Words for a new year. . .

As the new year dawns, I find myself learning of my friends' "words" for 2014.  Their words to live up to, their "guideposts," so to speak.  A tiny little group of letters that will mean something big to them as they go forth and try to become better people.  "Balance" is one.  "Gracious" is another.  Got me to thinking, what would my word be?

Cope?  Survive?

Hmm, those don't seem hopeful enough, do they?

Then I got to thinking, I've had "words" that I've lived by for a long time.  Words that mean everything to me, from the way I live my life to the way we've tried to raise our children to the way we run our flea market, and everything in between.  These are the words that make me tick. 

T   R  U  S  T

My dad once told me that "when dealing with people who matter, be dead honest."  I tend to be "dead honest" with everyone.  And I want others to be honest with me, even if its painful or embarrassing.  Perhaps its old-fashioned, but I like to believe people, to trust them.  Period.

R  E  L  I  A  B  L  E

If you say you're going to do something, do it.  Be there.  Show up.

K  I  N  D  N  E  S  S

"I want to be kind to everyone, for that is right, you see," (LDS children's song).  My daughter once went through a traumatic time in her life which left her with a PTSD-type reaction to anyone who yells.  I've had to learn to control my voice when angry (why yes, I do get angry sometimes!) so as not to upset her further.  I'm not always able to do this and I sob afterwards when I've yelled and frightened her.  I've learned that kindness is always a good choice, no matter what.

H  E  L  P

Several months ago I took the "Love Languages" inventory and found out that one of my love languages is "help."  Couldn't be truer.  I love it when my husband helps me. . . which he does a lot.  You'll see him doing it at fleattitude.  And just about everywhere else.  I love to see our dealers helping others.  Isn't "helping" what life is all about?

N  I  C  E

A few years ago I was working in a situation where I had to quit because someone didn't like me.  It didn't make much sense to me since I did my job well and was appreciated by most everyone else there.  I was nice.  But the person who mattered in keeping my job didn't like me.  Funny thing is, I had earlier received a plaque from someone else related to my job that said, "Because nice matters."  I still have that plaque, because, in spite of all that happens that is out of our control, NICE does matter.  No matter how hard life is, no matter what cards we are dealt, NICE matters.  And NICE is important.  Period.

So. . . happy 2014, and may you find the right words to guide you through the new year and your life.

And. . . if you're at a loss for some, here are a few good ones:

g  o  o  d      j  u  n  k  i  n  '

sincerely,

                     cathie

Remembering Christmas. . .

Snapshot.  n.  1. a casual photograph made typically by an amateur with a small handheld camera.  2.  an impression or view of something brief or transitory.   < a snapshot of life back then > 

 

When I think of the Christmases of my childhood they present themselves in snapshots.  Ones that I’d like to pull out and share with you.  So let’s put Bing Crosby on the Victrola, grab a cup of Ovaltine, and have a seat on the davenport. . . .

I was a child of the 1960s in suburban Detroit.  When I was five all I wanted was what every other little girl did. . . Chatty Cathy.  She had a blonde bob and blue eyes, just like me, and such pretty clothes.  Back then our names were even spelled the same.  And, after all, she loved me and wanted to play with me. . . which I knew for certain because she told me so!  Would Santa come through? The anticipation was torturous. Sleep eluded me that long night.  As Christmas 1963 dawned I tiptoed down the stairs. . . peeked around the landing. . . and could finally breathe when my wondrous eyes met hers.  Yes, she had made the trip down the chimney, and I was happy beyond belief.  
(It's a different doll in the photo. . . sadly we never got a photo of me with her).


My dad was a young finance executive at Pontiac Motor in the 60s who worked far into the nights and most Saturdays, yet he always made time for Christmas activities.  After taking a v-e-r-y long time placing the huge colored bulbs on the tree, Dad would finally get out the army footlocker that held our ornaments, the magical trunk that we only saw once a year.  Inside the fragile Shiny Brites were wrapped in tissue paper that had been used and re-used so many times that it was as familiar to me as feel of my own hair.  Oh how I hoped I would get a bell – or just maybe a teapot – to unwrap!  At last Dad pulled out the cardboard boxes with the metallic tinsel.  He insisted that we place it on the tree one strand at a time, which I was good at.  My mom would throw it on hither-thither, which quickly got her expelled from tinsel duty.  Which was okay.  Decorating the tree was my time with Dad. . . .

