Vintage has never lost it's style in Americana

You know how they say, "everything comes back into style..." well, that is very true. Check out the fashion magazines each year and your mom and/or grandmother will say that they wore that when they were younger. The world of Vintage has been very much alive for many years now. Some people are new to the trend, others have been doing it their entire lives, and some are just going with what they think is popular at the moment.

There are many amazing blogs and articles out there that help you figure out vintage and how to buy it, but the truth is, most of the people who buy vintage and sell it online... they do not truly want you knowing their secrets because they want you to buy items from their shops online {and some have real actual shops too}. And it makes sense to hide their secrets to a point; you don't expect people who run shops to tell you the wholesale shop they purchase their items from to give you such amazing prices. If they did that, it might put them out of business. Luckily for us regular people who do not run our own vintage stores, we do not need an "in" or any "secret codes" to shop for Vintage. It really is as simple as going out there and doing it! If you are shopping for yourself, and not to sell online, then there is no trick. If you see it and you like it, buy it! It is pretty much the same thing you would do when you went shopping in a regular store. You wouldn't need any major tips or tricks to shop at Target. The same is true for Vintage shopping. If your town has a Goodwill, a Salvation Army, a Flea Market, or any store that sells "gently used items" then you are on your way to shopping for Vintage items!

There are no set rules unless you are a hard core Vintage shopper. Anything over 10 years old can be considered "one of a kind" because chances are there are not too many of its kind around. the older the item, the less chance you have to walk down the street and bump into someone wearing the same thing you are, which is a huge draw for people to shop Vintage. Same thing with furniture... the older the item, the more rare it is that you will have the same thing in your house as your neighbor.

Do not forget about the Eco Friendliness of buying Vintage. If you buy something pre-owned and pre-loved, you will not need to buy something brand new. Reducing the need to produce more waste in the world by making new items.

I've put together a list of a few websites that give some tips on Vintage shopping that might help those who enjoy shopping and want to branch out into the Vintage shopping world, but are not sure how to do it.

1. A Beautiful Mess is a wonderful blog to follow even if you are not a fan of buying Vintage items. The blog owner runs her own shop selling Vintage items online and in another store in the real world. A while back they described how to shop for Vintage clothing.

2. Frecklewonder is another great blogger. She has listed out some tips on how to thrift while you have little ones with you.

3. Bleubird {aka Miss James} did a guest blog spot on Candimandi's blog giving some wonderful vintage tips.

4. A big concern of mine is cleaning Vintage clothing. someone who wore it before could have just been a nasty person, not to mention the item was probably sitting in a box or attic for awhile, then it was hung amongst other clothes in a thrift shop before you purchased it. Here is a nice article explaining cleaning Vintage clothes.

5. Maybe you aren't hip to buying used clothes, but you would love to get your hands on some Vintage pyrex dishes that you loved when you were a kid? You need to know how to clean it properly! Most recommend that you DO NOT put vintage pyrex into the dishwasher for fear of removing the pretty details on the outside of the dish. Here is an article explaining how to clean up your pyrex before you use it.

6. Maybe the thought of using old dishes is beyond your thought process, as is wearing old clothes. fear not, there are still many things you can buy at a Thrift store that you won't use in a personal way. Like vases, old jars to hold beautiful items to display, art sculptures/statues, and etc. But you'll still want to clean up your newly purchased item. Here is an article explaining how to clean vintage glassware's.

7. And lastly there is purchasing furniture. Thrift stores, as my kid puts it, "smell like old attics that are dusty and stinky..." so you will want to clean up your items. Unless you enjoy that vintage smell... then you are welcome to skip cleaning it for the smell part, but you might want to consider it just for sanitary reasons. Here are a couple of articles that explain how to clean thrifted furniture items: article 1, article 2, article 3 {articles 3 & 4 help explain the bed bug effect that took over NY, and still takes over areas every year!}, article 4.

Basically when you thrift, you need to take into account many things. But if you are willing to put in the time and effort... you will find many amazing deals out there!

