Today in Thrift Store Kitsch

I found this at the thrift store today.  (The same store I found the breastfeeding poster -- fabulous place.)

I paid a whole 35 cents for this beauty.  I still haven't decided whether to keep it, sell it on Etsy, or send it to my mom!   I think Norman's vote is to hang it in our kitchen.

I also found, in keeping with my ridiculous good luck and perfect timing where thrift stores are concerned, a broth separator for making Thanksgiving gravy.  (My old one was cracked, so I tossed it before we moved.)

Jessie Lyman's Journals, Part 2

Last week I introduced you to my great-great grandmother, Jessie Lyman Eckert.  You can read the first post here.

Jessie Lyman was born January 2, 1877.  She graduated from Westport High School (Westport, MO, now part of Kansas City) in 1897 at the head of her class.  From what I have read of her diaries so far, it appears she went on to teach school for a couple years in Columbia, MO.  She married Herman Eckert in June of 1899.  On July 26, 1900, she died giving birth to twins Conrad and Cornelia at the age of 22.  Conrad is my mother's mother's father.

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Sept. 29 [1897]

The day was very hot and I had two classes in which I explained subjects which really seemed hard for them.  I hardly knew whether to try it or not, but an explanation was necessary to a clear understanding of the subject.
The pupils seemed to understand it very readily too.  I have taught them the tides, winds, ocean currents, continental structure, and origin of the parts of speech as well as the similarity between North and South America.  They seem to take an interest in them, and think very quickly.  It seems to be different from anything they ever heard before.  Miss Watson's teaching helps me a great deal.
I was very tired when I got home, and went to bed about seven o'clock.

Sept. 30.
Another hot day without a drop of rain.  The roads are very dusty.  I was not so tired this as I was last evening.
I went down to the sorghum mill this evening.  We watched the grinding of the cane, and saw them stir off a lot of sorghum, then we took knives and scraped the box.  We rode home in the big wagon after a mule team.  I got my hands covered with molasses.

Mark -- He hit me on the back of the neck with a book, and stuffed some paper down my back.
Logan -- "I didn't either."
Mark -- "You did too."
Teacher -- "Well Logan, what did you do?"
Logan -- "I just stuck a stick down his back."
Teacher -- "What did you do Mark."
Mark -- "I didn't do a thing.  I couldn't reach him."
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The children were given the following sentence and required to fill out the blanks:
I slide on my ______.
Most of the sentences read "I slide on my new sled," or something similar.  Logan's -- "I slide on my cellar door."

Oct. 1st.
Aunt Florence started for a visit of three days in Callaway Co. this afternoon.  I am to be chief cook and bottle washer during her absence.
I have made out my first month's report to the school board and expect to get $35, all my own for this long month of work. Won't I be rich?

Oct. 2d.
I got up at five o'clock and got breakfast this morning. The boys say I am a first rate cook.  Well, I don't intend to let them go on cold meals all the while.
I washed the dishes, took care of the milk, washed my duck skirt for the first time, and then did the house work.  I don't know how my skirt will look -- I never made starch before.  My wash woman's little boy came with my washing while I was washing my dress.  I don't know what he thought.  I didn't want to trust her with my skirt for the first time.
While I was upstairs doing the work, one of the Kirtz boys came to say that Aunt Florence's horse had got away at their house and that Aunt Florence was coming home -- would be here in a few minutes.  I was sorry for her, but I was glad to see her, as I was very tired.
I went to town in the afternoon, got my money, bought a few articles and came home.  In the evening we went over to Logan's "show".  I road behind Francis on George.  It was much better than walking through the dust.  Logan's show was a decided success -- very original and extremely provocative of mirth.  The phonagraph [sic] was the feature of the evening.  Anderson looked too sweet with his little blue shirt with short sleeves and low neck, and his little blue trousers.

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I would just like to interject at this point and say that I love that she cannot spell her schwas, despite being a teacher herself.  Perhaps it is genetic?


More to come...

