the one that got away

On Saturday, I saw a tray like this one (below) in an antique shop. I wanted to confirm that the price was fair before I bought it so I left it in the cabinet and decided I'd come back on Sunday.

I found it online and it turns out that it's worth a LOT of money and would have been a great steal. So I ran back to the shop after lunch on Sunday and someone had bought it. Ultimate sadness.

And I know you're thinking "who cares about a stupid TV tray?" but here's why it's special: it's a Disneyland souvenir, featuring the original park map. The park has grown and changed over the years, and I have never seen a "Disneyland" TV tray before. Sure, plenty of Mickey or other Disney characters, but not one from the park. *sigh*

Luckily, I didn't leave the shop empty-handed. I found a vintage tea pot that was a Disneyland souvenier from the late 50's/early 60's. I found a picture of the full set, but so far I only have the tea pot. Isn't it so cute? It's even stained inside from some little girl having a tea party with her friends. Awww!

I also found an old dollhouse/shadow box that was in a bad state of disrepair. At one point, someone lovingly hand made this house and put in dollhouse wallpaper inside. But it looks like it's been living in the back of a garage for a decade. I scooped it up for a couple of bucks and have already re-painted it and bought new paper for the walls. I'm going to use it for a display at craft fairs. The little cardboard one that Ryan made me for last year's craft fair was the envy of every kid in town! This one is going to knock 'em over dead!! ;-)

Before the vintage shop, Kate and I went to a craft fair and I scored a Tiny Tim prayer candle (so that he will bless me in my ukulele lessons!), a brooch of Bob's Big Boy achieving enlightenment, plus a Ouija board candle for Ryan. After that, we went to Tall Mouse craft store which is deadly on your wallet. I bought several ADORABLE fat quarters of fabric and also more peg people and somehow escaped without having to sell my soul. It was an accomplishment, let me tell you!!

That evening, I got to spend the Border's gift card that my mom gave me and was able to get FIVE. NEW. BOOKS. [insert audio of angels singing] and then we met up with Ryan to go see Up in 3D. Up was just as sweet and cute and funny and sad as everyone said. I just wish that people could admit that cartoons don't have to be for kids. The theater was packed (seriously, every seat was taken) full of kids, most of whom seemed pretty bored or were crying and squirming. It's a very touching story of an old man living his life's dream before it's too late. Clearly written for an older audience (I feel the same way about Wall-E and Cars). But it was very sweet and silly and the kid (Russell) adds great comic relief. I laughed, I cried, I ate Whoppers. It was a great night.

Afterward, Ryan was in a hurry to get back to work, so he suggested that we grab a quick cup of tea and debrief about the movie... which, of course, turned into at least 2 more hours of chit-chat (interrupted once by a guy in a bowling pin costume - you can't make this stuff up!) during which I told a bunch of embarrassing stories about myself (sorry Kate!).

Needless to say, it was a fantastic day and I was exhausted when we got home.

Country Fair

If you've ever heard of the small canyon where my family lives, it's because it catches on fire every year and last year's fire grew into an enormous beast that ate a good chunk of southern California. Otherwise, if you live more than 7 miles away, you most likely don't know the place exists. It's a rural spot on the edge of the forest that began as a silver mining town and is a haven admist the city life found everywhere else in Orange County for those people who don't take kindly to "city life." Which is to say, there are a bunch of bikers and weirdoes and the occassional city slicker who "wants to get away from it all." I have a whole bucket full of opinions on the place, but my family claims to love it there, and so they are involved with the community there and my mom in particular likes to do the social gathering stuff like the annual Country Fair.

