What I Did on My Autumn Vacation
by Kris

I took a rare weekend away from the shop.
I went to Roaring River State Park in Missouri
with  13 other Dickerson folks.
We had fun.  It was pretty.

Here's what we did there:

We ate constantly.

Here we are stuffin' it in as fast as we can.

Kelley brought campfire cupcakes: tootsie roll logs roaring with pink fire,

 teensy little marshmallows roasting on pretzel sticks. They were so cute and tasty,

we wrestled each other for them.

Ok, not really but try to visualize it anyway, if you have a strong stomach.

We took fly-fishing lessons

from my nice cousin Rob, who's an expert.

Everyone else caught on immediately.

 I had fourteen thumbs and got knots in my line and caught a bush and a tree and a rock.

Rob was very patient. 

I was very bad at it.  I gave up. 

I am a quitter.

My brother David in his official fishing duds and my Dad's old hat.  

Tony and my niece Sara and I took
 a short 30 minute hike.
 It turned into a very long hike.

We weren't exactly lost because we thought we were still in the United States of America
but it took a while to find our way out of the woods.

 Like 3 hours.
 I had an owie on my foot so Tony and Sara

were always about a mile ahead of me.

"If we pick up the pace, I think we can lose her for good."

 Sara and Tony are very fit. I'm old and fat and slow. 

 Plus I am distracted by things like very tall trees.

And beautiful scenery.

This is the Lodge where we stayed.  I thought we'd never see it again.

We saw caves with bats and signs warning us not to come in.

As if.

We finally found our way out of the woods

and shuffled another 4812 miles back across the park.

This time we went around the foot of the mountain instead of over the mountain. 

 Muuuuuuuuuuch easier.

We also played Nature Bingo

at the Lodge one night with a lot of  smart little children. Unlike them,  I didn't really know what a Yellow-Bellied Missouri Skink or a Purple Feathered Watamajiggy looked like, so I ate most of  my Skittle candy  Bingo markers instead of marking the Bingo squares with them.  I did accidentally win one game and came home with a Bass Pro Shop Bourbon glass.  I was so proud.  One Dickerson (who shall remain nameless but you know who you are) cheated and "won" a camoflauged ballhat as his/her prize.

  He/she's a very bad, bad boy/girl.  Aren't you , Kelley?

We watched

 my great-nephew Noah single-handedly redirect Roaring River by throwing in three tons of rock, one piece of gravel at a time. It's fun to be a kid at Roaring River.

It's fun to be a grown-up there, too.

 

Girls' Night Out

It was a warm morning in August.  Me and Julie from Kitchen Gallery and ShopGirl Extraordinaire Kristi.  We needed a theme for our Fall party.
We were stumped. I stared at Julie.  She stared at me. Julie sipped her coffee. I chewed my straw.
 Julie flipped through her calendar.  I scratched my ankle. 

Kristi said, "How about Soup and Soul?"

 Perfect! She's a smart girl, that Kristi.

So here we go again:

Girls' Night Out... Soup & Soul

Thursday evening, October 21

5:30 'til 7:30 pm inside Fairlawn Plaza Mall

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It's always a party: there's a bunch of laughing going on and wonderful music and all kinds of sips and samples and fun folks to talk to. 

Mingle on the mall and wander in and out of the shops: I'll bet you'll see people you know.

Here's the Soup part:

Julie has invited bunches of the Kitchen Gallery vendors in for the evening to demo gadgets and serve all kinds of goodies. The feast of samples is amazing: soups and breads and dips ... all the comfort foods of fall.
Kitchen Gallery expanded this summer to include a cozy new demo kitchen and a whole room full of Polish Pottery... stroll through and see what wonders the KG staff has wrought.
And of course, Julie will setting up her infamous
Girls' Night Out Wine-A-Rita bar! WoOOoOTTT!

 

Our new neighbors at Sweet! Cake & Candy Supply are loaning us their beautiful kitchen for a

6:00 pm Homemade Soup lesson.
And all evening,  Cindy and Susan will demo oh-so-clever ideas for all things sweet for the holidays comin' up. (Seriously, people, have you been in there yet? It's a visual treat: I love the rows and rows of sprinkles all lined up...and that wall full of cupcake papers might even turn ME into a baker.  Maybe.

