One day left

E. only has one more day (one more exam- American History)to go for her junior year of high school to be history. Where does the time go? Today I picked her up in the late morning from school after she finished her Math and Environmental Sciences exams. We decided to do a girls' day while her two siblings were still in school for the full day.

We ended up going to a tiny little place with wonderful food and baked goods tucked inside a historical building which used to be next to the downtown hardware about 100 years ago. I love the old exposed imperfect brick walls and the painted tables. I love to paint things like they paint things, lots of bold colors and graphics!!
That's E., getting ready to taste her scrumptious cinnamon cake. That's a mango smoothie you see. The verdict.....Deeeelicious!!

Oh my golly was this ever yummy, a cobb chicken salad sandwich wrap and chicken soup!!

Look at that peanut butter cookie! It was huge! We split it.

This was the view out the front window where E. chose for us to sit. There was a custom designed painted park bench out front-- toile fabric on the back of the bench peeking through the window at us! Below is a closer look at one end of the park bench. I LOVE it. I like putting finials on things too! And the painting is right up my alley!

There were puddles as it had rained all night and early morning but cleared up by the time we were out snooping around finding places to go.

We ended up going to a newly opened thrifty store too while driving around. E. found some brand new boots with the original tags still on them to wear at the horse rescue where she volunteers. Her old barn boots had become too small. Silly growing kids!! We were glad to find those as it was the last thing we expected to find. The boots were a good reasonable price, but I was pretty shocked when I saw some of the "priced too darn high" prices of some of the other things. I struck up a conversation with another customer and we laughed about the fact that you could get a lot of these things brand new at Target on sale for the same price they were asking!! I was disgusted that they were trying to sell glass and ceramic ware with huge obvious chips and cracks and just plain old broken for $5.99 and as high as $7.99. What the heck were they thinking????

A fun day together and good memories made.

a restaurant and a kangaroo

On our way through the old buildings we drive through the warehouse district. This was an old abandoned warehouse that has been refurbished into high rise, high priced contemporary loft apartments. At night you can see into the large windows. This was the first place ever (a few years ago) that I had seen a decorated Christmas tree upside down hanging from the ceiling. We saw it at night through the lit up window. We drove around the block twice for that one!





This is the front of one of our favorite restaurants.
The public areas are the street level and the basement only. I would love to explore the other levels! They say there are ghosts.

All the booth backs are head and foot boards of antique beds. N. went with me for lunch because he had a good grade card. He likes to sit in this booth so he can look at the stuffed real kangaroo that sits on a shelf on the other side of this leaded glass window.

This is the kangaroo from the other side of the window. It is on a high shelf above the stairway to the basement.

For as long as we can remember, all three of my kids have had a fascination with the kangaroo perched so high up. This day we shared that fact with the manager and he replied, "Wow! What a coincidence that you should mention the kangaroo because we were told we needed to take him down after 25 years. Today!!"

They began to take him down while we were there so N. could see him up close and personal.

It was quite a feat to get this "famous with the kids kangaroo" down to the basement floor.

They joked that we should take him home since they were going to just throw him into the dumpster.

Once he was down in the basement lounge level I asked if they were really going to throw him away. 

The reply from the employees was, "No! we will store him away for awhile and he will make an appearance someday again. Maybe we will leave him here next to the bar to scare the employees that come in tomorrow morning in the darkness of the basement."

This is one of the many unusual yet interesting things in the restaurant. It always reminds me of the machine in the movie "BIG" with Tom Hanks that grants his wish. I love that movie!!

What a treasure trove for the eyes in every direction. Our favorite traditional activity is playing "I Spy" each time we go to this place.

We begin the minute we sit down, it continues all through the meal and doesn't end until we leave.

By the way, The place doesn't look busy because we were there for an early lunch- the lunch crowd arrived as we were leaving.
Sitting at one of the tables inside the antique real street car is always fun.

They say late at night when the employees are closing up they have sometimes seen a lady dressed in turn of the century clothing sitting inside the street car!! OOOOO!! Spooky. They have also seen the lady in the basement.

Speaking of ghosts...This is a ghost of a different kind which I also find very fascinating. It is the side of another brick warehouse building in the restaurant's parking lot which is across the street. It shows the ghost lines of separate rooms that once existed when the missing half of the building was intact. It looks so much more awesome in person.

Girls' Day Out

My friend Sharon and I had a wonderfully fun "girls day out" yesterday! We met at a restaurant and had a yummy lunch. When I go to any restaurant that has French onion soup with cheese melted on top I just have to order it. After we filled our tummies we went thrifting. We need to go back again soon because time seemed to race by.
We found some tiny clear glass bottles ( one for each of us ) for cheap - so we can do altered art bottles. We saw some awesome examples on the web and we want to try it. Is yours done yet Sharon? You've had a whole 24 hours; I expect great things!!
We found a vintage first grade book of sheet music to use for altered art. It is filled with illustrations and the scrawling handwriting of , I presume, the music teacher on many of the 50 pages! My scheming mind is filing away ideas for these perfectly yellowed pages. I promise I will not keep all the pages for myself. The potential of the printed music must be spread around to my fellow altered art friends.
The picture above is scanned from the book.
You know, they say that when girlfriends get together there are natural endorphins that are released for a kind of happy, high feeling. I was feeling pretty high; how 'bout you, Sharon?