apple -y goodness

My two purchases from the Mower's Flea Market. Tiny delish gala apples. And this sweet little sampler. Someone put a lot of work into this piece, It makes me want to bake a pie and pick up my needle all at once. Maybe stitch while the pie is baking...?

warmth vs. warmth I guess....

It was eighty-two degrees yesterday.

September twenty-ninth for crying out loud!

But with any luck this weather won't hold for long. Isn't that such an odd thing to say: I don't want to warmth anymore?

It's true though. I want my warmth elsewhere. I want to wrap up in this...



It's almost done.

It's from the Lion Brand free pattern called Elspeth. ( You know, I even love the name!) I love all the baubles and the scallop trim and it worked up rather quick with all those openwork bits. I am adding a few extra rows though for extra snuggliness. ( blogger tells me that isn't a word! blogger apparently doesn't crochet...)

I'm making it up in Vanna's Choice in Linen for washability. My boys are notorious blanket thieves so I know this is bound to end up under the sofa and covered in crumbs sooner or later.( but if you saw their sweet faces, you wouldn't be able to refuse them either...)

Of course the best part is I can remember where I started it every time I slip it on....



Yum! look at that will you? The gorgeous Woodstock Inn on the Millstream. Such a zen little spot, loaded with hammocks and gliders and shady spots and don't even get me started on how sweet and crazy helpful our girl Bonnie was!

oh sunny breakfasts, I miss you so....



Jill ( the super-talented shutterbug ) tells the story better than I do, and she has three (!) posts full of beautiful shots of our weekend on her blog. Clicky clicky to go see...

Have you been to Woodstock, NY before? You should go. There's so much easy beauty there. And while you put your feet up and listen to the river...

Gomez will sit on your lap.



Who could want more than that?

Annnnd, the forecast is telling more warmth to come. Looks like there's no rush... I can sit with my hook and dream about the millstream a few days more.....

Country Fair...

ps - that guy trained the pigs for Green Acres...really.

grateful friday.

where has time been going....?
I have some thrifty treasures to share and crochet yumminess, and I just can't seem to get any time to shoot.

But I need to make time to be grateful for the little joys



Ask (for a donut) and you shall receive in this family.



The only thing better than the "ooh, wow" s and posing with donuts was that they both immediately fell asleep with them still clenched in their chubby little hands. With all the chocolate licked off, of course. That's joy and peace. double victory, haha!

And a little ( okay a ton ) more joy for the mama: this room!


(photo from The Woodstock Inn website)

Where me and my awesome friend Jill will spend a far off weekend exploring, relaxing, and surrounded by the kinds of things we looove. Hooray good friends and hooray opportunity.

What are you grateful for today?

Oh it is on, now.

Phew! I am positively pooped from all the bloggy Halloween partying of the weekend. And some real partying too. Now I'm definitely in full on Halloween mode! Saturday we got up to Quincy market and I saw this beautiful display at Michal Negrin. Couldn't you just grab it all up?



And I may have filled my pockets with these gorgeous treats from a candy stop along the way. Which inspired a great idea for some more treats I'll show you later this week.



For now, I'll share my Halloween bunting I made today with my time that I found with one boy gone for the afternoon:



I may have an event coming up that I'll have to make a whole bunch of these for, so this was great practice. I made a template and rotary cut the triangles then pinned a few together and pinked the edges for the anti-fray factor. Not that I see this getting tossed into the wash anytime, but with boys you never know!

Then I just tucked the fabric into some double fold bias tape and went merrily along. I didn't pin or measure, just eyeballed placement. The best part? Half of the fabric is from cut up old men's buttondown shirts from 99 cent day at Savers! Hooray for being cheap, err...thrifty!



Llawrence Llama approves.

And get this: tomorrow is my three hundredth post! Can you believe it? So we'll have to celebrate! Especially since I skipped right over my two year blogaversary last month.

So more eye candy tomorrow. Maybe real candy, we'll see!

phew.

The big visit was wonderful and I was just pooped yesterday. Sightseeing, museums, waterfront, tea drinking, yarn oggling, of and of course, tons of food.

So it's back to my regularly scheduled programming today. Laundry, dishes and all sorts of everyday-ish things. Except of course developing those cemetery photos for a swap, roasting some pumpkins to make the house smell wonderfull and fall-ish. Maybe a nice walk in this cool air?



Everyday-ish doesn't have to be boring-ish. And I have to make this my new computer wallpaper. This guy's smile-lines just get me right there in my Halloween bone. And he looks like he forgot to put his dentures in. Which is always funny...

green

a whole new week ahead of us!

Who's got green?

Amy has the most awesomest green necklace.
Theresa has a beautiful old hymnal.
Laura's promising some for later.
I'm loving Liesl's moss and clover.
And Jill is in for the day! ( Hi Jill!)
Azzy's up too!
Amanda has some cute feets.

If you haven't jumped in yet, there's no time like today! Go get your camera, you know you want to!

Green is my favourite colour. Here's some from me:

A stripey baby hat (as worn by a smiling TP roll) for a very special baby...



A blossom in the beans



The green section of the boys' bookshelf.



A green binky!



My new LL Bean beach bag.(with some sand still in there....)



Some of my vintage glasses.



And the IKEA leaf over Harry's bed.

And we went to the Barnstable County Fair on Saturday where we saw The Raptor Project, The Great Bear Show, and, oh yeah, Eddie Money! Damn I love the County Fair circuit! Over the years at Barnstable, we've seen Chubby Checker, The Fifth Dimension, Three Dog Night, and The Buckinghams!

circus!

