Free shopping

Shopping is always fun especially when it's free.

You see 5 weeks ago I won (once again) on my friends Betsy at the Movies radio show. Every Friday morning on KWOS AM Radio she reviews a movie. They then have a trivia question and have a give away. (The answer is always B)

I won a car wash valued at $18.00, 2 movie tickets, and a $25.00 MasterCard gift card courtesy of Central Bank.

The car wash is long gone, dirty again.

But today I spent the $25.00, well most of it.

I first bought a new pillow for me. A $20 pillow on sale for $8.99, with the gift card it was free!

I had a free $10.00 coupon at Penney's. I found this $34.00 blouse on sale for $16.00, take off the $10 coupon made it $6.99, use the MasterCard gift card again. FREE

And I still have about $7.00 left. Maybe I will use it for a cheap car wash. No wait maybe I will try again Friday to win. It's been a month, I can try again.

Hello Betsy??? Pick caller #me!!

Nashville Flood of 2010

I just spent 4 days with Blacksmiths

We headed to Sedalia on Thursday for the 2010 Blacksmith Association of Missouri conference. Our first stop was Eddie's drive-in restaurant. They serve breakfast anytime of the day! I'm pretty sure the inside hadn't been updated in decades. They serve a goober burger there. It's a hamburger with peanut butter, tomatoes and lettuce. I passed on that as it was only 11:00 AM, I went for breakfast.

This is the BAM logo done in metal.


Not all blacksmith wear pants! George could pull this off quite nice, tat and all! These work kilts are not cheap! Pants would have been a whole lot cheaper. But not near as sexy.



This is the swine barn where the conference was held. It's an awesome old barn.

The storms rolled in on Saturday. The lightning hit and the power went out. If you look closely you can see the recloser is off. Luckily for us it was repaired in less than 15 minutes.

This grill was made by Clay Spencer, an awesome blacksmith.

He also teaches at John C Campbell folk school.

Flowers for the ladies, made by Pat McCarty.

Would you believe this coffee table was made by an apprentice? He's willing to sell it too!

Mona bought her jewelry. She does some beautiful work.

Basket classes were taught. Here Jenny and Carla show their baskets in the making.

Jo Nietfeld taught broom making classes.

An auction was held Saturday evening. Here Tim Ryan, who also teaches at John C. Campbell tries to pull a bidder in. I unfortunately gave Tim a duplicate bidder's number. Something that should not be done to the auctioneer!



To see more about the conference and more pictures visit

OsageBluff Blacksmith's blog.

Brady's first communion

Sunday was a very special day for Brady. It was special for us too as Grandparents, to see our grandson make his first Holy Communion.

Isn't he cute in his white shirt and tie? Such a little man.









Here is the 1st communion class. They kids worked hard for this. They attendedclasses every Wednesday night during the school year.

Tonight they will celebrate with a pizza and ice cream party.





The family after mass.








We celebrated after church with dinner in town at Colten's. Brady wanted the steak house, even if it was only 11:00 AM! It was his day and he could pick any place he wanted.

Here he is opening his gift from us. It's a Fredrick's cross made by the blacksmith.

I feel pretty safe in say he's probably the first boy ever to receive a hand made cross from his grandfather the blacksmith.

Dinner tonight

Remember these? The dirty jars I bought at the auction over the weekend. They were muddy, grassy and scummy.

I first soaked them in a wash tub with strong detergent water. I then scrubbed them with a stiff brush.

I then loaded them into my 17 year old dishwasher. I used for pot scrubbed cycle and the wash heat booster cycle. I'm pretty sure in 17 years that was the first time use for those cycles. They came out looking like they were brand new.

But by the bottom of this one I can assure you they weren't new. It is dated Aug 31, 1815. It was made in Sands Springs Oklahoma by the Kerr Glass Company.

Now let's talk food. Tonight we will have this fresh picked lettuce for dinner.

Along with that, let's add some fresh green onions. The radishes we will save for breakfast. They go so good with bacon sandwiches.

Then I found this while mowing grass in the backyard. It's all mine. Unfortunately the blacksmith is highly allergic to them.

It sure made mowing the grass worth while!

Jungmeyer Auction with the Mother of all CROCKS!

Saturday we left the house at 9:00 for an auction. The skies looked gloomy before we left so plenty of rain gear was taken, or so we thought. The drive took about 20 minutes.

This auction in the country was located on a ridge. The surroundings were beautiful, you could see for miles.

The first thing I scoped out was the 50 gallon Red wing crock.

This is the biggest crock I have every seen. It was in mint condition. Notice the spigot on the bottom. It measured 34 inches tall and 24 inches across. It would sell later in the day for $1350.00. From the little research I did, at the Red Wing Collector's website, it seems to have a value between $2000 to $2400. Someone got a very good deal!


Vintage miniature oil cans.

Car Snac VW sportsman thermos picnic set. A very nice rare plaid retro VW Car snac picnic set. It would hang over the back or front seat and has two thermos bottles for hot and cold drinks. The middle is a sandwich or snack compartment.

One of the many rows of things waiting to be auctioned.

A rare sight, to see a farmer who owns both red and green!

A very nice wood cook stove. the collectible fan on top was sold separatly for $10.00.

Pie crust metal rockers. We would've liked to have these, but we don't need them! We already have 12 restored metal chairs.

White Mountain Oak ice box.

Wurlitzer Simplex Multi-selector, wooden case juke box with records.

The majestic old barn, still in the dry.

The sky's get more threatening. Rains coats are being put on.

And this is what I saw as I sat in the car to warm up. It must have rained two inches in the 8 hours we were there.

The back of the jeep was full.

8 quart Simmons Hardware sausage stuffer. Our purchase price $25.00

Hobart meat tenderizer. $310 bought by the brother in law. We just transported it.

My 9 hats, 2 of which are mink. One very wet hat box included in the $5.00 price. Cat hair was free.

4 flats of canning jars. Blue jar and some wire bail tops included. I bought for $1

More of my purchases. Oval cast iron fish fryer $22.50. 10 inch deep cast iron skillet $15.00

2 burner gas stove. BT bought for $10.

Not pictured are the blacksmith tongs, the forge blower, some cute little red motor and two soaked auction goers. I also had the camera put away so as not to get wet, when they sold the 1929 Model A ford roadster. It was pale mint green and restored, it bought $6500.

It started raining about an hour after we got there. Only for one brief period did it let up and the sun came out. It gave us a false sense of security. By the time we left, the rain coats were no longer helping, the jeans had soaked up from the bottom. Needless to say everything was wet. And I do mean everything . Even the cloth zipper in my rain coat got water logged and made my top and bra soaked.

We got home, wrung out our clothes, took hot showers and made a big pot of strong black coffee. After looking over all our purchases I made a pot of potato soup.

A fun time was had by all.

A baby quilt finished

Look at the pattern I found last night by accident!

I almost screamed out loud!

It was in one of my old quilt books.

It makes the cutest wall hanging using feed sack fabric for the dresses.

Handkerchiefs can be used for the collars.

You can accent with antique buttons and even jewelry.

I wanted the pattern when I saw it at the Stover Quilt gathering last month.

But tightwad me thought it would be one of those patterns

I would purchase and never get made.

So I passed it by.

Here is a picture I took there.

The pattern was for sale for about $8.00 or $9.00.

Now I will have to find some feed sacks.

I would be willing trade for a fat quarter.

Here is my latest project I have been working on.
It's a darling baby quilt.
It's the first quilt I have made in ages that didn't include paper piecing.
That was a challenge for me.
I machine quilted it.
It will go to it's new home next week.
The baby is due in 15 days!