“Ladies and Gentlemen, when you hear the Shadow’s blood-curdling laugh, you can be sure that exciting entertainment will follow!”
A few weeks ago I brought home some audiocassettes from Mom and Dad’s. I was telling the Son-in-Law about this Old Time Radio’s Greatest Mysteries cassette set from from the 1930s and ’40s and he expressed interest in hearing them at some point, so I got out my cassette player and some other old radio show cassettes I have, including Fibber McGee and Molly, The Shadow, and Sherlock Holmes!
I found these Agatha Christie audiobook cassettes at Mom and Dad’s as well, they are Miss Marple stories read by one of the actresses who played Miss Marple (the best one, in my opinion).
I got this tape at an estate sale.
I’m looking forward to listening to all of these!
“The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does NOT pay. The Shadow knows…”
I spent this last week at Mom and Dad’s staying with Mom while Dad traveled down to a reunion in his small hometown in California.
I drove Mom to dialysis in Salem three days, and during those days I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with the four-hour time between drop-off and pickup. I had noticed that the St. Vinnie’s thrift store was across from the dialysis center and thought some thrifting time would be in order, so I went across to the St. Vinnie’s and found a great deal on some old Nancy Drew and Dana Girls (like Nancy Drew but with sisters) books — 1930s books WITH the original dust jackets in very good condition for only $3.49 apiece! I also got some Sue Grafton books, a couple by Aaron Elkins, another mystery writer, and a 1940s Mary Poppins book. I had planned to go to some other thrift stores in the area but decided to go home to eat and get something I forgot to bring with me.
Most of the time at the house I spent with Mom in the living/dining room watching HGTV and Hallmark Christmas movies. We find the movies very predictable and Mom has seen most of them, but she still likes to watch them. It’s not so bad to have a day full of happy endings! I set up all my things on the dining room table, I pretty much just brought my desk (computer, calendar, books, etc.) and then set up a charging station on the buffet, ha. It is the house I grew up in (but remodeled) and I got to thinking about what will happen to it if Mom and Dad decide to move to town like the neighbors are doing. It will be hard to see it go out of the family, since Mom and Dad built it 48 years ago. The house is octagon-shaped, so very unusual. I forgot to get a photo of it.
On Friday when Mom was in dialysis, I went to the grocery store to get some things. Mom wanted a roast so I got two (BOGO!) although they weren’t the kind she wanted. I waited in the line that had a very big, very slow cashier-in-training. He also seemed to be a bagger-in-training and a coupon-reader-in-training, and the poor guy was sweating. He kept having to ask another cashier to come help him, but I think she really just wanted to talk to the man who represented a Medicare supplement insurance company! After buying groceries I decided to hit up two other thrift stores, the Salvation Army store and the Goodwill. The Salvation Army store doesn’t have a big selection in general, so I went to the book section. I seem to be on a book kick lately. The books at the Salvation Army store are not in any kind of order at all, so you just have to scan the shelves to see if anything pops out at you. I found all these books I was interested in at the Salvation Army and Goodwill (the Perry Mason and “E for Evidence” came from the Goodwill), so I was happy with my scanning job! The Goodwill at least has the books in category and “letter” order, but not completely alphabetical. There were so many people at the Goodwill I just left after perusing the book section.
After I picked Mom up from dialysis on Friday we went to Nancy Jo’s restaurant (Or Nancy’s, as I still stubbornly refer to it, since it was their original name. There was some copyright problem, so they changed it to Nancy Jo’s.) to get burgers, and Mom got onion rings. We drove home in one of those traffic-jams-for-no-reason on the freeway, there was no accident or any reason for a traffic slowdown but we crept along for miles before the traffic started moving shortly before our exit. Since Mom would have a hard time getting into my van, I’ve been driving her to town in her car. It is quite zippy and I have enjoyed driving it, although it feels like I’m going slower than I actually am so I need to pay close attention to the speedometer!
On Monday after I dropped Mom off I had to pick up some things I ordered online. I ordered these Christmas ornaments from Target to pick up at the store, but unfortunately there was only one left between both of our area stores. Isn’t it cute? Since The Hubs likes trucks and we are doing a black and white and blue theme for Christmas this year, I thought it was perfect. It will also go with red and black or pink and black themes. I do themes now instead of using our family and traditional ornaments because the ornaments and decorations have to be plastic or metal so Philip won’t hurt himself with them. He does try to get them off the tree and has knocked the tree over a couple of times by climbing up into it.
