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There is an extraordinary flea market held every weekend at the Fairgrounds in Raleigh. Vendors, antique dealers and junk peddlers from all over the country come to sell their wares at the outdoor venue. We've been going to the flea market periodically for years. The ornate iron pieces framing a large picture in our kitchen came from a woman who calls herself the "Iron Maiden" and travels all over country rescuing gorgeous iron from deteriorating old buildings. We've purchased bamboo wind chimes, bits of jewelry, skeleton keys, old postcards, stained glass and, my favorite find, the elusive monkey coconut.
Last weekend, we visited the flea market again. My husband found an antique chef's tasting spoon, I found an adorable miniature porcelain doggie and, after careful consideration of many tables, my daughter decided on an antique tin ray gun (just like the movies!) It was amusing to listen to the conversations among the vendors: one asked another to look for a certain type of knife with a particular stamp on it, one called to a rather large man named "Tiny" and said he saw a friend of his at a show in Texas, yet another couple argued over the purchase of an antique toy ("I told you not to spend that much on it - we'll never sell the dang thing.")
My husband bought some of his favorite boiled peanuts to eat while we wandered. I prefer the fresh popcorn and my daughter likes the whole pickles. This time, the woman at the counter called her the "Pickle Princess."
Wandering around in the brisk January air and searching for unusual trinkets is such a relaxing Sunday activity. The NC Flea Market is a gem its own!
View more photos of flea market treasures at Sunniviews.
I am in love with Crazy Hair Day. I'm in love with any day involving "Crazy" and I wish that adults would embark on a few Crazy-Day celebrations of our own. You know, "we're never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy." Words to live by - thank you Seal!
A few weeks ago, my daughter's school held a Spirit Week. Every day the kids dressed in something different - there was Hawaiian Day, School Colors Day, Pajama Day. One of them was Crazy Hair Day.
When my daughter was in kindergarten, they also had Crazy Hair Day and we decided to do a Pippi Longstocking style with the braids sticking straight out (secured by a wire hanger fitted to the head like a headband.) Even though I love this crazy hair style and think it's totally adorable and funny, I was a little anxious about making the suggestion again. Third grade is tough and kids can be so cruel to each other, I didn't want to make my daughter a target for any more playground harassment than is already found.
I already have a mountain of guilt from kindergarten Book Character Day when I came up with the brilliant idea of putting together a Babushka's Doll costume (our favorite book at the time), which, again, was totally cute-adorable-unique-creative, but so different from the hordes of princesses roaming the school, that the 5th graders made some sneering comments about it and my poor, sweet, baby of a Babushka's Doll wouldn't smile all day long and looked like she was just about to cry. Ok - rip my heart out and hang it up to dry - I was not about to subject her to THAT again. (Needless to say, for First Grade Book Character Day, she decided on a more mainstream Angelina Ballerina costume.)
So, when she brought up the Pippi Braids, I wasn't so sure. I think I said "are you sure?" about a million times (okay maybe just five or six) but she was positive. So, we pulled a hanger out of the closet and went to work. Oh my goodness, how fabulous they turned out. She made them even more outrageous by asking for a little spiral. They were great!
But, walking into school was a different story, so I decided to go with her just in case we encountered any hecklers along the way. Luckily the teachers and kids embraced her with big smiles and exclamations of delight. I could tell her anxiety was easing away and when we arrived at her classroom, her fabulous teacher grinned, patted her on the head and said "Oh, Maddie, you're just like me." That was enough to send her soaring to a plateau of complete confidence and I knew she'd be fine.
Honestly, though, I have to give credit where credit is due for the Pippi Longstocking braid style. It all started abut 15 years ago in Key West where a few of my former fellow Hog's Breath waitresses and I decided to have a "Braidstock" night where we braided the hair of all the patrons in addition to our own. The Larry Baeder Band was playing that night and Larry showed up with his long hair in two graceful braids sticking straight out from his head. If he only knew that his hairstyle would be an inspiration to young girls on the Crazy Hair Day of elementary schools everywhere! Thank you Larry!
May the crazy braid live on!
