Do you know what this is?

I bought this at a yard sale last weekend and I was very surprised that my '30 something' son-in-law didn't know what it was.

Back in the day we all had one of these in our kitchen sinks since we didn't have garbage disposals ... at least not in our house .. so you would put your garbage in it and then take it out to the 'garbage can' ..for the 'garbage man' to pick up .. I remember the smell of the garbage cans as we walked past them on our way to school... not good :^( ...lol
Some people would take the garbage out to the chickens ..but I lived in the city so we didn't have chickens .. well, except for the ones my brothers would try to keep as pets.
by-the-way .. my 95 year old kitchen does not have a garbage disposal so I will keep this in my sink and really use it.
I remember my Friend telling me that on her moving day he son was taking the ironing board to the truck and asked .."Mom, what' is this"?

LOL

My Mom's Cottage

My Mom was born in Mexico in 1919 ..She came to Texas when she was four years old where she was raised, went to school, met and married my Father...then they moved to California where we were raised ... She was a wonderful Mother to us five kids and was always so much fun to be around .. I think she enjoyed mothering since she was raised by her father since her Mother died when she was just a little girl .. about 6 years old .. She worked hard cooking, washing, and even rolled tortillas every single day for our family .. Back in those days our moms didn't drive so if we went anywhere we all got on the bus or the street car or 'walked' .. We never had babysitters because our mom took all five of us everywhere she went... There was really no such thing as "day care" ..pre-school ... nannies or any of those things ...not in our neighborhood anyway ..lol ..Our home was full of music and loud kids ..Our friends were always welcome and there was always plenty of food to feed anyone we brought home ... actually in those days we would go from house to house on our block with our friends and all of our mothers always feed us all... It was a great time and since we stayed close to home after school and on weekends us kids really did get to know and bond with our Moms ... Weekends were nice cuz you could stay in your PJ's and sit on the floor and watch TV all day ..or go out and play marbles, jacks, ride our bikes or skate..etc. ... we'd stay outside playing "statue maker" .."hide and seek" .. or "Mother My I" until it got dark... We really didn't join any after school sports or clubs because there really wasn't money to join those things ..and besides we had our brothers and sisters and our friends to play with .. For me and my siblings .."Those were the good ol' days" .. just as for my kids and grandkids .."these" are their good ol' days. for them. :^)
One thing I forgot to mention is that my Mom was such a huge help to us in high school because she was studying US History along with us .. It was a very exciting day for her when she became an "American citizen" .. She was so happy to be able to vote and always impressed how important that privilege is for us Americans .. She voted until she no longer really knew what she was voting for.


Here are a couple pictures of my Mom's little cottage that she lives in now ..it's right outside our back door ..and as you can see, it started out as a garage ...These pictures were taken a few years ago ..but I'm sorry to say it does not look this cute today ..but I'm working on it. ..It's actually all "pretend" .. the window pains are just 'tape' that I put on the plain glass .. The window box that you can hardly see is a 'chicken feeder' that I hung ..and the picket fences are just pieces of fence that I leaned on the house .. I love the purple flowers .. I bought a little bag of seeds from a little girl at a yard sale without knowing what they were ...I planted them .. and "waala"!!
The screen door is just a screen door and I wired the frilly things on it to make it look cutesy .. they are really plant hangers.
All that cute stuff has been stripped off to paint the house ..so it's very plain this year ..but like I said .."I'm working on it".

My Mom

Since it's almost Mother's Day
I thought I'd share this picture
of my Mom which was taken some time in the 50's ..I love it
and I've always thought it would make a great Mother's Day card.
My dear Mom is almost 91 years old now and I have had the privilege of having her live with me for the past 20 years ...she lives in her own little cottage right outside my back door that she shares with her beloved pets .. her dog, Petunia and her cat, Frankie. ..She is such a sweet lady and I am blessed to be able to spend this time of her life with her.
My Mom, Enriqueta, had five kids and she was always so much fun and worked so hard taking care of us ..and now I get to take care of her ..
We are blessed. :^)
"Happy Mother's Day Mommy"

It's a rainy day in the neighborhood.

