I *heart* Orting, WA

You know, if only it wasn't soooo extremely tragic to have to be ready to evacuate everytime there is a 1" rainfall predicted in the Cascades, i would totally move to Orting! It's beautiful there--lots of farms, lots of great views of Mt. Rainier, and it's a totally walkable town with very practical and homey shops for the residents with their beautiful their Victorian/A&C style homes! Call me strange, but i feel there has got to be a better way to build a "community" than by having citizens volunteer every other week to sandbag vital city monuments. :o) lol And if that wasn't enough, the lahar disaster drills in the city would be a bit unnerving too, eh?

It's a great little town for a day trip though, and yesterday was a great day to be antique-ing in Orting (especially because it was snowing!) My Weight Watcher leader (aka dear friend) and i made the trip out there (with a small sidetrack past the house we were going to buy last year, which has curiously not been inhabited yet even though it's sold??!?) to a couple of really nice stores: First Love Antiques and The Wishing Well. My daughter even came along with us and she made out like a bandit, just like me. :o)

First we stumbled upon this...

it was the 50's/60's "blue" that caught our attention

then with a name like "Maynard", it was sure to remind us of Poppa everytime we use it.

(back in the day, Maynard was one of those words my Dad used in our house when i was growing up--and now that i am a mom of a parrotting 6 year old, i am convinced it was used in one of those instances when you couldn't use curse words in front of your child.)

Ri was super excited to have found it, because she'll have an egg beater she can use to help Mom when we're baking. Then we found this fabulous little number and knew it was a match waiting to be made...

The ric rac is over the top! When Ri saw it, she was all giddy with delight over ric rac. She could recall every thing ever made for her with ric rac! And, spoken like a true farmgirl in the making, she said, "Mom, i just love ric rac. It's so cute and happy."

Here's the "Famous Cook" of the even more "famous" Ri's Water Cupcake and Sandwich Shoppe (things she says about her play kitchen when we pretend she owns a restaurant and she wants to make a meal for Momma and Daddy.) Doesn't she look like one hip little Susie Homemaker and especially swanky in front of that toy refrigerator that Poppa built her?

I was also able to do a little Valentine's Day shopping for Ri. She's really into Barbies, and because my parents stored mine for all those years after i was done with them (which included hauling the Barbies with them in the big family move up from AZ to ID), Ri can now play with the ones i had as a child. However, i have read recently that many of the new Barbies don't "fit" with the dolls from my era, because of the modifications they made to make her physique more "real". Plus, the newer Barbies are too "modern" for my tastes--the clothes, the make up--it's a bit too much. So because i really don't want to get into the whole frustrations of "these clothes only fit on these Barbies and those clothes only fit on those" with a 6 year old, and later when my little 6 y/o is 15 i don't want to have to "unteach" standards her toys may have "told" her were okay if ever i hear her utter, "But the Barbie's i played with dressed this way and wore makeup like this", i've banned new Barbies from our home.

Yesterday we found this Barbie and an outfit to go along circa 1985--which would be about the time i was playing with Barbies--which makes me feel like my shelf life is slowly dwindling when i see childhood toys of my youth already sold in antique stores (however that is another topic for another blog on another day.) LOL

The Mary Poppins sticker and colouring book is going to be a big hit too. Ri could sing every word in every song from Mary Poppins by the time she was 5. :o) This shop and purchase made me tingle with glee because it just proves once again that i don't need to live near mall or toy store filled with the new junk kids covet these days, because given a good vintage store, you can still find a relevent gift for today's kids.

And with the ever growing list of projects, i was super excited to find these (the first in my collection):

They'll help me from having to hand draw everything i want to try to embroider.

And Mom, you can call off the hound dogs, i've found all the old fashioned clothes pins i'll need for the plans i have for the valance in the laundry room. Unfortunately, i think i paid for these what we paid for those singles you found me in La Conner, but that's life, eh?

These are even made in "W. Germany".

These are some of the linens i've found recently. Finally got them laundered and pressed. Ri is very thrilled to have a hand embroidered poodle dinner napkin to call her own now. The embroidery on this makes me wish i were that good (maybe someday.) The trolley hanky will become part of the afore mentioned laundry room valance i have in mind. The rosy looking embroidery is what i am really excited about finding this week!

This is a closer look at it in it's new home. I got it last week when J and i ended up in big trouble at Mad Hatter Antiques. :o) I had intended to go to MHA to purchase the chalkware busts of Immaculate Mary and The Sacred Heart of Jesus as a gift for Hubbie and my 8th Anniversary. But because i couldn't talk myself into the $$$ they were asking for them again (for the 4th week in a row), i was distracted by this table runner. I loved the design (red and blue, my faves!) and the crocheted edging is just perfect. But for what? In the store it reminded me of something, and i couldn't really place my finger on the "what".
When i got home, it hit me.

It's the perfect table runner for our prayer table! And now that it was laundered and pressed, i was able to do a little restaging of the table that i had intended on doing this month, but was left so uninspired by the plain jane, mass manufactured table runner i had on there before.

February is a bittersweet month for our family. Normally, the reasons why are only in the back of our minds, however last week my mother-in-law said aloud the words in a phone message that jolted the memory into the cerebral forefront. It was a simple message of Happy Anniversary and to let us know that Fr. Peter (my hubbie's brother) was up visiting her on the 3rd of Feb and that he said a Mass for us and for their father, who died 18 years ago, that day.

I never was able to meet my father-in-law, however from the stories i've heard my in-laws share, i have learned he was an awesome, inspiring, sometimes goofy, beloved man who worked his guts out for his family, for his beliefs, and for the Church. After Hubbie proposed to me, the first date we thought of for a wedding day was Feb 3rd. We figured it would be a good time to travel (not to busy with tourists in Ireland at that time), a slow time for the church and reception area (it'd be a day all to ourselves in the appointment book), and a slow time at work for Hubbie and me and until my hubbie shared the news with his mom, it seemed it would be just another average, ordinary day. It didn't occur to him what other anniversary would be remembered on that day. I remember the look of sheer panic on my hubbie's face as he took in the words from his mom's response to the news--before she had even finished her sentence, he had remembered--, "You remember what else happened on that day don't you?" It was at that time, the 10th anniversary of the passing of Hubbie's father. Respectfully, we all agreed that it would be a very special day to be married. It would be a day that we could feel like we could be honoring Hubbie's dad at our wedding too.

And so to make a long story just a little bit longer, with this table runner cleaned, i was able to really do up the prayer table the way i had been intending to the past couple weeks.


With the prayer of St. Anthony (the saint my father-in-law was named after) and with his and my m-i-l's picture and our "blessing candle", it is now the perfect little spot to pray for them this month.