Great Pumpkin Carving Party

HAPPY HAUNTING, EVERYONE!

My younger daughter hosted her annual Pumpkin Carving party

 last night and I thought I'd pop in a share it before it gets too late!

It was such fun!

 My daughter has always loved Halloween best,

 and decorated every square inch of their festive home!

 It was dark and busy and crowded and fun and soooo cute!

Happily for me I was holding my grand daughter most of the time

so it's a miracle I snapped pics at ALL!

Here are all of our awesome Jack O'Lanterns!

(The one with writing says Go Celts -

it's difficult to tell because it is behind a tall stem.

My niece is a high school varsity cheerleader

 for a team called Celtics. That family has great team spirit!

In case you are wondering, mine is the lower right one.

I nearly always do happy sweet ones.

The one next to mine is difficult to tell-

but it is a Marvel Comic character called Two Face

so it has two faces.

I think my favorite is my daughter's mother-in-law's:

She painted it black and it's face is all BATS!

That one is 2nd from right, second row from top.

Another really awesome one is my eldest daughter

(private art college degree paid off) who carved the

cat on upper left. 

We thought it was neat we ended up with two cat ones this year!

Here's my festive goofy little sister being all witchy and scary -

 she's a beautiful platinum blonde normally. : -)

She's not evil - she's prolly just saying 

"GIMME ALL YOUR CANDY, MY PRETTIES!"

OK, my pics of the party just don't do it justice -

everything looked so neat in candlelight...

but makes for poor picture quality. Sorry.

This is a pic of the table early before all the food was out-

I knew if I didn't snap a pic right then 

I'd probably not get one of the table at all.

My youngest daughter collects Dia de Muertos sugar scull art-

so when I find fun things like this little pail I have to buy for her.

Read a little about the history of this ancient celebration here.

Sugar scull art is usually quite ornate and colorful.

Sometimes just in black and white it looks cool too.

This table held just a few yummy snacks and was cute!

The Oreo surprise bottom cupcakes with oreo buttercreme frosting.

But BY FAR the cutest thing last night was our wee pumpkin!

Here's our Baby Bug grand-daughter all dressed up for the occassion. 

Her cute pumpkin hat was knitted by a friend of her moomy's.

So, already tomorrow is November 1st!

Where has this year gone!?

As always, thank you for your visit!

You are all such ghoul friends, oops, I mean GOOD,

 yes that is you are all such GOOD FRIENDS!

Hope you had a hauntingly good Halloween.

See you soon. Big hugs! 

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

GIFT GIVING SEASON = COMING SOON!

With gift-giving season right around the corner

- and if you are anything at all like me and have too much stuff-

why not try to sell through BLOG SHOP?

Beverly at How Sweet The Sound blog hosts a weekly link party

to make it easy to bring some extra cash your way,

and for others to find something they'd love through this party!

Even if you aren't selling, be sure to at least pop over there

and do a little window shopping! You'd be helping a friend while helping yourself at the same time.

It's nice to avoid that busy, often over-priced

Big Box Store trap!

You need not have a store; etsy, dotcom online or ebay shop to sell -

all you simply do is write a post on things you want to let go

and then link your post - or your wares in a shop - and 

link up at the party! Easy Peasey!

Go check out the party to see what I mean!

As for me, here's a handful of things for sale in my ebay store:

(Click my shop button below or on my side bar any time to find it.)

Thank you for indulging me 

(and potentially helping others)

by letting me share with you about this link party!

As always, thank you for your visit!

♥

~Michele

Bits of Happiness and Family

My sweet granddaughter Vivian visited her
FIRST PUMPKIN FARM
 with her Momma, Daddy, Aunt Eve (pronounced Evie) and Uncle Dan. 

It was a beautiful day and they had lots of fun.

This is a bit of an action shot (above)
 but I wanted to show everyone the way she holds her thumbs
 - she always does this - 
her wee thumbs are almost always tucked inside her fingers.

 We think it is way cute.

(Also the baby sticks her tongue out a LOT.
 It is her way of saying she's hungry.)

And she is ALWAYS hungry, haha!

~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~


Here is the cute and fun outdoor-sy family.

(They could so easily live on a farm.)

Here are my three awesome & wonderful girls!

I just adore this pic of them together!

Today is Katie's birthday - she's the momma of wee Vivian.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATIE!

Today is also Baby Bug's 3 month birthday, too!

