Falling In Love With My Store

~~~WARNING~~~

Another heavy picture post.

Items from all of the Autumn goodies

for sale.

Almost 300 hundred items have sold.

I keep re-arranging things every Saturday morning. 

This is a good thing,

and I still have lots of goodies left.

 

In other news,

Wednesday afternoon had me going outside

wondering what Tundra was barking

at this time.

All Summer it has been this Ribbon Snake.

Well this time it happened to be a juvenile

Massasauga Rattlesnake.

The only venomous snake 

we have here in Michigan.

I have lived here all of my life 

(64) years and have NEVER seen one.

Cannot say that anymore.

It was coiled up with its tail rattling.

Here I was just in my slippers trying

to get Tundra away from it before it bit him.

We were both lucky.

If it had bit him in the face,

it could have been fatal.

Now I am really afraid to go outside in my own yard.

YIKES.

I told my neighbor because I wanted

them to be aware since they garden.

They were so surprised as they have lived here

a lot longer than my 21 years here in this

part of Michigan.

It is very un-nerving as I hate snakes to begin with.

Took both my mom and Bob to their eye appts yesterday.

Bob's dark spot on his eye is slowly getting better,

but no reason given as to why 

he is getting the dizzy spells lately.

A cataract is forming also on the good eye.

My mom is starting to get glaucoma in her one eye.

However her eye disease has not progressed any.

This is partial good news.

They both have appts again in March.

My grandson has decided to drive to Maine

to meet these online friends of his.

We are all worried he is going into a bad situation,

but have been unable to talk him out of it.

My daughter is mentally exhausted.

He is 20, so he is of legal age.

I pray nothing happens to him.

He has very little money, no plan,

and a car that is on its last leg.

Please say a prayer for him.

We need all we can get.

Well friends,

I hope you all have a marvelous weekend!

Happy Autumn.

Falling In Love With Fall Blessings To All!

Janice

How Many Hats Do You Wear

 

Hello friends!

A while back a customer

came into the gift shop

and asked if I was retired yet.

When I said no, she said.

WOW how can you work full time

and still work here on weekends?

Well there are two reasons.

First it saves on paying a worker....

and with inflation store sales have been down 24%.

We need to save money where we can.

(three shops recently closed in town)

Secondly I am still working from home, 

so it gets me out of the house

Plus I love to talk to folks.

The bonnet on the right is an antique one.

The others are repos.

These two bonnets on the right are the real McCoy.

The brown one on the left is a repo.

Well talking to this customer

got me thinking.

How many hats do I wear?

So hear goes.

1. Daughter

2 Daughter- In Law

3. Sister

4. Sister-In-Law

5. Mother

6. Wife

7. Gramma

8. Aunt

9. Great Aunt

10. Niece

11. Cousin

12. Friend

13. Employee

14. Co-Worker

15. Store Owner

16. Neighbor

17. Parishioner

18. Pet Mom

19. Blogger

On the wall around my doorframe

is an apple butter paddle.

Next to it a very long wooden spoon.

On my pine cabinet is my favorite bunny.

Made from wood, I purchased this in the 80's.

Stone fruit also in an early rye basket.

Paired with some wood bowls

including this blue beauty.

I don't often show this piece.

It is a butter churn with a crank.

Much easier to churn butter.

Now that I have told you the many hats I wear.

(maybe there are more...not sure)

How many hats do you think you wear?

In other news,

a friend of mine told me that six weeks

from the last thunderstorm in September

is when the first snow arrives.

We had a thunderstorm yesterday,

so now the first snow will be October 28th.

I am going to keep track of this to see if she is correct.

Am hoping we have more thunderstorms now.

For those in the snow belt area,

would love to know if this prediction is true for you.

Bob worked a little bit more on

 our back room  Saturday.

When I say a bit, he put up one board.

He was feeling dizzy and had a headache

so laid down most of the day.

I told him he was doing too much

by trying to unload the van in one day.

He is no Spring chicken anymore.

He is fine now.