Why are you smirking?)

At Dickerson's, we're moving into Christmas mode; come in for a sneak peek that night and have a cup of Aspen Mulling Spice while you wander. You'll need a drink: YUM Bakery and Cafe will be serving up samples of Kelley's homemade chili --- she likes it HOT and so do we! It's the perfect bowl of chilly-weather chili --

makes steam come out of my ears.

Lots of other Fairlawn Plaza shopkeepers will be at Girls' Night Out to strut their stuff, too.

Come by and chat 'em up.

And here's the Soul part:

 Please-- won't you bring a canned soup for the Salvation Army Food Pantry? Or bring six!

 It will warm your soul to share a blessing.

Bring a friend and spend the evening with us...

We'll be looking for you!

Give us a holler if you want more details:
Julie at Kitchen Gallery 785.273.6436     Kris at Dickersons 785.273.1845

State Fair

I'm wondering: am I too old to join 4-H?

We went to the State Fair Sunday.  I'd never been before, and I loved every corn-dog-and-cow-manure- scented minute of it.... especially the animal barns. 

Just look at these faces.

                                                     So pink and squeaky.

I wanted to lay down in the straw
with this little guy.

Day-old  twin lambs with their mama!

(The other one ignored me when I asked him nicely
 to get in the picture).
 I could just hug the stuffin' out of them.

We have chickens at home, but none this lovely.

 I could stand for an hour admiring the pattern God painted on this hen's feathers...

                                 ... and the texture of these. 

So soft! I poked my fingers through the bars to touch until

 her next-door neighbor gave me
The Evil Eye:

We wandered happily around the midway twice to look at the rides. Tony can't ride the ones that go 'round and 'round like the Tilt-A-Whirl (He calls it the Hurl-A-Whirl) and I can't handle the ones that leave you dangling in the air, like the Ferris Wheel.  Against my better judgment, I reluctantly agreed to ride the Sky Tram across the park and at the end, Tony had to use his pocketknife to pry my deathgrip-hands

 off the safety bars....it was a trauma.

I did want to get zipped into one of these waterballs -- doesn't it look FUN? -- but for some reason, it's just for folks under a certain weight limit.(I'm not telling what that limit was and how far off I was from qualifying, but even if I hadn't inhaled so much cotton candy, I wasn't remotely close.)

I believe I may change careers and become a carnival barker. The folks running this booth

were raking in the cash hand-over-fist.  But who WOULDN't love

a giant yellow banana-with-dreadlocks pillow?

We ate snowcones and admired prize-winning pickles and a prom dress made out of duct tape

 and saw a  horse named Tony at the pony rides.

We thought he looked tired and depressed.  Human Tony was kind of bummed about Tony the Pony ....

...but he cheered right up when he saw this humongous toilet in a display outhouse.

I didn't eat anything deep-fried and I didn't win the big banana pillow (although we tried!)

and my pig of choice  didn't win the pig races, 

but there's always next year.  We're going again.  

 But I'm not riding the sky tram.

234 Candles

The 4th of July is coming!

The 4th of July is coming!

Oh, it's my favorite holiday... nothing but fun.  (except that time Tony lit a rocket and it fell over and shot straight  into my sister's thigh. Nothing puts a damper on pyromania like third degree burns).

These  rockets are cute and safe... they're metal, they don't have a fuse, and they  aren't accompanied by a 52-year-old juvenile delinquent with a lit punk. Hang a bundle on your door or stick some in a pot of red geraniums on your porch.

 Independence Day is the perfect time to get together with pals. Hey, I've got it!  

Have a Happy 234th Birthday America theme for July 4th.

 ( Any excuse for cake, you know)

Put this sign on your door to put your visitors in the party mood.

