after my own heart, even though we are about as different as night and day. Jackie likes to cook, garden and fish. I hate to do all 3. I like to create, decorate and sunbathe. Those things are foreign to her. The minute I'd get to the cabin, Jackie would come scampering over with a family member, friend or other cabin renter to "tour" my little cottage. She couldn't get over that someone would actually have that many "red and white" THINGS as she called my prized little possessions. She was so impressed that late in the summer she came over with a "surprise" for me... she had grown miniature red chile peppers in her garden for me to dry out and hang in my cabin kitchen. They were adorable and I loved them.

There were a couple of things though that Jackie and I did have in common.... we both had husbands who didn't particulary love the lake like we did. Her husband George had a love of his Harley, and only came to the lake about 3 times for a few hours each time all summer! My husband has a love of his jobs and while he came often, not once did he spend the night at the lake. Another thing Jackie and I truly had in common though was a love of "pontoons". Early on one night while conversing by the campfire Jackie made all of us go round the circle and name one thing on our bucket list. Being a newcomer to the group I didn't want to get too personal, but I did have one at the top of my list that made sense. I said that someday I had hoped to own a pontoon. That when my final days came, they would be spent on Lake Lida out on a pontoon, and that my dust remains would be floating away off the dock on an air mattress for eternity. Well, the next day Jackie explained to me that the pontoon on dock #4 was HERS! and hers alone... her husband bought his Harley, so she bought her pontoon. AND, Jackie being the great gal that she, is told me where she kept the keys to the pontoon and that I could take it out whenever I wanted. I thought "Wow, I can sorta cross that one off my bucket list!".

I never had to take that pontoon out by myself... as everytime Jackie was going to go out on it she came over to get me to go along! The pics were taken the very last time we were out on her pontoon... it was Sunday morning in mid-September... she came over about 8:30 that Sunday morning, pretty much waking me up saying "c'mon girl, the crappies are biting".... I'm like "Jackie, I'm still in my jammies and I haven't had a shower!"... to which she of course responded "who the heck needs a shower, this is a pontoon on a lake woman!". I told her to give me 30 mn... she said she was leaving and to stand on the end of the dock when I was beautiful and she'd be back in to get me.

So here we are that gorgeous fall morning...she's crappie fishing with her fish hat and fish clothes on and here's me....having had my shower, properly attired in my white sundress, with the required bare minimum of at least some blush and lip gloss on and my morning cup of coffee.



How different we are, yet how alike. Can't wait until next summer... I'll add something else to the bucket list by then I'm sure...and Jackie will still be giving tours of my cabin.

Time Away....& Tuesday Freedom

My sister reminded me the other day it was time to update my blog.... I thought "What's this? Someone who is actually interested in what I've been up to?"


So after she took me to dinner last night to celebrate my birthday, I thought I'd give her the view from here....

this is what I saw when I came down to walk Hazel in the dawn of yesterday morn.... it was so dang soft, and white and pretty in the dusk of morning....seemed strange though to see the white snow on pure green leaves!


Since we've closed up the cabin, I've spent more time in my creation room...realizing how much I miss my little sales booth down at the Nickel Antique Mall.... I've been grazing over various antique dealer blogs and websites....jealous of their craft and ability to put it all together....but even more jealous of the freedom of time they have...which I can't seem to quite arrive at in my life yet.

Since I am lucky enough to have a job where I do have a weekday off, I've tried to make sure I value that day and not spend my entire day of freedom just doing the mundane like cleaning or laundry. This summer I tried to get to the cabin or out of town each Tuesday. I remember one particular day when I hopped on down to an antique store in Fergus Falls prior to heading to the lake and just so enjoyed my ride on the back roads near Maplewood State Park with the blue sky and the summer white clouds thinking how much I valued not having to be at work on a Tuesday!

Realizing nothing quite gets the juices flowing in me than walking into an antique shop or into a thrift store.... on my day off last week, I spent the day cruising both and came across my new favorite!!!



this old, vintage jack-o-latern... and it's not just a plain, plasticky one..but it has "sparkles"... this hummer has to be over 20 years old and guess what ? I got it for a mere $3 bucks!! it has since lit up my living room every night...and I've enjoyed the warm, orangy glow it brings the room. I swear my Aunt Bainy used to have one just like it back in North Moorhead in the 60's.


Visiting these blogs and websites brings with it "motivation" to get in gear....Last weekend brought the following projects.....


trying to make fake looking caramel apples for an antique tray I have.....


and




making picture frames of old pics of my kids in their Halloween costumes I used to so enjoy sewing

and

putting together vintage halloween prints I purchased from a dealer in the twin cities....

Somwhere in my past, I'm sure I was at a Halloween party bobbing for apples just like this picture....

I also found these vintage paper-doll cut-outs for Halloween decorations...which are another new favorite in our home....this little guy reminds me of my brother when we were little....stick out ears and all....

and of course this one reminds me of my angelic little sister... who could do no wrong in Mom's eyes....

So since today is another Tuesday, I'm off to see if I can scrounge around the shops and find one that reminds me of me when I was little....hummm.... I wonder what that would look like......also
time to look around for a little spot in one of the shops for a booth of my own again I think :-) something more to do with my "Tuesday Freedom".