Shop At Moxie

snow day

Just a little question I'm asking myself today.  

thankful ... yes I am

It doesn't take Thanksgiving to roll around for me to feel thankful for all the many great people and things I have in my life but it does seem like a good time to jot some of my thankful thoughts down.  Maybe some of the people I'm so thankful for have no idea how their actions impact my life.  I try to express my gratitude but sometimes I think I do a better job at feeling thankful than expressing thankful.  So here goes ... 

I'm so very thankful for:

a man who whistles happy tunes, opens car doors, holds my arm as we cross the street and always goes out of his way to make me smile

a sister whose picture should be featured next to the word loyal in the dictionary

friends who drive or fly hundreds of miles just to see us because they miss me and bob... what they might not know is that we miss them more!

a friend who paints and glitters with me so that the time flies by in a flurry of happy creativity

a friend who always makes me laugh with her secret "naughty" sense of humor

an older friend who loves me so much she officially adopted me with notarized papers

team moxie.... they kick butt and take names.  

wonderful siblings and their fabulously nice spouses

a mother in law who is the kindest woman I've ever met ... no wonder she gave birth to the world's nicest boy! 

a friend who is always making us special dinners just because she thinks it would do us some good and she must have a crystal ball because she's always there at the perfect time. 

awesome nephews and nieces who think we are cool enough to want to hang out with us

getting to do what I love to do and having some people actually like it

all of our shop friends who support us, tell their friends about us, and keep on coming back year after year.  you are so appreciated!

 

The list could absolutely go on for miles because I really do feel thankful for so many things.  But that's it for now.  Happy Thanksgiving .... hope yours is the happiest of days.

 

big water

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever .... Jacques Yves Cousteau

My love affair with the sea (or big water as I call it) started when I was just a little girl.  A family vacation that involved picking up shells and wandering the shoreline aimlessly was all it took for me.  A natural born hunter and gatherer, I was mesmerized by the bounty of the sea.  The breezes, the colors, the shells, coral, and sea glass.  You would have thought it was gold coins I was finding.  Each item going into a pocket and then pockets overflowing, transferred to a bag.  We didn't visit big water again after that trip because far away trips to the sea were not in the budget.

It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I saved up enough "grocery bagger" money to pay for my trip with girlfriends to Daytona Beach Florida.  Honestly the idea of the ocean was much more appealing to me than the idea of partying all night long.  I did indulge in the partying good and hard but somehow managed to awaken earlier than my roomies most days to walk the beach for miles in the earliest morning hours.  My lily white skin did not respond well to so much sun exposure and I ended up in the hospital with sun poisoning.  My face blew up like a puffer fish and I did not look cute.  Even so, I did not blame the call of the sea for my blown up face and squinty eyes.  It was my own fault.  A little sunscreen and a hat would have gone a long way to help but back then we slathered ourselves in cocoa butter and roasted like a turkey on a spit.  I even slept on the balcony of our hotel room to soak up the sounds and breezes of the ocean.  

 It wouldn't be until 5 years later that I would once again get a chance to return to the ocean.  It was honeymoon time and I got to decide our destination.  I choose Disney World (I had always wanted to go there....so childish I know) and Clearwater Florida.  We spent half of the week at each locale.  Good times ensued.

To me the Great Lakes are just as wonderful as the sea.  In some ways better.  You get that big water feeling with no end in sight but without the salt water and fear of jelly fish and sharks.  I visit Lake Michigan as often as I can.  You don't find seashells there but if you look hard you do find sea glass, petoskey stones and the occasional oddity.  

Here is a Lake Michigan vacation shot of the mister.  I'm surprised he turned around.  I'm not allowed to post pictures of him online.  So I'm not going to do that.  This picture is a figment of your imagination.  Thankfully my mister loves big water as much as me.  He gathers up more stuff on our walks than I do.  