Then put this cute tin cake stand on your table. The neat metal cake slice boxes on top have no calories, or if you prefer something tastier than tin, buy some red, white and blue cupcakes from YUM Bakery next door and add 234 of our long red skinny candles or ok, maybe just one sparkler on top of each treat. (But I do believe that 234 candles would make a bigger visual statement).

And pinwheels!  The perfect cheap decoration! Stick a handful in some old pop bottles, and add whatever red, white and blue stuff you can get your hands on -- don't get all  matchy-matchy on me now; this is supposed to be fun, not stressful.  Red and white check dishes, blue polka-dot napkins,vintage gingham trays. An old quilt thrown over the picnic table. Red bowls of potato salad, blue bowls of potato chips, white bowls of strawberries.

 

Fun coozies. Bottled Orange Crush iced down in a striped tub. Starred-and-striped papergoods. Sparklers and punks stuck in galvanized buckets o' sand. Patriotic star-rimmed bowls piled full of party poppers and Black Cats.

Raid your closets for silly hats and flags to wave and red wagons to pull  and ponies to ride 'round the block in the neighborhood parade. (What, you don't keep ponies in your closet?)  Have a horseshoe tournament (we've got rubber ones so nobody gets clanged in the head)...a potato gun shoot-out... sit on the hot sidewalk and play jacks with the old ladies and little girls.

              Honest Abe -- it's the best day of summer.

Just don't forget the hotdogs.

JUNK A-COMIN'

Ok, we're coming down to the wire for JUNK SALE. Saturday is sneaking up fast.


Of course, being a last-minute kind of person, I'm scrambling and cleaning and thinking I should have bought more of those tin firecrackers and I meant to paint that picnic basket and where the heck did I put that sack full of old aprons? I've been getting to the shop early, early, early to switch everything around (because you know I CAN'T LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE) and laying awake late, late, late, thinking about lemonade stands and old pickup trucks and where the heck I could have put those aprons.



One day to go.  Don's old Chevy pickup has been delivered and rolled down the mall to the front of the shop...I painted Sydney and Mary's lemonade stand tonight (yellow, of course)... the shop is pretty clean and sort-of dusted (thanks, Mom) and fairly bursting with fun summery stuff (just look at that clothesline in the window full of baby bikinis!). I still haven't found those dang aprons.


Kristi's home today, taking care of dozens of  last-minute details. She's my partner in JUNK SALE. She's made a zillion lists, had a jillion fun ideas and worked a million extra hours on this sale.  She's the idea-thinker-upper, the vendor-liner-upper, the table-putter-upper, Master of the Sewing Machine and Organizer Supreme.  Wonder if she knows where my aprons are.



YUM? Yup -- almost ready. Today we set an old white kitchen cabinet in front of the cafe; it's empty for the moment, but Saturday, Kelley and James will fill it with homemade crisps and cobblers and wonderful pies-for-one-in-a-jar. Come sit a spell at the farm table for YUM's JUNK SALE lunch (a big, fat turkey or ham sam, crispy chips, a cute little bag o' veggies and a fresh-baked cookie... all wrapped up in gingham!) and don't forget to grab some suppertime desserts. (Hint: Get 'em while the gettin' is good: if you're clever, you'll  call Kelley at 273-3844 to pre-order.)



Kitchen Gallery?  Check--ready to roll. Julie's got a full slate of summery samples ready to serve on Saturday: Watermelon Smoothies.Pineapple Coleslaw.Uncle Sunny's Gourmet BBQ Sauce. (There's  much more, but my mind has gone blank from dreaming of Watermelon Smoothies.)



Note to self: find a plug-in  for the cooler full of samples from Iwig Dairy. Note to self: leave a little tummy room for Iwig chocolate milk samples. June is National Diary Month and Iwig's will join us at FARM FRESH JUNK SALE to celebrate. Note to self:   use that as The Perfect Excuse to hog multiple chocolate milk samples.



The construction guys are still hammering away at SWEET!, the new Cake & Candy Supply shop in the mall, but Cindy and Susan will be on hand Saturday to meet and greet and show and tell. I saw them in the mall today, contemplating their empty tables and plotting their display. I hear they'll be doing something clever and button-ish with antique chocolate molds... are you curious? Be sure to slow down, chat 'em up and peep in their windows while you're running from JUNK booth to JUNK booth.



