the first day

when you go antique/flea market shopping you really can not go with a plan.  i mean a plan to find some thing specific.  at the Sandwich Flea Market i thought i was looking for a twin bed frame for the guest room.

you just need to go and discover.  enjoy what you see.  look at all the old stuff, remember all the things you had a kid, see all those old bobbles that took up way to much room at your Grandmother's house. and when you get passed all the junk.....dream about those beautiful, pieces of refinished furniture that you can't afford.  let your husband look at all those old tools that don't mean a thing to you, because they mean something to him. and then pass by some of that stuff that you really do like but can't take home because you do not need more clutter.

however, always remember to do 2 things.....bring baby wipes in your purse because your hands have never felt so dirty all day long......and take lots of breaks to eat the yummy, really bad for you "fair food". like popcorn, funnel cakes, corn dogs and the like.

then....when you least expect it....and when you are not looking for anything anymore, something finds you. something that you didn't know you were looking for.....something you just can't go home without.

a vintage, 1970's, Louis Vuitton Bag, one owner, well loved, but well taken care of.

infact, i felt a bit like the owner wanted me to have it but at the same time wanted to come home with me.

after i walked away and she had told me all about how she took it yearly to "her leather person" for cleaning, i saw her walk over to the vendor working next to her booth and say, "i sold my Louie".

i finally have the fitting bag to match my vintage LV wallet that belonged to my now 95 year old neighbor. she's in a nursing home now but i bet she bought it during some of her "wild days" on one of her travels to Paris.

sure beats the "fun" i would have had wheeling a dealing with a street vendor in NYC this summer for a faux one!!!!

september first.......

means a lot of different things; falls is in the air here. over the last few days we have had some cooler, wet weather. don't think it is really here to stay but don't really mind the welcomed weather break. wore lightweight long sleeves and some socks for the first time in a long time.

let's take a bit of a look back over the summer.

FOOD....tried lots of new recipes, went out to eat lots, had slow mornings with coffee, did some baking, watched a lot of the food network, enjoyed new and old favs from Trader Joe's, now i'm enjoying late summer/early fall bounty. have a row of garden tomatoes on my kitchen window sill now from the neighbor!!!

READING....probably only read 3 or 4 books this summer (that's a very small # for me) but polished off piles of magazines. that's just the way it was this year.  probably one of my fav books was The Alchemist's Daughter and i'm really enjoying the one i'm reading now, it's listed down and over on my sidebar.

KNITTING....of course there was plenty of knitting. i continued my teaching/knitting schedule at Art 4 Soul and it was as busy as ever.  i condensed things a bit to every-other Thurs, instead of weekly and that seemed to work.  we had a "fullhouse" each time.  i also offered some ongoing Saturday Topdown Sweater Classes throughout the summer and those were a great hit.  the classes filled and many knitters are on their 2nd sweaters!!! who sayes you don't knit in the summer?

personally in knitting.....i'm heading back to school with a new caplet, shrug, and sweater, a pair of fingerless mittens(they're not unfinished they're suppose to be fingerless), a nice, long cotton scarf. also knitted this summer: a cotton sweater for the grandson, 2 market day bags (to steal tomatoes with!), a striped felted bag,(that still needs to be felted),2 pillow covers, and 1 sock. unless i get the other sock done by Labor Day, which i won't, it will have to be consider for a fall project.

TIME W/ FAMILY....had fun times with family. my parents visited here very early spring (infact it wasn't truly summer yet). had time with my sister and her little ones who live close by. had time back and forth to Michigan to see the kids and my little, too cute, grandson. a fun long weekend in NYC. a weekend a day trips with hubby. and plenty of personal little field trips for me.

BACK TO SCHOOL....well i started back to school yesterday. i did not purchase "hard-hats" as i mentioned in a post earlier but that was not so far fetched.  we were in our new building for planning the past 2 days and the students come on Tues.  let me just say a few things: it will be amazingly beautiful when it is done, there are more construction workers there than teachers, we will have a fire marshal on post in the building for at least the first 2 weeks because we have a sprinkler system, and fire alarms, but no direct lines to the fire dept to send them any signal in the event of of a fire and the alarms do go off, we have no phones now but by Tues they are suppose to have 2 in the office, and on, and on, and on,..... oh! and did i mention that on Tues. morning at 7:30, 21 buses....with 800 Jr. High students will be pulling up!

i'll be stopping at Starbuck's for a Venti first, i've never ordered a Venti.

