Hey, Don't I Know You?

Wow.

I haven't posted since August.  That makes me feel like a huge blogging failure.  When I started back in January, I thought I would at least make it through the first year without falling completely off the grid.

I had a lot of reasons for the drop.  I homeschool my kids, and this summer was the first time since they were very small we took the whole summer off from school.  Normally we maintain a 3-4 day per week schedule, occasionally missing several days in a row to do fun things with friends.  This summer, however, they were full time members of the competitive shooting team.  There were out of town competitions in June and July.  That meant there were still practices several nights per week and Saturdays.  At the end of May I thought to myself, "You know, we could just take the summer off, and not kill ourselves."  Famous last words.  I spent all of August trying to get back on track.

Then in September I took a part time job.  I haven't "worked" since just before my oldest child was born.  She just turned 14 last month.  I am working at home some now, but initially I was going into the office several days a week.  I was trying to cram all the other stuff, housework, grocery shopping, school, cooking, etc, into fewer hours.  Something had to give, and one of the somethings was this blog.

Then in early October my mother, brother, three children and I took a road trip from our home in Arkansas to see my sister and brother in law in Rhode Island.  It was a wonderful, jam packed, 10 day, 3,000 mile round trip, that required about 5 days recovery!  I plan to do a post all about it soon.

One of the things that pushed me to blog each week were the "built in" topics that I could link to on other blogs.  Most of those are thrift store/flea market/yard sale themed linky parties, and I almost always have something new to show from one of those sources.  When I sat down to type this new installment, I discovered that two of the blogs have not hosted parties recently.

However, Magpie Monday is up and running over at Me and My Shadow, so I will be linking up there.  Fortunately, although I stopped posting about my finds, I didn't stop finding, so I have a glut of items to share!

Without further adieu, or whining and excuse making, here are a few of the treasures I've found over the past few months.

Vintage jewelry!  I bought a little plastic bag full at a yard sale for $1, and this is what was in it.  It is all very dirty, and I have only worked on cleaning the piece with the green stones.  I need to read up on cleaning vintage enamel before I tackled some of it.

I found this beautiful chalkware plaque for .25 at another yard sale.  I love birds, and the colors on this are so lovely.

 At the same yard sale I found this Dansk enamel sauce pot.  It's in terrific condition, and I love the color.  It will probably end up in my Etsy shop eventually.

And finally, some shoes!

 I bought all of those darling little toddler shoes for a friend's daughter, but I was off by about two sizes, so they might find their way to the resale shop.  I just can't pass up Converse, no matter the size.  The saddle oxfords are for my vintage loving 14 year old.  She was thrilled to see them.

I have a variety of vintage Christmas items that I will be adding to my Etsy shop soon.  I hope to blog about them and link up next week.