Christmas Eve we went to my dad’s parents’ house.  They lived in a humble home in Royal Oak, a suburb of Detroit similar to South Salt Lake.  Russell Clayton was a truck driver, and he and my grandma Dorothy taught Sunday School.  Grandpa would get down on the floor and play with us kids with our new Tinker Toys while my grandma and my widowed Aunt Mildred prepared the feast in the kitchen where you bumped into each other if more than two people were in there at a time.  Presents from them included puzzles in round tall cans, crocheted slippers with leather soles, pick-up sticks and checker games, and, when I was older, a Bible with a white cover.  Because I was unknowing I didn’t like their tiny house much when I was a child, but theirs was the kind of house that I now love to go to estate sales in – with its telltale signs of quiet lives lived with dignity everywhere you look. 

Christmas day we went to my mom’s parent’s home.  Art and Dorothy Brown lived on 25 acres in Rochester, which might compare to Holladay or Draper.  There the adults ate cheese and crackers and Blue Diamond almonds and drank Michelob and watched the Detroit Lions while I sat on the davenport and drank Coke out of 6 ½ ounce green glass bottles and studied the Miles Kimball and FAO Schwartz catalogs. 

We had to dress up to go to Grandma Brown’s in our holiday best – I usually donned a wool plaid pleated skirt with a white blouse or a fancy twirly dress.  One year when I was around 13 my Aunt Margaret – who wore too much lipstick and smelled like the perfume inserts that came in your department store bill – gave me silky white panties which she made me hold up in front of the entire extended family.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  How could she?!  My uncle later divorced her – probably over the incident.  After dinner my grandma would pull out a plate of Christmas cookies that she had been baking – and freezing – for months.  My favorites were the spritz that she shaped into candy canes and wreaths.  She would then return to the kitchen and emerge carrying the plum pudding in what eerily resembled a wedding march or a graduation processional.  She would present the sacrificial pudding to my grandfather, who, amid exclamations of wonder from the audience, poured brandy over it – and then TORCHED the thing!  Actually he just used a match but it was larger than life to my young eyes.  And the grown-ups actually ate the bloody mess.  Aargh!  “Um, pass the cookies, please?”

My favorite Christmas “snapshot” of all is the one my parents never took with a camera, perhaps because it was so ordinary.  Each December night I would lie on the floor near the Christmas tree with only the tree lights on and “those old familiar carols” dancing in my head.  I would stare with wonder at the shiny ornaments, my eyes darting from one to another, constantly choosing a new favorite.  And I would study the packages, each covered with Santas or poinsettias or holly and tied with bows made by hand by my mother.  How many of the tags said “Cathy?”  Was my precious doll in one of them?  Hurry Christmas, oh hurry fast. 

May your holidays be filled with joy 

  and your home be filled with good junk. . . .

Merry Christmas from fleattitude

Cathie & Jen

Our fleattitude vendors. . . November 2013!

We're incredibly happy with our vendors for our upcoming market. . . 

                                                           . . . and here they are!

Amy Redden

Vintage Fern

Annette Broadhead

Flea Bit

Brandon Kay & Tonya Painter

Two Pitts of a Pear

Callie Bott

Carla Cunningham & Sheri Parker

C & S Co-op

Cathie Cox

second hand stuft

Connie Pinckney, Mike Swendsen 
& Michelle Swendsen

Something Borrowed

The Clever Craftsman

DeAnn Adams

Two Antique Gypsies

Debra Washburn

Relic Mercantile

Denise Gamble

Two Ole Crows

Dru Beecher

Polka Dot Poplars

Gretchen Thiessens

Silver Teapot Antiques

Heidi Wilcock

Acorn Antique Show

Hug-hes Cafe, Ogden

Jennifer Reed

3 Dotters Vintage Rentals

Jennine Ashley

Le Junque

Jenny Jolley

Julie Collings

Karen Houmand

Kathy Romero

Lacy Johnson

Larry Ray

Picker's Paradise

Linda Magro

Lindsey Snarr

One Vintage Dish

Margo Graham

Mary Ann Hill

Miss Fitts

Michelle Jones

Vintage Cupcake

Mike Sovic

Nichole Huntington

Cavalcade

Oakley Seal

Hot Diggity Vintage

Penny Jones

Penny Jones Art

Ranae Zauner

Sarah Morris

We Got Fleas in Utah

Shireen Watanabe

Mon Amie Jewelry

Steffi Link

The Pink Door

Steve Bateman

Silverwear Jewelry

Tammy Herker & Jayme Henry

Tom Peterson

Vintage bicycle display

Tonya Vistaunet

Vickie Hunter

Pick-it Vintage

fleattitude Vintage Market

Saturday November 16th

at the Old Pleasant Grove Rec Center

65 East 200 South

Pleasant Grove, Utah

9:00 am 'til 4:00 pm

$1 admission

or

8:00 am early entry for $5


follow us on Facebook at Fleattitude Vintage Market
for sneak peaks, giveaways and info

On obsessive collecting. . .

