Paying it Forward

For those who have followed me for awhile now

know that I brag that we have the best customers ever

who walk into our antique store.

This is a short story of one of those customers.

Last week a lady came into the store needing a shelf and a dresser.

She recently moved from Key West Florida and literally left there

with the clothes on her back a few months ago.

Not wanting to pry, but knowing the situation she was in,

Bob decided to help her out.

One of our vendors was in the store as well.

Coincidentally, she fell in love with her bookshelf

because she did not find a shelf in the store 

 Bob explained to our vendor her plight.

Call it the Christmas spirit, but she gave her a great deal on it.

Then this sweet lady started looking for a dresser.

However she could not find one that was within her price range.

Bob remembered that he had one in the van.

He sold it to her at cost, but told her he gave her our

"Did not come into the store price"

I was not there that day, but Bob told me she started crying

as these were the first pieces of furniture she was able to buy for her house.

Her brother had given her a bed and a couple of chairs.

That was all she had...

Now we usually charge a delivery fee,

but Bob told her we would deliver for free since she lived close to us.

It was another way he wanted to pay it forward.

We delivered her furniture last night.

After placing the pieces where she wanted,

she presented us with a home made key lime pie.

Unfortunately, neither of us are very fond of this pie,

however she was so gracious and kind and kept telling us that we would

NEVER

taste a key lime pie like this in a store...

Well we did not have the heart to tell her we did not like it,

so we took it home and thanked her.

Once we got home, I decided that I was going to try this pie.

Bob decided he would too.

I have to tell you all.

That pie was so good!!

She was right.

It was the best I had ever tasted.

Instead of us paying it forward to her...

 she paid it forward to us.

We had another piece after dinner tonight.

Which goes to show...

We have the

 BEST CUSTOMERS EVER.

Looking out my kitchen window Christmas morning.

We had a green Christmas this year.

However Mother Nature decided to bless us with 2 inches today.

This will probably be my last post for the year,

so I want to wish everyone

A Safe and Happy New Year!

Take care everyone

Janice

Monday Montage

This will be the last montage for the year.

I cannot believe next Monday will be 2012 already. 

The years are definitely going by much too quickly!

Here are the pics I have chosen for this week.

A square nailed pine candle box.

Another early lollipop handle candle box.

This one has great patina and made with hand forged nails.

 Colonial New England candle box with a fish tail handle.

This one has a dove tailed drawer and also made using hand forged nails.

Inside of the candle box.

Because of the handmade pin and dovetail on the drawer,

this piece dates back from early to mid 1800's.

An early wood sock stretcher.

I love this cubby box!

Even though these pins and dovetails are not handmade

this piece still dates from 1860 to 1899.

Circa 1890 black squared checkerboard.

Don't you think this piece looks nice on the brick fireplace?

Actually, I just put it up here to take the photo.

Heat can ruin wood antiques,

Please keep that in mind when placing your favorite antiques in your homes.

If you thought the last checkerboard was nice.

This red and black beauty was made using rose head nails.

Circa 1860.

That will do it for this weeks montage.

Hope you enjoy them!

PS. This is part of the lode that Bob found...

He left them in the house this morning 

because he had to clear out the van to deliver some furniture tonight.

So guess what, a few are not going to make it into the store. LOL

Its our little secret though...

He won't know until we redo the store this weekend and put away the Christmas decor.

New Year Blessings to all

Janice

Happy Holidays

Whatever your religious beliefs are

 I just want to wish everyone

a joyous holiday!

May your Christmas be filled with love and happiness.

Michael and Mikayla decorated gramma's tree December 22nd.

I rounded up all of my non breakable Santa, Mrs Claus and Rudolf ornaments.

They had such a blast!

(I helped with the ones on top, but I did not move any that they placed).

I think they did a pretty good job.

What do you think? 

They spent two nights with us.

There were two days of finding the Christmas elf.

Christmas presents to open last night, as we will not see them on Christmas.