The shells, coral and mother of pearl jewelry were all recent estate purchases and were dropped off at moxie this week.  It never hurts to have a bit of the sea at home.  I've got plenty myself.  I acquired more so I could share.  

 

Ramblings about Fall

Fall is definitely my favorite time of the year.  I love the cool crisp air in the mornings and the gorgeous colors of the season.  Greens, oranges, ochre, pumpkin, caramel.... I love them all. I love buying my first big caramel apple in September covered in nuts and sharing it with dear husband as a decadent after dinner treat.  A perfect fall day for me includes being outside with a sweater on but not being too hot or too cold.  I love pumpkin patches and mums.  The first really chilly day in Fall makes me think of making a big pot of chili for dinner and serving it up with cornbread.  I'd like to say that I have some deluxe cornbread recipe that has been handed down over the generations but honestly I like Jiffy Cornbread the best.  You know the kind that costs about fifty cents a box.  How can something so tasty only cost that little.  My sweet husband loves fall because it signals football season and his involvement in office football pools.  He lives for that.  I've been trying to get into it a bit more so I can actually kind of fake like I might be listening when he talks about who did what and which game he needs to go down in which way so he can win the pool.  Usually I just drift off and think about the upcoming estate sale this weekend and how they said there was going to be 4 closets full of clothes but are they going to be filled with vintage clothes or just your run of the mill stuff from recent times.  Funny how we each have our own things we get excited about.  I'm sure when I start talking about dresses and boxes filled with 40s peeptoes my husband is really thinking about if Peyton Manning being off is going to make the Colts lose.  See, I have been trying to learn something.  I know Peyton Manning's name.  

 

Now that I'm semi-retired (that's what I'm calling myself now that I only have one store instead of two to worry about) I'm spending more time getting back to things I once loved but gave up over the years because of exhaustion from over work.  Mainly, cooking.  Or should I say baking.  I always loved to bake and took great pleasure in whipping up goodies and sharing them with others.  This weekend I'm planning on making some apple crisp.  My only decision is whether or not to add some walnuts to the topping.  I might just get crazy and give that a try.  I love walnuts so how could it be bad to add them in with brown sugar and oats.  Of course I have to have some vanilla bean ice cream to go along with it.  I'm one of those people who can't eat cake or pie without ice cream.  Why would you.  Obviously restraint is not my forte.  

 

I look forward to burning candles in Fall and Winter.  I just don't do it in the summer.  Something about the cold air and the early nights makes me want to light up a candle.  I love the milk bottle candles we have at moxie.  They are scented very nicely and burn well.  Right now Barn Dance and Fireside are in my top scents.  Speaking of candles...is there anyone else out there that loves a pine scented candle?  Because that real Christmas tree type pine smell is my very favorite scent in the world and I have two great candles for you to smell at moxie.  One is the Scotch Pine scent in the milk bottle and the other is an Illume scent (yes...hurray....we brought in some holiday scents from Illume.)  Anyone who has been shopping with me from the very beginning years of MMHG might remember us carrying Illume candles way back then.  A really great candle line that I decided to bring back in at the holidays.  We just put it out so stop in and give them a sniff. 

Yesterday we received a brand new batch of purses in.  Patty loved the tasseled one and I was fond of the black and saddle one.  I am always drawn to tailored purses.  It is fun to treat yourself to a new purse each season.  I'd take a new purse over shoes anytime.  I was cursed with bad feet and so practical (ugly) shoes are really all I can wear.  

 

 
I still write cards to my friends and family.  Email is great  but it feels really nice to receive an actual card in the mail.  I try to do that  for my friends too.  I have lots of journals.   I don't journal like a normal person but I tend to fill up little books with random stuff like passwords and quotes.  Websites and ideas.  There is no rhyme or reason to what I put in what book so someday when I'm gone it will make no sense to the poor soul who has to deal with my estate. I also write things on my hands and I'm sure that is not considered proper but it works for me when I really need to remember something for the next day.  I am very absent minded and my husband has often told me that he worries about me when he is off at work.  I have been known to stop at green lights.  Go thru reds.  Cross the street without looking and trip on cracks and break my elbow while walking up to an estate sale.  I love that he worries.  Not in a mean way but in the way that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that someone out in the world cares about your well being.  

