Monthly Archives: January 2018

“Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign” & A Song

Posted in Flea Market Finds, Music, Vintage Finds by

Hello, friends!!!

How was your weekend?  Did you catch the 60th Grammy Awards last night???  Huge night for Bruno Mars.  Emmylou Harris & Chris Stapleton sang a beautiful version of “Wildflowers” together as a tribute to Tom Petty.  I loved Donald Glover a/k/a Childish Gambino’s performance.  I adored him on “Community” and since then his career in both acting and music has exploded.  He won the Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance for his song “Redbone”.  It was well deserved, as that song has all kinds of old school 1970’s soul feels to it.  Swoon.

If you have loved antiques & flea markets as long as I have, you know that signs are a huge collectible.  Store signs, street signs, building signs, etc., are in huge demand.  While I do not own any myself (still on the hunt for the right one for me), I do love admiring them whenever I come across ones I find really interesting.  Most of the ones I like are too big to hang in a normal size house, so by taking pictures of them I can bring a piece of their beauty home with me.

The first time I saw this one with its individual letters, I spent over 30 minutes shooting it from different heights and angles for the right effect.  This was just outside the Delaware Water Gap.  Unfortunately, I have never been around at night to photograph it all lit up.

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Vintage soda signs are some of my favorites.  I spotted the two below in Pennsylvania.

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Old store signs have so much character.  I spotted this beauty in Kentucky.

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The signs on sides of buildings which are made part of the structure itself are like early graffiti experiments, except they were not free hand.  I really love this type of graphic.  I saw this in North Carolina.

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Now for our song of the week.  I loved seeing U2 last night  and it had me thinking about the great messages in so many of their songs.  One that has resonated a lot for me over the years is 2000’s “Walk On“.

It is a great reminder that who we are is unique, and the moments we have in life are ours, no matter how much others try to take them away from us or rewrite history about them.  I love these words:

“Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on…

Walk on, walk on
What you’ve got they can’t deny it
Can’t sell it, or buy it
Walk on, walk on”

I do not own the rights to the music.  I am just sharing some things that I love with you   🙂

Until next time, happy digging!!!

 

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Shop With Me: Antiques Flea Markets & This Week’s Song

Posted in Flea Market Finds, Music, Vintage Finds by

Hello, my lovelies!!!

One of my favorite things about living in New England is that I am basically a short car ride from an antiques flea market at any time.  This means I am able to indulge in my favorite hobby all year round.

Over the last two weeks I have visited two indoor ones.  Although I did not purchase anything, I had a great time looking at all the treasures and basking in the memories so many of the items brought back to me.  Sometimes that means more to me than actually finding anything.  Also, looking at the displays inspires me to style my items in new ways.

I really enjoy looking at children’s items.  Whether it is toys or furniture, the simplicity of these items cannot be beat.  Like these Lincoln Logs.  I loved playing with these when I was a kid.  They were like our generation’s Legos.  It felt so empowering to create a one of a kind toy.

lincoln logs

Tiny desks are just adorable.   Perfect spot for a teddy bear and a tea cup.

childrens desk

I spent hours playing with all the Fisher Price Little People toys:  the farm, the bus and the airplane.  Raise your hand if you were one of the kids that put the people on your fingers to play with them like puppets.  Me, too.

little people plane

Despite my love for the Peanuts, I never had a Snoopy phone.   The colors and the scale of it just did not go with my style.  But I always love to look at it whenever I come across one.

snoopy phone

Enamelware is still one of my favorites, too.  I have a big oval tub similar to the one in the picture.  I use it to hold my wet, snowy boots in the winter to save my rugs.

enamel ware

I love this old butter churn.  I think it would make a great display for cookie cutters on top of a refrigerator or pantry cabinet.

butter churn

Old metal medical stools like this one are just so cool & versatile with endless styling purposes.  If the price on this one was not in the three digit range, it would have come home with me.

old medical stool

I have had a dream for decades to own my own jukebox.  I came close to buying one a couple of times when I owned my house, but practicality always won out.  But if I buy another house, I will have one……my sensible side be damned!!!  LOL

Wurlitzer jukebox

Now it’s time for the song of the week.  The first time I heard this tune on “Grey’s Anatomy” I was swooning.  The music, the lyrics, the vocal…….all beautiful and evocative.  Add to that a reminder to look inside yourself for a virtue is a song I must have in my life’s soundtrack.

“I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own.”

Snow Patrol:  “Chasing Cars”

I do not own the rights to anything.  I am just sharing some things that I love with you   🙂

Until next time, happy digging!!!

