The Kindness of Fellow Bloggers

This arrived in my email box earlier this week from a fellow blogger:

"Hi, Cheryl... Just wanted to check in to see if all is okay.  Haven't heard from you for a while and was a bit worried."

Receiving that message reminded me of two things:
1. I can't let my blog go when things get busy around here, and
2. The friends I've made through this blog over the years are the BEST!

Somehow, time seems to have sped up since we returned from our road trip last month. First there was Easter.

I have no idea why I felt compelled to make 23 Easter baskets, but I did. So no blogging that week! While going through the Easter stuff, I came upon this old photo of my sisters and I all dressed up for Easter 1954. Do you remember that we all wore "Spring coats", hats and gloves on Easter? And corsages, of course.

Andi, Nancy & Cheryl, Newington, CT,  Easter 1954
"The Stunning Smith Sisters"

The week after Easter, was spent with our grandchildren. They live in Brooklyn, NY and love to come to Maine. Our granddaughter wanted to "do crafts" so here's what we did together.

Do you remember weaving potholders as a kid? My sisters and I would weave them by the hour and then either give them as gifts or try to sell them to the neighbors for 25 cents each.  Happy memories. Our granddaughter picked it up quickly and made lots of potholders to take home!

After a week with kids (fun but exhausting!), we decided to take a quiet ride up the coast of Maine for a couple of days. just to get away.

We love the mid-Coast so that's where we headed, stopping to visit friends along the way.  Our Searsport friends have goats. The baby (above) is only 12 weeks old and so cute. When she cries for her mother, she sounds just like a human baby.

Our friends also own a campground. I've offered to help out the past few years ordering and organizing the campground store. The floor is freshly painted and it looks beautiful now - just very empty. So, I've been busy getting ideas from places like Pinterest and Etsy for things we need to order asap.

I love to make things, decorate, shop, and hit the flea markets so thinking of ideas for things to sell and unique ways to display them is actually fun for me. But it has been another distraction that's kept me from blogging.

While we were on out getaway, we stopped for our first fried clams of the season. So good! And, just for old time's sake, we shared a root beer float to go with them. Delicious! Sadly, my Weight Watchers meeting was the day after we got back. Those clams cost me two pounds that I have to get off this week but they were so worth it!

On the way home, we stopped at an antique shop we like. Being downsized I try not to buy much these days but I couldn't resist these four M.A. Hadley Berry plates. I've collected M.A. Hadley since I worked part-time at the Yankee Peddler Country Store in Connecticut when my kids were little. They sold her hand painted pottery and I coveted it. I couldn't afford even one piece then so now I can't help treating myself to it once in awhile.

When we got home, I found yet another reason to put off catching up on my blog: I decided to start digitizing the thousands of slides we had stored away from our college graduation through our children's early childhoods. Remember the boxes of Carousels that seemed so high-tech back in the day? Again, I have no idea what possessed me to do this now.

But I did find this neat little Kodak Scanza on Amazon. It converts Old 35mm, 126, 110, Super 8 & 8mm Negatives & Slides to JPEG Digital Files that are saved on an SD card. Since it costs 40-50 cents a slide to have this done professionally, I figured the purchase would be well worth it. When I finish (if ever!), I'll put all of the photos on thumb drives for my children and sisters. 

And in my spare time, I purchased three trees at the local nursery (that's another story) and set up the deck (finally - we've had NO Spring in New England this year!),

Having shared all that, I still feel bad that I've let this blog go for so long. But I also feel grateful to have such good blog friends, who, although we've never met in person, share their lives with me as I share mine with them. 

And who take the time to ask if I'm OK when I haven't posted in awhile. We may live across the country from one another and differ in more ways than we know, but we are friends. 

And that means the world to me!

This post is linked to:

Grandma's House Link Party # 138 at Chas' Crazy Creations

My Sister's Dolls

Do these Ginny dolls look familiar? If they do, you're probably a "Boomer" like me. My sisters and I loved collecting the dolls and their outfits back in the 1950's.  These two dolls belonged to my "little sister", Nancy. Unlike me, who lost all of my old dolls over the years, Nancy took care of hers and displayed them on a shelf in her craft room.

Here is a photo of my sisters and I on Christmas morning 1953. I'm in the middle and Nancy is on the right - only 15 months old then. As you can see, we got dolls that Christmas. I still remember the ones my sister, Andrea, and I got because (with just a little maternal assistance) they walked!

When Nancy passed away in 2010, after a long battle with ovarian cancer, I was devastated. Her dolls were the last thing I thought about. They ended up in an attic somewhere, I think. I didn't care. I didn't care about much then, actually, except that Nancy was gone. It still aches every day. She was only 58 and my best friend.

And then, a few months ago, Nancy's widower, Aaron, called me. He was moving and found the box in the attic that held Nancy's dolls. He asked me if I'd like to have them. Are you kidding? Of course, I wanted them. 

I wanted to touch them again. To hold them and smell them and try to get a whiff of Nancy, of childhood, of happy/sad sisters' memories.

So now the dolls are on the shelf in my craft room. 

I remember how much Nancy wanted a Betsy Wetsy.

Our mother was reluctant because of the "mess" the doll might make but Nancy was adament and, that Christmas she got this one.

Over the years, she rubbed most of the hair of the old girl!

And then came the piece de resistance . . . Barbie! I still remember every detail of the day I got my first Barbie. Mine is long gone now. But Nancy kept hers.  Here she is, strutting her stuff in the Marilyn Monroe outfit our Mom made for her.

With the original Barbie case and all!