Plus days and nights of tiring out little Ace.

Once I was done cleaning this morning, he jumped on my lap and fell asleep.

The poor little kitten met his match with Michael and Mikayla. LOL

My mom came over and spent the night with us as well.

She brought over her homemade dinner rolls and coffee cake.

We had many appetizers, good food, 

and a great time talking about stuff we did in the past!

My one wish is that all of you will have the same great time

that we have had with our family and friends this wonderful season!

Christmas Blessings to All

and may Santa be good to everyone.

(Bob made Santa's good list after all) LOL

Janice  

A Christmas Carol Giveaway Winner

Christmas at gramma H's (paternal grandmother) was much different

than at my gramma B's (maternal grandmother).

As the years past,

I began to realize that my fathers parents were more

 well off than my mom's parents were.

However, I loved different things from living with both during my Summer vacations.

Gramma H had a fancy parlor in her farmhouse.

When those fancy aluminum trees came out with the color wheel,

she had to have one.

It fit in well with her parlor in front of the window.

Right next to the window she had a huge player piano.

The piano was out of tune, but she had many rolled song sheets.

Many of those songs I cannot remember anymore.

 However, those Christmas carols were my most favorite.

I would lay on the couch mesmerized

 watching that color wheel turn that tree from

 red to purple, blue to green,  yellow to orange, back to red.

All the while listening to my favorite Christmas carol playing on that player piano.

Silent Night. Holy Night

All so Calm. All so Bright

So there you have it.

Wendy from Ravenwood Whimzies is the winner.

Congrats to you Wendy!

Just send me an email with your address and I will ship out the prim angel to you.

One request though.

Bob has a habit of deleting my emails...

He deleted Shirlee's and now he did it again with Jen's.

Please put in the subject line.

BOB DO NOT DELETE!

Christmas Blessings to all

A BIG thank you to everyone for following me.

I have many new ideas for the coming year.

If anyone has any suggestions on what they would like to see,

just give me a shout out (email or comment)

Bob hit the mother lode of prims last week,

so in the coming weeks I will be featuring new items

that we will be adding to our store.

Bob adds pics to Facebook faster than I can to my blog.

(that's because he works at the store everyday) LOL

Therefore if you like us on Facebook, you may see them sooner.

Well take care everyone,

Janice

Monday Montage

Another Monday

Which means

TA DA

Monday Montage.

Today's feature is coffee pots, milk containers

and one lil ole teapot.

A green rim cream enamel coffee pot.

My favorite!

 The pattern on this granite beauty is called snow on the mountain.

A pretty blue enamel one.

A Pyrex percolator.

All the rage in the 1950's

A blue spatter ware one.

Can you tell I like blue. LOL

Now this blue one reminds of one that a cook would use during the cowboy roundups.

This one is gray.

I know my gramma used one similar to this on her cook stove.

Can you imagine our fore mothers having to make coffee

using these kettles?

To think we have these Keurig coffee makers that will brew any flavor

 under the sun for us now..

Blue rim white enamel milk pail.

A blue enamel milk pail.

An old gray granite milk pail.

Which reminds me growing up in town

 before my parents built their house in the country.

We had a milkman who would deliver fresh milk to use daily

and he would drop it off in our milk chute

which was a two way little door off of the side of our house.

Did anyone ever have a milkman deliver milk to them?

Lastly, this darling little blue rim enamel teapot.

The shape of this reminds me of the teapot in the

Beauty and the Beast movie.

That does it for this week.

Tomorrow is the last day for my

"Name my favorite Christmas Carol Giveaway".

Christmas Blessings everyone.

Janice

Last Giveaway for 2011

Hello Everyone!

I just cannot believe it is only 9 days until Christmas.

I have my present bought...not wrapped though. LOL

My house is almost decorated.

You might think that because of my many Monday Montages

that I am done decorating.

That is so far from the truth.

