These Are My Kind of Women

Doesn't matter your age.  Just do it in Style!

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Abandoned Houses

I recall earlier this year my 10 year old daughter Regan and me driving up to an abandoned house a couple of miles from ours and being curious about what was inside.  We went around to the back door and it was partially ajar.   We thought what the heck, we'll just peek inside.  It was a bit scary and pretty icky.  Old, dirty blankets piled up everywhere.  Papers from a drawer spread all over the place.  Dirty clothes in one corner.  Not old ones, just dirty ones.  We heard the back door creak a little bit and we immediately turned around really fast.  We were scared!  It was just the wind though.  We walked out of the house and all of a sudden 2 cars pulled up.  One with a woman and the other with 2 men.  They kindly asked us to leave since this was private property.  No problem.  We walked to our van a bit embarrassed and left.  This got me to thinking about other abandoned houses and I started looking for pics online.  Here's some:

I tried to pick a favorite but had a hard time.  I tend to like the smaller more homey looking ones.  Sort of like the 2 right above.  What's your favorite?

Estate Sale Finds

About a month ago I went to an estate sale in the neighboring town just around 3 miles from our house.  The sale advertised lots of vintage clothing.  My goal was to get the clothing.  I got to the sale about 20 minutes before it started and looked around to see if I had any competition.  None.  There's a certain look to people that buy vintage clothing.  None of them had that look...... my luck.  They let us in at 8am sharp and I walked right over to the closet of 1940s dresses and pulled out about 25 of them.  The lady who wore them was plus sized so all the dresses were in this category.  A rarity for women of this time. Many of these dresses have already sold but I've still got some in the shop and some I haven't put in yet.  Plus I added one other beautiful 40s dress that I finally got around to putting in the shop.  All of the descriptions are linked.

Dark Blue 1940s Dress with Appliqued Leaves Dotted with a Rhinestone

oh, and there were several other clothing pieces besides dresses.

Black Crepe Cut Out Blouse....to be listed soon!

Black Silk Jacket Lined in a Purple Floral

40s Rayon Dress with Matching Jacket and Belt

Black Curly Lambswool Stole

Pink Illusion Lace Dress with Rhinestones.

This one just Sold.  It was a beauty though.

This black crepe 40s dress wasn't in her closet.  It fits more like a small/medium, but it is in the shop now.

40s cloche/hat with flowers and rhinestones

I thought I had more of them available to show you.  I suppose I better get busy cleaning and photographing!

Don't Forget About Our Women Veterans

Let's salute our veterans that have made the United States what it is today.  We tend to think about men when thinking of our veteran soldiers. Don't forget about our women soldiers too.

Yes, this is a woman.

Rugs (In An Abandoned House)

I already have a thing for old abandoned houses and vintage rugs, so when I saw these photos from ABC Carpets I was immediately loving these pictures.

The peeling, brightly painted walls of an abandoned house provide a striking backdrop to this collection of over-dyed handmade rugs by American designer homeware brand ABC Carpet & Home.

San Francisco photographer Jason Madara shot the rugs for ABC Carpet & Home in a derelict house in upstate New York, where the peeling paintwork complemented the rich colours and faded patterns of the rugs.

While the original Color Reform collection took vintage rugs and over-dyed them, the Spectrum collection uses new rugs, handmade individually in Pakistan.

The over-dyeing process involves neutralising the rug’s original colours before dyeing it with one rich colour, leaving the original patterns faintly visible in the weave.

Read more about the rugs right here.

Bathroom Art

I do believe my favorite bathroom is the last one.  What's yours?

A Love Story

My grandparents (my mom's parents) were married May 1943.  Lorena was 29 years old and Henry was 26 1/2.  People called him Hank. They met in Southern California in a cafe. A group of soldiers walked in and she was immediately attracted to him but she thought he looked too young.  Evidently he was attracted to her because they were married 4 months later.  At the time, she was working for Lockheed (building military aircraft) and he was a soldier in the U.S. military.  She was originally from Gallup, New Mexico and he was originally from Buffalo, New York.  Soon after they married he was flown off to Europe to defend our country in WWII.  He was an infantry soldier.

Their wedding photo.

Marriage certificate.

I see why my grandma was attracted to him.  She always said he looked like Paul Newman.

She grew up on a ranch in the middle of no where in New Mexico.  Yes, she could shoot a gun.  Even with that pretty dress on.

A pretty photo of my grandma.  I would love to have that same dress to remember her by.  She was almost 6 feet tall and always thin. (I never got her height.)

She was definitely a cow girl.  

One of my favorite military photos of him.  I have a large one of this matted and framed hanging in my dining room.  He's on the left.

In front of his house with the rest of his family in Buffalo, NY.  Just shortly before he left to go overseas.  He's the tall one in the middle.

This is a photo of one of the locations that my grandfather would have been.  Possibly in a similar situation  since he was infantry.

Here's another photo of a place he would have been.

.....and another one.

And one more at the Arc de Triomphe.  Can you imagine being here and the overwhelming feeling you would have had being among all these soldiers fighting for the United States.  This is amazing history.

My grandfather died shortly after going into combat in France.  This is how my grandma received word of his death.  Through a telegram.  My mom was 9 months old when he died.  He was around my mom, his daughter, for a total of 3 days.  All of the time he was away fighting in WWII (in Europe).  Hank and Lorena were married for just over 1 1/2 years.

He was buried in France among the 1,000s of other soldiers buried there.  A view from the ground and one from a plane.  My mom visited his grave a while back.

He received the purple heart.  My mom keeps it in a safe place.

My mom was born February 1944.  My mom has always been beautiful inside and out.

My grandma in Utah many years after Hank died with some of her grand kids. I'm on the left with my foot in the air and she's holding my sister Courtney. I think she looks so beautiful here. Lorena was married one more time and had 2 more kids, Margie and Dixon.

These pictures were taken from a book that my mom made for each one of her kids.  She is a genealogists and did hundreds of hours of research and copying to put these books together.  They go back to the Mayflower (11 generations) to our day.  This book is a treasure and a price could never be put on it.  Thanks mom for all your hard work.