An old sew-and-sew

The other day Scott told me he saw a bunch of stuff on the curb for free down the block, in front of the big white house with the big screened porch. I walked down there and one of the things was a Sears Kenmore sewing machine. I had just been saying to him recently that I wished I had a sewing machine to do odd little sewing projects. Well, lo and behold, here was one that showed up. I got it home and plugged it in and it worked! I spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday cleaning it up. It was covered with age and grime. I got 98% of it off. It looks almost brand new. The case especially, gleams. Now I have to sit with it and study how to use it. There was no instruction manual. When I was watching some tutorial videos on how to use the machine, the teachers all stated how much they liked these machines from the late 1960s and early 70s. They're really well built, it weighs a TON, very solid. They also said you can buy old instruction manuals for these models on Ebay. I looked there and found ads for sites that sell pdf's of vintage manuals. Sure enough, there was one called SewingMachineManuals.com! AND they had my model # available...the 60 page pdf was only $4.99. I bought it in a heartbeat. The internet can be a wonderful thing for sure. I can't wait to start learning hot to use it!

(Not a) still racoon

We spotted this little fellow not once, but TWICE last week in the vacant lot next to the front yard. Was it a SIGN of some sort??

Let them eat cake

There was a large "social distancing" yard sale last weekend on Main Street. My sister sent me the notice about it that she saw online. It was the house next to the Cove Deli. It was pretty populated with people for being run in the middle of a pandemic. At least everyone was wearing masks! I spotted a nice big white cake plate in the garage out back. I liked it, you can never have enough cake plates. There was no price. I asked one of the guys running the event what the price was. He said "Ten dollars? Five dollars?" I said, "All I've got in my wallet is three dollars". He said fine and it was mine. The lesson? Never settle for the first price no matter what they say!

Living in stereo

I was on Nextdoor.com the other day and saw someone here in the village was giving away a nice stereo system, and Onkyo CD player, component, and tape deck. I immediately wanted it as I no longer have a way to play all my old mix tapes from the 90's. My tape players have all conked out, even both my old Walkmans. I exchanged DM's with the guy giving it away and it was a house just a few blocks away over on Division Street. The house was empty and being sold, it belonged to his mother-in-law. He told me the stereo was nice unit, she was a big jazz fan. I couldn't take the stereo wires that hooked into the speakers because they went behind the wall unit out of reach. I decided to take a gamble and take everything...if it didn't work after I got some new wires, well, I'd just throw it all away. I got on Amazon and found 50 feet of stereo speaker wire for only 10 bucks. I got it yesterday and hooked up the system today...and it works GREAT. The sound is amazing. I'm playing one of my old tapes as I write this. I'll say it again: FREE is the best price in the world!



Right now I have it sitting on top of the cabinet in the TV room. I may put it in the shelves down below, I'd have to drill some holes in the back. I have to measure to sit if it will fit. A good 'project of the future'.

What a crock

I spied a bunch of furniture and household items on the curb in front of a house down the block from me. I sauntered down there of course. The house has seen better days and is for sale. It was mostly junky stuff, ugly furniture, kids' toys, etc...but there was this clay crock jug. Scott said, "you could paint that dark gray and use it for something, maybe an umbrella stand." So I took it. Got it home, sanded it, primed it, and put two coats of gray paint on it. And just like that it modernized it. I'm using to hold all my wrapping papers in the craft room upstairs. Funny, I have been thinking I needed something like that for literally years, something heavy that wouldn't tip over when all the rolls were in it.

BEFORE

AFTER

Addressing a stone

Years ago I put a rock in front of the house next to the driveway with my house number spray painted on it. Over the years the paint faded. I still had the stencil I used in the basement so i re-painted it putting a drop shadow of white behind the black numbers. You can really see it now.

Much mulch

Scott suggested mulching all the 'new' beds when we were done cleaning them out and moving things around. He said it would be the final clean touch to give everything a polished look. He was right. We got a dark brown mulch called "Easthampton Mix" from a place called Easthampton Masonry. They deliver it in a bid dump truck and leave it in a pile on your property, in my case on the driveway. They sell it by the 'yard', so we got 3 altogether. Once we placed it all around we decided we needed another two yards to finish things off, especially the wide expanse in front of the privet on the street (a Herculean that Scott did all by himself that took 4 days). Everything looks great as you can see by these photos.