May I Introduce You to My Great-Great Grandmother?

I was sorting through some things on my desk last night, and I realized that while I am in possession of my great-great grandmother's diaries, I have never read them.  What??  This is craziness.  As I started reading them, I thought about how interesting, and strange, and personal, and impersonal having something from an ancestor is.  I never knew her, but she is part of my story, and I was named after her.  I thought I'd share this strangeness with all of you, if that's okay.  I decided to transcribe the diaries as I read them and share them with you here, in installments.  [Edit: You can view the rest of the posts under the label Jessie Lyman's diary.]  But first, an introduction:

 

Jessie Lyman was born January 2, 1877.  She graduated from Westport High School (Westport, MO, now part of Kansas City) in 1897 at the head of her class.  From what I have read of her diaries so far, it appears she went on to teach school for a couple years in Columbia, MO.  She married Herman Eckert in June of 1899.  On July 26, 1900, she died giving birth to twins Conrad and Cornelia at the age of 22.  Conrad is my mother's mother's father.

[We have a portrait photo of Jessie Lyman, but it's tucked away in my parents' storage somewhere. Photos of her journals will have to suffice.]

-------------------------------------------
Diary 
Jessie Lyman
Sept. 26th, 1897


I have been in Columbia a month.  The time has passed very quickly, and, on the whole, very pleasantly.  In the week before my school began, I took several little pleasure-trips about the country.  On Monday morning Sept. 6th, at 8:30, I opened my first school.

Every thing passed off very pleasantly, but at four o'clock I was very glad to find that the boys had brought the road-wagon for me.

On Friday, Sept. 10th, I had to punish a little girl for disobedience.  It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.  Thus ended the first week.


In my second week I got the pupils quieted down to some extent.  I adopted a new remedy for subduing whispering.  I got some cotton bandages to tie up their mouths.  Three victims suffered from this punishment.  I have been afraid to try it much since, however, because it looks so funny I'm afraid to test my self-control.


We had a good rain that week and the weather was much pleasanter afterward.


The week beginning Sept. 20th was rather warm and the roads are becoming very dusty again.


I am getting affairs a little better arranged in my school.  It isn't a play-spell, however.


I had my first caller this week.  I was getting anxious to see a girl again.  This one was Imogene Scott.  I hope we will find each other congenial, as girls are few and far between, here.


I went to church this morning, and heard a very good sermon.  The day has been very warm and the roads are dusty.  A four-mile drive is rather tiresome.


I wish some of the bachelors who are said to abound in this country would call, and break the monotany [sic] this evening.  They are mostly of the species owning two-horse buggies.  


Monday, Sept. 27th, 1897.


It was a little cooler this morning and I got along with my room work very well, but for some reason I got started to school late.  I met Uncle Wallie and he took me over to the gravel in his buggy, so I got to the school house in plenty of time.


The day passed very pleasantly.  In the evening I began hem stitching a school handkerchief.  I am doing it more for practice than anything else.  I want to know how well by Christmas.


Tues. Sept. 28th


I had a rather hard day today.  It was 4:45 before I left the school house.


I overtook Forest at Uncle Wallie's and rode over behind him on his horse.  It was lots of fun.


I received a nice letter from Herman -- the first I have had for two weeks.

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More to come...

In preparation to write this blog post, I finally got around to reading the short family history that my great-grandfather Conrad Eckert put together in 1978.  Some information attached to the back of that document (hopefully reliable), indicates that I have in my direct family lineage a knight from 1066, two kings of Scotland, and two ladies named Dorcas Plumb and Mindwell Pomeroy.  I'm not sure which of those things I'm most excited about.

Harvest Fest Recap

"And here's what my booth looked like this time!"  Oy.  Are we like so totally over the photos of my various craft booths?  If you are, I apologize.