At a thrift store recently, I found the funniest little book that I gave to my mom for her birthday. It's called the Ladies' Indispensable Assistant. Actually, the full title is quite long-winded:
Ladies' Indispensable Assistant being a companion for the Sister, Mother, and Wife. Containing more information for the price than any other upon the subject. Here are the very best directions for the Behavior and Etiquette of Ladies and Gentlemen, Ladies' Toilette Table, Directions for Managing Canary Birds, also, Safe Directions for the Management of Children; Instructions for Ladies' Under Various Circumstances, A Great Variety of Valuable Recipes, forming a complete system of Family Medicine. Thus enabling each person to become his or her own Physician: to which is added one of the best systems of COOKERY ever published; these recipes are entirely new and should be in the possession of every person in the land. Published 1852.
Pretty lofty claims if you ask me, but I was hooked! The first few pages were quite interesting. For instance, here is the instruction for Treatment of Children:
It is of great importance that mothers should understand the management of their offspring. It should not be handled but kept as quiet as possible.
Well, that's interesting. On the subject of Medicine:
Never give medicine to a very young child. Many have thus lost darling children. It will, if not murdered, be permanently injured.
Oh, my. Well, I continued to leaf through the pages and was shocked to see that there was a remedy for Cancer! Can you believe it? Here it is:
Boil down the inner bark of white and red oak to the consistency of molasses; apply as a plaster, shifting it once a week; or, Take garget berries and leaves of stramonium; simmer together, in equal parts of neat's foot oil and the tops of hemlock; at the same time, make a tea of wintergreen, add 2 ounces of sulphur of brimstone and drink freely during the day.
Hmmm. Sounds like witchcraft to me - hemlock? brimstone? Didn't I hear about that in a fairytale once? I turned to the remedy for Deafness, which I'm sure the prestigious medical community of today will be quite amazed to learn of:
Take ant's eggs and onion juice, mix and drop into the ear; or, drop into the ear at night six or eight drops of warm chamber lye.
Warm chamber lye? Yes, I had to look that up - definition: Urine. Aha. Well, perhaps it's not the cure of the century after all! Is it any wonder that in the 1800's only 1/2 of all children lived to the age of eight and the average life expectancy was 37? My goodness, let's read on!
If your child is suffering from Fits, then you need to:
Put them into warm baths, ... take them out after a little time and put strong mustard plasters on the soles of their feet and ice water on the head. If the fit has been cause by something eaten, give ... ipecac; vomitting will throw all the medicine up so that the child will not be injured. If the fit arises from other causes, half a tablespoon full of epsom salts disolved in a 1/4 glass of water.
For snake bites:
Apply juice of onions mixed with fine salt; or, apply Spanish flies until a blister is raised.
And, my favorite... for "Nervous Affections - Sick Headache":
Take 3 drops of nitric acid in half a tumbler of cold water.
Definition of nitric acid? A highly corrosive, poisonous liquid that gives off choking red or yellow fumes in moist air. Okay, then! That oughta cure a headache awfully quick!
There were some other interesting things in the book, including the properties of various herbs and flowers and recipes. We thought this "Quick Broth" was pretty amusing, since the term "Quick" was anything but!
Take a bone of the neck or loin of mutton, take off the fat and skin, set it on the fire in a small tin saucepan that has a cover with 3 quarters of a pint of water, meat being first beaten and cut into thin bits; put in a bit of thyme, parsley and a slice of onion. Let it boil very quick, skim it nicely; take off the cover. Half an hour is sufficient for the whole process.
I also liked the instructions for Behavior in the Street:
Ladies are not allowed upon ordinary occasions to take the arm of any one but a relative, or an accepted lover, in the street and in the daytime. The conversation of a stranger, beyond asking a necessary question, must be considered as a gross insult and repelled with proper spirit!
And these instructions for Removing Ink from Floors:
Scour with sand wet with sulphuric acid and water.
(What's with the acid?) Anyway, we had fun leafing through the book and having a good laugh! I especially liked the elaborate drawing on the inside. Fun stuff...
I thought I'd share my new monkey coconut that my sweet husband gave me for Christmas. I don't know why the monkey coconut is my new obsession. Perhaps it's because they are just downright silly. But, anything that brings a smile is fine with me.
My former monkey coconut (see Fun at the State Fair and Mystery Solved for the full story of this little guy) has a new home in New York with my sister. She loved him so much that I just had to send him to her for Christmas. His new name is Mr. Jingles!