Friday night, our vendors arrive to set up.  Bunches of 'em: Angela. Carrie, Gladys, Ed & Mark. Kristi. Peggy. Janelle. Debbie. Marilyn, Linda, Wendy & Jennifer. Don & Suzie. Fern. Susan. Ila. Cindy. Lori. Chuck & Peggy. Neal. Mary & Don. Maggie & Kim. Jacquie. Coralee & Lisa. We've drawn floorplans, scribbled over them, dragged their tables up and down and up and down  the mall and finally think we've figured out how to get these  JUNK dealers and their stuff in here and keep the Fire Marshall happy.



Then Saturday's the day:  
JUNK SALE!  June 12th.. 9 am sharp 'til 3 pm
inside Fairlawn Plaza Mall.
So much stuff:  Spinning wheel. Jug lamps. Old sleds. Kitchen Cabinets. Farm table.Wagons. Vintage doors. Benches. Church pew. Birdhouses. Retro kitchen stuff. Soldered charms. Handmade jewelry. Chairs. Boxes. Tins. Clocks. Bottles. Banners. Patriotic goodies. Primitives of all sorts. Vintage baby clothes. There's more, I'm sure, that I can't recall (darn those Watermelon Smoothies!) so I'll be as surprised as you are at some of the spectacular stuff at JUNK SALE.


Let me know if you find my bag of old aprons.

My Fellas

I'm a dog person. 

These are my fellas:

Jimmy.

Otherwise known as

 Poppy. JimmyPop. Potpie. Peapie. Clicketyclick. Lovie.  James P Weinerschnitzel.

Tony refers to him as Walter or Brubaker or sometimes even Walter J  Brubaker. 

No wonder he doesn't come when we holler for him.

He doesn't mind us.  He bites and throws temper tantrums.

He pees on the floor and then dares us to say anything about it. Master of the Death Stare.

We're all afraid of him.

Chews rocks. Never bothers the trash because it would be beneath him to eat garbage.

Took him to the groomer once and he was so bad, she had to call her husband from work to help her hold him on the table. She doesn't answer her phone anymore when I call.

 We have to give him Doggie Downers when he goes to the vet because he can bite through a muzzle. 

  Jack Russell and Yorkie with a little bit of Satan mixed in.

 My little dog. I love him beyond all reason.

Gilbert.
We got Bertie at Helping Hands last Fall.  I feel sorry for whoever lost him because he's One Good Fella.
When we first saw him, a family with a little boy was in the "Get Acquainted" room at the shelter with him; I
paced up and down the hall in front of the room 42 times, beaming in "DON'T TAKE HIM DON'T TAKE HIM DON'T TAKE HIM"  mental warnings through the glass door. And they didn't. They were stupid. And we were lucky.

He's fairly swift but clumsy. Trips over his own long legs regularly. Doesn't apply his feet to the stairs when he goes down, simply spins his legs like wheels -- think Road Runner cartoons.  Drags the cats around by their legs or heads. ... but gently. He wants to sit on somebody/anybody's lap. He's the happiest of dogs. Big heart, maybe a small brain -- but so what?
He's my little dog.  I love him beyond all reason.

Calvin.

Vin. Vinster. TheVinsterator. SpotDot.  A sweet old man with a smiling face.  Fat boy in the front, all skinny hips in the back.  Wobbly with arthritis, but in his glory days, man, could he run.  We've had to be extra-vigilant with Vin because the minute he got off his leash or outside the fence, he would dash off in a single-minded pursuit of SOMETHING only he could see.  He ran only in a straight line, never circled back home, so we would eventually find him in  the next county or living at Camp Daisy with the Girl Scouts or maybe in Brazil if he happened to be pointed to the south when he escaped. 

Now in his golden years, he loves to take a ride to the trashcans at the end of the driveway.