This was taken last Wednesday
but today she is 3 months exactly.

There's that little tongue sticking out, kinda.

Happy Grandpa Mike in a very rare smiling pic:

As always, thank you for your visit!

Have a wonderful and blessed week -
our weather is just so perfect
 that I am out in it as much as possible!

I am so sorry that I have been MIA lately!

I haven't forgotten you, I promise!

HUGS TO YOU ALL!

♥

~Michele

Before/After Home Office Cabinets

It strikes me as odd how things work out sometimes.

I have never been one of those

 save-that-vintage piece-dumpster-diver
I-break-for-garage-sales kind of gals.

Nope, not me, not ever.

 I have been called a "shopping snob"often enough

 that I must admit there may be some truth in it.

I know, right?

  Me - the Secondhand Queen,

the bargain-loving gal who nearly never pays full price

 for anything to decorate and upgrade her home?

Me - who LOVES to create the look-for-less

and can usually spot potential in every possibility?

A shopping snob?

 Really?!?

WELL, truth be know, I have always drawn the line at curbside.

That doesn't make me a shopping snob, though, SIS! lol

I always simply think the next person should grab that curb item-

he or she will be better and certainly QUICKER than I, for instance.

I talk myself out of it every single time I see it -

and I see it often.

(My neighbors throw out some pretty awesome stuff, just sayin'.)

I see its bright future, sometimes I want it, yet I always ignore it.

I hear my mother's sweet voice saying in her soft lady-like way

 "that's just not what we do, sweetie."

Yet I feel my heart pound when driving past these potential saves; 

I know deep down inside a part of me is shouting  

'PLEASE, JUST STOP IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS SALVAGE!!!!

So today, I bid thee welcome

 to a reveal of something salvaged by us

from the curb of our neighbor.

GASP

Last summer my daughter left our house to return to her home

and called from her car, to insist that I walk down to the house whose owners had already bought another and had recently moved.

(I DID go to their garage sale and bought some vintage linens.)

I am friends with the mother of the gal who moved.

I know her from my local civic women's club.

SHE even told me (before they moved) to come down

and make an offer on anything they left so far in the house-

they'd probably just give it to me.

And I really meant to do so, I really did - but I didn't.

It's just too awkward for me, so I just put it off till it was too late.

But knowing me SO well, my youngest daughter said:

"Mom. Don't delay this.

  Just walk down there, it's dark, it's at their curb

 and it won't be there long. No one will even care or notice."

So I walked down.

 Took me only two minutes to see those

two dingy old dirty and dated wooden base cabinets.

But, like so many of you, I did see potential in them!

I walked back home and told my husband.

 I asked him if he'd help me retrieve them,

as I can no longer lift heavy items 

 since hurting my arms a few years ago.

Were we embarassed? Yes, perhaps a little. 

Did we ACT noticable? Probably.

 Hubs brought his wheeled cart thing.

We aren't ninja trash pickers. We were loud, I know it.

Was it worth it in spite of it all to save those cabinets
from the landfill and give them a new life?

You be the judge:

Voila!

Two nicely cleaned up black floor cabinets flanking

 a gifted antique dresser my son-in-law no longer wanted. 

(It's still kinda nasty with primer, another task for another time.)

Sometimes one must see past the greasy grimy gopher guts.

I think these may have been living in their garage,
doing duty as storage units or something

 as their home was absolutely stunning inside.

They probably started their lives from a bathroom

 that had been upgraded along the way.

The only thing we had to buy for this project 
was four new snazzy pull nobs,

 as one of them was missing.

We already had the primer, the paint, the sealer
 and silver matte metallic spray paint for the bottom pulls.

We had to run out and get another can of the paint
towards the end of painting.

So all in all we spent around $28
 for our "new" cabinets in our office.

I am happy we could salvage those bottom pulls

I absolutely love them.

I run a business out of this space at home. 

Behind those cabinets you will find scanners,

 and scales and packing tape and stickers

 and reams of paper and printers ink, everything

common for a home office is kept tidy and unseen.

I may dabble with embellishing them a bit more

but for now I just wanted them placed

and was too excited not to share with you!

This is a wonderful and haunting print of my sister's - on loan.

She lived in New England for years running an ad agency.

One of her art staff took this winning shot of his aged father

who played violin his entire life and won many contests.

I adore this print and it currently and happily resides

in my home office with its black, grey and white decor.

