Thrift bounty!!!

February has been a really good month for thrifting! I seem to be at the right place and the right time....And since I opened my little shop on Etsy, I figured I can buy all the things I had no place for and sell them!!!

I found the syrup pitcher at a community thrift shop and also the Old Town blue cups. Speaking of the cups....I couldn't really look at them because they were tapped together in a pack of four, so when I got home I saw that I had 3 cups with the design and a plain white one! I was a bit pissed off! But what the....Maybe some good soul will adopt them.....LOL


The divided snack dish came from the Salvation army and required a lot of elbow grease.....It was so dirty, and even showed signs of cigarette burns! But with a good soaking and scrubbing, it came out just like new!

I just fell in love with the turquoise salad servers(also from the Salvation Army)....They were so vintage! And really clean....And I'm happy to report that they found a good home!!!

Last pale blue piece, still from the Salvation Army, is what I call a candy dish.....It could be used for a vase, a planter, a catchall.
I just find the shape delightful....I would keep everything....but it has been made clear that we need room! LOL



I sure hope the rest of the month will bring me plenty of finds and that March will be even better!

Pyrex has been scarce lately.....And either the piece is too expensive or in really bad shape....

I have been hunting for some Fry Glass pieces, for my Dad and so far I have found a very nice casserole with lid and craddle and 2 custard cups.But that is for another post......

Happy hunting!

Re-arranging

I do have a lot of Pyrex....but never too much! And I realized that I don't really use it in sets ( Even if I make the bowl set rotation in the kitchen...like a set du jour, or more a set du mois-I try to change the bowl set every month-not always working!!!)

I realized that I use my bowls in sizes: I cut ingredients for a recipe, I pull out a lot of small 501 bowls, bigger recipe bigger bowls (you get the picture? I'm sure you do!) So I decided to re-arrange my big armoire to feature all the 501s together, all the little casseroles....So far I have done only one shelf, but so far so good! Not working outside the house is pretty exhausting! LOL

And let's face it boys and girls I will have to start looking for work pretty soon :(

But I digress....

And thank you for asking I do feel better! lol

And I have finished season 2 of Angel...On to season 3!!!

I promise not to stuff myself with mindless tv. I will watch it in small doses (Only one or 2 episodes daily!!!)

Actually I have no idea if I'll be able to manage that....chukles...Is there a TV anonymous???? Or an internet anonymous???

Don't you just love the color of Pyrex? It still makes my heart sing!

But the collection takes a lot of place....Why, oh why didn't I fall in love with stamps.....coins???? something light and small???

Probably because I am so visual and the Pyrex colors and the patterns.... A true JOY for my color starved eyes.....Spring oh spring were art thou?

Ok my shakesperian spelling leaves something to be desired! Like all of you are so perfect!!!

LOL kidding,kidding of course you know I'm kidding....

Well folks, be good ,eat your veggies and above all be kind to your neighbors
(You never know they might have some Pyrex.....lol)

Sick as a dog....

It all started innocently enough....a runny nose ,an itchy eye (which can be interpreted as allergy symptoms that I have most days anyways...). I took echinacea just in case....Well Sunday morning it was here fo'sure the HEAD COLD!!! I bought Cold FX which will boost your imunity and send the cold packing or reduce it's duration. I still felt good enough to have lunch with Dad (Delicious,delicious Chinatown) and we went to see a play after (I just love the matinee). The hard part was not blowing my nose when the actress was talking! Dan laughed sooo hard it made me laugh as well.Besides the cold, we really had a cool day and I am very glad and grateful Dad invited us!!!

By Sunday night I was a wreck...I ate a bowl of cereal and went to bed at 8!

When I'm sick I sleep (a lot) and when I'm awake I indulge in DVDs.....This time I'm having an Angel festival....I watched them all when they were on but to watched them back to back is really fun! Even if I wanted to do other things I couldn't...I'm totally helpless when sick totally, I can't cook, I can't surf the net, I can't think so I might as well stuff myself with DVDs!

And when I'm sleeping I have little kitties like Yoda above keeping me warm and secure....

I have to go, I can't sit up at the computer for long my back hurts...LOL

Thank God it's only a head cold.....

Friday the 13th

I don't know where that tradition (or superstition) came from but for about the last 10 years I have been having at least 1 pancake or crepe on every friday th 13th.

Legend has it that if you eat a pancake on friday the 13th you will have enough money throughout the year to pay the bills.

So what's not to love about that?

The bills get paid and you get to enjoy a delicious piece of carb heaven....with butter and maple syrup not table syrup or pole syrup(telephone pole syrup!). Boy do I love pancakes!

Not a lot of pancakes have crossed my hungry lips since I have been following the writings of Master Weight Watchers, but after a loss of 13 pounds it is well worth it and I will truly savour this splurge.

I have been encouraging all my friends to follow this delicious tradition but since most of your work friends just vanish when you loose your job (It's not just my job to call you people), I decided to write a post about it and spread the word!

So have yourself a couple of pancakes or crepes suzettes or flapjacks as long as it is round it will do the trick!!!

Ahhhhhh! Cornwall!