Okay, we didn't see the show, I don't think they boys could sit for the whole thing just yet, but we did get to go see the elephants pull up the tent poles on the big top.

I should have a lot to show you

but instead I only have a lot to tell you.
We got up to Maine this weekend for the annual hubby's birthday trip (Happy Birthday Paul! ) and while I'm usually camera queen, I have nothing to show you.
As soon as we were done singing happy birthday, (which was pretty much as soon as we got there,) the camera batteries promptly died.

So you'll have to close your eyes and picture it all instead. Wait, you'll have to read this, then close your eyes. It won't work the other way around.

So picture a clear comfortable campsite with no one on any other tent sites around. Tiny shops that we already know inside and out but have to look around this year anyway. Searching candy shops for vintage brands, it's easy when there's one at every fourth door. Playing the same games year after year at the arcade. Eating lunch on the mountain top. Antique malls stacked high with vintage kitchen goods that my friends have to drag me away from, (or just roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and call in Paul for back-up. ) Gourmet dinners cooked outside.

And best of all long slow nights around a campfire until all hours, talking about everything from how we met, to conspiracy theories about the Patriots losing the Superbowl, haha!

And all of it kicked off with not one but two rainbows. One in Quincy, MA and one in Kittery, ME





(pardon the poor quality, photography at seventy miles an hour makes no promises)

I did get in some thrifting along the way. Sneaky me. I'll share those finds tomorrow. Now I'm off to the market to see if I can do like Gail and feed my fam for $50 a week. Wish me luck

weekend highlights. yes I know it's Wednesday already.

(first photo by Memere)

Strawberry picking, carnival visiting, playgrounding, plant exploring, frog catching, pizza-ing, what more could a couple of boys ask for?

like a mommy mental health day...

We had a virtually kid-free weekend: One boy was off Thursday night, Two boys off Friday night, and a whole day in Mystic, Connecticut!

Okay, we went to a knife show in Mystic. (My husband makes custom knives, we're both crafty.) But there were plenty of nice people to talk to and he even ended up making a pretty nice deal with a new contact so yay for all that.

But I was more excited to go out for lunch.( I'm all about the lunching.) Last time we went to this show we couldn't find a parking space so we skipped downtown altogether and settled for ice cream shack fare. This time we got a nice space and had a great walk and lunch (salmon BLT. yum!) and found the silliest little gift shop called whyevernot. (no website, I checked. boo.)I wanted to live in there. They had the nicest little cards and stationery and books and gifty-type doodads of all sorts. We didn't succeed in finding any mother's day gifts, but I did get those wonderful copper bells to hang over the door now that Harry is tall enough to turn the knobs. Call it a primitive alarm system. I just have to find the perfect ribbon to hang them with!

And on top of all that goodness, I got to come home and spend the afternoon baking. More on that later, that's a post of it's own.

Hope all of your weekends were just as relaxing!

colour inspiration

This is a little Pizza Shop called Cockadoodledoo in Bethel, VT.

I loved every stick of furniture in the place and spent every minute there with my camera instead of my husband. He's used to it.

It was bright without being wild. So comfy. All little corners and nooks. Perfect. I wanted to move right in.

I love to be outside day.

Yes, It's more Vermont.

Where I sat and chatted with Bob while Paul napped.

I love that his outfit matches the photo so well. (Yes, I dress him. )

My souvenier.

We stayed at the wonderful Thomas Mott Homestead B & B. I recommend it to anyone. It was like going to stay with family. Everyone was so friendly, we didn't want to leave. We sat out at the campfire very late on Friday because it was just like being home. And it was definitely the best breakfast I've ever had away from home. We all sat around the table for two hours on Sunday morning.

And I added more photos (from the AppleFest) to my new thrift flickr group. You can see them here.

quirky, like I said.

We only stopped at two antique shops. One was amazing and one was the damn Twilight Zone.

The Twilight Zone was first and I didn't bring in my camera but it was really something.

The odd man at the positively buried front desk and the music that I was sure was from a record player set the tone first. The rooms were piled so high with mostly junk, but some were set up like overcrowded rooms in a regular home. In the furthest room, that held two completely set dining tables, and was sporting some of the oldest curtains I had ever seen, I was sure a ratty old lady was about to hobble out of a darker corner and offer me tea. Forget about the falling to pieces stuffed turkey that was perched between two rooms posed like it was ready to peck your eyes. Yuck.

Some thing was just off about the whole place, which was okay in a spooky, fun to be scared kind of way. But the more we looked, the creepier it got. There was a distinct feeling of being watched and I convinced Paul to leave.

The Second was Tinker's Barn which has to be the nicest, cleanest, best organized shop I have ever been into. I wanted half of the place. The other half was things I realized I already had at home.

Okay, enough of my babble, here's the photos...

The beautiful porch.

Aprons.

Rolling pins!

Hankies and hotpads.

There was an entire table of pink.

Sparklies.

The Cow Chorus. (okay, creamers.)

I had seen the same highchair earlier at the Applefest.

Look at this adorable play kitchen! It as tiny, only about eighteen inches tall and had a matching refrigerator. My mean husband wouldn't let me have it, haha.

The babydoll cabinet. Too sweet.

Okay, I told you I wanted everything there. These are less than half of the shots I took. It was terrible to have to narrow them down to just a few. I think I'll have to make a flickr set for the whole she-bang.

***** UPDATE:

I made the flickr set to hold all the thrifty things

that I cannot have......haha!

here! *****