I showed up to the Harvest Festival with no idea what was going on or where I was going to be.  The lady in charge was supposed to call me the week before, but Saturday morning came and I had heard nothing.  Usually this would make me crazy, but I was oddly at ease.  I'm a craft show veteran.  I can roll with it.  (It may also help that I don't actually have a booth set-up, and I just putt things wherever I feel like it while I'm setting up.)  Turns out I was in the gym, on the stage/dividable classrooms, next to the Altar Guild's White Elephant table.  Ha. 

[The view from my corner.]

This, in part, is why I was surprised when I actually exceeded my sales goal!  And it was kind of fun to talk to everyone, and the dinner was delicious.

[Table setting before the sauerbraten-nomming mob descended.]

[The view of my booth from the front/gym floor]

[Lucky me, this mobile bulletin board was already in my space. Perfect!]

[Buford's back there with my cedar sachets. Keep up the good work, man.]

[Free stickers. For the kids. {Which is funny because there are only like 8 kids in the whole church. Not even exaggerating. Lucy is the only 2-year-old. So different.}]

I got a lot of people saying, after looking over all my stuff, "Oohh, so you recycle stuff! That is so great!"  Humboldt County, I love you.

Halloween 2011: Year of the Noodles

 

Ah, another Halloween come and gone.  I had a very ambiguous relationship with Halloween growing up.  Some years my mom made fabulous, elaborate costumes for us (I was once a pink crayon; another year, Samantha, the American Girl), some years we pulled stuff together for ourselves (like when I was a "gypsy", i.e., long skirt, head-kerchief, lots of jewelry). Some years we went trick-or-treating, some years we only did church things, some years we did nothing because my dad decided it wasn't cool to beg people for candy.

But having a kid of my own, everything is just so much more exciting!  I'm seeing everything through new eyes.  And I'm also going to keep up this family-theme costume thing for as long as I can get away with.  (Last year we were The Interwebs. The year before that I was still in a daze and I barely remember putting Lucy in that lion costume.)  So this year we were the Noodles from Elmo's World on Sesame Street.  Mr. Noodle, and Mr. Noodle's sister Miss Noodle, and Mr. Noodle's other sister Miss Noodle.  (That's how Elmo introduces them.)

[Whatdya think? Christmas card photo?]

[I told her to make Miss Noodle face.]

[Lucy's attempts to take a photo of me in my Miss Noodle costume.]

I spent precisely 75 cents to put these costumes together: I found Lucy a too-big little boy suit vest at a rummage sale.  The rest was stuff we had around the house.


We also carved a pumpkin!  Our very, very nice neighbor lady (who is moving, sad face), has gardened the heck out of her yard and actually grew pumpkins!  Successfully!  (I've heard this can be difficult, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised that pumpkins grow easily in Humboldt County.  It's like the frickin' Garden of Eden here.)  And then she gave us one!  She's outside a lot, so whenever we walk by, Lucy starts talking to her.  Neighbor Lady kind of doesn't have a choice.  But I'm pretty sure she likes Lucy.

[We had the pumpkin for like 3 weeks before we carved it, so Lucy was very excited.]

 [Alas, we did not give him a name.]

And we walked around the Plaza (the local downtown shop area) and got candy.  I had to mitigate a couple of near-tears situations when Lucy caught sight of anyone with any kind of skeleton mask on.  Goodness!  I had to have my Uncanny Valley radar on.  And it was worse than usual because she hadn't had a nap.  Probably too excited all day!

 [Where did this kid come from? Coulda sworn all I had around here was a little toddler...]

A Fun Event You Can't Attend

I've lived in my current town for nearly 3 months, and I still have no Facebook friends who also live here.  This strikes as very weird, but it seems people here just aren't big on the internet.  I think they might be busy doing other things like hiking, gardening, and eating good food.  Weirdos.  (Please note the sarcasm.)

So it is with a slightly wistful sigh that I post the following, knowing that none of you reading this could possibly act on this information.

Our (Lutheran) church is having a Harvest Festival on Saturday!  It's like a Halloween carnival, minus the costumes, plus a severely authentic Oktoberfest meal.  Seriously -- they have already been marinating the sauerbraten for 5 days at the time of this writing.  There will be carnival games, a giant cardboard maze in the gym, a quilt raffle, a silent auction, live music, the German food (and beer), and craft booths! 