I'm so lucky to have Nancy's dolls. They bring back painfully beautiful memories of childhood and sisterhood that were almost lost.  Like sitting on the porch of our cottage at Wells Beach playing with our dolls together as the surf crashed below us. Like learning to sew at our mother's knee by making clothes for Ginny and Barbie on her old Featherweight. Like fighting, as only sisters can, over whose doll was prettiest.

Do you have keepsakes from your childhood that, when you touch them, make you feel six or seven or eight or ten years old again? Can you close your eyes and it's almost as if you're back there - just one more time?

Where does the time go?

This post is linked to:

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage
Share Your Style Link Party #193 at 21 Rosemary Lane
Inspire Me Tuesday #486 at A Stroll Through Life
Blogging Gradmothers Link Party at Grammy's Grid
Amaze Me Monday #300 at Dwellings

Coastal Decorating

I love beach combing.  Summers on the rocky beaches of mid-coast Maine are spent looking for sea glass. And this month, thanks to a camping trip to Florida and South Carolina, I got to comb unfamiliar beaches for shells we don't find in Maine.

As we explored local flea markets and antique barns throughout the South, I kept my eyes open for items in which to display some of the shells we'd collected. I came up with an olive basket, two rusty handled baskets, and a dough bowl I had on hand. 

Even after giving some of the shells away to friends, there was still quite a pile left to arrange.

I started with the tin olive basket.

My first arrangement looked as if I had just dumped the shells in.

Clearly I needed a better plan.

On my second try, I decided to take up some space in the bottom so that the arrangement would take on a rounded shape and favorite shells would't get "lost" in the bottom. Cardboard bowls worked!

 The finished arrangement is big enough to make a statement . . .

And works well on the coffee table in our conversation area.

 The dough bowl was a little easier to arrange.

As was this rusty basket for the kitchen island.

I think I'm on a roll!

I had one metal basket left over.

And decided to fill it with my accidental collection of wooden shoe forms.

Don't laugh . . . I collect old door knobs too!

As always, one project led to another.

So I decided to rearrange this display in my kitchen to hold the two pieces of  M.A. Hadley pottery DH spotted at an antique shop in North Carolina. I love how they look on my shelf.

They're hand painted and whimsical . . . outside and in!

The two Shawnee miniatures I purchased on our trip are still sitting on the top of my display cabinet.

I'll rearrange that tomorrow.

After I walk the beach?

This post is linked to:

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps On the Porch
Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

Thursday TFT Party at Katharine's Corner
Flaunt It Friday 396 at Chic On a Shoestring

Shawnee Hunting in South Carolina

We're back on the road in the Casita, spending a few days in one of our favorite places, Charleston, South Carolina. I love the low country and could blog about it for hours. But I'll start with a story about Friday's "antique road trip" to the little town of Walterboro, about an hour from Charleston. It was recommended for its antiques and cafes.

Walterboro is a cute little Southern town but, sadly, many of its antique shops have gone out of business and the tree-lined main street is marred by empty store fronts. Antique shops seem to be struggling everywhere. At home in New England the same is true. "The girls" and I used to be able to spend whole days driving from one antique shop to the next looking for bargains; not so anymore. Is that true where you live too?

We did find a few shops open. One was located in what was the town's only movie theater back in the day. After the theater closed, the grandson of its original owner turned it into a group antique shop. After hearing stories about the "old days" in Walterboro (and even seeing black & white photos of Grandpa!), we began hunting through the piles of  "stuff" in search of ever-elusive Shawnee Pottery miniatures to add to my collection.

 And, sitting on an old tray of dishes in the back of the store, I spotted one!

This little two-handled vase is the first one I've found in many years. Score!

And, at $5.00, I didn't even dicker; they're now selling for $20.00 to $30.00 each online.

These tiny (<3")vases and pitchers were produced from 1937 through the 1940's and given away as premiums at stores and movie theaters. (Back in 2011, I wrote a post about my collection, with lots of photos, which you're welcome to revisit here.)

Finding this little vase seemed like quite a coincidence because just last week, Claudia at Mockingbird Hill Cottage, who also collects Shawnee miniatures, posted about two she had just purchased and how hard they are to find. I replied to her post that I hadn't found one since 2011. A few days later, this one appeared, in Walterboro, SC of all places.  Karma?

On the way back to Charleston (Mt. Pleasant, actually) we passed this funky barn, "Linda Page's Thieves Market".

After yelling "Stop! Stop!" to DH and encouraging him to take a hair-raising u-turn, we pulled in. 

What a fun place!

I loved these big tobacco baskets; great size, color and texture for $30.00. I wanted to buy one of the larger ones for the wall over my couch but finally had to let it go . . . we simply have no more room for "stuff" in the camper. (Tied to the roof, maybe?)

I did buy two rusty old egg baskets to use as Easter decor, a metal tray in which to display all the whelk shells we collected in St. Augustine, and 10 colored glass bottle stoppers. (There's no rationale for the bottle stoppers except that I already have a door knob collections so, for 10 for $1.00, why not?)

Outside the "Thieves Market" was this bicycle. Can you see it? I wonder if the rider is still in the barn somewhere? If so, she must like to hunt for "junk" even more than I do!

Tomorrow we'll load up the Casita and head for Rome, Georgia. Before we do, I'm determined to finish at least one more post about one of my all time favorite places . . . Charleston. 

It' s raining in the low country today so I just might get that done!

This post is linked to:

Amaze Me Monday at Dwellings

Nifty Thrifty Sunday at Nifty Thrifty Thungs