I think this post was aptly named...Fall ramblings.  I really did ramble.  Sorry about that.  I'd love to hear about what you love about Fall.  Feel free to share in the comments. 

The Big Do Over

Happy New Year friends!

I love a new year.  Reminds me of being a kid and crying out "Do Over" while engaged in some sort of contest with my siblings.  Like who could blow the biggest bubble with a hunk of bubbalicious.  Sometimes you'd get it all ready in your mouth and at the go mark you'd blow real hard and the gum would go rocketing out of your mouth instead of propelling a ginormous bubble into existence.  Then you'd have to scream out "Do Over" because it really wasn't a fair contest in your mind if you didn't even achieve bubble making in the first place.  

 

And maybe it's a childish thought but I still think of each new year as a chance for a Do Over.  I really spend a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to achieve in the last year but didn't and new goals for the coming year.  Never have I accomplished all things I've wanted to.  Sometimes I don't even come close.  But one thing never changes and that is that I love giving myself goals.  Some lofty and some pretty simple.  I like to challenge myself.  If I don't then who will.  

 

I have a long list of goals for 2011.  I won't bore you with many of them but topping the list this year is working less and spending more time with family and friends, purchasing a new bike and hitting some interesting trails in neighboring states, seeking out more and more small businesses like farmstands, mom and pop diners and art shows to spend my money with, cook more....take out less, and to once again try to lose a few inches or pounds.  

 

Pretty basic list I know.  There are some other secret goals too but I'm just superstitious  enough to think that saying them out loud might jinx them so some of them I'll just have to keep to myself.  How about you???  Do you think of the new year as an opportunity for goals and change or is it just another day on the calendar?  

4 Leaf Clovers .... a Tale of Childhood Obsession

I may or may not have mentioned before that I grew up in a rather large household with a budget that was always stretched to it's very limits.  Feeding and clothing 7 kids on a teacher's salary was surely a near impossible feat.  But my parents got it done and done well.  The flip side of this situation was that we were expected to make our own fun.  There really weren't funds left over for board games, fancy bikes, or toys.  One of my parents favorite sayings was..... go outside and use your imagination.  How can you be bored when you have the whole world at your fingertips.  That philosophy worked better for some of us siblings than others.

Imagine seven kids as a litter of puppies.  Then picture the one puppy that is always the "runt of the litter."  I was that puppy.  Even though I was the oldest I had the most issues.  Shy, introverted to the max, stomach ailments constantly, severe allergies, a sincere distaste for the great  outdoors, and definitely drawn to observing more than participating.  During the summers I'm not saying that my parents locked us outside, but I am saying that most of the time I could not get the doors open for hours at a time.  Coincidence???  I don't think so.  Back then in the 70s things were different.  My parents used to leave us all alone in the station wagon for an hour while they did the grocery shopping.  Now if you do that you'd get arrested.  So forcing us outside for hours at a time was probably their only chance at some quiet time.  

This outside play time was peachy keen for everyone else but me.  I dreaded it.  Who wants to play Marco Polo, Kick the Can, Red rover Red rover???  Not Me!  So I had to finally learn to do what my dad was always saying.  Use my imagination.  As a child my world was created by books.  Reading was the only thing I wanted to do.  I even used to read encyclopedias and  dictionaries for fun (which might have contributed to my winning the 5th grade spelling bee).  It was in one of our old encyclopedias that I read about 4 leaf clovers.  The legend stated that if you found one it would bring you luck and prosperity.  A new obsession was born.

