Bright Sunshiny Day.....

I survived my MRI last night! I did take one of the Valiums that my doctor prescribed, just because I was worried I'd have problems with claustrophobia. My upper torso and head were totally out of the machine so it wasn't bad at all! REALLY loud, but not uncomfortable at all-I actually almost fell asleep!

It was crazy for me to schedule my first PT appointment at 8 am today after the MRI at 11 pm last night! We didn't get home until after midnight-so it felt like I just fell asleep and the alarm was blaring for me to get up again!

After PT, Eric and I went out to one advertised estate sale that was just a few miles from home. It ended up being a VERY tiny garage sale. Two card tables of stuff, and a few odds and ends on the garage floor. I got this sewing machine---not sure if I should have gotten it or walked away...I don't know anything about them, and I don't sew. I'm hoping I can at least get what I paid for it, or a little more, but I'm not sure. It came with the spools.

I also got this little doll carriage. I don't know if it is old or not, but I liked it, and I really liked the price. I'll give it a try-someone is bound to like it-hopefully!

When we left, we kept going west, rather than head back east because we decided we were going to grab some lunch. We drove about 1 mile and we saw signs for an estate sale!!! It wasn't even listed on any of the sites I usually check!! It was a pretty stinky house-the company running the sale had candles lit in most of the rooms to mask the smell. It seemed to be a clean, sparse house, just a bad body odor smell. I only bought a cotton feedsack bag.

We made a quick stop at the SA and I got two old Shiny Brite ornaments for half off-woo hoo!! Then we stopped at a little BBQ trailer that has been parked at a local gas station for a few weeks. Every time I drive by, I can see they are smoking the meat-and the smell is amazing!!!

Definitely had the wrong setting on the camera!

I wasn't impressed-neither was Eric. We each got a pulled pork sandwich with cole slaw on it, and we each got an order of mac and cheese. The mac and cheese was obviously homemade, but it was kind of bland and you could taste the flour from the rue. The sandwich was so loaded with sauce, you couldn't taste the smoked meat or the cole slaw! You could feel the crunch of the cole slaw and feel the coldness of it, but all you could taste was the sauce.

Oh, well...at least we tried it, and now we know! My favorite BBQ place is still Chris's Boogie Woogie BBQ in Hamburg-although I've heard there is a new place in town that is good...We'll try that one another day!

Tomorrow is the BIG Christmas party for Kevin's work. I always get nervous when I have to hang out with his co-workers! I'm afraid I'll say of do something stupid-or embarrass him. We are meeting at the Quarter Bistro in Ann Arbor for dinner, then we are all going to the black-tie party hosted by the anesthesia department.

A friend gave me an outfit to wear-which was VERY kind, generous and thoughtful...but...it is big on me and drapey and looks like something for someone with different coloring. I was picturing something a little more fitted to show off my weight loss...Yes, Marie...I still haven't figured out how to tell her I'm not wearing her outfit-I'm such a chicken! :)

The sleeves bell out at the bottom to a full foot wide, and the skirt is a long black velvet skirt. 

The dress I bought was only $30 at Dress Barn, so it was a super deal-that price included the hosiery too! I'm looking forward to dressing up...just worried about looking/talking/acting stupid among his co-workers.

Today was a beautiful, bright, sunshiny day...until I got home and saw the news...my heart is breaking for the families!! Why do people who are angry or disturbed go out after random innocent people like that? It is so sad, I can't even imagine the grief - my thoughts and prayers are going out for them all!!

Advent by Candlelight...

Last Sunday was the Advent by Candlelight event that our women's ministry department holds every year. I hosted a table about 10+ years ago when it was much smaller than it is today. Back then, we hosted it in the Chapel of our church and had about 150 ladies attend. Now, we are up to about 600 ladies and it is held off-site at a local banquet hall.

I felt a nudge to host a table again this year, and had certain people in mind that I felt I should invite. It kind of got all discombobulated several times over, but it turned out to be a nice night. Each table host was to bring in an advent wreath with candles. My friend Janet told me not to worry, she had everything I would ever need and she would make my wreath for me.

Whew! What a relief! Especially since it was dealer day at the antique mall the same day!! She even offered to set it all up for me so I could concentrate on loading stuff into my booth-how nice was that?!? A couple days before the event, she let me know that she had to work and couldn't set up, but she found someone else to do it for me-how nice is that?!?!

I had no idea what it was going to look like! I was a little nervous that she might have forgotten and that I'd get there and my table would be the only one without a wreath or candles. I was able to get there around 2, and was very happy to see my table all ready to go!

I even had some time to get home and put my feet up before I had to be back at 3:00. The banquet hall is only 2 miles from my house-how nice is that?!? Everyone that had agreed to come showed up except for one. I didn't find out she wasn't coming until 3:30-too late to invite anyone else since it started at 4. I was bummed that I still had to pay for the spot even though no one was there.