My pic of the pic doesn't do the shadows justice.

As always, thank you for your visit!

♥

~Michele

Linking:

Met Monday   *  Mosaic Monday    *   Before & After Wednesday 

Sweet Wink Kitty and Derby's New Toy

Greetings, dear friends!

You must be thinking I have fallen off the face of the Earth!

However, I just HAD to pop in today

 to share my granddog Derby's 

NEW SQUEAKY TOY!

It's a cute pink doughnut!

You see, last week my daughter and her husband

 lost their very first fur baby;

their tiny, beautiful, rotten 18.5 year-old kitty cat WINK.

She was the runt of her litter,
 and fully grown maybe weighed 9 pounds.

She was itty bittiness.

She was so pretty, with the best markings.

That is when she allowed you to even SEE her.

She spent her life hiding upstairs-
she was super shy and scared, even living with my daughter,
The Animal Whisperer.

My daughter has a way with animals,
and she actually prefers them over most humans.

There are days I can't blame her, either, haha.

She is a sometimes foster-home to resuced English setters,
as Derby is a rescue.


She really and truly does love her fur babies.

(Perhaps a little too much, in my opinion. lol. So gross!)

There aren't many pics of Wink when she was young-
way before digital cameras and iphones
 and even before most of us began using email.

I really had a love-hate relationship with Wink.
(Most of you know how much I really do love most cats.)

We always joked Wink did have 9 lives.
She came so close to death so many times, but never did! 

She was horribly anti-social - wouldn't let anyone come close to her, and in no way was she going to allow anyone to touch or hold her.

She was the only cat that ever bit me!

All I did was say "Hi" and then try to pet her.
 (Big mistake!)
 So we all learned long ago to just let her be.

But slowly over the last few years -
 since Derby Dog's arrival-
 and with her old-age illnesses starting to set in -
she began sitting on the landing of their stairs.

We think she was re-evaluating her people...
or maybe she could finally see all the fun Derbydoo was having
that she was missing!

Perhaps she was a tiny bit jealous or just curious.
Or, in more likeliness, was to come and simply give us all
The Stinky Wink Eye
in hopes that everyone would just tone it down a bit
 so the old gal could get some rest!

Regardless of why she came down, she did come around in the end!

You cannot know what the meant to my daughter.

And you cannot know what a shock it was to us all.

Wink the Kitty Cat actually became lovable. 

Well, kinda.

At least to those who loved her so much.

Who knew it would ever become so!?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have to wonder if God planned this,
All Knowing what it meant
to Eve and Dan -and even Derby and Katie too-
who loved that cat so much;
they were able to really get close to Wink
before they had to say goodbye to that old friend.

Wink was in their first apartment way back in the college days.

Wink knew Yoske, their roommate years ago from Japan.

Wink saw many moves with careers grinding into high gear
and better living conditions/moves being part of their success.

Wink was there for all the good times and the sad times.
She was always close by; being her ever-silent presence was a comfort.

Wink was there for the move to their first real "home," too-
 and where she grew old...with them loving her every single day....
and she, in her own odd strange way, loving them right back.

Yes, Derby misses Wink terribly.
They ended up pretty much inseparable.

Derby's been so sad,  and depressed and doesn't understand
where her tiny fur ball kitty sister went.

But we know she is simply waiting at Rainbow Bridge.

Except we're all pretty sure she's haunting the house.

I kid you not- we hear her all the time.

It's not spooky, it's just what it is, ya know?

Added on 2/12/17: last week they found a muddy kitty paw print
on their kitchen floor.

And no, it cannot have been left there - that floor is washed
all the time due to Derby's always getting it so filthy!

OK, LET'S END ON A HAPPIER NOTE TODAY:



A cute pic of my eldest daughter Evelyn
sitting with her sweet fur babies and brand new niece
on the very first game day of the football season watching 
The Ohio State Buckeyes win!

Go Scarlet and Grey!


I notice that DERBY is the ONLY ONE paying
any attention to the game, though!

She's wondering why no one noticed that fumble!

However, sometimes the babies sleep through the games, too.

Won't this sweet grandbaby look cute when she's a toddler
wearing a little OSU cheerleading costume?!

Till then we'll just let her dream about it.

And yes, Vivian, your momma really DID make you awesome.

As always, thank you for visiting!

Hugs, prayers and love!

~Michele

Linking:

Pink Saturday