Beautiful weather, fun junking, and we even got things done!

This weekend, Kristin, my sis and her two daughters, my SIL and her daughter, yep 7 of us loaded into Kristin's SUV and headed EARLY up to Battleground area to go to Barn House. What a lot of fun and laughs we had, as we spent the day oohing and ahhing over all the neat stuff we saw, got to enjoy that beautiful area, sit packed in with stuff, since we didn't leave enough room to haul home treasures...We had so much fun at Barn House! Talk about inspiring! I'm still surprised that radio in the photo above didn't come home with us, Kristin loved it! We were looking forward to once again seeing Natalie, but a family tragedy had called her to Arizona. Missed you Natalie!

After leaving Barn House, we hit every yard sale just about along the way to the highway, until it got so hot we could stand it no longer. Found some more awesome treasures, stuffed them into the car. Went out for lunch, took my niece back to her home in Longview and on the way hit still more yard sales. I found an awesome old rickety ladder for 2 bucks!! Yeah! Couldn't fit that in, so my niece brought it home for me.

It was so hot, I was glad when we finally got home and jumped in the pool, ahh, that felt GOOD! I love days like that! Somehow, when you're out like that, you always meet nice people, and we met this lady, who takes some awesome pictures. I'll be sure to watch her blog and see what she's been doing!

Wonderful Finds This Weekend!!

Well, this weekend was very rewarding, as far as treasure hunting goes!! We decided to take the day to goof off, and Randy always knows what I love to do! So, we spent the day garage saling, and going to estates sales. Today, dd Kristin and I went back to the estate sale for half-off day. We found some pretty neat things, even though not a lot primitive, which I love. Still, I found some neat goodies to stock in my Etsy shop!





Did you see this orange Thermos pitcher and cups? I remember my Grandma had those! I love wooden strawberry boxes, too, so I guess I did find some "prims"! The bright blue thing is a roulette wheel/ashtray, you don't see those everyday, right? How about the vintage golf shoes? They were barely worn and in really nice condition! I love the pink clock, don't you? And the 70s shower curtain was a neat find!

I'll put the pokeno cards on my Etsy supply section, and look at those unique cards, I think they're for learning the Phillipine or Japanese?? language, not sure which. The estate sale was for a lady in her 90s who is Japanese, but was married to an American serviceman, and lived in Japan, Phillipines, all over.

Kristin found some pretty neat things, too, so we had a blast!

What a fun day-I did no work!!!

Yesterday was my birthday, and two of my grandsons came and spent the night at Grandma's to help me celebrate! Are you kidding??? They came to spend the night with their uncles! Yep, my boys are 9 and these two grandsons are 3 and 5. So you know, when they come to Grandma's house, I have to trip them at the door and remind them that, yeah, hey, here I am, the Grandma they came to visit! Oh, I know they love me, but it is a little different having young kids and grandkids at the same time.
Well, of course, they had to build the fort out of blankets and a card table. They had their cups laying there from the frozen fruit they consumed last night, they had their wet clothes all over the bathroom from their hot tub frolick last night. Aidan, the 3 yo, got up and said, "I'm hungry Grandma." Well, there was no cereal, so I said, how about if Grandma makes you pancakes? "No, I want flapjacks, not pancakes". So, here I was making panca.....FLAPJACKS, I get a phone call from Natalie, a friend we thought we'd totally lost track of. I have to talk on my cell phone out on the porch, I talked awhile, then remembered (because of the burning smell) the panca...flapjacks. Natalie was in our town, so of course I wanted to visit with her and invited her out. She had Joe (from Barn House) with her. I hadn't met him yet, but I thought how cool, cuz we wanted to get out to his sale in a couple weeks, so that was neat to meet him.
BUT, when I got off the phone, and started into the house, LOL my whole house was dark with the smoke. So, we opened all the windows, turned on the fan, started getting the messes picked up. I figured, like I always do, I'll give it my best shot to get my house ready for unexpected company and what doesn't get done, oh who cares???
It was sooooo good to see Natalie. Her and Joe were on a hunting expedition for primitives in our part of the country. They were going to stop at our shop, (bummer, we're not running it anymore), but at least we got to see them! BTW, click on the link to visit Barn House, you will love it, and I am anxious to go to their sale in a couple weeks!
Then my friend Bonnie treated me to lunch for my birthday and we sat and visited until after 5! So, it has been a fun day.