I also picked up some things I ordered at Ulta on Monday. The girl at the checkstand there had combed her eyebrows straight up and then penciled them in so it looked like she had really long, straight up eyebrows. I had to try hard not to stare. Is that a thing now? When I think of long eyebrows growing straight up I think of an old man, so I wondered why she wanted to look like a grandpa, ha. They do hire some of the most interesting-looking people at Ulta and many of them have what I would consider odd eyebrows, but then I really do prefer the natural look for brows. Eyes, go ahead and do ’em up! Lashes to the sky! But eyebrows, just pencil them in natural-like and not conspicuous. After Ulta, I went to TJ Maxx and bought all sorts of socks I really don’t need. ‘Tis the time of year when warm fluffy socks in the store seem so inviting!
Dad got home on schedule and right when the “bath girl” was finished helping Mom. We were glad he arrived safely. He had a good time at the reunion and visiting with my uncle and other friends.
I had a nice, relaxing visit taking care of Mom this week. I meant to work on some writing and reading and didn’t get to that, but that’s okay. I leave you with this photo of the view from Mom and Dad’s dining room deck.
This last week on Facebook Marketplace I was looking for some books to use for decorating this Christmas, and while I didn’t find the Christmas decor I was looking for, as I was scrolling I found two postings I was interested in. The first was a lot of Hardy Boys books, old and newish, for $10. Now, I had seen this posting awhile back and the set was $30, and I had passed on it then even though it was a good deal, but now for $10 I couldn’t resist!
There are over 30 Hardy Boys books — 15 from the 1960s (reprinted more recently), two from the ’30s, a few from the ’90s, a few from the ’80s, and one from the 2000s. This is a grand addition to our collection — after all, someday I will have grandchildren and they will want me to read to them! (I will also probably want to read to them “The Ransom of Red Chief” by O. Henry, like my grandma read to us when we were little girls.) When The Boy was little we read all the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books we had.
The other score I got was a lot of random books and old magazines for $20. The girl I bought them from said she didn’t want to just donate them, she knew someone out there would want them. The magazines are from the 1920s, ’30s, and 40s. I’m very interested to look through all of them! The ads are super fun 🙂
A number of the books I don’t think are sellable on Etsy so I’m going to try to get the used bookstore to take them, there are some modern children’s books that I’m not that interested in and some other more modern weird books. You never know what they’ll take at the bookstore, though!
There is a dictionary mentioned in my last post that is almost 100 years old, and another old book, “Evangeline” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, that was published in 1895. It is a pretty book and in good condition for being 127 years old!
There are some music books and sheet music (hey, I have a ukulele!)
Some old kids’ school readers…
Kids’ school books.
…and a ton of old recipe books. In years past (and I suppose now as well, but not so much) companies who made kitchen appliances or who sold things like baking powder or other food-related products put out little recipe books that showed how to use the product the company sold. They include booklets from Pillsbury, Rumford (baking powder) and General Electric, among many, many others. I’m hoping I can sell many of them on Etsy, as I don’t need them here at home.
Many recipe booklets from the 1930s on to the ’70s.
When I went on FB Marketplace I was originally looking for some books in certain colors to decorate with, we are doing black/white (buffalo plaid) and blue. I found two blue books at the Great Junk Hunt last weekend and thought that would be good, but when I started looking through them I found that one of them was about eugenics, and I didn’t want that one! It went the way of all things. The other one, “The Master’s Violin”, seemed fine. Yesterday we went to the Farmhouse Show in Turner, Oregon, and all I bought were some books, and kettle corn for The Boy. I found a nice blue book, “Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates”, published in 1903. It is a very heavy book, and has shiny pages, which is unusual. It will look fine with the other blue book. I might see if I could find some black and white books as well.
Blue books.
The other books I bought yesterday were some kids’ mystery books à la Nancy Drew, but featuring a girl called Judy Bolton. I hope the grandchildren enjoy being read to and reading as much as I did as a girl!
This week I got a bunch of goodies from Facebook Marketplace. I got a large group of Hardy Boys books from one seller, and a lot of old magazines, recipe books, and other random books from another seller. One of the random books was this Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary with a publication date of 1925.
Honor Book
Mary Collison was such a good speller from Detroit in the 1928 National Spelling Bee that she won this dictionary. It was awarded to “one of the best spellers in the schools of the Detroit Metropolitan Area” by The Detroit News. The dictionary is three inches thick! (I’ve always enjoyed dictionaries. In middle school when I got caught talking and had to copy the dictionary, I didn’t mind a bit. I think the teacher knew it, ha.)