If you think you are just too freaked out by buying used items, not to worry... there are many, many, many places out there who specialize in selling throwback items that are made brand new, but I'll tell you all about those another time!

what we write today, our grandchildren might read tomorrow.

Left to right: Unknown relatives Dell, Larry and Susie.

My great-grandfather {holding unknown baby} my great grandmother & my great aunt Markita

what will be left of what we say online in 100 years? 1,000 years? will our great-great-great-grandchildren read our tweets on whatever hand held device is out there. will there be an app for that? will they download photos we took today and wonder what we were like?


I've spent the last 9 months {off and on} researching my heritage. it doesn't give me much. a photo here, and a photo there... but no stories on the people who i am looking at in the photo. there are no letters, no journals, no tweets, no blogs, no e-mails. just bits and pieces of information about people in my families past.

wouldn't it be great to know what they were really like. I have my grandfather's eyes, but do I share his sense of humor or his work ethic? was he an adventurous person with a love of travel? was he worried as a father, as a grandfather or even as a child? Did my grandmother regret leaving her kids behind to be raised by another woman? Did she wear her heart on her sleeve or have the world on her shoulders or perhaps she was just a gypsy like personality and brushed everything off and moved onto the next adventure without pause or regret.

there are so many questions that will go un-answered in my quest for knowing who my relatives of the past were in their life. but as I sit here wondering... I can't help but think that perhaps one day there will be someone looking at a photo of me wondering who I was in life. And perhaps that person will have something more to go on... like this blog or my flickr or some trace of my online life will be there for them to see.

so, as I always tell my daughter... do not say or post something online you wouldn't want your grandmother... or one day, your grandchildren to see!

the food we ate and the food we eat today

Dick Van Dyke show {circa 1961}

I positively adore this show from the 60's. I've spoken about it before. It's a wholesome reminder of a time when things were just... simple. They were perfectly simple.

But this isn't truly about this show and my love for all things vintage... not really anyway.

There are several times in this show where Rob will come into the kitchen where Laura is cooking, and he'll grab a carrot or a piece of celery out of the grocery bag and eat it. Seems innocent enough. But he does this without washing it or peeling it or preparing it in anyway at all. In this day of people becoming sick from things like e coli or salmonella almost every month of the year because they didn't properly wash their veggies, well... you should wash any and all vegetables you purchase from the store in today's crazy world of people tainting food and not storing/shipping/making things properly.

As a vegetarian {since the age of 11} i know what ingredients are inside of a number of products that i ate as a child that i wouldn't even let my enemies eat today because i know what is truly inside of it. Jello is made from boiled and ground up animal bones. I remember eating a lot of Jello as a child. Twinkies are made from beef fat {that cream filling isn't made from milk/cream!} And i could go on with several other foods that i use to enjoy. Not to go all Vegan on this entry, but the things that are in the foods we ate and still eat are kind of nasty!

The entire point of this entry is this... times use to be more simple. People back then thought in simple terms. Food was just that, Food. They bought it, ate it... and didn't think much about where it came from or how it was processed or much of anything. The people of that generation happily bought into the happy ad's selling the items as wholesome and healthy. They didn't worry too much about the bad stuff that was in foods.

With that being said, when i was a kid we got our Milk from local farmers. We bought our eggs from the farmers down the street. We had a garden and my mom canned a LOT of our foods that we ate all winter long. I do not recall having soup from a store can that often, but made from vegetables from a glass jar off the shelf in the basement. Now you might think that i was a kid in the 50's with my talking like this, but i was born in the mid 70's. This all took place in the 80's. We were somewhat poor, this is how we ate to survive. But we did eat things like jello and twinkies and hot dogs and even Spaghetti O's.

Each week i go to the store and i purchase foods that nourish us, while they poison us. Whatever your belief or stance on being a vegan, a vegetarian, or even a full blown meat eater... the plain and simple fact is this - most of the foods we eat are BAD for us. They are full of added sodium's, added fats, and added junk that the human body doesn't need.