Mr. Softie Tony builds a fire in the workshop woodstove for Calvin when it's cold and he snoozes his days away on one of my raggedy quilts, soaking up the heat with his old bones and dreaming of trashcans and girl scouts and wet dogfood. Such a dear. I love him beyond all reason because he's my old dog.   

Now I want to hear about your dogs.   

JUNK

Ok, junkers -- you know who you are.

YOU DON'T SEE ANYTHING ODD ABOUT THIS PICTURE:

You have a pile of vintage refrigerator doors propped in your garage. Rust is your favorite color. You're not afraid of cobwebs or splinters or tables with missing legs.

You save little wheels off things and vintage doorknobs and keys and interesting jars and Great-Aunt Evelyn's hankies and that huge old dictionary that's missing geronimo through icicle because you MIGHT just need it someday to prop up a table with an absent leg.

If this is you, don't miss our
FARM FRESH JUNK SALE
Saturday, June 12
9 am til 3 pm
inside Fairlawn Plaza Mall


We've hand-picked about 25 of our fellow junkers and asked them to drag their favorite extra junk out for you to dig through... because really, there's not much that's more fun than that, is there?

But not just junk: there'll be cool jewelry from our stylish friend Wendy Watson... Betsy Ross wooden flags by Chuck and  Peggy Calhoon...Susan Dunnaway's lovely Kansas photography... neat jug lamps made by Jacquie Richards... and of course, as our pals at Brickhouse Antiques put it, they'll all be bringing "our kind of crap", too.  I've been reading through the vendors' lists, and I'm ready to do hand-to-hand combat over a number of their junk treasures: just watch me climb up and over the crowd to get to the small kitchen cabinet that Don and Susie are bringing!  Don't get between me and Debbie's old sled! This junkin' is SERIOUS BUSINESS.

There'll be no shortage of good things to eat that day: my sister Kelley from YUM Bakery and Cafe is planning a wonderful farm lunch, all wrapped up in a red gingham bandana... I hear her husband James (a.k.a." Mr. Pie" in our family) will be serving up homemade goodies... Julie from Kitchen Gallery is planning
bunches of Summer-fresh food samples (more about that later)... and our our new neighbors at the soon-to-open SWEET! Cake and Candy Supply will be doing a FUN demo with antique chocolate molds.  Can't wait to see what Cindy and Susan have dreamed up.

I'll be blogging more previews of the sale this week, so stay tuned... you'll want to scope out the goodies.

The Happy Book

Ok, I'm picturing myself on A HAPPY DAY: Barefoot. Tan. 110 pounds. Laying in green grass under a leafy tree on a hot, sunny afternoon. (No ants crawling out of the grass on me). Pink cotton candy in one hand, an icy can of Pibb Zero in the other. (No bees buzzing around the cotton candy). No phone. A pile of books stacked up beside me and all afternoon to read. A cool blue pool nearby. (No bugs floating in the pool). I can see my little dogs snoozing in a patch of dandelions and Tony casting a line from his canoe. Soon some lovely person will deliver a big plate of fresh pineapple and divinity to me for my supper, then my dapper husband and I will drive to town in our classic convertible for a movie, a round of Goofy Golf (no screaming kids on the course, of course), and a Cherry Limeade from Sonic.  Ah, the perfect day.

My 110-pound days are long gone, I'm afraid, and the closest my husband has ever been to dapper was on our wedding day in his white tux with the bell-bottom pants and blue ruffled shirt (hey, it was the 70s).  But the rest of my perfectly happy day is within reach.  I'm a firm believer in being happy. Maybe that's why I like The Happy Book so much.

   

It celebrates what makes you glad. It teaches you with silly exercises to practice happiness so it gets easier to find.  You can scribble thoughts, make lists, doodle and dream of the big and little things that make you smile. Skip around in it;  there's no special order to it.  As the book says, "Pick it up when you feel crappy. If your day has been just ridiculously, stupidly awful, no need to write in the book -- just read it."  

 

One page instructs you to take $10 and spend it on something totally frivolous that makes you happy.  You know those giant playballs at the grocery store?  That's what I'd buy. I love those things.