I'm sitting here in my sun porch

wishing I could go out and dig in the dirt..

But it's kind of nice having my coffee,

enjoying the rain ....

and thinking how nice it is to not be able to see the weeds from the widow.

:^)

Maybe I'll bake something.

BEFORE AND AFTER

"BEFORE"

"AFTER"


These two chairs were amongst the stuff I brought home from my morning of yard sale-ing ... There is also an ottoman that goes with the chairs, but I think it's too big for this little room.

After I got them home I was afraid I didn't have any place to put them .. but since we really never used the table I decided to replace it with the chairs..I think we'll use the room more now.

This is not a very big room and unfortunately I have to share it with my DH since he paints and there is great light in here for painting ... you can't see his half of the room in these picture.

I'm baby sitting this birdbath for my daughter Jennifer so I thought it would be safer in here then outside with the neighborhood cats.

In my next post you'll read about my "yard sale-ing problem"

LOL

Am I a "hoarder"????

This has got to stop!!!!

Today I promised myself to not go to another yard sale ...until ..

"I have one"!!!

I need to either purge or organize ...

I don't have a tiny house ..

..but it's feeling smaller and smaller all the time cuz I just can't find a place to put all this 'wonderful stuff'.

So the only answer is for me to have a yard sale ......

"SOON"!!

I'm starting to worry about myself...lol

"Seriously"

. This morning I was walking around my house and thought .."I sure have a whole lot of stuff ... I'm starting to think I'm a hoarder".. then I thought I'd better stop buying so much stuff ..Just then my phone rang and my daughter asked if I wanted to go to some yard sales ..Well I couldn't though my clothes on fast enough .. so I went and came back with a truck load of 'more stuff'. :^(

So I am promising myself and all of my blogging sisters to have a yard sale.. So I hope you guys will help me out by reminding me ..since I need

"HELP"!!!!

Goodwill Warehouse Outlet

OK ..I gotta say .."this was over the top" ... even for me...lol

These are the "treasures" I brought home...

This is my dear friend Mary Ann ...

we are soo excited to go in and start our 'hunting'.

So this is what's inside of the "Goodwill warehouse outlet" ... Barrels and barrels ..big bins full of clothes and whatever ...big tables piled high with clothes and blankets and pillows ... old furniture, lamps ... etc. ..etc. ....this is the last stop for this "stuff" before it goes to the dump ...lol

So you dig through the barrels and never know what you'll find ...you can hear the workers dumping the 'left overs' into a truck outside to go to the dump.

Me and Mary Ann fighting over some Styrofoam balls.. "hey, what happened to them"? ... they never make it home with us ...hmmmm??

I had heard about this place ... but like I said ..it was really something ..even for card carrying dumpster divers like me and Mary Ann...lol

Did we get some good deals? ... hmmm? ... maybe ... maybe not ... the guy just looks at the pile of stuff and tells you how much it will cost ... we really didn't even know what was in our pile ..so we just paid what he said ..."$20.00" for all of it ... ( there is more that is not in the picture) ... Was $20.00 too much to pay for a pile of junk?... maybe

The fun we had digging and laughing ...

"PRICELESS"

Craft project from my dear friend *Mary Ann*

Whenever my friend Mary Ann and I are together we always find time to do a little crafting ... Mary Ann is an amazing artist and always has wonderful things to teach me ... unfortunately we live too far apart to get much 'play time' in... she and her dear husband Abe are in town for a few days so we got to spend some time playing ... This is a picture of one of the journals she taught me to make ..."what a fun project"!

Actually the 'pages' are supposed to be made out of brown paper lunch bags, which gives you 'pockets' to put pictures or cards, or whatever in ...but for this one I just used paper since I didn't have any bags ... as you can see the 'spine' of the book is made by weaving chop sticks in and out of slots you cut into the paper.

Funny how things happen ... the day after Mary Ann taught me how to make the book I went yard sale-ing and found a box full of vintage chop sticks!

"Ask and you shall receive"!

This is the back of the book.