I am a cautionary tale

Another favorite quote...

Today I spent the afternoon with a friend thrift store shopping. It was nice to get out of the house for a bit. And to spend a little money ;-)

Diversity Thrift is one my favorites. Today I hit the jackpot in the book room. I'll tell you about that a little furthur down...

I really, really, really wanted one of these pink chairs but I'm not allowing myself to buy any more furniture, no matter how inexpensive it is, until I organize what I've already got. There'll be more chairs one day.

No, I didn't buy mens shoes but I liked how they looked with the mirror.

I did buy this planter though. I'm a sucker for birds and especially swans. Had to have it.

So here is where my book jackpot begins. I noticed a box mixed in with the books. When I picked it up I discovered that inside of the box were several old travel guides. There were two of these boxes so I grabbed them both. And then when one of the guys working at the thrift store saw me with them he asked "do you want some more of those? I have three more sets in the back that I was going to throw out." And of course I answered "yes!". All in all between the five sets there are "tour guides" for ecuador, england, russia, the philippine islands, nigeria, hungary/bulgaria & rumania, the arabian peninsula, italy, france,venezuela, the lesser antilles, south africa, australia, brazil, switzerland, finland, bolivia, new zealand,  germany, central america, yugoslavia, spain, ceylon (where the heck was ceylon and what is it now?), holland and jamaica.They're called the American Geographical Society Around the World Program and according to the paperwork enclosed with some of the books each "tour guide" came on a monthly basis and was "fun for the whole family". For $10 for the whole lot I could not pass these up!

I also got an old German composition and conversation text book from 1931 that I'm going to make some sort of altered book out of. And as a bonus when I got it home and opened it I found, folded inside, a two page typewritten college assignment dated may 31st, 1938. Pretty cool!

And finally, I also got a Readers Digest Garden Encyclopedia with all kinds of drawings from 1969 and a bunch of old sheet music for just 25 cents apeice. I have tons of things to play with now.

Of course when I got home from all of this excitement it was time to take Oliver out and about. He is doing so much better on his walks now. I'll just be glad when it cools down. It was back up to 90 something today but is supposed to drop to highs in 60s and 70s in a few days. I can't wait.

 milkweed pods

 I  want an arbor and gate like this.  I'm  putting a picket fence around my front yard sometime soon and when I do I'm going to do this too.

 This is one of the biggest trees that I have ever seen. I was glad to see that it survived the storm intact.

 Half of a fairy ring. If it had been a whole one Oliver and I would have stepped inside to see what would happen.

 

 This old door was in someones trash. The door was shot but the ceramic doorknob and old lock are great, I wish I had a screwdriver on my walk...

 This statue is actually in my yard so this is cheating a little I guess ;-)

 Todays photos with  the droid...effect - vignette

frame - grungy, instant transfer 2

wolves may lurk in every guise

I saw this quote on an etsy page and loved it right away. Its from Little Red Riding Hood. I doodled this while watching a few episodes of House last night. I'm on season 5 now. What will I do when I've watched them all? I'm going to have to find another series to keep me entertained I suppose.

I think I'll do something with some more quotes maybe and take Laura's suggestion and try my hand at making cards. Maybe if I start now I can come up with something for Christmas... We'll see.

    

Oliver and I walked in the "other" part of my neighborhood tonight. There is a street, Bellevue, which intersects my neighborhood in half. I've always thought of one side as the fun side and the other side as the practical side. The fun side has houses of all different colors, cottages, big porches and a more artistic feel. I live on the fun side by the way :) The practical side is made up of almost entirely brick houses, no colors to speak of and a more uniform look. I used to live on the practical side years ago and didn't like it so much. It's nice, don't get me wrong, but just not as fun.  But I thought tonight I'd give the practical side a chance and see if the alleys were more interesting than the streets. We didn't find much.  So tomorrow it'll be back to the fun alleyways again.

And oh yeah, almost forgot, todays pictures from the droid...effect : vintage/colourised

frame : grungy/instant transfer 2.

Tomorrow...maybe SX70...

The back of the dry cleaners in one of the two neighborhood shopping streets. I like how every single thing is painted. Except for where there used to be a spicket.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to be but it did seem to make good use of an old tea pot, reflectors and a hub cap.

Ok, so this is not in an alley but on the way to the alley. We cheated a little.

The store front of the local florist. I'm old enough to actually remember tvs like this at my grandparents house.

Another store front. A very friendly cat that was very interested in Oliver. He was not interested in her at all.

If you have 10K to spare this baby could be yours. 

One of these days hopefully I'll be able to get a decent picture of Oliver facing the camera.

pictures and books but not picture books

     Yesterdays walk with Oliver was pretty uneventful and today I am giving myself the day off to be lazy.

I do an excellent job at being lazy. It's just so much fun. Internet, DVDs, book to read...what more could you ask for?  And speaking of reading...if you're in the market for a book to read scroll down past the photos where I talk about what I'm reading right now. I am hooked!

     For yesterdays visual documentation I used the toy camera effect on my droid again but this time I chose cross process for the film type. And I switched up the frame and used one from the grungy set, instant transfer 1. I'm having fun seeing how the different options are turning out. I think tomorrow I will try colourised...

     In June I bought a nook from Barnes and Noble. The  color nook at that. Now, it took alot of pride swallowing for me to do this. I've been saying for ages that I'll never, ever, ever be an e-reader, that I like actual books way too much to do that. But... I did alot of rationalizing to myself..."I'm going on a trip and it'd be so much easier to take this than a few paperbacks to read", "it has internet access so I can check my e-mail, facebook, etc, etc", "I can play sudoku on it!" and in the end I got it. And I love it! LOVE it! Since June I have read an average of a book a week. Some good, some not so good. But the one that I'm reading now has me hooked. For the last two nights I have told myself "just one more chapter" to the point where I haven't gone to sleep until 5 in the morning! The name of the book is Sister and it's by Rosamund Lupton. It's written in the form of a letter from one sister to another. The sister that the letter is to has gone missing and soon after has been found dead. Everyone seems to think that it was a suicide except for her older sister. The "letter " that she is writing is part apology, part a telling of the chain of events and part mystery as she tries to find out who killed her younger sister. And oh yeah, it's set in London. I haven't finished it yet so who knows, the ending may be a total letdown, but so far it is engrossing. If you're looking for a book to read I suggest this one.