thrift score: containers and such

The grand total for this lot was under $4. UNDER!  I do love our Goodwill Outlet. Scores are always good and depending on who is ringing you up and the time of day, etc the score can be even better!Mister found the mallet and the smallish metal box. I discovered the rest and even found two shelves I almost purchased at a different store but decided they weren't worth the $5...soooo happy I didn't get them then.

 I've been looking for cloth bound books to turn into shelves. The Wonder book was purchased mostly for the paper cover. I have no idea what I am going to do with it but yay!

 These are the two shelves I originally put back. They are small but I think I can find oodles of fun to display on them. They will be given a coat or two of paint. I still need to do that.

This metal cabinet has a handle on top. Mister is going to wax the doors so they open better and then we're gonna hang it somewhere. What shall we store inside? not pictured is the small vanity suitcase. That too will become storage of course. How could I pass up a suitcase?

rainy days and rainbows

Last Friday we had a rainy day. It began with blue skies but began to rain sometime around eleven or so. The mister and I headed north to another tiny town in search of nasal spray. I know, thrilling, right? We wandered around the town in the chilly wind and hit up a couple of thrift stores on the way back home. Purchases were made at a few and we headed home for lunch.

I lazed about looking at Pinterest while the mister worked on various projects. He headed out to shake paper bits off the bedspread when he was greeted by a happy, happy rainbow. It continued to rain off and on until the next morning but the mister and I were all cozy, cozy in our new tiny casa and our big splurge...Netflix.

Some days are full, simple, lazy and pretty all wrapped up together.

Happy Bundt Day!

 For National Bundt Day I baked up a ginger-ale cake. Not wanting to use a box mix for my cake or a zillion eggs, I made up my own recipe that the mister seems to like as much as I do and since he is the one with the working sniffer then I think it's a keeper.

Ginger Ale Bundt Cake a-go-go

*1 cup sugar

*1/2 cup brown sugar

*1/2 cup unsalted butter

*2 eggs

*1 cup ginger ale

*3 cups flour (more or less as needed)

*1 1/2 tsp baking soda

*dash o salt

*1 tsp ginger

*grind or two black pepper

Cream butter and sugar until it sticks together. It gets crumbly, just keep mixing it up. Add eggs and beat for three minutes. Add half the ginger ale and mix. Mixture will appear curdled. Fold in half flour mixture then remaining ginger ale then the rest of the flour mixture. I cannot remember exactly how much flour I used. I know I used more than two cups, eeps!

Pour into prepared bundt pan and bake in a preheated oven for 45 minutes (or until toothpick comes out crumb free) at 375 degrees F. My cake got a smidge overbaked so keep an eye on yours.

Once cake is cool, make your glaze and drizzle over the top. I tend to wing it and was a little impatient so my glaze is a bit lumpy. I used about 2 cups powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of ginger ale and a teaspoon of black pepper. It's spicy!

For thirty awesome recipes, hop on over to The Food Librarian's blog and check out her I Like Big Bundts: 30 Days of Bundt Cakes. I need to try that eggnog cake!

same but different

Back before Halloween, the school I work at hit up the pumpkin patch with oodles of kiddos and parents in tow. There were all sorts of pumpkins and gourds. Some were quite large while others were quite small and it seemed our tots favored the wee ones. Those they could carry, not one, but TWO in their hot little hands. While we all traipsed about the rows and rows of almost overripe pumpkins, one of the kiddos spotted this awesome orb spider chillin' low to the ground. It was pretty big and at that time it was the largest orb spider I had seen being slightly larger than a quarter...

Cue Monday waffle night at the homestead where I was jibber-jabbing all about the ENORMOUS spider when the mama-a-go-go told me there was a pretty large one in the yard...

Oh my!

 Now this one is the largest orb I have ever seen. About the size of a fifty-cent piece. Fat, slightly furry and so happily full of stripes. She's a beauty. He? I don't know. Not long after that I saw a pretty large spider showing off its web in the setting sun as I drove home from the job-o number 2. I saw it from the car while chillin' at a stop sign. I saw it across the street it was that noticeable. I think this is the year of the orb spider...pretty cool.

goofing off

Last week was a pretty busy week. There was work and cleaning and more work and more cleaning but still we managed squeeze in a we bit o' thrifting, visiting and mucho bits o' fun. Here is an outtake from a family shindig...we a-go-gos are just a laugh riot. snort!

beware of falling {vintage} kitchen implements

You may have already surmised that we a-go-gos have a lot of stuff. Okay, okay, truthfully it is I who has accumulated the stuff. The mister is just along for the ride though, whenever I decide to purge, it seems the items I deem let-go-able, he had grown attached to. Aack! These vintage kitchen items were my mother's. They hung in her country turned Pee-Wee's Playhouse kitchen (courtesy of my brother) on a narrow wall paneled top to bottom in peg-board.

Everything on that peg board was used in some way. From baking to cooking to making dough ornaments for Christmas, our kitchen gadgetry dangled within reach for years only relocating from their spot when a new {old} gadget joined the family. Sometimes though, the gadgets fought back. We had a condo kitchen. It was tucked into the front of the condo but accessible from all around. There was a sliding door that could be closed to inhibit entry from the front hall and door but we only closed that on Halloween when we would fill the mirrored hallway with candles, my mother's doll collection and a hand-stuffed dummy or two. Otherwise, the kitchen could be circled through over and over again. It was a great place for chasing the cat, dog or each other but if you weren't too careful, you could collide with kitchen gadgets and get bit, pinched or slightly grated.

Being a person who carries her history on her sleeve, I really wanted my own swath of pegboard to display the kitchen gadgets I inherited. Wall-space and moolah not on our side, mister put together this blue board of happiness and in keeping with tradition, we have hung it up on the ledge between the kitchen and the living room, a perfectly precarious spot in a state prone to shakes, rattles and rolls. Just don't stand under in case of a seismic dance party (note that nifty chopper, blades pointed down), otherwise, you are free to roam.