I hope you'll enjoy this reprint of my column 

- Sincerely Vintage - 

from the October issue of the New Century Collector. . .

I’ll admit it from the get-go, I see a therapist.  Have done so for over 20 years.  My kids’ pediatrician (who was the one who convinced me it was a good idea) calls them “paid friends.”  Hey, I’ll take my friends any way I can get them.  (BTW – best investment ever when you’ve got three kids with special needs. . . .)  I knew I was in trouble the day I admitted to my paid friend that I collected string.  It made perfect sense to me. . . but somehow it sounded pretty strange when I said it out loud to her.  I could see the look of alarm in her eyes and knew we were in for a long session.

“But. . . but. . . it’s vintage string,” I muttered.  Different kinds.  And colors.  And sizes.

She wasn’t buying it.­­

That’s okay, I realized, many months later.  I’m now at peace with collecting string.  And whisk brooms.  And drawer pulls.  And hot pads, old keys, step stools, bookcases, suitcases, and bar stools.  Things with numbers.  Things with drawers.  Things made of enamel.  Things made of metal.  Buttons, books, balls, and more buttons.  LOTS of buttons.  Chairs, clocks, cameras, quilts.  Even paper cutters.  And so on. . . and on.  My house runneth over.

   

Now – hold the phone.  Before passing judgment, answer me this. . . what do you collect?  And how many of them do you have?  Has someone close to you ever suggested that you really didn’t need yet another one?  I recently picked up another scale to add to my collection.  My sweet husband protested before the transaction was complete, saying that it was just like the other red one I already have.  “But, the tops are different,” I pleaded.  It came home with us, making it a baker’s dozen of scales we now own, not including the ones that are for sale.  Oops, forgot about the one on the porch.  Make that 14.

I was a Girl Scout.  I earned my “Collector” badge.  The 1963 Junior Girl Scout Handbook told me I should collect stuff, and, because I was an obedient child, I did.

“Make a collection of things you like.  Pick up shells from the beach or leaves on a hike.  Collect buttons or bells or many-colored rocks.  Or menus or maps or puppets made from socks.  Put snapshots in an album, arrange dolls on a shelf.  Share your hobby with others, work on it yourself.  Arrange your collection, put it on view.  Display it at a hobby show or to friends who visit you.”

Hmm, instead of rocks I wish I would’ve collected menus from the 1960s.  Those would be worth something these days.

So. . . why do we collect?  For me, as an antique dealer, I kinda have to collect items if I am going to have items to sell.  The gravy is that while gathering merchandise I get to keep the things I love best.  It’s just that I love a LOT of things best.  Meryl Starr, an organization expert, says, “If you’re climbing over your collection to get into bed or if you’re ordering take-out food because your collections leave you no counter space on which to cook a meal, that’s a problem and you need to do something about it.”  Hmm.  Obviously she just doesn’t get it.  I mean, aren’t antiques more important than cooking?  Sheesh.

Here’s another thought on why we collect, this from Kim A. Herzinger, an English professor at University of Houston-Victoria in Victoria, Texas.  He says, “Collecting is a means by which one relieves a basic sense of incompletion brought on by unfulfilled childhood needs.  It functions as a form of wish fulfillment, which eases deep-rooted uncertainties and existential dread.”  I think I like this guy.  I’m relieving my incompleteness!!  Need to discuss this with my therapist. . . .  

And here’s another good one from him:  “[The collector] is experiencing the kind of sensory transcendence that we most closely associate with religion or love.  And, like religion or love, his collection is a kind of security against uncertainty and loss.”  Aha!  Now I know why I have 38 kitchen canisters, 18 tool boxes, 24 wind-up clocks and 79 vintage metal zippers. 

Or – maybe we collect just for the fun of it.

Or – maybe it’s just that I listened to my dad.  He firmly believed that having inventory was critical to one’s well-being.  For him, inventory consisted of things such as nails, legal pads, golf balls, sweaters, and wine.  I just have a slightly different idea of what’s critical to my well-being.  So I’ll leave the TP inventory to my husband.  (BTW, honey, we need more.  I’m going to the estate sale. . . .)

                                                                       Sincerely, 

                                                                                   Cathie

Postscript. . . since this article was published I've acquired four more scales, 

bringing my total to 18   

** grin **