I don't mean for this to come off as a complaint, because i am happy to know what is in the foods we eat today. I like reading the labels and figuring out if it is something i would feed my family or not. Back then, they didn't have the kinds of labels we have today. They blindly just ate their food and either liked it and bought it again, or hated it and didn't purchase it again. But there are times when i feel like my personal supply of food is dwindling to only RAW, organic, farmers market purchased food.  There are times when it might be nice to just not know what is really in the foods that i use to love to eat. To just forget that the yummy onion soup i use to LOVE to eat is made of beef broth. Forget about the jello that i use to love is made from animal bones, and so on...

but i can't forget. somethings are just to nasty to ignore and put into my body.

***
Edited to add: i just made rice crispy treats with my daughter last night. And somehow i never {ever} read the package of marshmallows. Perhaps i just adored them too much and was afraid to learn what was inside of them? Or maybe deep down i knew that i shouldn't be eating them. Nothing that sugary/yummy can be good for you or made from anything natural found on this earth.

Sure enough, ingredient # 3 is Gelatin. One of the main ingredients in Marshmallow's is Gelatin? {made from boiled, ground up animal bones} yuck! i will never fully enjoy another cup of hot chocolate again.

can't we go back to a simpler time?

We cancelled our cable a few months ago to save money and to save our minds! Too much time is wasted in front of the Tv watching pure crap. Most of the time the shows were not kid friendly, so we avoided them altogether. And there is only so much Disney a person can watch in a single day!

We have our Tv set up to watch Netflix live now. They have everything from Tv shows to movies. They aren't always recent Tv shows or movies, so you can't be too picky about something to watch! The last couple of weeks we had been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (B&A). The other show we like to put on at night is an old favorite of mine - The Dick Van Dyke Show. If you are not familiar with this show, it is a comedy from the 1960's. The thing i like most about this show, C loves it!
The other things i like about this show and notice while watching it...

It's clean cut. The men do not walk around in tighty-whities with giant bulges nor does the camera play tricks on a "naked" man walking around and then stopping where a vase is or something. The shows of the 50's & 60's could be fun, sexy, and tell a story without having to go to extreme levels of throwing it all in your face.

The shows represent work as it should be... people working side by side, man and woman in the same office... and none of them are having sex with each other or having an affair. I've worked several jobs in my life... and every single one of them had both men and women working side by side - and no one was sleeping with anyone else! Shows today make it seem like every job has sex going on in every closet and everyone is swapping partners. Its kind of sad to think that kids watch shows like this growing up and think that is something to do when they grow up. It use to mean something to have work ethic, its no wonder skill levels have gone down in the work place. People are too busy thinking they have to have sex with everyone in the office in order to be like it is on Tv.

Being a MOM meant something in the 50's & 60's. i am probably alone in my thinking, but i still think it means something to be a MOM and stay home and keep the house together. Now a days, so many people look down on women who choose to stay home and raise a family. The moms of the 50's and 60's also knew what it meant to be a MOM. Wake up, put yourself together, get your kids together, and do your day. I am not saying i am perfect, i have days where i'm still in my PJ's and it is almost noon, but that is because we homeschool now and don't even leave the house on some days! I have mixed feelings on how a woman should present herself as a mom. I think you should feel comfortable in your clothes, but a part of me misses the days where woman knew what it meant to be put together before they went into public. I can not count how many times (here in Cali and back home in the mid-west) i went to the store and saw grown women, with children in tow, shopping in their PJ's and slippers in the middle of the day! It makes me rather sad to think this is how they want the world to see them.

Boys played baseball and girls took ballet. Ok, i don't think that there is only one thing for a child to do as a kid... but it use to mean something, the sport of baseball being played by all of the little boys in the summertime... boys didn't sit at home watching Tv all summer or playing video games. The same goes for the girls... too many kids are overweight because they are not involved in a sport. The parents today don't get the kids involved in a sport or get they away from the Tv because it interferes with their own lives or either work or socializing with friends. This goes back to a MOM being a MOM. Dropping their life to make sure their kids are able to be involved in something other than sitting on their butt watching tV or playing video games.

