Merry Christmas Everyone!

We wanted to take time out from cleaning, wrapping and baking to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas! 

We will be spending our holiday separately but we both will be with family which is a blessing. 

We await the smiles and hugs from our Grandchildren and to mingle with all of our relatives.

When all of the festivities are through we will await the end of 2012 and hope for a new start with family, togetherness, happiness and good health.  

This is our wish for all of you.

Be safe in your travels and visit us again when you settle back in.

Love and Laughter,

Cathy and Mary

Cooler Weather Is On The Horizon

As we watch the 10 day forecast, each day we see the numbers dipping towards the colder season.
Trying to prepare the right way is a little confusing. If you listen to the predictions for this winter here, they are saying because last winter was mild it is going to be a rough one.  But my sister Mary says that the woolly worms are not as big and not as dark and no stripes which means mild winter.
So, on the optimistic side.......I'm going with the woolly worms.

So many things to do to get ready.  Clean the fireplace, make sure the furnace has a new filter, put the garden to bed, bring wood closer to the house, cover the air conditioners, bring out the bags of sweaters and put the shorts in the bags for next summer (or the winter getaway I dream of).

Then into the kitchen to get creative with all of the veggies left from the garden.  Stewed tomatoes for the freezer, roasted tomatoes, sliced peppers for the freezer and prepare the herbs for the freezer too.

Since we are in the cooler weather mode, comfort foods come to mind.  Bringing out the big old Club pot for soups, stews, chili, hot apple cider and so much more.  Nothing tastes like homemade soup in a good old pot.  Maybe even some apple bread baking in the oven warming the house and making it smell so wonderful and feel so cozy!

We wish you all a happy, relaxing and festive cooler weather season.
Post back to let us know how you are preparing  :)

Rocking on the Porch

Every year we wait patiently for July or August when we can get together for our sister time.  During the waiting period we talk on the phone, chat on Facebook, text, or Skype.  We have all these ideas of what we want to do together when really just sitting on the porch rockers with a cup of coffee would be just fine.
This year we spent time together cooking, rocking on the porch, shopping for our Etsy shop, rocking on the porch, going to the county fair, out to dinner, out to breakfast (awesome french toast and really crunchy bacon), but the best moments were those quiet times while fishing and sitting on the rockers on the porch. Fishing not so quiet though with a few giggles trying to get the fish off the hook.

We can all get wrapped up in the hustle bustle, but just listening to the crickets, the hummingbirds and some one on one conversation can be so relaxing, a stress buster.

Spend time with your family and friends, listen to what is said and what is not said, laugh with them, love them, hug them and take time to rock on the porch.

The Good Ole Days of Mayberry

    With the passing of Andy Griffith, it has given us alot to ponder the last few days.  We have a strong desire to go back to the simpler times.  We want to go back to when our lives were not so busy, and there was always time for family and friends.  Time to sit on the porch and visit for awhile.  We not only love vintage items, we love the times when the vintage items were created.

  Are the days of unexpected company stopping by at dinner time gone for good? 
Years ago, people would go driving around and visiting. We were always prepared to feed an extra few people at dinner time if someone did.  We usually have a standby meal that we can fix if a few extras show up.  Maybe a favorite pasta dish that could be doubled if need be.  We have become so wrapped up in our own lives that we tend to neglect the friends and extended family that we do have. 

  I live in a farming community and my property is surrounded by crops.   Several years ago the farmer who owned the fields was in the hospital and was dying, as he had lost his battle with cancer.  He had put his crops in during the planting season.  I had wondered what would happen to his crops.  One morning during harvest season, harvesters started showing up.  And they just kept coming. I had never seen such a sight.  I counted 10 harvesters in the farmers field, they had all just come to help out their neighbor and friend.  I just stood there in amazement with tears running down my face.  I was so touched by the sense of community and honor that they were showing for this man.

  We would like to see a "get back to Mayberry movement" in our communities, where people take the time to stop and see how you are doing.  A stronger sense of community and pride in our towns.

