A Day At The Swap Meet

This weekend I was tricked into going to a swap meet....a car and car parts swap meet!  Now I appreciate my car and the fact that it gets me where I need to go...but...as I honestly rudely said to my sister on the phone when we were talking about this "I don't want to spend a whole day looking at car parts!"

Well, I will now have to admit that I enjoyed my day looking at car parts!  First of all there was the company, my sister and her hubby, who are always fun to be with.  Then there were a few things other than car parts to look at not many, but well I did see a dragon...

and who knew that alternators can actually be sort of well...pretty...

I have a new fascination now...old grills...

when I have my Brick and Mortar one day I am going to use some of these for displays!

For some reason I felt I needed to purchase these...

but I resisted - at least until I come up with an idea of what to do with them!

Even steering wheels look good when there are a lot of them in cool colours...

these inside your tire, wheelie, round....well I don't know what these are, but they look good too!

There was lots of old stuff and I love old stuff...so that was fun...

I saw some creativity...

some great signs...

Another use for those old grills!

and tons of people...all with something in common...

the art of restoring, rebuilding, reinventing.....

it took some smarts to figure out how to haul all this home...

and the dedication, knowledge, time, and sweat involved in creating something like this just amazes me...

so from screws and bolts...to...

copper weather vanes...I would have to say I had a great day!

xoxo        Elizabeth

Hey Red!

My youngest girlie has always known what look is best for her...it started when she was about 3 or 4.
Lane decided that she wanted her long hair cut short.  In my infinite wisdom as a mother I was sure that she was biting off more than she really wanted to chew.  Cut off all that beautiful hair...she must not really understand what she is asking.  So....I made her wait... and wait... and wait!  A year later when she was still asking I finally gave in - and I learned a lesson.  Lane knows what looks good on Lane!  Her hair cut was adorable!

So recently when Lane asked if she could put some colour in her hair I said "Of course!  What do you think you want to do?" ( I am trainable!)

Lane put some thought into it...maybe a bit of blue...maybe some green...and ultimately decided that with her current hair cut all red was the answer.  So she asked her Auntie Colleen for some help and off we all went to Sally's for some red hair colour!

It's a messy process...

and takes lots of patience...

but we had a good time!

First it was red, then it turned a bright pink....

and then (Whew!) back to red!

Now...time for a hair cut...

and then - Voila! - from brunette to......

red-head! 

What a beauty if I do say so myself!

And Lane is off and running..well walking - towards life as a red-head!

Great choice Lane!

xoxo       Elizabeth the wanna be red-head!

Some Italian Yumminess...

During our Christmas break we decided to make some favorite foods...we love gnocchi and ravioli and we used to make them with my mom on special occasions.

First I started a pot of sauce so that it could simmer up while we made our doughs and shaped our goodies.

Next a few potatoes for our gnocchi...to be truthful I got carried away and we now have enough gnocchi dough in the freezer to feed all of Rhode Island!!!

We made long rolls of our gnocchi dough and then...

Voila! Little gnocchis...I, myself, was not very good at this...it seems I just don't have the knack for gnocchi! 

Next came the ravioli...we even did it the old fashioned way without a pasta machine!

Not bad, huh?

It was a great day of cooking and memories of making all of these treats with Mom.

Thank you Mom for teaching us all this good stuff!  I love you,


xoxo     Elizabeth Anne