Finance and Fortune

I must be known as a board game hoarder collector.  Rick was cleaning out some of his “stuff” and sent out some old board games for me.

The next best thing if you didn’t win the mega bucks in the lottery this week.

The Finance and Fortune game is from 1936. The Inventors is from 1974.  I don’t have either in my collection.

I got one number correct in that big lottery but no power ball number 4.  I saw lots of people on television all lined up to buy a ticket, I just walked in the store and bought mine…no waiting in line…of course I had to drive 14 miles to buy the ticket.

Marbles

I have collected marbles for years.  They are small and don’t take up much space. 

Yesterday there was a package in the mail for me…a slingshot and marbles for ammunition to shoot down Far Guy’s Gyrocopter when it attacks me.

I used to play marbles with my brother all the time.  The Orange/White/ Green and Orange/White/ Brown are from the1950’s. As I swirled those marbles between my fingers it brought back many old memories.  Playtime was simple back then… we would play marbles for hours.  I can still remember the excitement when I would capture one of my brothers prized marbles.

These are all very old marbles, I was very impressed with the two shooters!

Clay Marbles

I had to make room for this windfall of marbles.  I decided that the dice which are also small and easily collected needed to go to a different container and these marbles needed their own jar.

They fit nicely in the jar along with a note that tells about them.

Kids don’t play marbles much anymore.

Far Guy says : I had a tin full of marbles, cousin Jay and I sat at the top of the steps upstairs at the house in Park Rapids.  We rolled them down the wooden steps one at a time, plink plink plink on the wooden steps.  One of our parents yelled “I don’t want to hear ONE more marble come down the steps.” …so we dumped the whole tin at once!

  I asked him if he recalled the punishment he replied “nope.”

Good Find

Sometimes when you least expect it, you see something different in an antique shop and cannot resist.

Shiny Brite Made in USA

This is a design that I don’t have in my collection.

It is a beautiful torquoise color trimmed in silver mica.

Perfect for my collection!

Road Trip

Cabin Fever got the best of us, we admit it, our four walls were getting mighty boring.  We didn’t go far. Just headed to a few antique shops that we hadn’t been to since last summer. Our weather turned cold with a raw wind so although it looked nice outside it wasn’t.

On the way we saw.

A bottle sculpture outside one of my favorite shops.  They remember me there. “Hey I remember you, you are the old lady that writes a blog about old photos.”  Yessiree that would be me.  I like this shop, old photos are a dollar each.  I came out with just a few!  Some great mystery photos too!

Water tower painted like a bobber.

A street sign that shares the name of a friend.

As we passed Airplane Hanger Row over in the ritzy part of the State I noticed this unique part of a plane…I wonder what they use it for? It is on a trailer.  Maybe it is a playhouse for grandkids or maybe they pull it in parades. 

We ended up in another little town that hasn’t quite awakened from winter yet.  Most shops there open May 1st but three nice shops were open and we had a fun afternoon walking around and enjoyed breakfast for dinner/supper.  Far Guy had eggs with the works and I had a blueberry hotcake big as a plate. Traffic in that little tourist trap is horrid, although some of the shops were closed everyone that had a car was in town….and it isn’t even summer yet.

We moseyed on home, the traffic got less and less, calmer and quieter.

Coincidence?

How much in our lives is just coincidence? 

I just had a coincidence happen to me.

I began collecting old photos a number of years ago and I present one a day over at Forgotten Old Photos.  Yesterday I posted Photo Number 2183, and today I posted Full Circle 140.   Well over 250 photos have been returned to family…I haven’t counted in a while. I look for photos in Antique Shops, garage sales and Flea Markets.   Mostly I look for photos with names or photos that are interesting to me in the hopes that they will be interesting to other people too.

What in the world could be the connection between this photo and one I found in an Antique Shop in Detroit Lakes Minnesota?  By the way this is the former Governor Ragnvold Nestos residence in Buxton North Dakota. Our daughter Trica and her husband purchased this home in 1995.  That is Far Guy and Trica on the step and that red Geo was the lemon that needed engines every year..and the photographer was you guessed it…me.

Any guesses what the connection could be?  Pop on over to Forgotten Old Photos if you are curious.  The whole story made me smile.

Day Trip

We took a short day trip on Wednesday.  It was cloudy and gloomy.

Headed west and then south to a few antique shops that we had not been to since last spring.

We saw this cute haybale snowman.  The snow is dirty and the fields are getting bare south of us.

