Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Scare Up Some Fun!

This adorable and not so scary black cat Halloween card has such a vintage look about it even though Katherine sent it to me just last year!  I love the simple design and I have a soft spot for black cats.  I wish card manufacturers would reprint some of their vintage designs from bygone years and sell them along with their modern prints.  I bet they would have great appeal and sell like hotcakes!  I'm sure the greeting card industry appreciates my free advice ... ha ha!  At any rate, this is a great card!

Apple Tart

Mom - Early 1960s

There was a definite process ...

Sweet Potatoes & Cranberries

Me - Early 1960s

Erie Lackawanna

I took this black & white photo in high school during my photography phase.  I loved developing the photos in the dark room at school!  I don't know why I liked taking photos of trains ... I still do for that matter.  It must appeal to my inner hobo! 

Water Carrier

I don't remember the occasion for this card but judging by the handwritten inscription inside it was just a card to say hello!  Sent by my Belgian penpal Rudy back in the 1980s, he writes:

"Just to say hello.  Have a nice day.  Take care!  Much Love, Rudy"

The card itself was sold by Unicef and the design is described on the back as "Water Carrier - Bakary Dieme, Senegal.  Courtesy of the Collection of the Musee Dynamique (Dakar)"

Fresh Peach Pie

Wildflower Garden Patch - June 1999

Carmina Burana ~ O Fortuna | Carl Orff ~ André Rieu

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

My mother sent this postcard to me when they went to Disney World in Florida for a week back in the 1980s (postmarked April 16, 1985) and she writes on the back: 

"Hi Honey, Hope everything is alright with you.  The weather here hasn't been the greatest!  We had fun in the park yesterday, going to Epcot this morning.  See you Friday."

Weather aside, it sounds like a good time was had by all!

Peach Tapioca Pie

Happy Birthday to a Grade-A Dad

This birthday card was from me to my Dad in the early 1960s.  It's a great fold out card and says inside "From your little half-pint!".  My mother signed my name so I wasn't even in school yet and obviously she funded the venture ... thanks!  He would have been 89 this November ... doesn't seem possible! 

Drowsy girl!

Mom & Dad's Flower Bed - June 1999

Louis Tussaud's English Wax Museum

I picked up this booklet on our visit to Atlantic City in the mid-1970s.  As much as I loved the beach and boardwalk, this museum remains one of the highlights for me.  Being a history buff, I enjoyed every minute of it!  I did a search online to see if the museum is still open but it apparently closed shop although there are others still around in various locations. Here's a Wikipedia article on Louis Tussaud and his wax museums  ~~~~~> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Tussaud

Ziggy

It's impossible to describe how popular Ziggy was in the 1970s!  He was everywhere!!  This card was sent to my by a friend Chris during my first semester at college.  She worked with my mother and had come to visit me at Longwood shortly after my arrival.  The date inside the card is 9/9/78 and the sentiment inside the card reads " ... Hope YOU'RE having a nice day ...". 

Chris wrote:

"Surprise!  Thought you'd never hear from me, I bet.  You're almost right.  Well, I'm here at Regency Square Mall, shopping & squandering my hard-earned dollars frivilously.  You probably won't get this card until sometime next week as I don't normally carry stamps on my person while shopping.  The reason for this card - my feet are killing me!  Hope you are not suffering from "shopper's foot" - you probably are studying your books, I'm sure.  I really enjoyed the visit to Longwood, and hope to be able to see it more often; perhaps I'll come visit you one Sunday - now that I know how to get there - that is if I don't overshoot Farmville by continuing through it due to its gigantic size.  At any rate, hope that you are adjusting smoothly to college life & atmosphere, plus enjoying your studies & improving your camping skills.  Your mother is fine - We miss your phone calls.  Take care of yourself (eat breakfast!) & write once in a while. Love, Chris"

Easy Rules of Thumb, Medium White Sauce & For Great Gravy

Mom & Me at Cape Hatteras - Early 1960s

Tree Ripened Peaches! - 2012

The Wednesday Dance

O'Neill's Card and Candle

Obviously this little plastic calendar card came from O'Neill's Card and Candle shop at Cloverleaf Mall in 1975.  That small shopping mall was so popular in the 1970s but sadly was abandoned over the ensuing decades for larger malls in the surrounding area.  I wonder if anyone else still has their 1975 wallet calendar? 