 

[Someone else's marinating sauerbraten]

Craft booths is plural there, but I'm not actually sure if anyone will have one besides me.  I think the church ladies were doing a collective one or something.  I kind of assume the crowd will be small and not so spendy, so I'm not planning on raking in the cash or anything, but it's still very exciting and a little nerve-wracking.  These people don't know me very well, and they certainly don't know about the seriousness nor the sheer quantity of my crafting.  But they will very soon.  Yikes!  Just kind of exposing, ya know?

In other news, the Bible study I attend got together to make a basket for the silent auction.  We had so much stuff it turned into two baskets.  And by "turned into", I mean that I kind of just took over and decided what would go where and what it would look like and how it should be.  First-born.  Although I usually find that people are happy to delegate.

 ["Family Fun Night"]

["Quiet Night at Home"]

That's right, I named them and may or may not have typed up and printed out a list of the contents of each basket on nice cardstock with a fancy font.  Ahem.

The Yearly Halloween Conundrum

Nope, not whether or not to celebrate. Not whether or not to going trick-or-treating. No, as a confirmed real food hippie, my yearly Halloween conundrum is -- what do I hand out??

[Spoiler alert: It's these!]

Last year I was really on top of things, and I bought glow stick bracelets super-cheap on eBay to hand out instead of candy.  This year I pretty much forgot about it until.... yesterday.  At which point I was at the grocery store and figured it would be a good time to decide what to give out.  (Because I think it's important to give out something good and thoughtful, because Halloween is a very Christian holiday in practice.)

But, but -- high fructose corn syrup? Hydrogenated oils? Food dye? I can't do it.  I can't just hand that out to small children.  Also, whatever is left over will be sitting around our house, and at least one of us will probably eat it.

So I was wandering around the Safeway thinking, thinking, trying to think outside of the box while still staying within some sort of reasonable budget (it doesn't help that there are 5 shopping days this month instead of 4).  Little bags of chips?  Little bags of cookies?  Granola bars?  All too expensive.  Boxes of raisins?  Yes, if I want everyone to hate me.  Thinking, thinking....

And then I was saved by the bulk food section!

They sell these little sesame seed candies (individually wrapped!) in the bulk section with the lentils and the chocolate-covered malt balls.  Only 4 ingredients (3 of which are forms of sugar, but it is candy, after all), and $3.19 per pound.  Perfect!

[In a record bowl, of course!]

Oh, and get ready! Family costume photos to come next week!

When Hoarding Pays Off

Before we moved across country, I got rid of a lot of fabric.  Most of my collections of denim and felt went, as did a bunch of my cotton fabric, fleece, and flannel.  But I refused to get rid of a single swatch of my corduroy.  I kept all of it.  There is a lot.  Right now it's all stuffed into three under-the-bed containers.

A good deal of the more interesting stuff came from a garage sale in Minnesota (I lived there for a summer once -- long story).  I've got some really awesome vintage prints.  I used them to make this and this and this. 

And now these!

I bought Lucy a bunch of pants at a school rummage sale, but I didn't realize that the knees of the khaki corduroys were nearly worn through! 

So now they're girly but not too girly, which is my favorite way for girls' clothes to be!

And that's why we keep even the tiniest scraps of awesome vintage printed corduroy.

(PS - If you want to patch pants without iron-on stickiness, you're gonna want to use a stitch like #1 here.  It's super sturdy!)

Jack-o-Lantern Quesadillas for Halloween!

There's something you should probably know about me: I like to get things done.  It's not just that I like to be able to check things off my to-do list (although I do really like doing that), it's that while I'm trying to get something done, I'm focused solely on getting it done as quickly as possible.  No dawdling.  I do this even with things I like doing.  I just want to get it done and move on.  (This is also why I seem to always forget to take photos of things I wanted to share here on the blog.)

