A Day without coffee

   I have been drinking too much coffee. I only drink half-caff, because otherwise I hover 2 feet off the ground with a caffeine  buzz- but , I drink a couple of  mugs full in the am and then throw the rest on ice and sip it throughout the day. That makes it about 6 cups. With 1/2 and 1/2. And just a touch of flavored creamer. Calories. I am sure, loads of calories. That I really don't need to survive. That I could transfer to something I do need to survive-like a piece of cake!
  What started this thinking about calories is my sister Biz (or Elizabeth if you want to know her real name, but I almost always call her Biz), who works for US Airways worked a flight into Milwaukee late Saturday night. When she got up on Sunday am, she rented a car and drove out to visit. She joined Weight Watchers in September last fall and has dropped 40 lbs! She looks great.
   I, am not a dieter anymore. I was on so many diets throughout my adult life that never did anything except shift the weight around. Now, what I do is cut back whenever I feel like my clothes are too tight. As long as I fit into my duds, I am golden! But.....she dropped 40 lbs. Sigh.
   So, when I got up this morning, I thought-Today, I will start the day without coffee.
   It was a thought. Not really a good thought, but a thought. I forgot that without coffee, I don't feel like I am firing on all cylinders until my body gets used to the no coffee situation.
  Well, I gave it a go, but here it is at 2:30 in the afternoon and I broke down and hit my emergency refrigerated coffee and made a large, icy glass full. Ahhhhhh. I really do L.O.V.E coffee. I love the aroma and the ambiance. I think that instead of quitting, I will slowly cut back. That sounds a little more reasonable to me.
    Have a lovely afternoon, with or without coffee!
   
   

Amateur Art Book-Book Bonanza

I went to a sale last Friday and almost keeled over on overwhelm! It was a HOLY MOLY sale! An old farmhouse that was packed to the gills with stuff!  Friday was the second day that it was open and STILL had tons of stuff left!
  But, what I was so tickled about was -there was an entire room of books! All sorts of books-in good shape and in bad shape....books, books, books.  I spent almost an hour in that room, going through books, but ran out of time. A shame that you have to work, isn't it? So I went down and borrowed a box from them and loaded my finds, paid and off I went to work. Saturday, they did not open until 10:00 am, so I called my sister Katie and off we went to look some more. She needed 38 old books for her son Travis and his fiance Autumn. They are using them somehow in their centerpieces for their wedding in October. She got a boxful and I got a boxful and oh so much fun, looking and admiring all the different books. It takes so little to entertain me! I have been petting my new finds all week:) But, that is what happens when you are a book-aholic!
The book above is a fabulous find! A rare Edwardian Era art book that tells you how to do a bunch of different art projects. I just L-O-V-E the how-to books and articles from the era. What fun they had!

I have it for sale on my Etsy page-sarahsatticstuff. Since tomorrow is Friday, I will be working, all day- making Clam chowder, breading fish, making coleslaw-all for our famous Friday fish fry at Cedar Beach in Belgium! Have a fun weekend!

Rummage fun!

Well, I must say that even though I only hit 3 sales this morning, I found stuff and had fun! I got an old Bingo game and old Scrabble game to cannibalize. Several vintage hymnals, vintage water color pencil set, old corks, wooden thread spools, old bird trading cards, game markers, 2 small cigar boxes, an old atlas and pinback buttons. Oh-and a cake scooper (for me:) for 10 cents. All told, I spent $23.35 and had a great time.  I scanned 10 of the bird cards and will put them up so you can grab them if you want to. You never know what you can use to finish up a project and even though I love old ephemera, sometimes I have a hard time using the real thing . So, I wind up copying and reprinting so I don't loose my original. I shrank these down to fit here.
     I will hit a couple of sales on Friday on my way to work.  I have to de3cide if I am heading through town or cross country. You never know what you will find when you wander through the countryside.
   Have a fun rest of your day and remember-a day spent playing with your arts/crafts stuff is always a great day!

1888 Almanac on Etsy

Wednesday! I was going to put up a couple of things today on Etsy and I did...just not the things that I had planned on listing! I got sidetracked with this 1888 Almanac that I have been hoarding away for years. I pull it out and think-yup. Time to sell it and then I start paging through it and reading the articles and I wind up putting it away again because it is too cool. But TODAY, I did it! I got it listed on Etsy and someone else will have the opportunity to love it and keep it. I did scan some of the charts so I could reuse them. The picture above is in 200 dpi res, so feel free to grab it if you can use it.
   My problem is, I love paper. I oooo and ahhhh over newspaper and magazines and letters and old cards. And old damaged stuff....I have a real weakness to take the stuff that others would toss out and put it away to keep it safe. That is why my ephemera lots are so perfect for me. I get to play with all my books and papers and pass them on to people who will love them as much as I do. Freeing up  space for me to "adopt" more stuff! Win-Win!Tomorrow I hope to rummage-at least for a while. There is not too much in the area yet. We'll see. Maybe I will find unadvertised stuff. Always an adventure.