I applied for Medicare last week.

Now I am feeling old.

Carla asked me if I need to buy 

the dried tobacco each year. 

I take a water bottle and spritz it when it

starts to feel like it is drying up.

This will help keep it last for along time.

Well better get to work.

Return to office has been postponed 

to November 6th now, so I get to work

from home a bit longer.

Hats Off To You Blessings To All!

Janice

Smoking Area

Hello friends.

Hope everyone is enjoying the start of 

the Autumn season.

The leaves are starting to turn here.

The air is cool in the mornings.

The squirrels are even busier gathering up

their bounty for Winter.

The geese are heading back South,

along with the herons and egrets.

Well we must enjoy the warmth of the

midday sun while we can,

as Mother Nature continues her plan

with the changing of the seasons.

When last I wrote about my latest find

this tavern pipe holder,

I had envisioned this would go up in 

our back room once the new redo was done. 

 

Well plans changed for this piece.

Some of these pipes I had.

Did purchase the three in the bottom row.

Not sure if I told you the history of this.

It would have been near a fireplace in a tavern.

As gentlemen travelers stopped for the night,

they were able to take a pipe and use it.

First breaking off a piece of clay at the mouthpiece.

Once done smoking, they would replace 

the pipe back in the for the next person.

Once the pipes had no more stems.

The owner would add new longer pipes.

I discovered this coat rack

in the back room under some stuff.

The color was perfect with my desk.

Instead of trying to find a  hanging cabinet

Bob hung this over the desk.

Saves us money.

I hung my tobacco, candles and candle holder.

I just love how this looks now.

Guess it was meant to be here.

My intention was to hang it by our side door.

The more I thought about it,

was not sure I wanted to hang this 1700 piece.

Now our bedroom is complete.

A few changes now and then with each

season, but for the most part all will stay put.

Close up of candle items.

Hanging tobacco.

Changed the tin lantern for this more primitive one.

The taller pipes are replicas.

Again it is pretty hard to find original

ones intact and quite pricey.

Neither Bob or I smoke,

but I can just imagine someone sitting at this desk

whilst doing paperwork and having a smoke.

This will now be my smoking area.

A shot of the holes.

Love the patina on this piece.

In other news...

well it looks like Bob is finally moving

forward with the back room redo.

He moved out all of the Christmas bins finally.

Am not holding my breath, but I did tell him

I wanted this done by Christmas this year.

Am sewing most days on Christmas items.

Loving what I have created thus far.

My mom is also helping me out this year

by sewing up something.

She will be coming down next week for a few days,

and I will see her finished work...

which I know will be perfect 

as she is great at sewing.

Once she helped me with a sewing project 

I had in school. 

I could not get the hang of sewing being a lefty.

She did most of it for me and I finished it.

Thank goodness for her expertise.

Well off to work.

Almost The weekend Blessings To All!

Janice

 

Mad To Pieces

 

The day has come to reveal the entire

Mad Scientist Halloween room.

This took Bob and I a total of 11 hours

just to set up, then I had to price everything.

*** WARNING***

HEAVY PICTURE POST

Grab a cuppa coffee, tea, soda,

or whatever you like to drink.

Sit a spell and I hope you enjoy. 

Well another year of Halloween

 decorating behind us.

I love it when folks come in and comment.

Especially love seeing the kiddos faces.

There was one scary item that I purchased,

which I had no idea it was at the time.

It is the face in the picture before this last one.

It was so scary, I would not leave it on.

I purchased two and one did sell.

We cannot find the second one to put out,

so guess it will be for next year.

In other news,

we have kept the house windows open until yesterday

when the rain came in.

It was nice while it lasted a few days.

Could not cook on the grill and we planned

on doing a chicken stir fry.

I had to do it on the stove, but still was good.

Bob started the back room transformation.

FINALLY.

 I am over the moon at just the start.

YIPEE!!

This is going to be a major job on one wall.

Like the show "Love it or list it",

I am going to

 LOVE IT!

Mad To Pieces Blessings To All!

Janice