I spent hours upon hours one summer doing nothing but looking for 4 leaf clovers.  One was not enough.  The more 4 leaf clovers the more luck and prosperity I was sure to receive.  I began to imagine all of the wonderful things that would happen to me if I was able to find these magical clovers.  I never doubted for one second that the legend was true.  I ignored the games of bombardment and frisbee going on around me.  I would lay on my belly in the grass and slowly make my way around the yard in search of magic 4 leaf clovers.  I'm pretty sure no one in my family had any idea of what I was doing.  No one asked.  They probably thought I was napping or crying and that didn't look un-normal in any way so they no doubt just left me alone.  

If I could find one clover I was going to get a poster of Eric Estrada.  

Two clovers would get me ice cream for dessert for a week

Three ......a cute pair of jeans

And so on and so on.  I did manage over one summer to amass quite a little pile of 4 leaf clovers.  Turns out if you look, they are there to be found.  I kept them in my sock drawer of my banana yellow dresser.  That's where I also kept the long Bub's Daddy sticks of gum that I would procure from the penny candy store whenever I found some spare change around the house.  I kept them in there in a little cocoon of tin foil and waited.  And waited.   And yes, you guessed it.  Waited some more.  No posters of Eric Estrada showed up in my room.  No ice cream, and definitely no cute jeans.  Just the same old ones from the farm implement store as before.  But that same year in October my dad came home with a Shaun Cassidy album for me for no reason.  And some other fun things happened around the house that made me think my clover fairy was doing his/her job but in a different way than was expected.  You see, I am just one of those people who likes to believe in fairy tales and magic.  My mind is my playground.  And whenever I see a penny on the ground I still hear "find a penny pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck."  And I always pick it up.  

That summer was the pre-cursor to my summer of not stepping on a crack for fear of breaking my mother's back.  Oh well, my family still loved me no matter how "different" I was.  I thank the Good Lord for that!

Vintage Christmas - My House - Part Two

As Promised here are a few more photos of our vintage holiday goodies.  We are all done decorating for the year....now if I can keep it all dust free until Christmas day when I host the family for dinner we'll be good to go!

 

 

 

 

 

So that's the highlights for 2009.  I am hoping that 2010 will bring me the opportunity to find a few more vintage Christmas finds to add to our collection.  And of course I will be sharing most of what I find with you thru the shops.  I can't keep it all!  For those of you who remember the post about me face planting on the sidewalk and breaking my elbow this summer....well the Santa painting in the white frame was found that same day by me after I hobbled into the sale totally in pain and not realizing I had broken something.  I was determined to keep shopping after I had driven for an hour to get to the sale.  I walked into the first room and there was the painting.  For a moment or two I forgot all about my pain and was completely happy.  That's what life as a vintage junkie is like.  Really.  
 
 
 
 
 

Decorating - My House - Part One

If you've followed this blog for any time at all, it's likely you've heard me talk about how much I adore vintage holiday decorations.....especially Christmas ones.  I've been slowly building up a collection of things I love for the last 19 years.  I sell more than I keep for sure, but I do add a couple of items to my own collection each year.

The favorite item I found and kept this year is a small painting of a church and winter scene done on wood.  It is so sweet and signed 1973 by a Mildred Swan.  I have no idea who Mildred Swan is, but I love having her folky little painting hanging on my wall.  

 

 

Here a group of vintage angels perch happily on a wall molding.

 

The wonderful painting that is the centerpiece of this setting was done by none other than our friend and wonderful co-worker Pat Kirk.  The ice-skating girl is called Mabel Snow and is based on a vintage illustration I found in one of my old magazines from the 1920's.

 

My decorating style is free form and I never really think it thru too much.  I love, love, love multi colored glass garland and this year some of it adorns an old column in our library.

Little houses, trees, baubles and more set upon a vintage oval mirror from the 20s that my husband always refers to as the "skating rink."  He becomes more quirky like me every day.  That's what happens after almost twenty years of marriage!