Buckingham Branch - Keysville, Virginia

Betty Bunny

Betty Bunny was sent to me in the early 1960s by my grandfather and step-grandmother Mildred and the card is still as embossed and glossy as it was at that time.  The verse inside the card reads:

"Betty Bunny's all dressed up and what she comes to do is bring this happy birthday wish Granddaughter, just for you!"

She's a cutie!!

Napping in a sunbeam - July 2012

Rhubarb Custard Pie

Mom & me - early 1960s

Early morning in cow pasture - June 2012

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy birthday wishes to my beautiful mother who turns 80 years old on July 17th! 

What's your Italian name? Mine is Annunziata Rizzo !

Your Italian Name Is: Annunziata Rizzo

Ciao!

What's Your Italian Name?

Blogthings: If Quizzes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Take Quizzes

Happy Birthday, Young Lady

This adorable fold out birthday card was sent to me in the 1960s by the Kilpatricks who lived one street over from us.  They were an older couple and I loved visiting them.  Her name was Minnie and her husband was called "The Colonel" and was in fact a retired military colonel.  The card is signed "Minnie & The Col. & me too".  The "me too" part referred to their little chihuahua Mike.  Needless to say, I was crazy about him and I like to think he enjoyed my visits too ... after all, he did send birthday greetings!  The duck's bow on the front of the card is ribbon and still firmly attached to the card.  This American Greetings card has a great whimsical design and was a good bargain for 25 cents!

Happy July 4th!

Happy Fourth of July!!



Date Bars

Clematis - May 2012

The Spirit of '76

This is one of my favorite photographs!  My grandmother is on the far right with the flute, her best friend Mae Grubbs is on the far left with the drum and the girl in the middle holding the flag is noted as being M.D..  The photo was taken in 1926 when my grandmother was in boarding school at St. Mildred's Academy in Laurel, Maryland.  She notes on the back of the photo that it was taken on June 9th, 1926 when she was 15 years & 6 months old.  The girls were doing their own patriotic version of the famous "Spirit of '76" painting depicting the American soldiers of the revolution.  I treasure it!

The mail's here ...

So True!

Thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.  

E.E. Cummings 

Australian Finches

This pretty notecard was sent to me at college in 1980 by Mildred (my step-grandmother).  She dated it "Wed. Oct. 1st" and writes inside:

"Here I am on a very rainy miserable day scratching a little note to you to say hi and hope the weather is better there.  I know we needed rain real bad but I think we had enough for now?  Well, it sure was a welcome to the farmers and rivers that ran dry and what all.  I might have told you about a little white mama cat who has litter after litter and didn't belong to anyone although I have been feeding her and her three little children?  I finally was able to take her to my house and have gotten her to the vets along with her little white female kitten who got real sick outdoors one rainy night.  I'm going to have them both spayed.  Mama cat is pregnant again and got real big although Dr. Johns said he could operate on her.  This would have been her fifth litter and she is so small and helpless.  I had tried for about a year to take her but she was so wild.  I also have her two sons in my house.  One is yellow style and the other is white with big patches of gray stripe and a striped tail.  Well, so much for the new addition.  Hoping you can find some use for this little check.  I remain with love always, Mildred"

Oh we would definitely have found a use for the check no matter how much it was worth!  Mildred was a very kind woman and she loved cats as is obvious from her note.  Mama cat was lucky to have crossed paths with her! 

Coconut Fingers

Dad - early 1960s

This photo of my Dad was taken in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains sometime in the early 1960s.  What a great guy!  My mother made the comment the other day that if she had to use one word to sum up my father it would be "fun".  And she's absolutely right ... he was fun to be around and as good natured as they come.  We think of him every day and miss him terribly. 

Happy Father's Day!!

So True!

It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Brickle Crunch Cookies

Me - mid 1960s

Muddy Lily after chasing frogs in the pond - April 2012

Petunia - April 2012

What we say to dogs ...