Spring Daffodils and Summer Shoes

Hi! Where should I begin!? Flowers, always best to start with flowers. The color of the week is sunshine yellow, so happy and springlike! The forsythia have burst into brilliant bloom.

The market had a dozen daffodils for a dollar. Tightly furled. From Ireland, imagine that! I'd love to visit Ireland in the spring and see their fields of daffs and snowdrops.

 I took two bunches.

I put them in my ''daffodil pot''.

This is an antique Rookwood vase, a family piece. The story is that an ancestor who lived in Cincinnati was annually gifted, from his employer, with a Rookwood vase, c. 1920-30. Some have survived and have passed down to me. My mom always used this pink vase for daffodils. We love[d] it for its soft pink to spring green matte glaze, like a perfect Easter Egg.
You can read about Rookwood pottery here though Wikipedia doesn't really give it the history it deserves.

I added a Peach Bellini scented candle here. On Sale!, so delightful! And another in white tea scent in the living room. Yankee Candle

The market also had pussy willows.

Pink pussy willows! Had to have a bunch for $3.99. They should last quite awhile, I hope.

The question is, do I let them bloom or remove them from their water as soon as all the catkins are showing? I love the funny, pollen-y full bloom heads but then they have to be discarded.

My excuse to purchase was that I must encourage the market to provide unusual flowers and branches for us.

Some of you wanted to see my shoes I got during last week's shopping spree. I'm not a good shoe photographer, I apologize!

I love plain low-cut white sneakers with jeans or khaki shorts. A simple clean and classic look, different from the busy and colorful high tech running shoes that everyone loves. I wore Polo/ Ralph Lauren sneakers for years but wasn't able to find them in recent years, so I was happy to find these.

I especially love the textured, perforated pair.

My friend L chose these very cute ''nude'' flats for us both. Light and comfy!

 Love the bow! She got the black too..wish they'd had red or bright pink....

Spring is definitely in the air, sort of a hoax or fooling us, I bet! Like Indian summer.

We had some sunny crisp days, then a very warm day with dense fog,

Finished up that day with thunderstorms and heavy rain. Today was just wintery/ mild/ blustery. Mo made me sit out on the deck anyway. He is such a sun-bunny.

BTW Mo has a new and somewhat baffling ''trick''. He now refuses to use his indoor potty pads no matter how bad the weather may be. But I praise him if he does use them and he must know they mean something good that pleases Mommy. So now he has taken to bringing one of my black scrunchies and setting it out on the pad. [He gets them off my desk I think.]  From a distance I think he has used the poo pad and start to praise...then I investigate. LOL. LOL. Poor Mo--misguided. But kind of smart?

scrunchie gift

Yes I know scrunchies are uncool, like white sneakers! But my hair is absolutely straight and smooth and regular ponytail elastics just slide right off. Hence my trademark black scrunchies.
That's all for now! Have a great week.

love

lizzy 

gone to the beach....

Shopping Sprees!

Hi! Oh I've had fun shopping and thrifting the past couple days---I hardly know where to begin. The stores were packed, worse than Black Friday. I was very very surprised. There must have been forty people ahead of me in line at Marshall's yesterday.
Monday my friend Bea [B] came down to visit. As you know she is my thrift shop buddy, plus we often do the big Marshall's too. The thrift shop was busy and messy,

but I persevered and found many treasures. For a total of less than 25.oo, pretty awesome.
My stack of stuff!

B did not do a good job of talking me out of things! Like this beautiful blue heart shaped bowl.

I usually don't buy heart bowls because they're hard to store/nest.

It looks like Cambridge Pottery but there's no name; it does say dishwasher/ microwave safe so is obviously quite modern. [Also heart shaped bowls are almost always very recent, the early to mid-20th century makers were more practical.

It will probably be a yarn bowl...

And this adorable heart shaped stoneware muffin tray! Weighs about 5 pounds. I've been looking for a graniteware [tin] muffin tin for years, for sorting beads, buttons, and bobbins and sewing stuff.  B said, Oh for 2.99, take it! So I did.

Wonderful large tin for markers and colored pencils. By artist Marjolein Bastin, a favorite of ours. I've collected her cards for years. The sides are the four seasons:

Teeny tiny flat Mason Mason jar!

Half-cup? Good for Mo's special once a day ''calming'' treats, or for salt or sugar?

Tiny gold picture frame. I love tiny frames. I'll add a seashell painting, maybe a small gift or for myself.

Cooky cutter: Snowflake. Now I admit that---just like bowls---I almost never pass up a cooky cutter. This one is unashamedly modern, but I don't have a snowflake and I've wanted to do the all white decorated Christmas snowflakes for years.

Quilted pillow shams! Two blue batik-ish, one gingham patchwork.

Hearts for the gingham, or placemats.

sofa cushions for the blue floral.

All three shams have useful and attractive striped backings too.

And a thrift shop trip must include a few shirts!The dark shirt is for the Geese border of WTWGF; I am realizing I need either very light or very dark shirtings to set off the blue of the geese Vs.

And I have begun collection pastel shirts for this quilt: [screenshot from Pinterest, sorry].

I love the details and random traditional blocks, the pale casual air, the use of the labels, pockets, cuffs. The bits of Liberty lawn floral prints. I see it as a summer throw, for summer sky watching nights on the deck. A future project in the planning stage; I can pick up pastel checked shirts as I see them, a few each visit.

We got an early for us start, so we then had lots of time for the big Marshall's. More treasure! I found these very cool giant XXL Mason jars. It was very hard to choose, there was another pale blue color and they were only 5.99.

 I put a regular large 1 quart jar here with the new ones, see how big they are! Cool. An odd unauthentic size actually, as they are approx. 3/4 of a gallon, marked 2300 ml, I think.

The best part is they have the chicken wire mesh lids for tall flowers. I did get my forsythia and see how great the branches look! Thrilled.

The clear one will be for my beach pebble collection. Its container broke a few weeks ago.

And poor Mo, home alone all afternoon! I got him a present of two new food dishes at Marshall's. 3.99 each.. I like to use porcelain dishes so they can go in the dishwasher after each use.

Sad to say, B found nothing this time! But she's a good sport, already looking forward to Next Time. We ended our day at a new Thai restaurant in town. I'd heard it is very good and it was, though the funny part is, it's owned by the same young couple who own our usual Thai favorite spot. The food was good--same as always.
Marshall's also had really great spring/ summer shoes, just in. And very cute Easter decor.

I was too tired Monday to try on shoes, so on Tuesday my friend L and I went to a different Marshall's to try again. I found two pairs of my favorite low rise plain white leather summer sneakers! And L chose, for both of us, ballet flats with tiny bows on the back. We both got the ''nude'' and she also got black. Pierced suede, inexpensive. And I got fun St Paddy's Day gifts, especially for Mo, but those got put away til March.

Exhausted! Yes, but happy. Retail therapy is not just an urban myth, it really is very fun and cheering on a February day.
A fun link about forcing spring branches:HERE

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....