Yesterday's finds

Well, I have to say my trip to McKay's was a huge success. I got 23 new books and my total after applying my trade credit was just a little over $4.00. You can't beat a deal like that. I read about a book a week, sometime 2 a week. So I'm good to go for anywhere from 3 - 6 months on reading material.

Check out my new purse. I am loving the colors. It looks like a Vera Bradley or a Donna Sharp but it is actually an off brand that I found at AC Moore and was only $12.99. What a deal.

I wanted it for my work bag because of all the interior pockets. I am really loving it.

I'm going antiquing today. I want to look for something to set on my dining room table. I usually do it like this but I want to change it up some although I will always keep the McCoy vase and flowers. My cousin and I bought the vase when we were real young to give our Mamaw Eden for Mother's day so I won't ever part with it.

My sister always has a pretty towel hanging over her mixer. Now that I finally got my stand mixer, I put the towel that my sister made for my kitchen over the mixer. I love it there. Looks good, doesn't it Rachel.

I'm off to enjoy my day! Have a great day.

Some ideas....

I want to do this. It is simply a cooling rack over top a basket or plastic tub and you just organize your lids...which are always the most disorganized item in my house.

I have one of these wall centers from Thirty-One and I don't use it that much. Even though I don't have children at home, I could use this to keep track of the many things I'm involved in. Right now, it just kind of hangs there. I'll update it this week and show you the before and after.

Isn't this pretty. It's called the Stems pattern from Pyrex. I would love to come across one of these somewhere at a good price. 

I saved this from Pinterest because I love how they used the magazine holders to hold water bottles and travel mugs. I am definitely going to do this. I have a lot of these and they don't fit anywhere without just standing them up and taking up a lot of room. I was so excited about pinning the bottle idea that I didn't notice it. Do you see what I see? A piece of butterfly gold Pyrex on the top shelf on the left side.

This is a cute curtain idea. Pretty assorted lace and linens. I'm not sure if they are hankies or doilies or dresser scarves, but I guess you could use anything.

Here's another one with lots of vintage linens. This is adorable. 

I found another idea for storage lids. This is the Thirty-One double duty caddy. That is a great use for one of them. I may have to get me one.

Heading out to McKay's to exchange some books today. It's rainy and dreary but supposed to clear out later. Have a great Monday.

Feel Good Music Morning

I love music mash ups and flash mob videos. Here are my favorites. 

The Marriage

For those of you who didn't know, Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker got married at my house the other night.

The result of their union was a delicious brownie peanut butter chocolate chip Brookie. It was heavenly and I highly recommend it. Just another one of those, mix the brownie and pour in 9 x 13 pan. Then mix the cookie dough and spread on the brownie. Bake for 25 - 35 minutes at 350° till it is done. Heavenly. 

I made this for my Pampered Chef party. The meal was the Chicken Parm Soup which my friend Nancy is helping fix.

Not sure why with all the hard work I did cleaning house and baking dessert my granddaughter is the one getting a foot massage. :)

On a side note, I am going antiquing next week and one of the things on my wish list is an old black rotary phone with the metal dialer. I just want it for a decor piece in my office. Wish me luck.

Have a great day

Friday Foto Friends

Friday Foto Friends

It was Monday morning and we had had some rain so it was a little foggy as I went to work. I had to meet a friend that morning before work and so I took the back road part of the way to work. As I turned to start down what I call the other Douglas Dam Road (not the one I live off of), I thought this is a little eerie and maybe not a good idea.

Then it came time to cross over the bridge over the French Broad River. Even eerier looking.

But what was scary was the view to my left is the dam from Douglas Lake. You couldn't even see the dam and it's not that far from the bridge. But to my right and immediately below me was the French Broad River. As you can see, all I could see was fog and a little shade of tree on the bank. It was so strange. I felt like one of those people having a UFO experience. (Not really, but it was very weird).

Then I made it back to Hwy 66 and you could see the sun trying to come out and it looked so unique I thought maybe I better revisit my UFO experience. LOL. 