  Instead of getting frustrated because you are getting delayed while running errands and run into someone you know, just stop and talk for awhile.  It does the heart good and will lift your spirits as well as the other persons.  People need to know we care about them.  This world can be a lonely place for some people, especially the elderly and those who are alone.   Sometimes just a kind word and a huge smile can make a huge difference in someones day. 

So while we  thinking about how we wish things were like good ole Mayberry, lets start to make small changes in our own  lives.  If we all do our part, we can have our own little piece of Mayberry here today.

Have a Great Day!
Mary and Cathy

Keep it or sell it?

So many times when we go out shopping for items to sell whether it be the antique store, flea market, resale shop, Shorty's or a garage sale we have the best intentions to buy only things we feel will sell or associate with our years of youth.

While we hunt these items (coffee mugs in hand), we pick up all sorts of goodies that have a memory for one or both of us.  When we make our purchases, we get them home, wash them up and look them over for flaws. For some reason the items with flaws hang around my house to look at, until I finally go donate them for someone else to work with. (keeping it out of the landfill one item at a time)

Many times though, we look at the items and set them in a special spot where it looks good in one of our homes and keep it there for a few days or months before it is listed.  A few times, they were never listed at all because we have fallen in love with them all over again. Mary will ask me when I am going to list that beautiful pressed glass bowl we bought last month, and I will say "oops, sorry, I'm keeping it".

Once in a blue moon an item that is listed and sold can't be found because it is not in the storage area, it is in that special spot in one of our houses.  Always found of course, but can make for a panicked few moments until one of us remembers we have it.  We have enjoyed it so much that it has become a part of our home.  Now it MUST leave.

The point of having our ETSY store is to sell items, not add to our stock at home, yet we do it over and over again.

Whatever things make you feel comfy and loved that you were surrounded with through the years, keep them close.  You may turn into the crazy twins who want to keep everything. Hopefully you will never see us on the tv show HOARDERS. 

But it could happen....................
:)

Fishing With The Twins

   My sister and I share the love of life's simple pleasures;  gardening, treasure hunting, and we love, love to fish.  This blog is dedicated to some of our fishing adventures.  When we go fishing together it is always with a fresh cup of coffee in hand in our favorite beat-up travel mugs.  Oh, of course we take our fishing poles, bait and the normal fishing gear that most people carry.  For us it is not even about catching the biggest fish.  We don't care if we catch a fish at all.  It is about spending time together, sharing the quiet of nature along with some chatting. The simple joy of spending time together. 

  We went fishing together with our husbands in the early morning hours of a extremely hot steamy day.  The area that we had chosen for that morning was weedy and had lots of underwater brush.  Great for catching the fish who like to hide.  Our husbands prefer to fish away from us as we tend to be a little too chatty, too giggly for their fishing enjoyment.  On this particular day, we kept getting hung up in this one area where this one bush was located at.  Oh, and did I mention we like big bobbers too?  Mine is a light up bobber.   In any case I got stuck, I mean really stuck.  I tried all of the tricks of the trade trying to get my bobber and hook unstuck.  Nothing was working.   So my sister Cathy says "here let me help". If you can possibly picture this;  I have a hold of the pole, my sister gets in front of me, grabs on to the line.  She says just keep steady pressure and keep backing up. We will get it free of the brush in just a second.  So we keep backing up, and backing up, and her husband tells my husband will you just look at those two.  I am sure we probably looked ridiculous, but we were in it together 'til the end!   All of the sudden the bobber gets free, and comes flying back at us and warp speed, and we were like oh oh, and it goes Thwack, and smacks my sister on the thigh.  She turns around and looks at me and all we could manage to do is laugh hysterically.  She had the biggest bruise on her thigh. Our husbands could not figure out why that was so funny, they are just standing there shaking there heads. This could only happen to us.

