Indulge Your Shelf

Dennis has been at his new job for about a month, and seems happy so far.  I'm getting back to feeling normal, despite missing Paul Simon, and we are even thinking about adopting a little friend for Art Garfunkel sometime.  Maybe. For the most part, I'm staying away from thrift shops and estate sales, but every now and then I "treat" myself to trip.  One Sunday there was a great-looking estate sale near our gym, so after we worked out I convinced my husband to stop by.  That was where I found this fabulous horse poster! From an annual festival in Spain, this is a commemorative poster from 1974.  There is one created and sold each year, and they are collectible.  I just could not get over the horses!  And the colors! And this beautiful work of art is an original hand stitched tapestry from around the same era.  Hard to see in the photo, but it is carefully framed in these beautiful pieces of walnut.  I wish it was signed!  I just...

Wow, how quickly did June pass by?  We hadn't had a real vacation in a while, so Dennis and I decided to celebrate year 28 anniversary with a trip to the beach.  But, unlike our last tropical vacation, I wasn't in the mood for just beach...so we chose Charleston, South Carolina.  I'd never been there but I knew there was a lot of history and culture, besides the beaches.  It ended up being the most wonderful trip! The beaches did not disappoint, and we lucked into the most wonderful weather that week!  Even though it was VERY humid and felt hotter than we were comfortable with, the locals told us it is normally much worse at that time.  So we were happy!  The beach we went to most was Folly, but we also visited Edisto and Isle of Palms.  All of them were amazing and the water was perfect for swimming! We stayed at an Air bnb (our first time doing that) and it was a wonderful experience.  Hunter Hall Lodge  was a historical, older ...

Precious time is flying away, here we are almost at mid-May!  Lots of happenings: Ben has graduated from college and is getting ready to move once more to a new apartment (his fifth move in as many years!) This graduation was more enjoyable for me than his high school graduation, but less comfortable as it was out in the blaring hot sun!  We were all happy when it was over, and had sunburns to go with our smiles! Dennis and I spent a couple of days in Ben's college town and had a few meals and visits with him, which were a delight!  The campus is very pretty. Above, I'm making fun of his stiff photo stance .  Just teasing him -- he gave us lots of "real" smiles during this visit. In other news... My friend Wendy and I have gone in together on a booth in a section of an antique store called, Citywide Garage Sale; we are sharing a table to sell off odds-and-ends, random antiques and vintage stuff we've collected that doesn't really go on ...

I went estate sale-ing yesterday! It was so much fun. There were four sales in a row, close together and all very different in style. On the drive to one of them I saw two MORE signs for unadvertised estate sales! I wish I could have spent all day going from one to the other, but I did make it to three of them anyway! My favorite was the home of a woman who reminded me of all of my vintage-crafting-junking friends! To the extreme -- just about every surface of all her walls, up to the ceilings in many cases -- were covered with art and knick knacks. She had fabric, notions, plate, plates and more plates! I spent a lot of time in the house, just taking in and enjoying everything she had assembled. The majority of it was not my style, but it was still fascinating. Many of her items still had the thrift store tags attached to them, and it made me wonder how often I may have passed her in those shops over the years? My favorite thing about her house was the way she used some o...