Welcome Fall!

pea soup, rainy all night last night and most of today. sometimes kinda love that.

loved the mail this week...new fall catalogs from: Boden, Free People, Garnet Hill, Anthropologie, J. Jill. such dreamy stuff in there.  a few things i want to get the knitting needles out for and make myself but this is going to call for some shopping.

and the week before that...two new fall knitting magazines!!!!

got my hands on some Vesper Twist sock yarn!!!  colorway Sunflower to match my new Crocs.  i've decided a knitter should always have a pair of socks on-the-needles.  they're so great to throw in your bag for last minute knitting-to-go.  and the end product is like none other.

heading Downtown to the Air and Water Show tomorrow afternoon.  i do love that yearly treat. i'm usually a peace and quiet gal but something about those planes....

last nights dinner was burgers on the grill, homemade guacamole, and a yummy white sangria i made from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food issue #34. we ate outside and finish just as it started to rain.

well, you know, eleven days till i'm back at work.  yep! August 31st.  need to pull out that list and see if there's anything that i still need to make time to do.

made 2 yarn purchases in NYC.  at the charming shop in Soho www.purlsoho.com i bought a salmon colored Blue Sky Cotton. it is so soft!  and at the very Zen-like and tricky to get to Habu Textiles www.habutextiles.com both my daughter and i bought 2 very large hanks of what is called A-80. (they do things very differently around there). it's undyed, natural and a very soft wool.  don't know what it will become.  something beautiful.

must go wind that sock yarn so it can head out with me tomorrow as my small to-go project, along with a good book of course!

five more days and my daughter and i are heading to the land of very busy streets for a fun filled four night five day girls vacation together.

NYC!!!

boring Rowan Florence is done and dusted!  yep, i stuck it out, all those millions of 1x1 and 2x2 ribs.  she was worth it. 

got a letter in the mailbox today about a back-to-school meeting and a staff tour date of the new building.  (i've yet to be in that building without a hardhat on and on my last "drive by" things still looked a little hard hatish to me!)  i wonder what different colors those hats come in?  i may have to order a few to go with some of my new fall outfits!

got the cutest 4 coffee mugs at IKEA this week. they are so Anthropologie-like with an IKEA $ tag...and a teal blue back to school thermos to take coffee in the mornings.  do you think it will be cute enough for me not stop at Starbucks even tho i drive right by?

got another 8 bucks of free gas today after i went to the grocery store.  go figure!

it's finally NOT 100 degrees. i opened the windows. love that!  i can hear the birds, the neighbors, that is when the cicadas are not too loud!

hubby's gone on a bike (as in bicycle) trip this weekend.  not to be confused with the big "bike to-do" in South Dakota at this same time.

so it's just me...whatever i want to eat...my favorite cable channels...knitting...some new magazines...maybe some DVD's...a book to finish...oh yeah and the dog!

needed to grocery shop yesterday. you know i hadn't been home in about a week, there wasn't much left to eat around here.

i usually shop at the family owned grocery store here in town instead of the local chain grocery store. but yesterday i had 2 reasons for going to Jewel. little did i know there were 3.

you know the little machine that prints your receipt, well at this store it also prints coupons for items to use the next time you shop. and i already had one that was good for $5 off my total purchase and was set to expire. hey..5 bucks is 5 bucks, right?  and i wanted to buy flowers and they have a much better flower selection than the other store.

so...i'm all done shopping...i'm at the self-check out, love that (it reminds me a bit of playing grocery store when i was little, really it does!), put in my code for my $5 off coupon, pay for my groceries and the little machine spits out a coupon for a next visit related item and another coupon for $8 off a gas purchase at the chains gas express! 

i'm turning my head sideways trying to read it as it's coming out of the machine. i'm now becoming aware of the other muttering around me about $8. and i'm reading the fine print as i'm trying to get my act together and get my cart out of the line so someone else can scan their food and get there free $8 worth of gas.

i do need to fill up. so i load my car and head out to the gas express across the parking lot were there are dumbfound people just like me getting their first 8 bucks free and a gas attendent working in a little air condition box having the time of her life.

here in Chicago, at these prices it's only about 2 and a half gallons of gas people......but how fun is that!  BTW: the flowers were a bunch of happy face sunflowers and that's before i knew i was saving $13 instead of $5.

you can tell i'm out of school and on summer vacation.

yep, it's only been a few days but the signs are already there.

weird stuff starts happening around here...

*furniture gets moved... "why is that cute kitchen work table being used as a desk in the quest room? it looks nice in there but it would look so cute back in the kitchen, and i could re-paint the drawers and move out the old butcher-block from the kitchen". i say to myself as i am dragging it through the house.

*stuff gets cleaned that should have been cleaned a long time ago... "wow, i thought we just didn't have the right watt light bulbs in here but if you clean the light in that dark hallway you can actually see something".