But once I got into Pigeon Forge, the skies were blue and the fog was just laying low in the hills. It ended up being a beautiful day. 

But for a week that started out so foggy, it sure is ending well. This was the sky yesterday morning. It was beautiful.

Throw back Thursday....

Lots of things from my childhood and teen years that you just don't see any more. One thing I miss that I wish we still had was our old Brother portable typewriter. Rachel got it for Christmas when she took typing. She may still have it for all I know. I thought it was so cool to get to type on it. 

Do you remember when Pizza Hut had these red plastic glasses. We didn't go out to eat much, but when we did it was usually fast food. I remember the first time I dined in at a Pizza Hut and it had dim lights and red checkered table clothes and these glasses. I wanted one of the glasses so bad. I thought it was so cool. Now I hate to drink out of plastic glasses. 

Did any of you ever have homemade Popsicle's made out of Kool-Aid with Tupperware's Popsicle freezable containers. It was so awesome.

And I loved when I first started homemaking and Tupperware carried all this amazing colors of containers. I loved it all. My favorite was the pitchers. For making the Kool-Aid that used to pour to make the popsicles.

So many people have ice makers nowadays that ice trays are slowing becoming something you don't see much. I must say though that the new plastic ice trays are a lot easier to pop out the ice than these old metal ones.

Jack always had a set of toy cap pistols and we loved buying these. As we got older, we would roll them out on the sidewalk and hit each dot with a rock to make it explode. 

I loved these little things, even though I don't know what they called them. But they could drive you absolutely crazy!

And who in my generation never played with Tinker Toys. I loved, loved, loved building things with Tinker Toys. 

When you had a cut did you get Mecurochrome or Merthiolate on it. That stuff burned like the dickens but we never got an infection so it must have worked. Mom would blow on the cut while she put it on and I would cry anyway. FYI blowing on it while administering it was no help at all.

Do you remember the old metal glasses? They had a matching pitcher. I never see these that I don't remember drinking out of them at Uncle Charlie's and Aunt Louise's house.

And my favorite memory today is the View Master. I remember we had one and Daddy had gotten some disks of the Grand Canyon. He loved sitting and looking at those. I loved my View Master. 

What are some of your favorite things you remember?

Just some stuff....

First I wanted to share my new little heart I got at Hobby Lobby. It was $4.99 less my 40% coupon so I got it for $2.99. You know how much I love a bargain.

I came home from work the other night and wanted some ice cream. Couldn't decide on vanilla or chocolate so I settled for both. I have this misconceived notion that if I eat my ice cream from a Pampered Chef bowl that says NOURISH it is healthier for me. Right?

I am having a Pampered Chef party Thursday. We are going to have the Chicken Parm Soup. I love this stuff. It's delicious. It's the only soup I eat that I will eat some of the ingredients and not just the broth. The chicken and croutons are so good and it is made with Ragu spaghetti sauce and cheese so you can't go wrong. I do pick around the tomatoes though. They are good for flavor but I just can't eat them. 

I'm making the dessert. It is a brookie bar. That's a brownie with chocolate chip cookie dough on top of it baked in a 9 x 13 cake pan for 25-35 minutes at 350°. I thought it sounded gross, but then I had to make one for work so I realized it is heavenly. 

Pampered Chef has a lot of new stuff out and one thing I want is this drizzler. A lot of time I make muffins or cookies that I want to drizzle with a glaze but I'm not good at using a spoon to drizzle. I glob it up to bad. But this will be perfect. And at just $5.00 it's a bargain.

It's double hostess points month so I'm going to try to get a big enough order to get the deep dish baker. I want it to be able to bake chicken, make beef stew and anything else that hits my fancy. I love the color of gray it is coming in this year. 

By the way, if you need anything from Pampered Chef or just want to look at what they have, Michele created a link for my party. If you order online from my party, it will ship direct to you. We are closing it on January 27th. The link to the party and catalog is Brenda's PC Party

Have a happy over the hump day.