Lots of words in here!
It has nice little illustrations and is still very usable, although the binding is damaged and some pages are coming out.
I had never heard of a fulmar until I read this page.Binding not in such great shape.I found a surprise or two in there!
I have the dictionary for sale on Etsy, and hope someone else will think it as fascinating as I do! I’ll share some of the other goodies I got in a later post.
On Friday we didn’t hike since I was leading a hike for the ladies from church at Willamette Mission Park on Saturday, so I went to some sales and found all sorts of wonderful things!
The first sale started at 8:00 a.m. and was one of those sales where you rummage through piles. Here are some of the things I found:
Vintage Tupperware that can be sold on Etsy.
See the blue scoop in the photo above? I have a clear one that was my mom’s that I keep in the sugar canister. The Hubs has strict instructions never to throw it away because you can’t get them anymore and it is just perfect for scooping sugar into a measuring cup. There were two of them at this sale! Unfortunately when I got them home I realized the orange one had a big crack in it and won’t be usable, but finding one is still a huge win!
Croquet balls in very nice condition.This picture I got for Marnie’s daughter, Aryn. She likes Japanese things. I don’t know if this is Japanese or Chinese, but I’m sure she will know. If she doesn’t want it, it was only $1.00!Vintage Myrtlewood nut bowlVintage (my vintage!) Fisher Price Little People Music Box Ferris Wheel. It definitely will need some elbow grease to get clean, but is in great condition otherwise and works fine.From 1916, a pre-teen/teen book. Classic Christmas songs. Yes, I still have a CD player in my van.
I went to a couple of other sales where I found…ahem…a vintage tall lamp. Because I…erm…collect them. This one is shorter than the others, more of a lamp you would put by a reading chair. It’s probably from the 1940s.
New vintage lamp. Note doorstop kitty that looks just like real kitty.
The South Salem Senior Center was having its annual rummage sale, and it was the most organized sale ever! I didn’t realize they had such a large space. Every room was filled with all sorts of things for sale. I found these for a very good price:
1970s (I think) Shiny Brite ornaments.Vintage postal scale.Books for me. I collect etiquette books, enjoy reading Sue Grafton, and may give the Bible away since I have a daily chronological Bible.
Then I went to The Thrift Store here in Keizer and what do you think I found? This Oregon State University Columbia fleece in the right size for just $10.00! These sell for $40 or $50 in the store, and this is practically new and even has zipper pockets! Now I have something to wear if I’m ever invited to a football game at OSU, or I could just wear it on game day in solidarity. I did go to OSU for a couple of years and consider it my alma mater.
I got some other things as well, and my house now looks like a tornado hit it! I will definitely be spending some of today tidying. 😁
You may remember this where I posted about the new decals and stickers I put on my van. I FINALLY received both of my new decals that I planned to put on the side back window! The decal with the quote took two weeks to come, and the Alice decal took THREE weeks to come after I ordered it. Here they are together:
Alice, and quote from the White Queen
I’ve always loved Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. The quote is from the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass. The context is this:
‘I can’t believe that!‘ said Alice. ‘Can’t you?’ the Queen said in a pitying tone. ‘Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.’ Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’ ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'”
Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking Glass”
Alice and the White Queen
One of the houses we visited for an estate sale last weekend had this quote around the top of the walls in the breakfast nook. It was an amazing house and we all three wished we could buy it!
Now my van is complete! Certainly nobody will mistake it for someone else’s, ha.
Yesterday Marnie and I went on an adventure in the countryside around Molalla and Silverton, Oregon, and saw and bought some fun stuff. We started at the Hometown Barnhouse Vintage Market, and then went on to some estate sales and antique stores. At the vintage market I got an old Nancy Drew book and an old Hardy Boys book to add to our collection and an old strainer with a green handle to hang on my kitchen wall. I have a collection of vintage kitchen utensils with green handles, because my kitchen has a green theme. Marnie was able to find some nice plant pots for her growing succulent collection.
The countryside.Friday’s haul
At a barn sale, I got the tray above and a beautiful mirror with beveled edges in a dark wood frame. It belonged to a dresser at one time so there is nothing on the back to hang it with, but I’m hoping the Hubs will be able to come up with a solution so I can hang it in my office. This is the barn that had the sale, the man said it was built in 1908. It still seemed very solid.
