Hello! It's my birthday today - normally a festive time, but the severe cold and snow makes things a little more challenging. Not sure if the restaurant I wanted to go to for my birthday dinner is even open today; will have to check on that. But nothing stopped me, of course, from making a birthday cake, so at least we'll have that.
Appropriate for today, last week I unearthed this during a decluttering of a storage cabinet:
A silverplate birth record baby spoon issued for me upon my arrival. It's 4" long and was made by Wm Rogers. These are fairly common on eBay. Mine is scratched up a bit and some of the silverplate has worn off. No matter, I've glad it's survived the years!
I seem to recall my mother telling me that she'd gotten this spoon from a local bank; don't know if it was something the bank gave away or offered at low cost to their customers. To be honest, although she gave it to me years ago, I never paid much attention to this spoon until I relocated it in that cabinet last week.
It was tarnished, so I cleaned it up, then looked over the details closely. I'd always noticed that my first name and birthdate had been etched on the spoon's handle, but I'd never paid attention to this image before:
It didn't photograph the greatest, but that's a stork directly above the "bowl" part of the spoon.
And then there's this:
Again, it doesn't show up well in the photo, but the somewhat rectangular-ish shape on the middle of the handle is supposed to be a clock. Perhaps you can see the dots around the shape, which of course represent the numbers on a clock face. "PM" is etched above the hands of the clock, and from the position of those hands, one can see I was born around 8:17 pm.
It seems strange to me now that I had no idea that my time of birth was noted on this spoon, but it tickled me to discover this. I like that attention to details. Hey, so what that I was born two months early - at least the spoon got all the other details right!
I don't know how my birth record baby spoon ended up in the cabinet, but it's not going to stay there. From now on, I'll store it with the decorations I bring out for my birthday every year.
Hello! My husband had a birthday yesterday, which meant a handmade card from me:
My husband laughed when he saw his card, which was my intended reaction. He likes humorous cards more than mushy ones, so that's the kind I make for him. I think it was the eyes image that made him laugh, but I think the owl image amused him as well.
A couple of close-ups:
Materials used:
- white card stock
- eyes image cut from takeout menu for Humal Chuli (a restaurant mentioned in my previous post)
- owl sticker from vintage stationery set (found in thrift store, perhaps from the 1970's)
- "turn" cut from vintage children's dictionary
- "60" cut from vintage bingo card
- "LOOK", "WHO'S", "ING" and "Happy Birthday" stamped with black ink onto scraps of various vintage papers
Not a complicated-looking card by any means, but still fun to make. For some reason, we never used to keep birthday cards, but have done so for quite a few years now. Thus, this year's card will join the ones from previous years:
Quite a fun collection! But the whole bunch will come down soon - so all my handmade Valentines to him can be displayed instead.
Hello! My previous post had highlights from a trip we'd made before Christmas; today's post will cover the excursion we took just as 2019 was beginning. We traveled to the Chicago area, plus the Wisconsin cities of Madison and Milwaukee.
Madison is not only the capitol of Wisconsin, but it's also the home of the flagship school of the University of Wisconsin system. With such important entities within this city, you'd expect a lively mix of shops and restaurants, and you'd be right. We focused on State Street, which runs near both the university and the state capitol building. Since neither the college nor state government were in session the day we visited (January 2nd), some businesses were shuttered. Still plenty to see and do, however, and those closures meant less people and traffic to clog up the sidewalks and streets.
We began with lunch here:
Himal Chuli, a Nepali restaurant. Tiny place, so online reviews mentioned it can be difficult to get a table. We had no such trouble on this day. We'd never eaten at a Nepali restaurant but the menu looked good. Many of the dishes reminded us somewhat of Indian cuisine. For instance, samosas, which I ordered, had the familiar-sounding filling of potatoes and peas. They were fine, but shaped differently than the Indian-style food of the same name: rather than looking like turnovers that lay flat on a plate, these were more like pyramids that rose up from my plate.
What I liked even better was the cup of dal that came with my order. The menu called it a "mixed bean soup", and while it was much more broth than beans, it had a delicious flavor. I would like to try to replicate it at home sometime.
After lunch my family of three split up to explore various shops along State Street - we each have different tastes. I checked out Madison Modern Market, which has a lot of cool items for kids and adults, as well as things for the home and fun gifts - all in all, a well-curated place. I saw many potential purchases, which is saying a lot for someone like me who normally shops secondhand. I did finally succumb to this:
Kikkerland's Rainbow Multipen, which has ten different colors. It's the type of pen where you swivel the top around to change colors. I'm a sucker for color variety in my artwork, so I happily paid three dollars for this. But I was sorely tempted to buy so many other goodies at this shop - that's the kind of store Madison Modern Market is!