So. We again got a booth at the Fair and set out our crafty wares. It was fun and pretty profitable (although, any craft seller will tell you that Fairs are dangerous because you spend 50% of your profits on roasted corn and bake sale brownies). I had a fan, which was super cool. I made some finger puppets and some needle felted animals and this little guy (who later told me he's 4 and a half) had all kinds of suggestions for what I should make next and how I should give them to him for free, since he thought of it. He was so cute and cracked me up with all his encouragement. I made a special SpongeBob finger puppet for him, at his request, and he kept leaning on my arm and cooing "you're REALLY good at this. You're doing a super good job." and when I said Thank You, he instructed me "No, you should say Super Thank You." So funny, this guy. He even let it slide when I made SpongeBob's pants blue instead of brown. "You know what? That's ok. I like blue. It's my favorite color even! So I'll just tell people that I asked you for blue pants."

The newspaper assigned a new beat reporter and the guy was a little overenthusisatic about his job. He was having such a sporting time gawking at the hillbillies and eating fried Oreos and he kept pestering me for a picture for his article. I paused for one second and he sprung into action.



So here's me, with all my chins, wearing an itsy-bitsy cowboy hat. I pray that it didn't make the print edition. (There are 185 pictures posted for the online version. Read here.)

The number one draw for kids to our booth was this little cardboard house that I used to display the needle felted animals.



I needed some way to set them out and Ryan found this box in the garage and turned it inside out and it formed itself into a 2 story house. I laid down some felt carpet and viola! Every kid in the place stopped by once, or twice, or thrice, to look at it. I had more inquiries about the house than the inhabitants and everyone wanted to know how much it cost. My mom was infatuated with my little Fan and kept egging me to give it to him. Which I wouldn't have minded giving it away for free (it says PETMEDS inside, for criminy's sake!) except it was slapped together haphazardly and was actually kind of delicate. The little toothpick window frames were just set in there (no glue or tape) and the roof had two simple pieces of masking tape holding it on. I was mostly worried that some poor kiddie would be majorly disappointed. Lay hands on the cardboard house of his/her dreams and then it would crumble. Or, worse, stab somebody with errant toothpicks.

On Sunday, I left the fair just before closing because I was bushed and my stepdad had already shown up to start help disassembling (I wasn't needed anymore) and my mom held on to the house "in case someone wants to buy something at the last minute" which I assume is code for "in case your fan comes by again, I can give it to him." I just hope it held up so that SpongeBob had someplace to live until he can get back to his underwater pineapple fortress.

rock & roll: SoCal style

Yes, we had another earthquake today. As you can see, they happen all the time. Most of them are too small or deep in the ground to actually feel. But around 11:45 this morning, there was a biggun that was 5.8 magnitude and it was about 30 miles from my house. So it was nice and shaky here for a few seconds. I'm going to guess between 10 and 15 seconds long. The lamps swung, the cats woke up, but that was it for us. We haven't felt any of the aftershocks or anything, so I'm hoping that it's going to be calm the rest of the day.

It's funny how when I have traveled to the Midwest or East Coast how people will immediately say "California? How can you live there? Oh no, too many earthquakes for me thankyouverymuch!" which is amusing because yeah, we have earthquakes and they're unpredictable, but I seriously don't think I have actually felt one since... hm... maybe 2002? And it was the same deal. 15 seconds of shaking and then it was done. Most of the 'daily' quakes are under 2 points on the Richter scale, which essentially means that if you were blinking your eyes when it happened, you probably didn't feel it. Whereas the Midwest gets crazy tornadoes and flooding and the East Coast gets winter weather like you've never seen. And all of that lasts for days and weeks and months. And as of this post (an hour post-quake) there have been no reports of damage or injuries and the only inconvenience was a temporary (approx. 5 mins) loss of cell phone service for Verizon customers (which I am not). So, yeah, I think 15 seconds of 'whoa' every few years is a fair trade.

*update* 2:30pm: My aunt heard a strange noise in her house and called her husband home from work - thinking the hissing was a leaking pipe or gas line. He rushed home and they located the sound in a closet. It was a board game with a wind-up timer that must have shifted. He literally lifted the box and it dinged. So, in fairness, there was some damage done to my family's sanity and also a board game shifted on a shelf.