 

My collection of vintage paper mache and plaster nativity figures numbers in the hundreds.  It breaks my heart to see them bagged up and just sitting around at estate sales so if they are affordable I almost always take them home.  

Thanks for sharing a look at some of my vintage Holiday collections.  I'll post part two in the next day or so.  If there is anything special you do with your Holiday decorating please feel free to share it with me in the comments section!
 

 
 
 

How'd I live Without It?

 I am a creature of habit when it comes to my eating and drinking habits.  Most mornings I have a toasted Thomas English Muffin with Skippy extra crunchy peanut butter on it.  It's easy, quick and oh so peanutty good.  I love me some peanut butter!

For years I have been making this and doing the one thing "they" always say not to do.  I would stick a fork or knife down into the toaster with it plugged in to try to stab my short muffin out of the big oversized toaster.  It never really phased me but would send Bob into a pure panic every time he saw me do it.  "Megan DO NOT DO THAT.....YOU'RE GOING TO GET ELECTROCUTED"....he'd say in a frenzy.   "OK, ok ok I'd say,  as I finished fishing my muffin out of the toaster with my knife."   Next day, same thing.  This went on for years.  Stubborn and slightly disfunctional...yes that's me.

So when I was looking thru a catalog of kitchen gadgets to order for Moxie one day and I came across a bamboo toast tong I knew it was a match made in heaven.  I could safely retrieve toasted items out of the toaster and make my dear husband Bob's life a little bit calmer.  No longer would he have to waste precious energy worry about my possible electrocution.  He could now focus more energy on worrying about the possible side-effects of eating peanut butter every day.  

I use the bamboo toast tongs almost every day.  I love this little helpful gadget.  So cheap, so simple, yet so darned practical.  You almost can't live without it.  Really.

Find them at moxie.

P.S.   Did anyone else laugh when they read the statement "stab my short muffin" or is it just me?  Yea I know.....it's probably just me.

This breakfast is so delicious I forgot to not take a bite of it before snapping my photo of it.  Oh well.

It Hurt....It hurt Real bad.

No I didn't fall and break my elbow again.  And I didn't lose out on something great at an estate sale.  The hurt I recently experienced was emotional.  

It all happened so quickly.  We got the call in August that my childhood home, where my dad and stepmom still lived, had sold after a long time on the market and the closing was in September.   I specifically remember saying to Bob that day "It's no big deal.  I'm not sentimental about things like this."  I think I really believed this or maybe I just wanted to believe it.  I'm not really sure.

I spent a great deal of time over the next 3 weeks helping my family get ready for the big estate sale they were planning.  Only a pods worth of stuff was being transported down south with them.  The rest was given to us 7 kids or to charity or set aside for the estate sale.  I being the "family expert on stuff" was put in charge of the sale.  

I was so happy to get to spend long days with my dad and stepmom because that was something I really hadn't done in twenty years.  The flip side is that it was a happy and sad three week long walk down memory lane.  

All of a sudden I was remembering all sorts of stuff that had been shuffled to the back of my memory bank.  The time when my brother and I hosted a "small get together for friends" that turned into the craziest pool party of all times complete with an injury and my dad's prized lawn getting all torn up by dozens of cars.  Or the time when my dad had to sleep on a hospital bed on the first floor of our house for months as he recovered from a near fatal car accident.  I walked into my old bedroom and suddenly remembered the time when I was 17 and laying in bed listening to the radio at 10:30 at night when the radio station announced that the 10th caller would win a hundred dollars.  I was the tenth caller.  The song playing at the time was "Into The Groove" by Madonna.  I got all choked up when I walked into our small damp basement and was flooded with the memories of moving back home to save money when I was 22 yrs old. My dad was not yet remarried and 3 or 4 or my siblings were still living at home with him.  There really wasn't a room for me to have but he said "Well you can move into the basement."  So I did.  Basically it was a semi finished damp basement with the laundry room attached to it.  I moved my twin bed in and called it home for awhile.  I was dating Bob at the time and since he lived an hour away my Dad used to let him sleep upstairs on the couch so he wouldn't have to drive home late at night.  One day Bob dropped over and found me sitting on my bed in the basement and the next thing I knew he was down on one knee with shaky hand outstretched asking me to marry him.  When the spirit moves you the spirit moves you and I love the fact that my marriage proposal was in the basement.  I think he just couldn't wait to do it at any other time.  