We'd agreed to meet up at A Room Of One's Own, an indie bookstore around the corner from State Street on Gorham Street. As indie bookstores are one of my favorite places to browse, I made sure to give myself some time to look around before reconnecting with my family. I was attracted right away to a grouping of journals and planners near the front door. I'm also a sucker for these, so I succumbed to this:
Mary Kate McDevitt's Every Day Is Epic, "a guided journal for daydreams, creative rants & bright ideas". I liked the author's take in the introduction: "You may sometimes feel that if you aren't skydiving, cliff-jumping, or living the life of an action-movie stuntperson, your day somehow isn't measuring up. But every day has the chance to be epic...it just comes done to how you frame it. This journal celebrates embracing everyday events - from the mundane to the magnificent - that all add up to something incredibly awesome."
And to prove her point, the author showed a sample from a "general notes" section, (part of most of the journal pages). Along with "moved to new studio" and "booked summer vacay", she listed "trash-picked a plant" and my favorite: "met a baby named Fritz". I found that last tidbit very amusing somehow!
Here's what a couple of the pages inside look like:
And a close-up:
I like the funky graphics! The layouts do repeat, but there are enough different ones that they don't feel repetitive at all. I'm happy with this purchase.
Due to lack of time - my husband and daughter showed up before I got very far into the store - this was my only purchase from A Room Of One's Own. Well, that's not exactly true - near the cash register was a small shelf of uncorrected proof books. If memory serves me correctly, these were free with a purchase, although a 50c donation toward a jail literacy program was suggested. I scanned the books, and selected Ryder Carroll's The Bullet Journal Method (he's the creator of this planner system, which I've pondered using). And yes, I did give 50c for this book.
Also of note: various promotional posters from book releases were for sale; I saw several mounted on the cash register counter base. Perhaps I've not been looking hard enough while at other indie bookstores, but I've not seen such posters, nor proof copies, on offer elsewhere. I liked that A Room Of One's Own had both.
We arrived in Milwaukee in time for dinner at Jalapeno Loco, which is located across from Mitchell Airport. Solid Mexican food.
We visited more of Milwaukee the next day. We have a fondness for this city and its blend of old-fashioned neighborhoods and shops of interest.
I always try to make it to American Science & Surplus, my go-to place for containers I use for storing various all-natural DIY cleaning supplies and toiletries. I often find interesting craft supplies as well. And during a previous visit, my husband purchased a particular piece of lab equipment for around 20 bucks. It had been used, but so are the versions he'd seen on eBay - that go for a few hundred dollars! (The AS&S piece didn't have a sign labeling what it was, so my husband suspected the employees there didn't know.)
From AS&S, we trekked over to Outpost Natural Foods Co-Op for wholesome lunches at their cafe. Excellent bulk food section too.
And speaking of bulk foods, you can't go wrong with The Spice House in the Old World 3rd Street area. We went there so I could find jalapeno pepper powder (the food co-op didn't carry it) - but I ended up buying a few other spices as well. This is a very nice store. Very high quality store, but it doesn't have the upscale feel that newer stores of this type tend to have.
It's become a Christmastime tradition for us to visit the holiday display at Mitchell Park Domes. A "Scrooge" theme was featured for Christmas 2018. I didn't feel this theme was covered very well, but the variety of poinsettias was breathtaking:
This is only a small sample of what we saw. I thought the blue-tinged poinsettias especially noteworthy since I'd not seen them before.
With a busy but fun day in Milwaukee over, we headed down to Chicagoland and dinner at Rockwood Tap house in Downers Grove. My husband is fond of the beer menu and the food menu has many good choices as well.
Before departing Chicagoland the next day we stopped off at one of our favorite area plazas. Also located in Downers Grove, the Downers Shopping Plaza has, among other retail establishments, a See's candy store, a Trader Joe's and a nice Goodwill. My husband and daughter busied themselves at the first two stores while I checked out the Goodwill.
I found it loaded with a lot of good stuff during this visit. As it was so soon after Christmas (January 4th), I wondered if people had donated gifts they didn't want, or else had gathered up older possessions to make room for the gifts they'd received. Either way, there were a lot of purchasing possibilities! I was happy to find a pristine copy to replace my beat-up volume of Asian Noodles (Nina Simonds, author). And these really appealed to me:
A set of four chunky colored pencils with folk art flavor.
A close-up:
So cute, and the group was mine for one dollar.
I didn't know what these were, or who had made them. For all I knew, they were from a set of kids' colored pencils. But from searching eBay and Etsy, I learned that these pencils are based on Russian matryoshka (nesting) dolls and are considered souvenirs of that country. Like with most listings, the asking prices for vintage versions are higher than for newer examples. I'm leaning toward thinking mine are newer. Even so, the price I paid for four was a bargain.
Our trip was over, other than taking our daughter back to West Lafayette, spending the night there and returning back home. The resumption of our everyday routines was about to begin. But we'd had two very nice holiday trips!
Hello! Yeah, the Christmas season is over and done and we're already over a week into January. With two out-of-state trips and an in-state visit with relatives, the holiday went by very fast for me! The days I was home, I was busy making special foods for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. This is a long way of saying I should have blogged more recently about my Yuletide travels, but hadn't.