For this reason, I really stink at making mealtime fun.  Pretty much every time Norman fixes lunch for Lucy, he makes a funny face out of the food.  I never do, unless she asks me to.

[Like this. Actually I can't remember if this was me or Norman.]

So, it's a small miracle, and in all actuality, a coincidence, that I decided to make these for dinner the other night.

The coincidence part: I was already planning on making quesadillas for dinner.  Bean and veggie.  Sooo good.  I had called my mom the day before to wish her and my dad a happy wedding anniversary.  While we were chatting, she mentioned that she has read this book called Snacktivities, about making fun food for kids to eat.  She mentioned that one of the things was turning a tortilla into a snowflake with scissors, the way you do with round pieces of paper in the winter.  Which reminded me of this, in which "Recipe Laura" makes quesadillas by doing exactly that.  The next day when it came time for me to make my quesadillas, in a flash, I thought, "Jack-o'-lanterns!"  The orangeness of the cheddar cheese, the snowflakes, October -- it all came together.

 

I have absolutely no artistic ability when it comes to 2-dimensional renderings (i.e., drawing).  None.  So these faces are... basic, shall we say.  But it was still fun! 

Method: I took a sharp knife to a tortilla on my cutting board.  Total freehanding (obviously).  I happen to have made these tortillas from scratch, but whatever.  (Oh, but if you want to make whole wheat tortillas, you have got to get yourself some King Arthur Unbleached White Whole Wheat flour. It is light and fine. It has revolutionized my baking.)  I mixed cooked beans, frozen corn (defrosted under running water in a strainer), chopped onion, bell pepper, some fresh parsley I had on hand, salt, cumin, and paprika in a bowl.  I shredded some cheese.  Then I just layered it all up in a hot skillet.

Now, as you can see, if you put the cheese on top, it makes the faces hard to see.  But if you put the cheese on the bottom, all the beans and things fall out easier.  I recommend putting cheese, then filling, then cheese in between the tortillas, just to glue everything together, even though it obscures the face somewhat. 

Lucy was very tired (it was a no-nap day), but she still enjoyed them. I think.

[It's a face!]

Sooo... Are you someone who stops to smell the roses, or do you just want to get it done already?  (As a child I was in the first category. I really don't know what happened.)

The Thrift Store Fates Were Smiling...

'Twas a good day for thrifting.  Lucy and I went on/in the bike/trailer, so it was very exciting getting everything we bought to fit.  Luckily, our bike trailer has a trunk, if you can believe it.  (Still the best $90 I've ever spent.)  The recycling center has a thrift store (which is awesome, because I had a dream about that once...).  Mostly they carry tools and building materials, so I went there looking for a certain tool we need, which they didn't have.  But to make up for it, first of all, everything was half off.  Secondly, there was a great selection of vintage craft supplies today. (Yes, please!)  Like these:

[Popsicle sticks because I am now obsessed with being able to do this.]

And these scarves:

And this (which, of course, they don't make anything like anymore):

[New in the box!]

Thirdly, I FOUND THIS:

 

On sale, remember. It was $1.25. I would have gladly given them upwards of $20 on the spot. Hooray, consumer surplus!!  I have been really wanting some breastfeeding art for some time now. This is perfect.  (Loosely translated, it says, "Breast is best" in Spanish.)  Love, love, love!

And then I went to another thrift store and bought some more cool stuff, and it somehow still all fit in the trailer (and Lucy didn't even have to walk!).

Said cool stuff:

[Completed and non-completed crewel embroidery. I can't say no.]

[Multi-colored film reel spools. Will probably end up in the supply shop.]

["Checkers": A checker board and some poker chips. Lucy saw people playing checkers on Sesame Street a week or two ago and has been obsessed.]

[Aaaand, jaunty embroidered cap for me!]

I spent about $15 all together. Yep.

OK, so what's the best thing you've ever found second-hand?  Do you feel, like I do, that it was waiting just for you?  I'm curious!