I had good luck finding some interesting old photos at least they are interesting to me.  One was kind of sad, it was a elderly woman’s trip to Hamilton Montana in 1969, she took photos of downtown, the railroad depot, the fairgrounds and views of streets and mountains.  They are all color photos and not the kind I collect so I will do some research and find the local Historical Museum in that area and mail it off.  I cannot believe that someone would sell it…but then I bought it so there you go… supply and demand.

Hamilton Montana 1969 Photos

The lady had quite a common name, I think I found her obituary but one never really knows for sure. As most little old ladies do it is marked with her name and the address of a Nursing Home. It was probably part of an Estate and has more value/meaning going to a museum than relatives.

I found many old photos (1880-1940) with names, not that I needed anymore but they were calling my name.  I had several interesting conversations with people in the antique shops…and you know the saying that if you talk to some one long enough you will have a person in common…I met a fellow that was a classmate of a gal in Park Rapids (former church organist), he used to have a crush on her in high school back in Beardsley Minnesota…so much so that he named his daughter after her, not sure what his wife thought of that but she was busy shopping whilst he was talking to me.

Far Guy found this F-16A Block 15 Air Defence Jet Fighter it even has The Happy Hooligans banner on the tail.  I think it needs some weapons …so some will be carved and painted.

On the way home it was late afternoon we found a place to walk Chance and stopped at a Mexican Resturaunt …there are two Mexican places in that little town, one is purple and one is rust colored we probably stopped at the wrong one, my other baby brother said they had the best Mexican food ever…people in the parking lot said the food was good…but we didn’t think so.  What I ordered  Far Guy couldn’t even eat…and he eats a lot of weird food. AND no Chance didn’t get any of it, hardly fit for a dog.

Someday Project

Whilst I was cleaning out the kitchen cupboards and drawers I finally got to the cupboard with the recipe boxes.

The box in front holds small recipe cards and a post it…that pink post it is Far Guy’s Impossible Italian Sausage Pie. ( He knows right where to find it.)  Brown up a pound of Italian Sausage then put the cooked meat in a 8x8 baking dish.  Mix together 1/2 Cup Bisquick Mix, 1 Cup Milk and 2 eggs dump on top of sausage.  Top with your favorite cheese.  Bake for 35 minutes at 400 degrees.   The alphabetical system looks like it might work but it doesn’t…all the favorites have been pulled to the front of the box.  That is my Spaetzle recipe in front.  I bought this box in about 1976, it was a winter project and there was a chain letter recipe swap going on and I needed someplace to put the recipes.  It was one of those chains where you added your name to the bottom of the list and then sent out some recipes to the top person on the list. Eventually I must have reached the top of the list!!

How many recipe boxes do you have?

This one is full of recipes that are favorites or ones that could be favorites. I bought this box in 1995 to organize recipes that wouldn’t fit into my other recipe box.

It is full to overflowing with handwritten recipes…and computer printed out recipes.  Some are cut off packages…some are used all the time…some have never been attempted.

This is the someday project.  It was a Christmas gift a long time ago. 

Someday I will transpose all the favorites from the scraps of paper.  The cards are there…ready to go.  I added two favorite recipes on larger index cards that were just hanging around in the cupboard…homeless.

I must be a recipe hoarder.

A Sunday Afternoon Project

I didn’t make gift tags out of Christmas Cards this year…however I checked all the addresses on the envelopes and re read the letters and notes.  I stapled all the letters together and marked them 2014. The envelopes were shredded and the cards recycled. I was covered in glitter once again…it seems every Christmas Card comes with a fair amount of sparkly glitter.

I still have a little address book.  Inside all the moves, deaths and births have been noted along with a few cell phone numbers.  Far Guy has all the addresses in his computer but I like my hands on all marked up old address book…I even have one from around 1975 that I am unwilling to part with.  Silly maybe…

All of the Christmas Card Photos were marked with the year and shoved in a photo box to be dealt with at some other time…or not.  They are a someday project.

All of those photos are a bit of history.  Kids growing up… friends and relatives growing older…the proof is in the picture.

 

The old red enamel spittoon looking popcorn bowl that I have used for cards every year since about 1996 was washed and put away.

I enjoyed my afternoon.

Chance :The Shiny Brite Tree

Several of the beds upstairs have been off limits…they were full of Shiny Brites.

When I am invited upstairs I know something is up.  Can you see anything?  Someone keeps telling me to wake up…look alive!

Can you see how handsome I am?