The coconut that my husband bought was a little bland, so I decided to spruce him up. Actually, I just wanted to figure out a unique way to get the words "HAVE FUN" on him, since he apparently missed out on that little important addition. I got out the paints and things took off from there. I think the addition of the flower and flag is key!
My friend at work and I have also acquired a new monkey coconut. One of our colleagues took a cruise to the Bahamas over the holidays (lucky-duck!) She was telling us how appalled she was on the return home after viewing a receipt that she actually spent $22.00 on a drink. We said, "$22.00 - what kind of drink was it!?!" She said it was a pina colada that came in this ridiculous coconut thing. We looked at each other in excitement and asked "Did it have a monkey face on it?? Did it say HAVE FUN??" She said, yeah - it's even a bank! After we explained our monkey coconut obsession, she passed along the prized coconut with great ceremony. He also needs a little sprucing up, so I'll post more photos later.
What fun the monkey coconuts are! I've named this one Sunni-san - mascot of Sunnispace!
I just received this fantastic award from equally amazing blogger Donna at Donna's Art! Thanks, Mom! You're great!
The rule is that I must name 7 random or weird things about me. Hmmmm... let me see...
1. I have to be surrounded by lovely things that make me happy. My home is crammed with pictures, paintings, books, little inspirational things and funky doo-dads. I have something on every wall, on every surface. People walk into my house (or into my cube at work) and stop in their tracks to take it all in. (Almost like they've been hit by a truck!) I'm definitely not a minimalist!
2. Speaking books - I love them! Old, new, doesn't matter. I'm a sucker for bookstores, especially those that serve coffee and desserts.
3. I'd love to own a bookstore/gift shop - especially with my mom. We could drink coffee all day and sell books and crafts!
4. Speaking of crafts - I love them, too! I have a craft room that's loaded with all sorts of fun stuff - beads, fabric, paint, felt, paper, glue and much more. (I'm in the process of re-arranging the craft room but as soon as I'm done, I'll share photos.)
5. I meditate in my craft room for 30 minutes every morning.
6. I love the beach. I feel like my soul is restored every time I'm there. I'd like to plop my hypothetical coffee-bookstore-gift shop there.
7. I love to travel. My list of places-I'd-like-to-see include Paris, Rome, the Great Wall of China, somewhere in India, Indonesia and Spain. I'd like to take my daughter to the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls. But, anywhere is fine, I just love to go! (Also, I'm a sucker for souvenirs - I have a magnet, lapel pin and squished penny collection from almost everywhere we've been since 1997. Once day I'm going to get a big corkboard to display it... just where to put it? - hmmmm. Now that's a good question.)
That's it for me. I'd like to pass this award onto Deb at Posted From Home and Shelbi at Keeper of the Chocolates. Have fun!
All of our shopping is done (for the most part!) and we've been busy wrapping gifts this week. My husband and I decided that we would invest the money that we normally use to buy each other gifts and purchase a new camera. Since we still like to open things on Christmas day, I challenged us to buy as much as we can for each other under a budget of $15.00. After his initial shock and objection, I explained that we'd just have to work harder by scouring thrift stores to find fun and useful items!
Let me just say that from now on, the thrift stores are my top choice for gift shopping. I found the best gifts for so cheap! It was unbelievable. One day I bought nearly everything for my entire family for less than $20.00! Beautiful pottery, unique trivets, books, paintings, stuffed animals, games and clothes - it was astounding! (And really, what a great way to help environment - by purchasing things that would otherwise end up in a landfill!)
Luckily, I have a pretty creative family so we also exchange fun homemade gifts. My husband makes a herb infused olive oil every year (this year is garlic, basil and roasted shallots - yum!) My parents and sister create paintings and wooden crafts and I usually do something different every year: mosaics, jewelery, hand-bound books, eye pillows with homemade sachet potpourris. One year I made decoupaged wooden trays featuring each persons favorite things. Instead of covering it with decoupage glue, I used a thick polyresin that is durable and looks like glass!
Speaking of favorite things, my mom at Donna's Art tagged me with this fun little game: "12 Christmas Things About Me Hoopla." Here are the rules:
1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas.
2. Please refer to it as a 'hoopla' and not the dreaded 'm' - word.
3. You have to tag specific people when you're done. No "if you're reading this consider yourself tagged" stuff is allowed...because nobody actually ends up doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you, but the more the merrier to get this 'hoopla' circulating through blogosphere.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it. Lets involve as many people as possible!