So I'll make up for that now, beginning with a little about our first out-of-state trip. It covered central Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. The genesis for the excursion began when, while traveling through Pennsylvania in the fall, I'd picked up a brochure about a Christkindl Market in Mifflinburg, PA - the oldest such event of its kind in the US (the market website, seen here, states that the event was begun in 1987). I commented to my husband that it'd be nice to go there sometime - well, he took my casual comment seriously and made the travel arrangements. We visited the Chirstkindl Market on December 15th, 2018.
A few scenes from the event:
A festive entrance to the market.
Entrance to one of the small buildings used by vendors at the market. This seller was skilled in scherenschitte, German-style paper cutting.
Lovely examples of this craft!
We watched a folk dance troupe perform a variety of European folk dances. When the group went through the steps of a Dutch dance, my husband and I were reminded of the Dutch dancing done during our town's famous tulip festival. One big difference: the people above weren't wearing wooden shoes!
We enjoyed seeing the various examples of German-style and American-style arts and crafts at the Christkindl Market, but we also enjoyed viewing some of the older buildings around town:
Mifflinburg is a very old town; it was first settled in the 1700's and became a village in 1827.
When we first arrived at the market, it was late morning and not terribly crowded yet. But as the day went on more and more people appeared, and eventually it became one of those events in which you can barely move due to the crush of people. Of course, people were there because it's a fun, unique event, but it made it hard to take pictures, let along shop. So after lunch from a couple of the many food vendors, all we bought was a small glass-blown snowman figurine for our daughter.
To escape the crowds, we started walking through the nearby downtown blocks. But I was quickly distracted by a sign pointing the way to a pop-up artisans' market. We followed the arrow and found ourselves at a small events center a couple of blocks away. I was taken with the upcycled sweater mittens crafted by this vendor:
Alas, she'd sold out of my mitten size; she's standing by men's mittens. I tried one pair on and found them to very warm and soft. I liked how she combined different sweaters to create each pair, and she even had the cuffs of men's blazers repurposed as mitten cuffs. Her prices were good too. She and her husband were very nice and I felt bad that I couldn't buy anything from her. If I recall correctly, this was her first craft show, and I hope it went well for her. I wish her luck in her future endeavors!
Would you believe I didn't even get this talented crafter's name? However, I did pick up one of her business cards, and learned that her business is called Recycwool Mitten Co. If you'd like more info, go here.
From Mifflinburg, we headed toward Williamsport. Along the way, we stopped at one of our favorite candy stores, Purity. I'd blogged about seeing their candy canes being made last year in this post.
I was content this year with just going to the store to buy more candy canes without seeing them being made first (some viewing sessions had already taken place that day). Like the Christkindl Market, it's a fun but very crowded event. And without the hordes there, I was free to take some pics:
Employees busy behind the scenes, with trays of chocolates and a large chocolate Santa in front of them.
A cute chocolate cottage.
And for the white chocolate fans:
I'm not a fan of snow, but I'd make an exception for these snowmen!
Once in Williamsport, we ate at my favorite restaurant there, Boom City Brewing. I don't care for beer, but I like the cozy atmosphere and good food served up there.
We went to bed with the hopes of going for a hike the next day, but unfortunately the weather gods, who usually smile on us, didn't cooperate. We were stuck with an all-day rain, which meant no outdoor activities. So instead we decided to visit the Woolrich outlet store, which was a short distance away.
And where is the Woolrich outlet store located? Why, in the small community of Woolrich,PA, of course. Here is the festive scene outside the shop:
Once upon a time, the Woolrich store had a nice selection of their various fabrics, sold by the yard, and I think they had some sewing patterns and notions too. Now there is just a very small section of fabrics - perhaps the better to make room for the gift shop-type offerings we saw. But a big selection of Woolrich brand clothes are available, of course. I tried on a corduroy shirt from a sales rack, but it didn't fit right, so no purchase. (My husband did buy one of their knit hats.) Still, it's a fun place to poke around and even in rainy weather, a pleasant drive from Williamsport.
We left Williamsport the next day and began the trek west to return home. Stopped in the Cleveland area for the night. The hotel we stayed at was so uncrowded, we got stellar service from the breakfast bar employees the next morning. They came around with refills of coffee, asked us if we needed anything - all the niceties they don't always have time to do. My husband has often commented that Christmastime is a good time to travel. There's usually few business travelers, and I guess enough people stay with relatives for the holidays that they're not in hotels either. So you end up with lower-priced room rates and excellent service from the bored staff!
From Cleveland we journeyed to the Cincinnati area to visit Jungle Jim's in suburban Fairfield. It's undoubtedly one of the largest grocery stores in the country and always worth a visit. And if you're an Ikea fan, then do as we do and stay at one of a cluster of hotels in nearby West Chester. (we've used the Homewood Inn there.)There's an Ikea so close by you could literally walk to it, except there's not sidewalk all the way there. But of course that means it's just a very short drive away.
The next day found us at our daughter's place in West Lafayette, IN. She'd just finished another grad school semester, so it was time to pick her and take her back to our house for Christmas.
I'll talk about our post-Christmas trip in my next post.
