Hobgoblins

Probably my favorite find of our thrifting weekend was these glasses I got at the Goodwill store.

 

A close-up:

(Loving my new camera.)

Aren’t they awesome?! They’re tall and have a nice heft to them, which is important to me. I like my dishes to feel as good as they look. I found five of them.

Laura and I looked them up on the internet when we got home and discovered that they come from the Hobgoblin Pub in Japan. I don’t know why someone wanted to get rid of them, but I’m sure glad I was there to find them. Now I want a whole collection of pub glasses for Halloween! Anyone know any other appropriately named pubs I should seek out?

Boxes

Shopping while visiting Mike and Laura a couple of weeks ago was especially fruitful. There were many vintage scores that had me cackling with glee. Now that Mr. MC has gifted me with a new camera for Valentine’s Day (thank you, Honey!), I will post my new goodies for all to see.

First, we went to university salvage and scored a great vintage lab floor lamp. It has a sticker on it that declares it the property of Penn State College. Penn State changed its name from that to Penn State University in 1953. <cackle> We also got several library card catalog drawers and some other vintage boxes, 9 in all, for $1 each. <cackle> The salvage trip started off a weekend of good luck with thrifty finds, especially vintage finds. I’ll share more in later posts.

For now, I’ll show you a couple of the card catalog drawers I got and what I did with them. There are 4 of these drawers. I’m using 2 and I have some ideas for the other two, but I’m not sure what I’ll do with them yet.

This first one I’m using as a tea box. It’s a perfect fit for the bigger tea bags I usually buy, like Yogi Teas. I like all the colors lined up in the gray box. I may paint the boxes at some point, but for now I don’t mind the gray. This box still has the metal compressor in the back, so as I use up tea I can keep them propped up. I like the way it looks. It’s so industrial.

Here’s a picture of it fitting perfectly in the pull out drawer in our kitchen where I keep my tea:

I wish two of them fit side by side in that drawer, but it’s just a little too narrow. You can see that I still have 3 unopened boxes of tea waiting their turn. I probably won’t leave this box in this drawer forever (I have big plans for the kitchen), but for now, it’s nice that it fits and it’s much neater and easier to find things this way.

The second box:

This is something I tried out to see if I’d like it. I’ve been wanting to get my crayons out of their box for a while. They don’t all fit in the box and the box is just not very appealing. I’d like to see all the colors. Right now they’re sitting in little votive holders.

I’ve decided I definitely do like this idea. I need to get slightly bigger cups for the crayons. I also need to put a piece of board in the bottom of the box, as the cups won’t sit evenly on the compressor tracks. This box no longer has the compressor. Only two of them did. I think what I might want to hold the crayons is small lab beakers. I think they might look cool. On the other hand, maybe I will look for pretty little glasses, as I think delicate glasses will look awesome inside the industrial box. Yes, I think I like that idea better. Bonus, there are lots of pretty little glasses at thrift stores. I’ll just have to take some measurements and get a feel for what size I need.

Here’s another picture of the crayon box, straight on:

I want the crayons to show more over the edge, so I’ll probably put a somewhat thick piece of board in the bottom to prop them up a bit. Maybe a piece of plywood. This looks really cool sitting on our bookshelves. I couldn’t get a picture of it there because it was too dark in the corner. Just take my word for it.

There are more goodies to come. Patience . . . .

Of Dragons, Electronics, and Sons

As requested, here are more pictures of my Halloween dragon. His name is Sam Hain. <snicker>

 

Here’s an extremely blurry close-up:

 

I heard a rumor that I might be getting a new camera soon. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m also looking at laptops. Having one would make some of my course work much easier. I went and tried some at Best Buy this weekend. Of course, I want the Sony Vaio, which is expensive. But I really liked the Vaio’s keyboard and touchpad buttons, as well as the shape and size. The Vaio would be my intermediate choice. In a perfect world, I’d get a MacBook Air. I heart those. But if I get anything, it’ll be a Dell, because they are affordable. Bonus: I can get a purple one!

Kevin is doing really well in Basic. He’s having fun, even. He gets longer phone calls now, so we get to have real conversation. Sunday he was talking about how he got to try rappelling and climbing down a rope from the top of a 60’ tower last week. Yikes!

He’s sick with bronchitis and pink eye, both of which are running rampant through the barracks. At least he gets free medical care.

I can’t wait to see him again. I wonder how different he’ll be?