Andy & Helen's Picnic Basket

I have mentioned before that I am a big fan of the Andy Giffith show. I have seen every episode numerous times. I wish I was a 21st century Aunt Bee--a small town socialite with equisite homemaking skills--weekly entertaining, the garden club, the town hall meetings, best friend within walking distance, ladies teas, beauty shop socials--I would love it all.

Unfortunately the only thing I have in common with Aunt Bee is that I live in a small town. I do not get to spend my life honing my homemaking skills, gossiping in the beauty shop or having tea with Clara. But I do enjoy watching the old reruns.

Recently I was sitting right here in my computer chair and watching Andy and Helen take off on a romantic picnic. I did a double take when I saw their picnic basket.

Please forgive the poor quality of the TV screen pics. I just grabbed my camera which is sitting right beside my computer and snapped a couple of shots before the scene changed.

What excited me about that picnic basket, is that I own a very similar basket.
It looks to me like the only difference is the zig zag pattern on Helen's basket.

For some reason owning Helen's basket makes me feel good.

I've Been to the Farmer's Market

Our local Farmer's Market had a flea market day today.

It's only 9:00 a.m. and I am already back home. The early bird gets the treasures, so I was there at 8 a.m. when it started.

I have two of those large wagon wheels in my garden. I was curious to see the price. They were asking $50 each.

Aren't these tomatoes beautiful? I bought some of the orange ones. I have already forgotten what the vendor told me the name of them was. They are very sweet.

Here's my haul.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you probably know that I am a magazine junkie. See that box? It's full of magazines - 40 of them. I can now sit in the glider on the deck and read away the afternoon.

Look at those beautiful hard cover vegetable books - just $1 each. Of course, I don't grow vegetables, but who can resist $1 each? LOL.

I bought a little bouquet of fresh sunflowers - $2. I have the floral foam soaking now and will make an arrangement when I post this.

That silver metal thing will be used as a planter (you knew that, didn't you?) - $2.

That little toy thing is a "Twinkie" icon. I collect food advertising icons. Why? Just because it's a thrill to find a new one.

Yellow string beans and red onions round out the purchases. Not a bad haul for a Saturday morning and I spent less than a $20 bill.

Update 9:41 a.m.
Here's the little sunflower bouquet. The yellow statice(that was included) works nicely as filler. All this for two bucks! A few years ago I ordered a sunflower bouquet for my boss and had to pay $4.00 per stem. They considered sunflowers a premium flower.

How many pairs of shoes do you have?

asked Pea (in the comments).

You know I was wondering the same thing after the last post.

Just before sitting down to post this, I went in the bedroom closet and made a quick count.

I must admit there were a few more pairs than I expected because not long ago I threw some in the garbage. Just this week I threw away a pair of shoe boots that were quite worn.

The fact that I cannot close the closet door due to shoes creeping out should have been a clue that my collection is expanding....

I had over 70 pairs.

Guess what was sitting on my porch when I got home this afternoon?



Yup, a bag with two pair of shoes I ordered last week.

I love to wear this style of shoe boot with pants.

My feeling is that if you have to dress up to go to work, you can never have too many shoes.

Tomorrow I am going to see if I can get rid of a few more. As I am getting more mature in years, I find some of those high skinny heels too uncomfortable. I may toss a few of those. 

Advertising Cookie Jars

I took pics of some of my advertising cookie jars while taking them down to clean this weekend. I have quite a few cookie jars, but I never put cookies in any of them!


Mr. Peanut is my favorite

Compulsive Cookbook Collector?

These are some of the cookbooks on my desk in my kitchen

These are more cookbooks in the desk drawer





And more in another drawer



another drawer



and in the cupboard above the desk


If that is not enough


I even have them UNDER the desk!


Do you think I have too many? LOL

Hi. My name is Zo & I am a Magazine Addict...

I get a lot of magazines. Today I got a renewal request from 'Country Gardens'. I really like this magazine, but I am not resubscribing. Why? Well, in their "this is your last issue unless you cough up the check" letter, they offer me a price of $33.97 for 2 years (only 8 issues). That's more than $4 an issue, which I consider a bit steep, but am willing to pay if it is a good read. As I flip thru the pages, one of many subscription cards falls out (usually I pull all of these annoying loose advertising cards out first and throw them all in the garbage without reading any of them). This time I pick it up curious to see what the price is. You guessed it -- LESS than what they want to charge me (a loyal subscriber for years). For only $26.97 (plus $3 postage & handling) anyone can get this magazine for 2 years. Oh, yes, that is another major peeve of mine - the new fad of listing a price in bold numbers and then in the small print adding plus $3 postage & handling. Sneaky!

Yes, I know I could let it expire and just send in the new subscription card, but that's not the point. They should be rewarding their loyal subscribers with the lower rate, NOT charging them more than anyone else.

I am but one person, but I must take a stand. I shall suffer thru the withdrawal symptoms. When I am overcome with the urge to read 'Country Gardens' I shall grab an issue of 'Backyard Living' or 'Birds & Blooms' instead -- I vow that I shall NOT resub to this magazine.

Yes, 'Country Gardens' has done what few magazines have done before--they have lost me as their customer-- and THAT is not an easy thing to do.........I am every magazine editor's dream--an "easy" sell.

If there was a "Magazine Addicts Anonymous" I would certainly be a member.

I love cookbooks and have quite a collection of them. I especially enjoy these small specialty ones. Saturday I stopped at a sale and picked up about 15 more. The three Good Houskeeping ones in the front are copyrighted 1958. I do enjoy the older ones for the pictures of "how it used to be" -- all the ladies in the crisp pristine aprons happily cooking the family meals. Does anyone still wear an apron? Does anyone still have all afternoon to spend on one meal? Oh, the Good Old Days.

Chicken Collection

I like chickens. I have been collecting them for years. The past few years I have been into less clutter and have tried to break the collecting addiction, but, as you see, I have had limited success. I have pared down and have tried to arrange them into tasteful vingettes scattered around my kitchen. I have kept only those that are dear to my heart--which amounted to about 95% of them :) .

Dinnerware Collection

One of my passions is collecting dinnerware. I have been taking pictures and logging them into the computer. I thought it would be a good idea for insurance purposes. It is quite a bit of work to photograph them all and count how many of each plate, etc. This is a collage of about half of the sets.