One friend left right after the meal, just before the program started...one friend left 1/4 of the way in, and the rest stayed until the end. Of the 9 that came, 4 were family, so of course, they would stay til the end-right? It was a nice night...despite some glitches!

We lit our candles too soon...and we only had 3 candles and not 4-oops! It was really, really hot in there!

Here are some shots of a bunch of tables that night...

 These first two shots are of my table...didn't she do a great job?!?

It was interesting to see all of the different "takes" on an Advent wreath. Did you see the one with the wasp catcher?

A Quarter? Ok, I'll take it for a quarter...

On Friday, I went to a family run estate sale that was just a few miles from my house. My youngest son, Eric went with me. We were also going to shop for new shoes for him and get some groceries.

The sale wasn't supposed to start until 10am, but when we got there at 9:47 the driveway was packed with cars and not a person in sight-they were all inside! Since the weather was crummy, I didn't mind one bit not having to wait in it. I wasn't even disappointed that others got in before me-I was just happy to be spending the day with Eric!

As soon as I walked in the door, I saw a cabinet piled up with baking items and in the midst, was this Texasware bowl. It had a sticker that said "25". There wasn't a dollar sign or a cent sign and I was thinking it was more than likely dollars, but I asked anyway. I was very pleasantly surprised that it was only a quarter!!

It was interesting walking through this house. The items were marked by sentimental value (I think), more than actual value. Some items were so ridiculously high and others were ridiculously low and not much was in between.

One item was marked $25 and an older man brought it to one of the workers (the granddaughter of the estate) and offered her $5. It was within the first half hour of the first day!! To me, that was kind of insulting. What do you think? I think that particular item was priced very fairly and $25 was a good deal. I felt like he was trying to take advantage of them. She was holding her ground when I left, but it was pretty chaotic and not very well organized so he very well could have walked out with it and they wouldn't have known until later that night.

Their biggest mistake was not having one check-out location/person. When I was ready to pay, the lady inside was busy in a bedroom and told me I could pay the girl in the garage or the guy in the barn. the guy in the barn wasn't even on the premises anymore and the girl in the garage was dealing with the both the barn people and the garage people.

I could have just walked to my car with my stuff and no one would have known if I paid or not! I sure hope no one did that to them!!

I picked up a couple of old ironstone chamber pots in the basement and the daughter down there told me how they used to use them when they were kids "out at the farm" and I think that is why she priced them so high-emotional attachment.

Eric saw me eyeing them and quickly said-"EWWW! don't touch them-they only have one handle!" I cracked up! He does actually listen! I told him a while ago that if he's ever at someone's house for dinner and they are serving soup and the the tureen only has one handle, that he should fill up on bread-because it's not a soup tureen, but a chamber pot!!

They were very filthy-looked like they didn't get washed very well after the last use, so it wasn't very hard to walk away-especially with the price being higher than an antique store price.

Here are the other items I picked up...I also got a couple of old yardsticks, but shoved them into the closet in the spare room before I got a snap of them.

 This is a chamber pot too, but it is just mud...I think.

On Saturday, Kevin and I went to a couple of sales, one was 2 miles from my house. It was run by a new estate sale company and their prices were pretty high, so we didn't stay very long. We went to a second one in our same town but down a long stretch of muddy slippery road. We saw a lady who had slid off the road and into some trees, her airbag went off, but she seemed ok and she had other people who had come out of their houses to help her.

This sale was really a moving sale, throughout the entire house. Their prices were really high as well...on everything but this Bible. All leather, in the original box-original price $64.99. I paid $2.

The next stop was a craft show at a local Christian school. A few friends from church had mentioned they were going to have tables of stuff there, so we went to check them out. I picked up a couple of gorgeous scarfs from my friend Cindy. She made a ton of them and all of her proceeds were going to be donated to Love Inc.

We came home and I got busy mixing up all kinds of cookie dough for all of the various Christmas cookies I bake every year. I like to stretch it out and mix them up on one day, refrigerate the dough over-night and bake them the next day. So after church and loading a bunch of stuff into the booth on Sunday, I baked for about 4 hours.

 The chocolate didn't set up right on the peanut butter cups...Kevin had to help me because it was hardening wayy too fast! His idea of more is best didn't work out so well, and made for sloppy peanut butter cups...they taste great even though they look bad!

 Molasses cookies!

 A twist on peanut butter blossoms-a green M&M smooshed in the middle of the warm kiss!

 Double Treat cookies-peanut butter cookie with chocolate chips and peanuts!

 Snowballs!

Cut out cookies decorated by an impatient 18 year old! They still taste great!

I still have  pretzel things and caramel corn to make, but that will go quickly-I hope! After my volleyball games last week on Wednesday, my knee has been bothering me. Slightly swollen, and achy. Last night it was over two times bigger than my right knee and hurting something fierce-even with ibuprofen and ice for over an hour! I went to urgent care and the doctor said it would need to be drained, otherwise it would take 6 months to a year for the fluid to go away!