Simpler times, when women knew how to sew and fix their own clothes. I love to sew! and i have so many people say to me, "oh i wish i knew how to sew... just so i can fix things instead of throwing them out when they come apart!" All being said by grown women with families. I don't think that all women should know how to sew a fashion dress or a dress of any kind, but simple sewing is something that all women should at least understand. Maybe this is just me, but sewing is pretty darn easy. If you can't even sew a button back on a shirt, or hem a stitch that has come undone... then you shouldn't have passed 7th grade! ;-)

slap stick comedy. i have laughed more watching this simple comedy from the 60's than i have watching any current show on Tv in a long time. There is something to be said for good humor that the entire family can watch. Not only watch but get the joke - not have a sex joke told and your 10 year old turn to you and say, "i don't get it... they want to stick what where?"

a time when people had good old fashion fun just sitting around playing music and hanging with their friends and family. If there isn't a game on the Tv or gossip being thrown about, most people don't get together to hang out much anymore. Good humor, good times, good people - i love this show!

a time when every home had a phone, and the number was listed in a phone book - C doesn't even know what a phone book is! when every neighbor knew that number. when you knew every neighbor and wanted to know the neighbor. simpler times.

there is something to be said about the times we live in today - fear, hate, mistrust, unknown, etc. Most people do not know their next door neighbors by name, let alone their phone number. Most people live their day to day life and don't think about much to do with how they are living it. i wouldn't want to give up my iPhone or my laptop - but i sure would love to see things like they use to be.

a true classic, IMHO.

Hands Across the Table, 1935

i love this movie. somewhere in a box, waiting to be unpacked, i own this movie on VHS. (if you ever find a copy on DVD, snag it for me will ya?)

Classic girl meats boy, falls in love with boy... but boy is poor and jobless. i kind of feel like i should unpack this movie and watch it. i recall many late night study sessions in college watching AMC (back when they actually use to play classic's - you know, really great OLD black and white movies!) this movie came on AMC about once a month and i found an old copy on VHS one year... it was a present to myself for all of my hard work. Although i can not recall what the hard work was that deserved a movie, but it must have been something special because i truly love this movie.

a couple of quotes from the movie that i love;

Regi: You must have a lot of friends that could give you a job.
Ted Drew: That'd be a fine friend who'd give you a job. No friend of mine had better try anything like that on me.
---
Regi: Do you dream?
Ted Drew: No.
Regi: You should - you'd meet a better class of people
---
Laura: Yeah, and maybe here's that ten million dollars you've been dreaming about.
Regi: The way I feel today, I'd settle for a million.

Carole Lombard had this way about presenting herself on screen. i wish i had half of that talent to present myself really well.

they do not make movies like this anymore. i love old classic movies. life seemed so much more simple back then. sure it was hard. but life is hard no matter what time zone or time period you are living in. a time when a person could get a job at the newspaper without having 10 degrees to back up their working knowledge of how the paper worked. a time when you could let your kid play in the street without fear of being snatched by someone. a time when you knew your neighbors and they knew you and you could depend on them for even something as small as a cup of sugar. times aren't how they use to be in the movies that i love watching. life flies by at a million 140 character twitter updates per second. if you blink you just missed a million people updating their status online and a world of knowledge that you probably didn't even need to know about complete strangers.

speaking of, i'm giving up my twitter for 1 week (or longer if i can stand it). its going to be a rough week. i lived for years without twitter and needing to know that someone that is a complete stranger to me is brushing their teeth while they pee. yeah, twitter has some odd updates. i'll miss @badbanana and @sween and the comical side of twitter that sometimes made me laugh just when i needed it. but right now i have some hard choices to make in my life and i need less distractions keeping me from staying focused. you will be missed my good friend twitter.

ok, i'm off to be the choice maker of the family!