*the garbage cans outside fill up... "okay, these feather pillows we've been sleeping on are finished, they're too flat. how do we sleep at night? i need new ones tonight".  this is what i was thinking as i was changing the sheets, next thing i know i'm backing the car out of the driveway and i'm in TJ MAXX. i find a cute new summery bedspread too.

see that's the thing about summer for me. time. time to think. time to get it done. and "drop of a hat" time.

good thing is i usually start right out of the gate and slow down to a pace of reading and knitting.  if i kept up like this all summer i think i'd drive a few people and myself crazy...and we'd be in the poor house, cuz i could do a lot of damage around here!

i've got a loaf of beer bread in the oven....yum-o.  i'm bringing it for a snack tomorrow for the knitting cable class. i think the students will need bit of a snack right about the time they are just getting a hang of doing those cables and i say to them, "now let me show you how to do this cool trick of cabling without a cable needle".

i just trashed the paper shredder.  i love that thing. i always put way to much stuff in there.  way to thick of paper.  i put everything in there, not just stuff with important info on it...everything.  i think it cuts down on landfills or whatever.  my husband is always saying to me, (it's in his office) "you don't really need to put that in there, that could just go in the recycling".  but i like to put it in the chopper!! gone forever, tiny, small, little bits.  i REALLY love it when i have an old ID card or credit card that i get to stick in there!!!  chop-chop!!

well today i was doing some cleaning and it was past the date for some old bank statements!!!! i sat myself down, got comfy and yep, i think i got "thickness happy". it started feeling a bit warm. i flipped it over (don't worry, i un-plugged it, don't want to lose those knitting fingers) and now it's all clogged up and won't do a thing.

i going to get an "i told you so" when HE gets home.  oh well, it was fun while it lasted.  if i didn't need to bake this beer bread i'd run to office depot quick and just get another one.  i'm sure we've already gotten our $ worth out of this one the way i chop stuff up.  and BTW did you see on Martha Stewart her great idea for using  color paper with a paper shredder?  her ideas for beautiful packing paper.  OH NO, HE'S COMING IN THE DRIVEWAY... I'M NOT KIDDING!!!  WHERE'S THE VACUMN   i haven't cleaned up all the shreds everywhere from trying to fix that thing, i'm going to end up burning this beer bread!!!!!! 

long time no blog.....

i'm just sitting here staring at my hands on the keyboard...they weren't moving...not a whole lot to say, i guess.

   i'm soooo into this new song Unwritten, by Natasha Bedingfield. google it or go to yahoo video or something and listen....it's really good!!!!

   i finished and felted the bag part of my Noni Bag. found some handles at Joann Fabric's tonight. now i'm on to the Spidery Chysanthemum flower to finish it with.  also in knitting news i made a pillow cover. i used Noro yarn for the front and random stash yarns for the back. started on another too, they're very fun to do.  good car knitting.

   i'm teaching a "knitting cables" workshop on saturday morning so i've been busy putting together things for that and working on some "swatches".

   i went with some gals to a "paint-your-own" ceramics shop last night. i've never tried that before.  it was fun and a great way to "do something" and visit at the same time. apparently i did a bit too much visiting and not enough paint brush moving....i was the only one who was not finished when it was time to go! :)  i'll have to stop back and finish.

   did i mention that i have 10 days and 1 hour of school left?  yes, we have 1 hour of school on the last day, we have to get up, pick out and outfit, wash our hair, and put on some make up for 1 hour!!!!!!!  and let me tell you it is ONE LONG HOUR.

   the yard, gardens, flowers......everything is looking so beautiful now.  green, lush, we've had some rain.  you can water, but there's nothing that helps the plants like real rain.

   i love waking up to the sound of the birds in the morning.  we have had some bad mother birds this spring tho.  two mourning doves built a nest in a bush by the driveway, not a very smart place. i think a cat got the eggs.  but we now have a cardinal nest, she chose a better spot (pretty eggs, speckly).

well.....what was the deal with this post?  something is better than nothing.

May's issue of  Real Simple Magazine ran an article featuring 5 pretty amazing women.....they were all over 100 years old.

it was fun to see their pictures and read their stories.  i have always loved listening to "old people's" stories.

here are some Life Lessons from 5 centearians:

*never feel sorry for yourself.....*if you worry about being old, you will be old....*volunteering gets you away from your own worries....*your're better off alone than with bad company....*when playing Scrabble, don't use up your S's right away....*don't hold anger....*a person never gets too old to love....*you can't control other people, you can only control you reactions....*more is not necessarily better....*children love praise....*you'll always need your girlfriends....*a mother should respect her children, just as they should respect her....*don't expect perfection....

maybe grab the magazine in the grocery check-out line this week and read one of the stories, they're short and the it will make the line go faster. 

you'll be glad you did!

the early bird catches the worm!!!!

i was up and blogging early this morning (as usual) with coffee cup in hand.

sure glad i was.

go see what i won.... http://soulemama.typepad.com

and i just LOVE vintage tablecloths!!

thanks amanda!