  On another occasion we wanted to go fishing and our husbands refused.  It was too hot, they were too tired.   We decided we're going to go, just the two of us, night fishing!   So we got our gear together, coffee mugs included (we never go anywhere without our coffee)   We headed down to the local dock to go fishing.  Keep in mind, I am afraid of water snakes, my sister is afraid of spiders.  It is those childhood phobia's, and we know it is crazy.   When we fish, she watches for the snakes for me, and I keep a lookout for the spiders for her.  We protect each other.  If we walk under trees, we hold our poles up, in a X fashion to brush away the spiders ahead of us, and we sing to keep the snakes away, as well as anything else that might be lurking around.  We thought we were being very brave going fishing at night by ourselves.  I think we were also trying to prove our independence as well.  We get out on the dock cast our lines out, and sit down.

We had not been there an hour, and the snakes started coming in.  I can see them churning up the water under the dock.  At this point I am terrified, and my sister is like it's okay.  They can't get up on the dock.  I still am not so sure about this, but I keep fishing.  Then we noticed that the spiders were coming up on the dock.  Not just one or two that I can stomp as I have to be the one to stomp them, but a whole army of the little creepy crawly things.  I look at her, and she looks at me, and said I think it is time to go.  Wait just a minute, we have only been gone an hour, what wimps are we!  We decided to add on to our "fishing time" by going to the nearest McDonald's to get what?  Of course, coffee LOL.  We wasted another hour so we didn't appear to wimp out too quickly.

We arrived back home to my house where the guys were watching tv, and they wanted to know how the fishing went.  We told them we had a great time.  They said they  figured we would be back in a few minutes, once the spiders and snakes came up. 

So if you go fishing, watch out for flying bobber's, and snakes, and spiders!  You just never know what will happen on your fishing adventures.

Live Love and Giggle

The Twins

When Technology Changes Everything

We were talking about the old butcher shops and general stores from days gone by and it brought up a whole long discussion about another era.  The following are a few examples of how times have changed

Today when we go into a grocery store to purchase meat, everything is pre-packaged or pre-cut.  You would be lucky to find a butcher who still knows the trade without using machinery to do the work.
In the old days people would head to the butcher shop, take a number and wait their turn. You would order ground meat, cut up pork chops in a thickness of your choice and in a number of your choice whether it be 1 pork chop or a dozen.  When affordable or for a special occasion  a nice roast cut from a large piece of meat, hand cut and tied by the butcher.  Then wrapped in paper and labeled as to what is in the package.  Their time with the butcher may have been 5 minutes or 30 minutes depending on your order but everyone expected to wait.

These days there are no Mom and Pop stores so we go to Walmart or Target and load up our carts with everything from food to clothing, even appliances and mixing it all together.  When it is time to check out it seems so impersonal and robotic.  The cashier hands you a receipt and say "sign here" and sometimes, not even a thank you for dropping your whole paycheck in their register.

In a general store people could go into the store, ask to order items with an actual person, shop leisurely and go to the counter to have your bill added up, all the while finding out how the store clerks family is doing and probably some town gossip.  If necessary it could be added to "your account", and then it could even be delivered.
It was based on neighborly goodness and human kindness.

If needed you would visit the druggist or pharmacy where the customer could talk things over with the druggist and would go home with the feeling that someone truly cared about them.  Just 20 years ago I stopped at a local Rexall about my son's dry cracked feet.  The pharmacist went in the back and scooped something out of a larger container, put it into a small container and gave it to me.  He said try this for a week and if it works, we will order more.  It was pure Lanolin and it did work.  I would not find that assistance anywhere today especially at no cost. Sadly that store went out when the chain store came in.

When folks were sick, the doctor came to their homes by "house call".  Day or night.  He did not ask who their insurance was or how they were going to pay the bill.  He might even have had medicine in his bag and leave that with the patient to help their symptoms and would come back in a day or two to check up on them.  There were no trips to the ER at $500+ per visit.

As for the telephone, these days we call a number it is "push 1" for this, or "leave a message after the tone" We did not rely on our phones for every movement we made. If people were not home when someone called, then the person would just call back. I remember how appalled my mother was when someone (wink wink) suggested she get an answering machine.  She wanted to know "why"?  They will just call back she said.

A lot of these scenarios are stories I heard from my mother who grew up back in that time, so they are not just imagined, they were truly how life was.

Technology is moving us forward into the future, yes, but sometimes we long for the days when it was just nice to meet face to face.