Vintage Pyrex

When we were helping my parents clear out their home of 30 years, my mother offered me some vintage pyrex my grandmother had given her when she cleared out her house (possibly also of 30 years...). I loved. They were so cute and so hopelessly retro. But I was in a downsizing frame of mind because...well, because I was standing there ass deep in my parent's accumulated crap. I'm sure they've long been scooped up by someone in southern New Hampshire who frequents the Salvation Army stores.

However, there's a freebie chart which will allow me to remember what I had to pass up. Check out Hancock's House of Happy for a cross stitch pattern of vintage pyrex designs! {via craft magazine)

Back 40

Sissy and I are driving up to New Hampshire right now to see what treasures we can find in our parents' attic. You may remember the last time we did this. Or the time before that.

Anyway, nothing really to share at the moment, so I thought I'd show you what's going on in the back 40.

We've got hot peppers, squash, basil, parsley, oregano, cilantro, and eggplant. (The tomatoes live on the side of the house where I think they get a bit more sun.) We did a little experiment and put one squash right in the ground. Let's see if we can keep the pennywort off it. (It's looking a little stunted compared to the squash-in-pots, so I've been feeding it special.) The cilantro went NUTS with all the rain we were having.

Hello, beautiful! I love you, future-eggplant, I will be very respectful when I gobble you up. It will be a special recipe, I promise.

And not to be outdone, a little shot from the "mother's garden," the one our mothers helped us dig and plant. So fabulous!

I know this post was a little sillier than usual. But that is exactly how this ride whole weekend is going to be. It's our coping strategy...

Weekend Wrap-Up

We are home. We unpacked. We food shopped. We have eaten the lightest meal we've had all weekend (my mother prefers not to cook, so we've had a lot of restaurant meals). And I think we are starting to get back to normal. I love my parents, but they yell a lot. And shop a lot. And eat out a lot. And it has just interrupted my life living like them for 3 days. (On the plus side, we played a lot of Family Feud on the computer; clearly Sissy and Mom should head up the team, but the dude and I should play fast money. We rock it. In fact, the dude once reached 200 with his first four answers!) On the ride home we listened to the Onion's Our Dumb World which is wicked funny. Especially the part about New Jersey. Especially if you are sitting in traffic on the NJ Turnpike. So 6 more hours of stitching in the backseat with the dog.

Yesterday, it took us almost no time to move the last of the big stuff in the attic, so we convinced my mom to go through some of the oh, *40* boxes of Christmas ornaments. I came home with two tree skirts, some random ornaments, and a Christmas quilt. The new tree skirt is maroon with silk ribbon embroidery (probably done by Chinese prisoners) I'll take a picture of it--and the quilt--because I found the camera!--when I finish up the decorating. I also took a couple of old Christopher Radko ornaments and some Longaberger cookie molds to put on ebay, but I don't think I'm getting as much as I hoped for those. Speaking of ebay treasure, I am pretty sure that the Blythe dolls are gone. There is only a small bit of unsorted stuff left in the attic. And about 30 boxes of Christmas stuff. My sister and I each rescued a box of ornaments and my mom kept some things, but four giant boxes are going to charity. And about 2000 white lights went into the skip. I know, we should have recycled but you have to understand the enormity of the problem my mother has. Clearly, the attic was some kind of black hole for her. It's like she couldn't find her ornaments so went out and got new stuff every year. For, I don't know, the past 25 years.