My 3 trees are up with lights only...LOL

Bob says I should just leave them...Nah, I'm gonna try to get them decorated.

Which brings me to my last giveaway for this year.

My, how time has flown.

For those of you who follow my blog on a regular basis,

you know that I love listening to Christmas songs,

as one morning I was so into this one song,

that I passed up the bank to get money for breakfast. LOL

For my last giveaway this is what you need to do.

Make a comment on what Christmas Carol you think is my favorite.

The winner will receive this little prim angel.

Now if there is a tie,

I will draw one name from the winners.

You may only comment once with the name of one Christmas Carol.

Bonus chance ~

Post my giveaway on your blog

(Just let me know in your comment)

For 3 extra chances.

Drawing Tuesday night. (Dec 20th)

Good luck everyone.

Christmas Blessings to ALL!!!

Janice

  

What the Bejeebers

Living by the mighty St. Clair River,

 Bob and I have got use to the freighters blowing their horns.

For those of you who are not so familiar, they have what I call signals.

One short blast means changing course to starboard (right)

Two short blasts means changing course to port (left)

One long blast and two short is a salute

Five or six blasts in a row means danger or what I like to call it...

Hey you idiot get out of my way because I am bigger than you and cannot stop.

It never fails during the Summer, every weekend we hear freighters blasting their horns

many times because people like to fish in the shipping lane.

Now another signal is a blast at every buoy. Freighters do this when the river is foggy.

Sometimes I get woken up from sleep because one of the buoys is close to our house.

Then I count how many times I can hear the freighter...

it's my version of counting sheep.

Well this morning the river was foggy and it was raining.

Did I say that I hate driving in the dark in rain...well I do.

Anyway, I'm driving along going to work.

Minding my own business.

And what happens to me.

This freighter blows its horn...

and scares the bejeebers out of me.

I just happened to be driving by a buoy and I could not see the freighter in the fog.

Ah, the life of one who lives along the river...

When I got to work, my heart was still a few miles back.

Now my next short little tid bit for tonight

is that we have a new an animal in our neck of the woods.

One I might add that should find another home and leave.

Not only do we live by the river,

but our house is close to a 1400 acre state park.

The state DNR was warning deer hunters about this animal in November.

Now tonight I find out that one of our friends has actually seen it.

They live about 10 minutes from us.

 

I have come across many coyotes, but this guy can leave right now!!.

If I saw this cougar in person,

 it would scare the bejeebers more out of me than that freighter for sure.

Christmas Blessings everyone

Sure don't feel like Christmas with rain and 53 degree weather.

Does anyone want a cougar...I will be glad to send him your way.

Janice

Monday Montage with a Twist

For today's montage I decided to add one of our family traditions into the mix.

My gramma H started this one.

In the 1950's they came out with these little elves.

Some were green, others red.

There were even ones that were striped in red/ white or green/ white.

Others were dolled up in burlap.

They all had one thing in common though.

Those cute chubby cheeks, bright eyes and an adorable smile.

I know most of you remember these little guys.

This red elf on the left is from the 60's

while his older cousin on the right is from the 50's.

The Santa box in the middle are cookie cutters.

Now this tradition that my gramma decided to start was that once the farmhouse was decorated for Christmas, the last thing she added was her green little elf.

She would place him in a spot where us grandchildren would have to find him.

There was only one rule to finding the elf. He would never be in a bedroom or bathroom.

Now you are probably thinking that would be easy,

but you see my gramma had a HUGE farmhouse,

with a large galley kitchen, large dining room,

living room and parlor..not to mention the 2 covered porches and the mud room.

So we were glad the 4 bedrooms and baths were not included.

Then there was her stone basement..eek..glad she did not put the elf down there!

Once we found the elf we were treated to a Christmas cookie...

well more like two or three or four.

It was fun because every time we went to grammas house during the holidays,

the elf would be moved to a different location, and we would have to look for him again.