Did I tell you...I got chickens!

Well, we've raised chickens several different times over the years, and in several different ways. I once designed, yep, all by my own brain LOL, the last one that was a frame made of PVC pipe wrapped in chicken wire, with a couple of nesting boxes with hinged lids at one end (OK, Randy designed the nesting boxes, he is a carpenter after all!). You could move it around, worked great, but for some reason we gave it to our friends.
Well, I'm sick of the egg prices here in Oregon. So, I thought, let's have another chicken house. This one has turned out sooooo cute, I can't wait to decorate it LOL. I was going to try building it with my kids, to give Randy a break and do another honey-do project instead, but.....he got involved, then him and the boys took over! At first, I was a little taken aback that he used recycled tin for the roof, but he said, "well, you like the primitive look, don't you?" So, what could I say?? But he put the old paned windows in to give out hens some light. Now it's too cute for a chicken house! Not complete yet, but this week hopefully, it will be.
So, here's my chicken house so far, and look at my awesome egg crate!!! My sweet daughter got it for me for my birthday at a show we were in a couple weeks ago. What a deal, we found it for $10. !! I told her to let Randy know that I wanted it for my BD, but she said she'd be the one getting it for me. They marked it down from $20. and I said, "Thank you Kristin!!" So it will be under the overhang, I'm thinking. Cute, HUH?

Blondies having a Giveaway!!

Go check it out! Fun way to get to know this funny lady!

Hey, I did it!

Not perfect, of course, but I made my own banner. I took pics from our old shop and made a banner with them. Good memories, too! I think I like it.
I actually got inspiration from this lady's blog, Banner of Blessings.. I'm going to go back to it, b/c she's got some beautiful stuff, and a lot of it is FREE!

Fun Things I Found

Here are some neat things I found yesterday out in my junking travels. Had to go get repair done on my car, so couldn't resist a little hunting! I have been finding some really neat pieces of robin's egg blue! Just really summery looking. The half vase hangs on a wall, just kindy neat, I thought. And I loved the pretty Fire King plate.
Also, the Josef Originals June birthday doll is really adoreable, and yep, it's got the blue! How do you like the Mt. St. Helens Ash Scale I found? Something 80s, huh? I remember that ash myself!
I've got a lot of things I need to get on Etsy, some cute vintage stuff! Oh, and I can't forget that awesome vintage fabric! It's actually an uncut length of 8 placemats, and what do you know, robins egg blue again LOL. I'm going to leave the placemats uncut, as it has a lot more possibilities. It reminds me of a neat set of dish towels, or purses can be made of it, or.....all I know is I couldn't leave it there!

Gardens & Weeds & Work

The other day, I was looking out my dining room window, and thought, gosh, it looks like I have a curtain in that window of a brilliant, very vibrant yellow. I wouldn't have chosen that for a curtain, and it was really beautiful, but....it was Scotch Broom. If you don't know what that is, we have a lot of it on our hillside, that we've tried for years to get rid of. We've tried everything. My dad has always tried to spray it, but it still actually goes to seed after he's sprayed. I'm not thrilled about spray, but if you don't work to get rid of it, it would take over acres!

Well, I got the bright idea that, before it went to seed, I'd get the kids to help me, we'd borrow my dad's chainsaw-on-a-pole that cuts limbs off of trees, and we'd go harvest it and burn it. We worked at that for 2 days, my arms would hardly lift afterward. I think party my aching was from stress of running that little chainsaw while standing on a hill. We made some progress, but there is still a lot of it out there.

We got our garden in. We actually have a ton of rock, since I do live on property that used to be a rock pit, literally. My dad sold round rock off of this hillside many years as I was growing up. He says the rock keeps the ground warm??? I don't know, but I have actually still been able to grow stuff. This year, Randy built a few raised beds, also. We've had terrible rains, though, so I don't know how a garden will do this year. I'm worried my seeds will rot with so much rain. Of all years, I especially want to get a good garden. I don't want to have to drive to Sauvie's Island this year for beans and stuff. Gas is just too high.

Well, I figure, on rainy days, we're inside working on things we won't want to do on sunny days. But, I love being outside, and this rain is driving me crazy. By the time you get back out, the grass has grown another 4-6 inches! Our horses can't even graze on all the acreage we usually put them on, due to too much green grass. They're already fat enough.