Another page says, "Families are an intricate machine made of shared history, love, tradition, weirdness and comfort. Post your favorite family photos here." Weirdness, huh? Seems the perfect

place to post this odd-and-beloved  picture of  Tony.  It always makes me snort:

 

Being happy is good for you. 

The Happy Book is a good reminder of all the big and little things that are good in your life. 

 And we all need reminding.

Tell me in the comments what makes you happy.

Didn't you just do that?

Why, yes, I DID just rearrange.

Thank you for noticing.
 I like to shake it up now and then.

What? No, I can stop re-arranging anytime I want.

Rosie, don't look at me that way. Quit looking at me.

I can't help myself. I'm a compulsive re-arranger.

This week, I moved the counters. All by myself. When I wake up motivated to rearrange the heavy stuff, I can't wait for someone with testosterone to wander by.

So here's the new counter layout, viewed from the front doors:

Hmmm...

does that look messy or interesting? How about interestingly messy?

Check out the pile of Stuff behind the counter: I'm sorry to admit that IS a mess. Boxes to be unpacked, things I abandoned on the floor when I answered the phone and forgot to come back, little wheels off things and a teetering 412-pound stack of brochures. It's an ever-changing assortment that's ever-present, much to my ever-lasting shame. I've come to accept that The Banging of the Shins on Stuff back there is just an occupational hazard:

Oh, well.  Come on in and climb over. 

I've moved forty zillion napkins and paper plates and greeting cards.

The baby gifts have flip-flopped with the kitchen goods, the candles and the lotions have traded places with the invitations, and I can't recall where I put the fuzzy pink Easter ducks but it will come to me in the middle of the night.

So come see. Winter's moved out, Spring's moved in, and I've moved every single thing in the shop.

  I even dusted!

But better make it snappy -- I might move the counters again next week if my feet quit hurting.

87

I think you can tell by the eyes. Ornery.

Hardly a day goes by that somebody doesn't stop by the counter and remember something about my Dad. Usually something ornery. I can relate.

He was a great whistler, and he'd warble "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" repeatedly because he knew it drove me crazy. He teased mercilessly about boyfriends and cooties. He hugged the stuffing out of you and pounded you on the back as he squeezed. When I baked cookies, he'd take a bite and fall down on his back and kick his legs and play dead. Ornery.

He and his pack of old guy pals would sit out on the mall every afternoon and drink coffee; we'd hear them giggling like little girls. I don't know what they were laughing about and it's probably better that way. We had a gum machine in the shop for many years, and he kept a pocket-full of pennies for kids; he told little boys that the yellow gumballs made girls kiss them. He asked little girls if they were married. Ornery.

Ask his grandkids. He was famous for The Knee Trap: he'd catch you as you walked by his recliner, trap you between his knees and wouldn't let go until my mom hollered at him. Generations of children fell for, "Look here" and were rewarded with a gentle squirt of pool water in the face. Or he'd grin, extend his fist and invite you to, "Put your finger in here." And even though you knew it would hurt like the dickens, you would. (Even after I was a grown-up, I couldn't resist... I guess I liked to see him smirk). Ornery.

He'd smooth his eyebrow with his pinky and say, "Aren't I purty?" No matter what sort of mortal injury you had, he'd proclaim, "I've had worse places in my eye." He claimed everyday that, "Tomorrow's my birthday." Ornery.

Well, today IS his birthday. He'd be 87 ornery years old. He's been gone four years, and just before he died, he told me, "I've had a happy life. I'd like to do it all over again, every day of it."

Ornery, yeah... and happy. You can tell by the eyes.

Is It Spring Yet?

I was
thinking
daffodils
and little yellow ducks.




Mother Nature had other plans today,
apparently.


That's the beauty of having a shop. We're always trying to stay one step ahead of the season, so while it may look like this on my driveway, it's SPRING at Dickerson's!


So struggle into your giant wool coat. Put on two pairs of long underwear. Climb into your Uggs. I've already lost three mittens this season, but if you can find a matching pair, pull 'em on and come over to the shop for a sweet little taste of Spring. You want daffodils and little yellow ducks? We've got 'em.