L-O-V-E

  I have to tell you, I L-O-V-E my new to me computer. It is a 24" Imac and just beautiful. I had a little 17" Imac, that had been loosing its screen, plus memory issues. I also have memory issues, so I can't pick on my white Imac for that, but working with 1/2 a screen= no fun. I could not access anything on the left side of the screen, which is where all the buttons are for all my photo programs, so I was using my iphone and several other not so red-hot methods to clean pictures to use on ebay or etsy. I was very sad. BUT-am sad no longer. I got enough money to get a computer, so I got this 2009 imac from Gainsaver. I did have some problems moving stuff over- such as loosing my itunes songs and all of my bookmarks (and I had a lot of bookmarks) Oh well. I was getting tired of that stuff anyhow, now I will start afresh! Went to the library today and started with 4 cds.

   Tomorrow, I have a batch of stuff to put up on Etsy. These are two of the items that I will be putting up. Now, I am off to make pasta primavera for dinner, so have a great night!

I have a full screen!

I realized yesterday, when I turned on my new computer for the first time, just how computerly handicapped I have been for the last few months. My screen was half gone, so everything on the left side...I could not see. That is why I couldn't find the @?!*# buttons for this blog! My sister Martha laughed at me, when I finally realized that,DUH! They were there, I just couldn't see them.
  It was a beautiful day, so I went outside to weed. The My brother Dave came over  in the afternoon-(which is good because I can hardly move today and I would be even stiffer if I had kept gardening for 2 more hours!)He helped me move stuff over to my new machine. I love this computer! It is beautiful! I think it really likes me too! Which is good because I usually spend a lot of time on my computer!
   I spent some time on pintrest this morning and found some fabulous stuff! I'll put the leg up . It is great for steampunk stuff!

Have a great day and don't get blown away by a tornado if you are in the central states!

Lucky Friday the 13th

I got up early and went to the huge rummage. It was in a pretty area out in the country and they had horses and chickens, but not so much for estate/rummage. Oh well. My new computer should be delivered today while I am at work! It is not new new, just new to me . I am so excited! I have been running with a disintegrating screen for a couple of months now and it makes it pretty hard to do anything! Working with photoshop is a no go with 1/2 a screen:( So YAY! Tomorrow, I get to take it out of the box and figure out what is what.  Off to fry fish for me. Happy Friday the 13th!

Where the heck are the Gadgets?

After several frustrating hours yesterday, I gave up on doing anything else to this Blog page.I went and looked around and saw some tutorials, blah, blah, blah.... They all show a stupid layout tab that has never showed up anywhere that I have noticed it. It took is as a sign from higher up, that , it was perhaps time to hang it up for the day. So I did-grudgingly. And came back first thing this morning, hoping that tab had magically appeared over night. Ahhhh...that would be no. It did not. I am sure that I will find it eventually, and then laugh at how silly me overlooked that tab when it was right there. Hopefully, that will be before I hit my computer in frustration:)
  I went rummaging this morning with my sister Katie, our friend Claire and Katie's grandson Cam. We did not find much, since there were only 3, but we had a good time and Katie found some toy tools for Cam that he was very excited about! One of the toys was a Home Depot chain saw which makes realistic sawing noises. That got pretty old in a hurry for the 3 adults in the vehicle and Katie may regret purchasing that particular item. She did have to get it because she works at the Home Depot and always tries to support her company.
  There is a fabulous sounding barn sale tomorrow morning that I am getting up early for. I will let you know if it holds up to its promise. We are always very sad when someone advertises-"HUGE SALE! TONS OF STUFF" and you get there and there are 2 tables.
  And there is a really fabulous sounding sale on Saturday, but it is about 1 1/2 hours away and with gas at $3.89 a gallon, I don't think I will do it. Sigh.

  I suppose I will try to figure out the dang gadgets again now that I have procrastinated  till after noon. If you see buttons, you will know that I have been successful.

Sarahs Attic Stuff Blog-Yup!

Well folks-here goes! Hi there! I am Sarah!
I grew up with a mother who was super duper creative! She would look at anything and say-"We can make this!" and off she would go on another project! And sure as shoot! We could make just about anything!
We all lived with my Grandparents in a huge bungalow with a barn and they let her open an antique shop in the basement, which over the years expanded out into the barn. There were 10 of us kids and we all helped with everything-cooking, cleaning, running the shop, refinishing furniture, loading and unloading, setting up shows, tearing down shows. Mom ran the shop and Kurt was an over the road salesman , who brought home a reliable paycheck and had benefits-such as insurance, which was pretty handy considering! Life was always interesting and we had a lot of fun!
  When Mom had a stroke in 2001, I moved home and cared for her until she passed. I almost wept at the sheer magnitude of stuff that she still had when I moved in-yikes! It was a lot of stuff and most of it had to go away! We had gotten Mom a Web-TV a few years before, and she ran things on ebay and just loved the internet. So, I just stepped up our ebay efforts and started moving it all on! Ebay used to be pretty much fun to sell on. But, recently, they have been making more and more changes and do not give you any choices, so, maybe it is time to wind down my bigmamasgirls and more it over to Etsy! That is what I am doing.
  My Etsy shop is Sarah's Attic Stuff -named thus because almost everything I have to sell, was in someone's attic at some point in its life cycle.
  Hopefully you will stop in and see what is cooking-literally and figuratively- This blog is going to be fun! With a little of this and a little of that! Hope to see you again.