 

A Vintage Find & A Song

Posted in Music, Vintage Finds by

Happy Monday!!!

Are all of you staying warm in this deep freeze that is supposed to end this week?  By Friday in my part of New England, it is supposed to be near 50 degrees.  Right now, it is 13 degrees.  Wild, right?

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I came across a winter picture from my house in NY.  I always loved how my maple tree’s branches glistened after a storm.  But I do not miss shoveling snow!!!    🙂

Very quickly, did anyone catch the Golden Globes last night?  Shout out to “This Is Us” winner Sterling K. Brown!!!  So great to see legends like Shirley MacLaine & Carol Burnett there, too.  And so glad there were big wins for “Big Little Lies”, “Lady Bird” & “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”.  I saw all three and they were fabulous!!!  Plus, it is really nice to finally hear the conversations about valuing women with equal pay and zero tolerance for harassment.

Now that you have graciously allowed me my soap box moment, let me share with you my first vintage find from my first estate sale of 2018 (yes, I ventured out in this arctic freeze to dig, LOL!!!)

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Pretty, right?  I do not have any blue dishes as I try to stay with plain ones or white ones with light pink patterns, but I just fell in love with the soft color and the delicate design.  The edge of the dishes and the cup handles are lined with silver.  I think it will be gorgeous on a fresh spring table.  I really love them and I am so happy I found a complete service for four.

Since it is Monday, it is time for music.  The song I have chosen for this week’s inspiration is a hauntingly beautiful ballad written by the man who also penned “American Pie”.  The first time I heard today’s song, it immediately reminded me of one of my favorite Robert Frost poems, “The Road Not Taken”.  I always felt an incredible ache every time I got to to the last stanza of the poem because I believed the author felt regret with the choice he made.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

But then I read the poem to a sage friend of mine who thought the author was actually happy with the road he took.  Suddenly I realized how myopic my thinking was.  Of course there are two sides to the poem.  There is to everything.  You just have to choose to see them.

I do not think I am alone in feeling like at one time or another, I may have gone in the wrong direction than where life intended to take me.  But I have come to believe that in the end every road I have taken is my intended journey through life, so…….

“There’s no need for turning back
‘Cause all roads lead to where I stand.
And I believe I’ll walk them all
No matter what I may have planned“.

Don McLean:  “Crossroads“.

Until next time, happy digging!!!

 

A Word & A Song

Posted in Music, Uncategorized by

Hello & happy 2018!!!

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I do love the start of a new year-empty page, blank canvas and the rest of those similar metaphors.  I feel energized to tackle the items I did not take care of last month due to my end-of- the-year inevitable slowdown so I could divert my energy to all things holiday.  But yesterday I started  making my to-do lists again and I am eagerly looking forward to crossing off my completed tasks.

What I do not do, however, is make resolutions.  I learned a long time ago that word just sets me up for failure and I had enough of that when I tried to learn geometry in high school.  I do better by breaking the year up into four quarters and make a couple of goals to finish by the end of each one.  They range from choosing a vacation spot and putting a budget in place for it to listing some unwanted items on ebay to trying a DIY project or new recipe.

I am aware of the recent trend to pick a word to live by in the new year.  Way too much of a commitment for me, but if I use the same principal as above and choose a word for each quarter, then I will have four words for the year which is a lot more doable for me.

Grace

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My word for the first quarter of 2018 is grace.  I consider myself a kind and empathetic person so I usually have no problem showing it to others.  Of course, giving it to someone who intentionally hurts me is much harder to do, so I need to work on that.  But where I fail over and over again is honoring myself with the same favor.  I am so critical, so neglectful, so inpatient and so hard on my psyche that I need to just find a way to finally silence those disparaging, mean and useless voices.  I tell other people this but I need to remind myself as well that I am more than enough and that everything will be OK.

To help with this, I am using positive reinforcement.  I am going to give myself a song each week with a great message to remind me to show myself that grace.  Since I love music so very much, I feel like this is a total win-win.  This idea came to me two weeks ago when I was sitting in the Walter Kerr Theater for the Boss’s Broadway show.  As usual, his words hit that part of my soul that brings it peace.  That whispers to my heart that as long as I hear his voice, I am home.  And I belong.  In the same world that includes him.  And my heart is full again and ready to inhale and keep moving forward.  So when he got to this verse, I quietly sang right along with him:

“Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted.”

Bruce Springsteen:  “The Promised Land“.

What do you do to motivate you?

I do not own the rights to anything.  I am just sharing some things that I love with you   🙂

Until next time, happy digging!!!

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