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Thursday, September 18, 2008

Fave Things for Thursday

Thursday arrives and with it comes Favorite Things Thursday, my friend Blue's meme. (Time seems to fly for me in the autumn). I know I'm in good company when I saw that I am an \in-ˈve-t(ə-)rət\ yard sale shopper. Around here they are referred to as garage sales or just simply 'sale.' Either way, my car seems to detect their signs several yards ahead and all I have to do is make the turn. Usually I don't have much cash with me but what there is ready to burn a hole in my pocket by week's end. Also indigenous to Minnesota are sales sometimes on Wednesday and Thursday as well as the weekend. So the fun begins, and today was no exception. Sometimes I only come away with a $.50 paperback I've wanted to read, a bag of apples or tomatoes. These are a few of my finds recently. The blue sugar & creamer set was being sold by a lady in her sixties who was cleaning out her cupboards and I was happy to give them a good home. They are blue, after all! On a walk to the post office I bought the green watering can for a song because of its lovely shape and a frog and dragonflies embossed on its front. The plate was a find on one of our motorcycle jaunts at a thrift store. These state plates are ubiquitous, I know, but I've never found one from my home state of Idaho. It has Mountain Bluebird and Syringa patterns. If you can enlarge this photo you will better see the cat in this framed print I bought today for $1. It is a rather haphazardly mounted page from a railroad calendar and the lady who sold it said she remembered these calendar prints from her youth many years before. It is marked Peake - Chessie for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. Here's what I learned about 'Peake':

In 1934, the first "Chessie" calendar was produced, with 40,000 copies distributed. Advertisements featuring Chessie appeared in most national magazines as well. Her popularity grew, as did her family. She got two look-alike kittens in 1935, and a mate, "Peake" (from the railroad name as well - Chesapeake = "Chessie-Peake"), in 1937. Soon Chessie, "America's Sleepheart," was the talk of the railroad world, and propelled C&O to the top ranks of rail advertising. You can read more about Chessie here.

I feel very fortunate to have seen this in a box of frames. Maybe Chessie was waiting for me?
Visit the amazing Blue for more bloggers' favorite things. She might inspire you to play along too!





9 comments:

Julie Kwiatkowski Schuler said...

Those are some good finds. I love the blue bowl and creamer. It's funny that I've been painting a cat portrait all day, and come on here and find another cat!

Reader Wil said...

Thank you for sharing your cat with me! Thanks for the visit!Have a nice weekend.

Anonymous said...

Good report. Nice shopping.

Marianne said...

I always love seeing the treasures you find :^)

Roan said...

There are a lot of wonderful things other people consider junk. My daughter is very good at finding the goods stuff.

Kyanite said...

I'm a real fan of charity / junk shops, market stalls, you name it I sort through other folks casts outs with glee, and it's amazing what you can unearth.
Like you I've found many lovely treasures.

Love
Blue

petra michelle; Whose role is it anyway? said...

Love your blog! It was highlighted on I Beati. It has a very warm, welcoming, Zen feeling to it. It was very nice visiting and meeting you. Have a wonderful weekend! Petra

Julie said...

I think you have some very serendipitous finds there. Love that shade of blue. My eyes would have been drawn to them right away even in a table full of other stuff.

I've always thought the Chessie picture was of a cat sleeping??

Julie said...

Well if I hadn't been reading so fast I would have realized you have a picture of "Peake", the mate. I sent you a picture of sleeping Chessie via email. I think you must look for that picture as well. If I ever run across one I will pick it up for you. I have seen them here and there.