It was a fun tradition that my own parents handed down to their grandchildren.

Now I am doing the same thing with my own grandchildren.

Even now, I still have fun looking for the elf at my mom's house!

With this montage I have more pictures of my home.

For the twist,

see if you can find my elf in each of the pics.

I hope you enjoy!

( I did make it easy for you) LOL

My dad made this snowman out of wood for me 30 years ago.

The scarf came from an old wool skirt that my mom wore before she cut it up.

I like to collect vintage Christmas boxes.
They have so much character to them!

One of our vendors in our store is selling these adorable little mice.

I just had to take him home and put him in my shoes.

His tag reads "Be Thankful"

If any of you are in the vicinity of Port Sanilac,

Sara has a wonderful prim shop up there called Gull Cottage.

She also has a space in our store too!

 This is one of my little trees in the kitchen.

All of the cookies were hand made by me from one of my patterns.

The sprinkles on the stars are all hand sewn glass beads in shades of green and red.

This tree consists of cinnamon ornaments that Michael and Mikayla made last year.

They had so much fun making these and they still smell yummy!

View from our living room looking into the kitchen.

The piece of wood behind the hanging drieds is an old store floor mat.

It was on the floor just inside of the door where folks would scrap their boots off.

I just thought it was such a cool piece that looked different on the wall.

I get asked all of the time what it is...

Another one of my original handmade Santa's

Last but not least.

Christmas wishes to everyone!

Take care,

Janice



What I woke up to

Yes another snowfall.

Not the first and won't be the last.

Just enough to cover the grass.

I left work early and this is what is left.

Nothing like what Robin had from the Crank Crow

but just enough to make things look purty.

A little ice on the barberries

Just a dusting on the ground.

But my favorite sights are still these.

Freighters in the night lit up.

This time of year many of them truly deck their halls.

They add Christmas lights to each outside deck and some

even will have a decorated tree all lit up!

This is why we love living along the river

in our house full of prims!

Christmas Blessings everyone

Janice

Lookie What I Got

When I saw this little cutie...

I just knew he had to come find a home with me!

How could you not love him.

He is so stinkin' CUTE!!!

I purchased from the one and only

 Olde Lady Morgan herself.

My pics do not show off this little snowman very well.

Love him a lot!!!

Thank you Marie!

Now to show you a few pics of what I have been doing these past 4 days.

Christmas tree spritz cookies with sprinkles.

Cherry snowflake cookies.

Peanut butter blossom cookies.

Am I making any of you hungry yet. ~smile~

Oh and wait...

also in between cookies...

Starting to put up the trees too!

Look out Wonder Woman...

cause I may just may have you beat. LOL

I do know that I am beat..so time for bed everyone.

Take care and Christmas Blessings to all.

And to all a GOOD NIGHT!

Janice

Monday Montage

Its time for another Monday Montage.

This week, more of my home decorated for Christmas.

Hope you enjoy.

1800's wagon filled with poinsettias.

Handmade gingerbread men hanging out in a wood box on my bucket bench.

Took this wreath, added some rice lights to it and created

this little vignette in our back room.

I recently just purchased this Santa.

Oops, forgot to take his price tag off. LOL

This red flannel Santa was made from a free pattern from

 Create & Decorate magazine many years ago.

I always keep a pair of long johns hanging.

You never know when Santa just might need another pair.

This little ginger was hooked with love, including his red heart.

Another one of my handmade Santa's.

My entire back room is devoted to the jolly ole elf.

This was my birthday present from Bob.

We do not buy presents for each other as we buy stuff all year round.

Therefore this was really a sweet surprise indeed!

Thank you sweetie.

It's a tree topper for my antique feather tree.

Now I have 3 ornaments and a topper.

This tree may be complete in 10 years or so. LOL

I also had to move it from our desk to the top of this cabinet.

A certain little kitten (Ace) kept knocking it down every night.

That's it for now.

Christmas Blessings everyone!

Janice