Just Another Day in Paradise

That's the name of a country song I like. It just fits today. It's been a day where I've been visited by what I affectionately refer to as "stress fairies." Ok, so I'm not affectionate towards them. But I seem to have a lot of them visiting me today! And most of them came in the door at work with my boss, whom I love to pieces but today he was every second of his 92 years and he made sure we all knew it! I think I'm on a first-name basis with the great-great-grandchildren of my stress fairies now, that's how many I had to deal with today. And they might still be hanging around the office tomorrow. Sigh. Just 3 1/2 more weeks until vacation! And it can not get here soon enough!

Froggy, I don't remember if I ever got around to emailing you the pictures of my latest two finds. So I'm going to put them on here.

The tall, brown crock with the silk bluebonnets is actually an old churn, it was Mom's or possibly Aunt Jessie's way back when and I inherited it. The new find is the blue, metal bucket next to it. The bucket is not necessarily an antique, but it is at least vintage. It was made in the USA, so it's got to have a little age to it! The blue paint was probably added way after it was made, and there is a light coat of black brushed on top of the blue. It reminds me of a milk can, but I'm not sure what it really was originally. I just know that it was $3.00 at a thrift store and it absolutely would not let me walk out unless I bought it! So I did. Didn't even know I was looking for one, until I saw it.

The two churns are not extremely new, I got them both last summer. The wooden one is the one Froggy found for me at a flea market, $5.00. The small one with the angel decal came from a thrift store for I think $3.50. The new item is the jug sitting next to the churns. It was a specific item I was looking for, but it's not really a jug. The next picture shows it turned around - it's really a cookie jar! The top comes off of it, but it works for what I wanted it for. I got it at a thrift store, Froggy remember the neat old lady with the corner booth? She was having a sale the day I found it, so I think I paid about $6.00 for it. It was 40% off.

Here's what it looks like on the other side. When I bought it, the seller told me that I had to go home and make cookies! But when I told her what I was going to use it for, and that I had a humongous cookie jar already she said that would be ok, as long as I really did bake cookies. She's really funny, I love to talk to her when we go to that particular flea market. We went back to that flea market last Sunday, she was up to 60% off this time. But no matter how hard I tried, and belive me I did try, I just couldn't find anything there I had to have! But that's ok, just gives me and the Otter another excuse to go back there. I think I know what my next treasure is going to be, my friend Shara (Monkeybox) has a really neat lamp that is made out of an old bottle. It's a tall bottle, if you look at her blog she has a picture of it and she's filled it with Christmas ornaments. I think I'm looking for something similar, or maybe just the bottle itself and I'll turn it into a lamp. (Froggy, remember my old cast-iron doll sized stove? Mom turned it into a lamp when I outgrew dolls. Otter owns it now, she used it with her dolls and at the moment it is in storage for her kids).

The next two pictures are just the kiddos tonight. Frasier is on his blanket, he'd been chewing the nylabone next to him until he saw the camera. Then he posed, like the vain boy he is! You can't tell as much from the picture, but he was smiling and his tail was wagging.

The Magginator was helping me when I took the pictures of the crocks & stuff. She took the tennis ball out of their toy box (it's a shoe box, the bones their toys are in it and they get whatever they want out of it when they want to play - but they don't pick up after themselves), then she threw the ball at me. She tosses the tennis balls up in the air a lot, sometimes she chases them around like she's playing soccer. This time, she did not want to play. But I think she did want attention because when I tossed the ball back to her, she let it sit beside her and gave me the sad-eyed look she's so good at.

If the pictures of the poochies were bigger, you could see all the lovely pawprints they arranged for me today! I don't even want to know how many holes they added to the back yard, but judging by the amount of dirt that they tracked in, it's a safe bet to say that NASA might be landing at any moment! (Think moonscape). The ceramic tile floor in the kitchen looks really bad, leading from the doggie door to the carpet. I can tell that they actually slid most of the way in when they came inside.

I'm seriously thinking that we will need a playpen to put the Christmas tree in! The tree will probably get put up next week sometime, but presents will not be put underneath it. They will be put up on the sofa table. I don't trust either of those furry babies, Frasier has been known to take staples out of paper and they both seem to have an unnatural attraction to paper of any kind. In fact, I'm not even sure if it will be safe to decorate the lower part of the tree! I have a clean/dirty hanger that Mom made for me for the dishwasher when I first moved out on my own. I can't hang it on the dishwasher, it has to be up on the counter because Frasier kept taking it outside when we first got him. After about the 4th time of having to go find it, I gave up on actually hanging it on the dishwasher. Same thing for fridge magnets! The only ones that are down low are the flat ones, because if he can reach them he will take them outside. No idea why he does that. Fraiser does a lot of things we can't explain! And he's teaching his little sister his tricks, she's a willing pupil I might add.