Yesterday I left you just after the Canadian customs ( Did I mention that we had to pay 3$ U.S each way to cross a very tired bridge???) We were back in Cornwall and famished the soup was long gone!!! I'm not really a fast food person but once in a while a Harvey's burger tickles my fancy!!! I included a picture of their (now retro!) red and yellow decor.....Then a quick stop the the Value Village to find a cute Pyrex Woodlands casserole no 471 (my favorite size...) and monday was a 50% off day so that little beauty was a true find for 1.49$. My favorite street in Cornwall is Pitt st. A street that time forgot but still with some life: A couple of diners, a couple of bars, some nice gift stores, a bakery. And it has a real retro feel. On a cross street I spotted a thrift store where I found some treasures for my Etsy boutique....The blue and green ashtray, the Pyrex sygarbowl and the nice decanter will make nice additions to my existing inventory.

Or last stop was Riley's bakery (I took a picture of their window but it didn't turned out nice). I had never been there because it closes at 1 PM saturdays so I threw myself in and ordered a bread and 2 little individual tarts: Almond and Butter Pecan.....Both were inhaled after supper and one thing is for sure.....I will come earlier on saturdays to buy more of those Almond tarts....OMG!

So as you can see the day finished on a high note and maybe Dorothy had it right when she said " There's no place like home...."

Hummmm Massena....

We should've known something was wrong when the U.S. customs officer said: Why you wanna go to Massena? LOL??? Euh....we are curious...we often go to Cornwall and we wanted to know what was on the other side of the bridge....

Well not very much it turns out! We saw a mall- you've seen a Walmart you've seen them all(and besides I was so NOT in the big box store mode!), I was in the quaint little village shop mode.....And the thrift mode....

I was all excited to find a St-Vincent de Paul store in the internet, so it was our first stop. It was as sad as the one in Verdun except that they give food to the needy (In Verdun you have to buy the stale bread and the expired cereal....). We parked the car after that, and nature called so we had to find a place for a pit stop. Road trip tip: I find that hotels have great restrooms and nobody looks at you funny!

Then I needed a coffee real bad and some food like biscotti or a piece of pie. I saw a delightful looking gift/coffee shop called Seasons. Great house, great gifts...They did have Green Mountain Coffee (Love the GMC!!!) but no food.....Disappointment! We had to avoid hypoglycemia at all costs!!! We had spotted a diner named Via Main so we popped by for some great chicken and rice soup. We didn't want to do the lunch thing right now and to tell you the truth Guy Fieri has spoiled me with Diners,Drive-ins and Dives because I have fantasies about these diners!!!

I tell you NO LIES ,there was nothing interesting on Main street even the Rite Aid pharmacy was just OK (I did find what I was looking for : Seabreeze facial astringent). So we got back to the car and on to the next stop (Another internet find) The Bargain Center!

Ok that was more like it! Like a ginormous garage sale....Tons of cool stuff at reasonnable prices! Dan got on of those wooden yellow yard rulers and I found a Corelle saucer for the kitties for a quarter. The down side of having a growing Pyrex collection is that most of what you find you already have it :( They was quite a bit of Pyrex : Verde casseroles( I have), Butterfly Gold bowls (I have), Butterprint bowls(I have), Snack server (it has been promised to me by my friend Celine).....The only one I didn't have was a promotional casserole Golden Pine 1961....3 dollars oh my!!! But deception....there was a big chip on the side so I left it. But the Bargain Center (545 S Main) is definitely a good spot for thrifting in Massena .

I just love that ying yang snack set with the rack! And what about that doll! How wonderfully tacky is it??? LOL

At 1 PM we had recrossed the bridge and at the Canadian custom the agent asked us where we had been....we went to Massena and she said "What for?" we were curious. "did you buy something?" Yes a giant ruler, a bottle of face toner and a saucer for the cats. She just laughed and wished us a nice day!!! We were glad to be back in Cornwall.....But that is for another post! LOL

Just ONE word....

ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come back tomorrow to read all the details!

Blood orange marmalade

First of all I want to write that last friday I made pulled pork in the slow cooker for the first time and it was AWSOME!!!

The first picture is of leftovers coleslaw and pulled pork. I had made some biscuits but we ate them all....That recipe is definitely going into the 'do it again' file!!!

Last week when I saw my dad, he was his usual generous self and gave me at least 10 pounds of blood oranges! I like blood oranges but with such a huge quantity I didn't want any to go to waste....So I searched the net for some recipes and I found a blood orange marmalade recipe that i decided to try. The recipe says to prepared 6 jars....what kind of jars did they want coz' I was only able to fill 4!!! I used the regular jam jar (1/2 cup).....That pissed me off!!! On the plus side it looks really good!
I included pictures of the process. I initially decide to cut the oranges with my el cheapo mandoline but I reduced the hald orange to pulp....So I used my trusty santoku knife (it's a farberware nothing expensive or fancy but a really good knife!)

The recipe just said to pour the hot marmalade into the prepared jars screw the lid on tight and inverse them. After to keep them in the fridge....I don't have place in my fridge :(

And I am really paranoid about bacteria in my canning, so I decided to process my jars 10 minute in boiling water. Can someone tell me how come I alway have renegade lids that don't snap???? 3 lids snapped and the other one not, so that is why in the last picture I inverted the jar- It helps with the snapping! If nothing happens ,that one will go in the fridge....