How about now?

 

I am just about the best model ever…too bad it isn’t a paying job.

Far Side says it is done for another year.   She doesn’t know exactly how many ornaments are on that tree, she started to count and then lost track.  A few years ago it was approaching 450.  She added 48 new/old ornament this year.   She might count when she takes it down.  The tree is 9 1/2 or 10 feet tall no one can remember exactly…just like they can’t remember if they gave me a treat or not.

Just so you know there are no lights on the tree. Far Side is pretty darn fussy about her ornaments.  If the ornaments have old strings on them or grease pencil 5 cents or 10 cent marks they remain.  The ornaments are never washed.  Most are Shiny Brites, some are Coby ornaments a competitor of Shiny Brites. Some are Polish ornaments and some are from West Germany. All are beautiful. 

Recently Far Side had to take an ornament to an exchange…it took her forever to decide which Shiny Brite she could part with.  She finally chose a plain gold Shiny Brite because she has just a few.

New this year are the Shiny Brite Red Icicle Twirls, they were a gift from Edie.

Far Side has ornaments from; Edie, Madeline, Grace, Minnie, Susan and Lillian, Jo Lynn, Sandy, Tom and Linda, me and Far Guy.  (that is a Susan and Lillian in the photo it is the green one with the snow)

I am sure glad that tree is done now Far Side will have more time to play ball.

Shiny Brite Tree

Slowly but surely we are getting the Shiny Brite tree up.

The Shiny Brite tree is assembled.  The top is decorated and then lifted onto the bottom section because a person could kill herself going up and down a ladder and break more ornaments than she could hang.

The Shiny Brite Tree Topper, Far Guy bought it for me a number of years ago.  It is always the first thing I put on the tree….the beginning.

The beds and the couch and every other available space is used for the staging area.  Each box has a sticky note.  I like them to go back into their own assigned boxes.  It is an OCD thing.

The four boxes and the small group on the bottom right are the new old ornaments this year. 

Here is another bed full.  Good thing no one is coming to visit.

I won’t show the couch or my work table or any other area for fear you will call me a ornament hoarder.

The top has been decorated.  We have a system and it was lifted successfully onto the bottom part yesterday.

The bottom part takes a number of days to decorate.

This is the box of New Retro Shiny Brites that we added to the collection this year.

I have six boxes of retros now one for each of my grands and a spare just incase some are broken.  Well you never know.

I walked around looking at other shorter fake trees the other day…ones that the elderly can easily put up.  I am considering a smaller shorter tree….no big decisions have been made yet.  I had a brilliant thought that if the tree was smaller I could decorate all in red one year…blue the next…silver…gold…pink...

All about the Trains

Every time  grandson Adam visits he checks out the train set upstairs.  The last time he was here he said “Grandpa I am not sure you have room for anything else.”

The weather is grey and gloomy.  We took off for Menards in Detroit Lakes.

Someone is expanding his train area.  He needed another table.  Table shopping is boring, but I had a blast in the Christmas aisle!

Of course I cannot resist ornaments.

We heard from neighbor Edie that there were some Lionel Ornaments at Menards.  They seemed to be the perfect holiday decoration for the train set.  Far Guy agreed with me especially since they were on sale.

I plunked one down in the back of a truck at the drive in theater.

Later I came back and found them all over the train set.

Road Trip

The weather is rainy, cloudy and cool barely 50 degrees F or 10 C eh! It was a good day for a road trip.  We originally had a destination in mind, but decided to just meander on Highway 71 South.

We don’t see many of these Wind Turbines.   This one was someplace along Hwy 71 near Long Prairie.

The Clarissa/ Long Prairie area has Amish.  You can usually tell by the horse poop on the roadways.

We saw some baleage.  Hay that is baled at a higher moisture content and sealed in white plastic bags.

We ended up in Osakis…then over to Little Falls…visiting antique shops along the way.  Each one is interesting as are the proprietors..from a 1950’s wannabe to a little old lady with huge hair that was all her own…teased and I am certain hair sprayed to be stiff as a board.

Marbles have gone up in price.  The going price for marbles is 12 cents each.  It used to be a 10 cents. 

I only bought this small bag of marbles because of the shooter.  12 cents is a bargain for a shooter.

Three Polish ornaments and two Shiny Brites were purchased…40 cents each, a bargain I couldn’t pass up.

It was good to get away for a day.  We returned home just in time to warm up leftover lasagna for supper.  Cook once eat twice that is our menu plan this week.