5. Please give Andrea some link-love as the "Hoopla-Creator".
So, here are my 12 things:
1. I love Christmas music so much, I could listen to it for weeks on end. My favorite song (among many) is Christmas Canon by Trans-Siberian Orchestra and choirs singing Christmas music always makes me cry (unless I'm the one singing, of course...)
2. I have to have a live tree every year, would never even dream of getting a fake one, and have a soft spot for poor mis-shapen trees that are left behind.
3. We make reindeer food for Rudolph and sprinkle it on the lawn on Christmas Eve.
4. My mom bakes tons of Christmas cookies to pass out to the family, just like her mom before her. I still remember my Nanny in the kitchen with tupperware stacked to the ceiling filled with cookies. She kept track by counting them all, which was always a mystery to me!
5. My favorite cookies are lemon bars and peanut-butter kisses.
6. When I was a kid, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and sneak out to peek at the tree. I still remember the feeling of surprise and wonder at seeing all the gifts that magically appeared there. Christmas magic still surrounds the holidays for me and I try to create that for my daughter every year.
7. That's probably why I love Christmas lights that sparkle like stars in the dark...
8. And the hushed reverence of a Christmas Eve Candlelight service.
9. I love all Christmas movies I have every seen... Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and funny ones like The Christmas Story and The Ref.
10. We always have lox and bagels on Christmas morning with Bailey's in our coffee.
11. My grandparents lived close to us when we were growing up and I loved that we could have three Christmas celebrations - ours, Nanny & Pappys and Grandma & Grandpas - filled with noisy, jolly family and scrumptious Christmas meals.
12. When I was younger, I ripped through every Christmas present I got with anticipation and excitement. Now I like to linger over presents and enjoy watching the reactions of family members as they open their gifts rather than open my own (which is probably why I'm always the last one to open all my gifts.)
And so, it looks like lots of my friends have already been tagged with this game, but I will go ahead and tag Shelbi at Keeper of the Chocolates (although her latest post appears to mention wonderful things in her life about Christmas.) Only 2 more days!
A friend of mine turned me on to a new website called "Elf Yourself" (sponsored by Office Max.) You superimpose your head (family's heads, cats, dogs, frogs - the possibilities are endless!) onto these dancing elf bodies. There is a snappy, jazzy version of Jingle Bells that plays in the background along with your jiggy, little elves! Once you're finished, they give you a web link for your dancing family which you can send to friends and family. As you can see, we had fun with ours. (You'll might also notice that my daughter is not wearing sunglasses - but two pirate eye patches, one with a skull and cross-bones! If you remember, we went through a pirate phase recently. More about that here...) It's really hilarious and I think our Dasher-dog elf was the funniest!
The only issue I notice with this is that it may require a lot of memory or certain plugin because I had some friends that weren't able to bring up with website. But, I think it worked for most everyone. You can insert up to 4 faces and add a personalized voice message.
Here is the link of our dancing elves and the main link if you'd like to make one of your own! If you're not quite in the holiday spirit this year, they also offer a Scrooge Yourself which looks pretty funny. I just love holidays and all these silly internet things they offer! So much fun!
(UPDATE: Apparently you need to have the most recent version of Adobe Flash to play the video...)
We recently went to the Whirligig Festival in Wilson, NC. My parents had a booth selling wonderfully designed folk art. My incredibly talented dad makes these great wooden marble chasers and bird houses and my amazing artist mom paints them! Their booth was called "Manspace"... (your not the boss of me!)
The Whirligig Festival started 3 years ago and was inspired by Vollis Simpson, a local artist who creates these huge, intricate whirligigs out of scrap metal. This year they had more vendors than ever.
We set up early on a Saturday morning and, since this festival is in November, it was quite chilly. But the sun was bright and the nippy wind made all the whirligigs spin with delight. Our booth neighbors included a husband and wife team selling a wide array of bright, colorful tye-dye clothing (of course my daughter had to have a zip up sweatshirt... but tye-dye looks so cute on kids, doncha think?) and an older couple selling sailboats and propeller airplanes made out of tin cans.
The hamburger joint down the street had refreshments for our four-legged friends, a real live pirate show complete with swordfighting and whip tricks played every hour (my daughter's favorite, of course), and music stages at 3 locations kept us entertained the whole weekend. As an added bonus, the had tons of blow-up jumpy rides for the kids!