I was very successful at putting on a happy face as I helped my dad and stepmom get ready for the big sale.  I knew how stressful of a time it was for them.  It's not easy handling a lifetime's worth of stuff in three weeks.  And my dad was sad to be moving away from the midwest where he had lived all of his life.  He was looking forward to golf and warm weather, new adventures and a simpler life but that all comes at a cost.  The costs are obvious.  Whenever you move you leave some things or some ones behind.  

The sale went off without a hitch.  The closing happened.  The farewell party was Saturday.  I was not looking forward to it.  Bob said to me "Would you rather they skulked off in the middle of the night without saying goodbye?"  I said "Yes."  I hate goodbyes.  I honestly wish I never had to say it.  I have a problem with it.  I'm not good at it and I try to avoid it when possible.  

We went to the afternoon outdoor goodbye party and I did very well.  I chatted.  I laughed.  I socialized even though I'm an introvert to the nth degree.  I played nice in the sandbox and tried to avoid looking in my Dads direction in the fear that it would trigger some primal need for me to become a crying baby in public.  

Then it happened.  People started to say their goodbyes and leave the party.  So I did what any normal 42 yr old woman would do.   I snuck off and hid in our car.  I was in a complete state of panic.  I couldn't deal.  About 20 minutes later Bob found me and took one look at me and knew exactly how bad this was for me.  He sat in the car with me for a good half  an hour talking me down off the mental cliff I was on.  He told me that I could not leave the party without saying goodbye.  He said I would regret it forever.  He was right but I was seriously paralyzed with grief and pain.  I didn't want to say goodbye.  My dad is not a young pup anymore.  He has health issues and I was afraid I might never see him again.  All the stress and anxiety I had been holding back for the last month came bubbling up to the surface and it was making me physically ill.  I did want to say goodbye but I knew I couldn't keep it together while I did it.  I desperately wanted to keep it together but every time I imagined saying goodbye I'd start the "ugly cry" again and nothing I did was making it better.  I didn't want to cause a scene for pete's sake.  What's wrong with me I kept asking Bob.  He said....that's just you.  You feel things deeply and that's why I love  you.  That just made me cry harder.  "I don't want to feel things deeply.  I want to be normal." I said.  

Somehow I found the strength to get my pathetic messed up self out of the car and walking towards my Dad who was sitting peacefully in a lawn chair talking to my sister and her husband.  Bob was right by my side.  He said he would do all the talking.  Well he never got a chance because it's really hard to talk over a blubbering idiot.   I did manage to say my goodbyes and let me tell you it was not easy.  I admire people who can keep their emotions under wraps or at least down to a socially acceptable level.  I am missing something in my make up that lets me do that.  I am what I am and I try to accept it, but some days it's really hard to be me.  

So it hurt and it hurt bad but I am able to see all the good side too.  My dad and stepmom are off on a new adventure and I love adventures.  I see roadtrips to sunnier locals in my future. They are off to live near the sea and don't know exactly where they will settle.  Wherever they land will be a fun place to visit I'm sure.  They've already promised to find all the good estate sales for me to go to when I visit.  You've got to love a family who knows how to entice you with promises of vintage shopping.  

This little emotional journey I've been on has kept me from blogging and from other things as well.  Turns out that I just couldn't get in touch with my creative side while I was hurting.  This little post is hopefully a sign that I can move forward now.  I'm feeling better already.