Treasures

 We don't often go to antique stores in the city. They are full of fancy and delicate and expensive things that just don't make sense for us. But there is a combo fruit stand slash antique barn out in Eastern Washington that we like. They have amazing cherry lemonade. And salt water taffy. And the antiques span the range from  old farmhouse furniture to classic 1980s VHS tapes and everything in between.

Chris decided he wanted to go there for his Father's Day adventure yesterday. So we went and snacked and wandered around. I found this cutting board that reminded me so much of some plates that my grandma used to have hanging in her kitchen. It's the same style of artwork and country wisdom kind of quotes. When I saw it, I was right back in her kitchen eating crackers and playing gin rummy. I love stuff like that.

The kids wanted to buy everything they saw of course, but finally they decided on these plastic horses. They each got one but I could only find one this morning. They chose to spend their own allowance money on them. The funny thing is that I once had the whole collection- back in my horse-obsessed days of my youth. I loved all the Marguerite Henry adventures and it seemed that each book had a plastic horse figure to match. Seriously, I had a whole herd of them in my bedroom. Easier than a real horse I guess.

So it was extra amusing for me to see the kids choose that very thing to buy. Guess I should have saved mine, but then of course they wouldn't have wanted them, right?

a blast from the past

This post mostly goes out to the people who knew me when I was a kid. Because most of the time my kids are their own amazing new people that I am discovering. But every once in a while they do something that just makes me wonder- where does this come from? how does it happen? What is the interlacing of genes and upbringing that led to this moment? I spent a large portion of my childhood making my own paper dolls. I drew figures or cut them out of magazines, named them all and set them up in scenes from my imagination or from books. Yesterday I discovered Unity had drawn a set of people and umbrellas, cut them out and lined them up. It was kind of amazing.

And then books. We are always surrounded by piles of books, people are always reading in any spare minute they can grab in this house, so I guess this next scene was inevitable. Still, it reminds me of a photo of me reading to my brother at around the same ages....if I can, I'll scan it in for comparisons.
I guess I don't much care where it comes from when I love the results so much.