We had so much fun setting up, talking to folks and demonstrating how the marble chasers work. The kids loved them and it was surprising to discover that many people had never seen a marble chaser before. Our family is originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania - the Amish country, and we've been playing with wooden toys like this for ages. So, it was pretty interesting to see everyone's reaction.
But I will tell you my most favorite thing about the Whirligig festival was watching a local artist paint a mural of the festival on a huge canvas. He looked like an artist of old - decked out in an oversized button-down smock with a ponytail. He was amazing and it was fascinating to watch the progress of the painting.
The booth was so colorful and fun and the food was delicious. As far as I'm concerned, any festival that serves funnel cake loaded with powdered sugar and fresh Starbucks coffee is a success in my book! We had a ball...
(You can read more and view more pics from the Whirligig Festival on my mom's blog.)
Wow - I've just received the coveted Rockin' Girl Blogger award from Nan at On My Porch. Thanks, Nan! What an honor!
I told my daughter that since I'm a Rockin' Girl Blogger that she's my Rockin' Girl Daughter. Since we just happened to be watching "School of Rock" and dancing around the living room, she was pretty happy!
I'd like to pass this award on to Chocolate Girl at Keeper of the Chocolates, the best mama in the world, and Alexandra at Silver Bell Cottage, the best baker in the world.
Keep Rockin' girls!!
I have cracked the mystery of the monkey coconut! As you may have read on my State Fair entry, I purchased a scrumptious pina colada in a monkey coconut that can be used as a bank once you're finished with the drink. Everyone who has seen the monkey coconut has fallen in love with it and it now seconds as a sort of Budda in my office. Whenever we get frustrated or stressed out, we rub monkey coconuts head gently and chant, "oh, Have-Fun-Monkey-Coconut, give us patience!". MC also keeps my Zeldaloo's Mermaid company - this lovely little treasure I purchased at an etsy.com fair while visiting New York.
So, my sister saw a picture of monkey coconut and was dying to have her own. What a great Christmas gift it would make! I started searching the internet and found a few on ebay but they were way too pricey. I thought about calling the fair organizers and seeing if I could get a hold of the people who ran the booth. Then I had an even more brilliant idea and called the 800 number printed on the bottom of my treasured little coconut!
As it turns out, the monkey coconut can be purchased from Topshelf Marketing, a Drinkware Catalog. But you can't buy just one. Oh no, minimum purchase is 36 MC's for $4.50 each. I tried to think of 36 people in my life who might actually want a Have Fun Monkey Coconut for Christmas. Then I wondered if anyone might want to go in on a purchase with me. Since I had trouble with that, I wondered if I could resell them on ebay for a profit. Honestly, they appear to be a hot ticket item.
So, as I continue to debate the purchase of the monkey coconut, take a gander for yourself - here is the link. And if anyone out there has any other connections to reasonably priced monkey coconuts, I'd be grateful for the info!
How lovely is it that our local Krispy Kreme donut shop is located on Peace Street? Could there be anything more perfect then a fresh, tasty donut and a rich cup of hot coffee early on a sunny morning, placidly placed on a street named Peace? I would say that's just about as peaceful as it gets! Makes me want plop down below the sign amidst the delicious smells of frying dough and meditate.
The neat thing about this particular Krispy Kreme is that it's one of the main distribution sites, so you can watch the donuts being made. 
We love watching them travel on the assembly line, evolving really, from just a piece of blobby dough to its final confection.
I have to say that I've always had a struggle deciding between Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts. KK has the delicious glazed creme filled donut while DD has the scrumptious powdered vanilla creme. Difficult decision. But luckily this is not one of my daily obsessions - yes, so many other things to fill my mind with, but sometimes it's just fun. Especially on a bright sunny morning on Peace Street!
There is an extraordinary flea market held every weekend at the Fairgrounds in Raleigh. Vendors, antique dealers and junk peddlers from all over the country come to sell their wares at the outdoor venue. We've been going to the flea market periodically for years. The ornate iron pieces framing a large picture in our kitchen came from a woman who calls herself the "Iron Maiden" and travels all over country rescuing gorgeous iron from deteriorating old buildings. We've purchased bamboo wind chimes, bits of jewelry, skeleton keys, old postcards, stained glass and, my favorite find, the elusive monkey coconut.