Isn’t this the neatest?
He had a wonderful dresser for just $40, but I have nowhere to keep one.
I was talking to the man at the barn about the barn we used to play in when I was a girl and told him about the owls, and he showed us his barn owl. Marnie got this awesome photo of it.
Marnie gets the best photos.
We went to what used to be an antique mall in Molalla, but is now just a very small part of the building and the porch with a couple of small rooms inside. We were disappointed that they had downsized so much because we had enjoyed shopping there after our hikes when we were out that way.
At an estate sale in Silverton I found a few modern books that I’ve been interested in, so that was nice since they were only $1 and $2 apiece. I was just talking to Lara and Marnie about how I never seem to read anymore, so I bought more books…now there are at least 7 or 8 on my “To Read” list. I suppose I had better get started!
Part of the fun of going to estate sales is seeing the houses, and this one was no different. It was in a new neighborhood on a hill and looked like a small house from the front, but when you went inside it was a good size with a view of a good chunk of Silverton out the living room window.
We did follow some signs to a “hoarder’s sale” way out in the country, but the driveway was narrow and long and when we got up to the house there was nowhere to park, so we came back down and didn’t bother with that one.
We came into Silverton and went to a thrift store and then had strawberry milkshakes from the bakery and lunch we got at the food cart pod. Marnie had spring rolls and I got my lunch from the Costa Rican cart, enyucado and fried plantains. I had never had enyucado before and it was delicious. It is a fried croquette made of cassava, and was filled with ground beef and spices. I forgot to take a photo of it before, but here is a photo of it after I eated it. I brought most of the plantain fries home and The Girl expressed great interest in them so I may not get to eat them after all, ha.
The antique stores in Silverton didn’t have much that interested us, Marnie got a decoration for her succulent garden and I got an “Oregon” sticker to replace my “Onward” bear sticker which is peeling off the van window. I saw a sign like this at one of the stores and it was $22. I checked online and found it for $12.98. I was hoping to get a more artistic one, but after thinking about my stash of sign-making materials and looking at the price of stencils, I decided this one was fine. The Hubs has a nifty plasma table that will cut signs and things, but it isn’t working so he couldn’t make a sign for me. I will hang this on the fence in the front yard and hope no one runs off with it!
I recently ordered the book Adventure Ready, A Hiker’s Guide to Planning, Training, and Resiliency, by Katie Gerber and Heather Anderson, and I wanted to say that it’s a big win in my opinion! I just received it a couple of days ago and haven’t had the chance to read the whole thing, but the parts I’ve read are very helpful for pointing both new and experienced hikers in the right direction. If you are interested in any kind of backpacking adventure, this book is a gold mine of information! And if you are interested in reading about awesome rockstar backpacking, I would also suggest you read Heather’s other books, Thirst, about her FKT (Fastest Known Time) hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, and Mud, Rocks, Blazes, about her FKT hike on the Appalachian Trail. Also, check out Katie’s website KatieGerber.com, where she offers online courses, coaching, and other resources.
From the Amazon description: “In Adventure Ready, renowned hikers Katie “Salty” Gerber and Heather “Anish” Anderson take what they’ve learned both on the trail and through teaching their online classes to a new level: preparing long-distance hikers for all the challenges–physical, emotional, and mental–they may encounter while on the trail for weeks or months. This clear and comprehensive guide sets backpackers up for success with detailed information about everything from the basics of gear selection, navigation, safety, and trip planning to nutritional and physical preparation and body resiliency to how to readjust after returning home. Worksheets and checklists make it easy to stay on top of all the planning a long-distance hike requires, while thoughtful prompts to address the “Why” of your adventure help to keep you motivated.”
I want to recommend The Bethany Tales, Four Intertwined Stories of Restoration and Hope, written by Bryan E. Canter. The book looks at the lives of four people from the village of Bethany in the time of Jesus – Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Simon.
“These four tales use the creative gift of imagination to explore what each of these men and women might have been thinking and feeling, while remaining true to the biblical accounts and consistent with life in first century Israel.”
I read the book around Eastertime, and found it hard to put down! I received a much deeper insight of Jesus’ relationships with people and his last days here on earth in reading the book. The author’s note at the beginning and the Bible passages behind the story at the end help with understanding the accounts even more. The Bethany Tales would be a blessing to anyone who wants a greater appreciation of these records in the Bible.
The Bethany Tales is available on Amazon and other sites in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.
every day's just like starting over 