He wasn't skilled in that area and referred me to his colleague in the next town for today at 3:00. I've made an appointment with my regular Dr's office (not my regular doctor), for 11:45. The swelling has gone down by half and the pain is about half-I almost feel like I could play tonight...almost. I'm nervous about what they are going to say (or do!).

We re-visited the estate sale that was 2 miles away after church on Sunday and everything was half off. I got this bench for less than half off. I made her an offer that I guess she couldn't refuse! I just missed a really neat trunk for $17...just what I didn't need...another trunk!

I also picked these up-hoping to read them while I am off between Christmas and New Year's.

Well...I'm off to see what the doctor says...hopefully no needles...hopefully it will heal quickly-I've got play-offs next week!! :)

Please keep praying for my blog friend Shara's mom for quick healing!!


UPDATE:
I might have a slight miniscus tear...I have a MRI appointment on Thursday at 11pm (yes-it does say pm...crazy huh?) to find out for sure. I'm almost thinking of not going...the swelling has gone down considerably as well as the pain has gone to about a 2 on a scale of 1-10...(yesterday it was about a 15!) I did skip vball tonight, but am thinking I might buy a knee brace to wear under my knee pad and try it on Wednesday...I'm scheduled to start PT as well to strengthen the muscles so it doesn't happen again. I don't have time to go to PT or to be out of commission right now!

Feeding My Vintage Bowl Addiction!

Last Friday when I hung out with my blog friend Marie, we discovered that we both need a 12 step program for our bowl addiction! I don't know what it is, but I LOVE bowls! I have a hard time walking away from a fun, new to me, vintage design bowl. Crazy isn't it?

CONFESSION: We have so many bowls around our house, that I stopped counting at 30! All but one set of the bowls that I use on a daily basis are vintage. All of the bowls I have sitting around on shelves or out on display are vintage.

Don't you just wish Pyrex would start producing a new line of bowls with a nod toward the old brightly colored vintage bowls?? I think I would be the first person in line should that ever happen! I even sent them an email about a year ago suggesting they consider it.

I just got a couple of packages in the mail...yes..I needed these, I couldn't live without them. Now, I am on the hunt to finish the sets of each! Wish me luck!

The first picture is the first 3 out of 4 of Pyrex opal in the 400 series. When I first saw the opal color, I was very skeptical. I thought it as a bowl that used to be colored that went through the dishwasher too many times and lost all of the color. A little research was very helpful to dispel my doubts. Opal was indeed a real color and was intentionally made by Pyrex.

Now the hunt is on to find the 404 in opal. I'll have to be careful though because I've already seen several sellers on Ebay selling bowls as opal that were previously colored bowls-you can see a tiny hint of color at the edge of the top lip-that's what has given it away to me.

The bottom picture is a very tiny Federal Glass Flower Power Daisy bowl. I've been looking for a year for these bowls and so far I've only gotten 2 covered casseroles and this little beauty. The hunt continues!

Fun Times with Friends!

Yesterday and today were days just filled with adventure and friends! I spent the morning yesterday looking for a dress for a formal Christmas party we are going to in a couple of weeks for Kevin's work, and running errands.

In the afternoon, I met a blog friend (Marie from Canada), and we hung out for a couple of hours at LAO shopping and enjoying each other's company! It was a lot of fun, and I found out that we have a LOT in common! We both have a slight (ok, scary) addiction to vintage bowls-and I'm sure if we were to spend more time together, we'd find how many other things we both love!

Then today I went to the Williamston Antique Mall's Christmas Open House with my friend Auntie. We've gone to this open house for too many years for me to even count! It is always a big deal! The front entrance is filled with all kinds of yummy appetizers and punch and a lot of booths have finger desserts for you to nibble on as you walk around.

After Williamston, I picked up a young friend who is a new mom, that just needed some time out and an ear to listen. We went to the Warm and Cozy Bazaar at the old Hartland High School. We got her little guy's picture taken with Santa while we were there, and I could see her stress level drop a million degrees by the time we got back to her house.

It was a great couple of days!

Now I need to get busy and get some stuff ready for the booth for tomorrow's dealer day, but I just wanted to share with you what came in the mail today!!!

My very first ivory Fiesta mixing bowl and it's a #6!!! Now I only need 1 more in that size and two #7's and I'll be all done with my Fiesta bowl collections. Still on the search for a #403 pink and white striped Pyrex-to finish that set...and a couple of other patterns by other manufacturers. Maybe I do need a 12 step program for my bowl addiction-lol!

Tomorrow is the Advent by Candlelight event that our women's ministry department is hosting at a local banquet facility, I am hostessing a table and I'll be back to share how that went soon!

Have a great rest of the weekend!!! I gotta get busy and get the tree up! Cookies next weekend!