vintage

It’s beginning to feel like home!

/ Rachel / Leave a comment

It’s been three weeks since we moved and we’re finally, FINALLY getting this place unpacked.  I’m on call this weekend, but things have been relatively quiet at work (I’ve checked my email about 10 bajillion times).  I decided that today would be the day I’d finally get the last 10 boxes in my dining room unpacked.  We ended up throwing away a lot of stuff because we went from a full sized, eat-in kitchen at our old house to a galley-style kitchen in our townhouse.  There just isn’t room for all the junk we had.  So we downsized, and I have to admit that it feels nice to do that!  I also rooted through box after box tonight looking for  these:

A few years ago, my mom found these dishes on FreeCycle and snagged them for me because they were clearly vintage.  They have “Syracuse China USA” printed on the back, so I started to do a little (well, a lot of) research.  As it turns out, Syracuse China made dishes for the restaurant industry.  These particular ones are in a pattern called Millbrook and they’re from 1938!!!  I’ve had them in boxes for a long time but at long last, I have a place to display them so out they came today.  I always picture them being used in my WWII-era novel, when Lila goes to help out at her aunt’s diner.  I can practically hear the sound of the utensils scraping against the plates as the patrons eat, talk amongst themselves, and listen to the radio that Aunt Beth constantly had on in order to catch the latest war news.  *sigh*  I need to get back to writing!

Officially obsessed

/ Rachel / 1 Comment

In the past 48 hours, I’ve descended into Airstream madness.  (When I want something, I really want it.)  Simply put, I want a 1957 Airstream Bubble.

Here is the outside of one (all photos are not mine):

And after asking Lord Google to see images of the inside of restored Airstreams, I found this article with photos that show exxxxactly how I would want the inside of mine to look (minus that particular guy on the bed, that is):

Want.

Want.

WANT.

Nostalgia and whimsy and…. travel trailers?

/ Rachel / 5 Comments

Superman had Kryptonite; I have nostalgia and whimsy to bring me to my knees.  And it strikes in the oddest of ways.  I can’t predict when I’m going to be caught in the headwinds of fanciful dreaming – it just happens and sometimes it lasts for days on end.  I woke up this morning feeling moody and exhausted, but once I got to work, I settled into my new, much more private and quiet office (which I just moved into on Monday), popped in my earbuds, turned on my iPod, and called up the playlist of some old friends.  Okay, so I don’t actually know Jim and Marian Jordan, who played Fibber McGee and Molly on a radio show of the same name from the 30s-50s, but I feel like I know them.  Honestly, I’ve been listening to the 800+ episodes I have for so many years now that their voices are comforting to me.  When I can’t sleep at night, I listen to a few of their shows and they lull me to sleep.  When I’m stressed to my very limits, their voices help ease me into a quiet calmness.  They make me nostalgic for a time I never lived through and for things that I couldn’t possibly experience during my lifetime.

Today was one such day where, after listening to Fibber and Molly for most of the day (in between an endless stream of needy employees parading in and out of my office), that sentimental feeling stuck with me.  I came home, fixed supper, and then Tim and I got Roxie ready for her walk.  We went down my favorite little stretch of road in our neighborhood.  Lined with trees and horse pastures, it reminds me of the solitude that my country-girl soul misses since we live within the city limits.  I began telling Tim about my hopes to someday own and restore a vintage travel trailer to use as a writing office. I want to plop it right in the middle of a field, maybe near a big old oak tree. We actually owned one a few years ago but it was just too far damaged to be restored without costing us an arm and a leg, so we sold her (a 1971 New Paris Traveler that I named Gracie) to someone who could restore her.  Even though Gracie is gone, my dream for a travel trailer isn’t gone.  I can practically hear the plunking of the raindrops on the metal roof as I sit inside, sipping on tea and tapping away at my laptop.  This strong desire to get a travel trailer right this very nanosecond led me to tincantourists.com, where the classifieds, filled with pages and pages of adorable travel trailers for sale, invoke such strong stabs of whimsy and longing inside me that it almost hurts.  I mean, here are just a few samples from what is currently for sale on that site.

HOW CAN YOU NOT WANT ONE, TOO???

Anyway, as my Friday night wanes into a 3-day holiday weekend that’s supposed to be filled with rain and relaxation, I hope these gushy, dreamy-eyed notions continue.  They usually lead to creativity and a feeling of lightheartedness – both of which I need right now.