THE GREAT BACKROADS ADVENTURE, POST #9 - HANGIN' OUT IN OHIO

Got to my brother and s.i.l.'s on Friday afternoon, had a wonderful meal, visited and went to bed entirely too late!
Yesterday we went to see the other Boleyn girl.
It was so good! The story line was sad but the costuming and sets were amazing! A definate chick flick you need to see!

Tonight is pizza from our favorite pizza haunt in Columbus, Tommy's. Yum! And since I took a nap this afternoon I think I'll be reading until the wee hours. LOL

Tomorrow we hit Target and Michael's for sales and then on Tuesday morning I take off for home! woohoo - I miss Frank the Tank, Clayman and my best friend!

More later, friends! xoxo, Jan

THE GREAT BACKROADS ADVENTURE, POST #8 - WHAT'S WHITE, FLUFFY AND LOVELY ALL OVER???

SNOW is white, fluffy and lovely all over! Oh, my gosh, y'all, I was so excited when I woke up this morning and saw FOUR INCHES OF SNOW on the top of my car and on the top of, well, everything else!
Actually, it had started snowing yesterday afternoon and by evening it was just pouring snow - it was so beautiful; so, so beautiful.
So when I went to bed, I opened up the blinds all the way so that when I would wake up in the night I would be able to see the snow covered landscape. What a blessing it was to see the moonlit, snow covered ground - it made me smile - even at 3 a.m!

The following photos are ones that I took this morning when Joan and I drove around the area looking for good photo ops!

Enjoy!!

This next one is my favorite one - do you see the red brick chimney through the tree limbs? Isn't that great?

I said goodbye to my sister and my niece and left for Ohio about noon. One of the prettiest sites I saw while driving the back roads of Ohio was this fabulous round barn.

An old white barn, a rusty old pick-up truck and a chain link fence - I made a U-ey to get this shot!
I'm sitting in my brother's living room with my sister-in-law, Eileen, watching America's Next Top Model - I hate to admit it but I am watching it to make fun of Tyra and Jade. (Oh, admit it - Tyra drives you nuts, too.)

It's good to be here and Eileen and I have some fun shopping planned!

Of course, I'll keep you posted as the weekend progresses!

xoxo, Jan

THE GREAT BACKROADS ADVENTURE, POST #7 - YOU CAN GET LOST AND STILL FIND GOOD STUFF!!

Joan, her friend, Kathi, and myself went over the border into Michigan to have some fun antiquing and we had such a fun day! Laughed until our stomach's hurt, ate great food, saw wonderful old buildings and found fabulous "stuff"!
These first several pictures are of U-ey worthy old buildings that I wanted to share with y'all. The first three are of a farm that had wonderful texture and lines - in other words.....peeling paint, rusty tin.....

You see a lot of old brick buildings up north and I love, love brick! Check out the lines on this one.This is a great old red barn in a field covered with snow. I liked the look.

So, like I said, we're in Michigan.
And we forgot the map.
We're lost.

We got really tickled at this intersection when Joan said, "When I asked Jimmy {her husband} if he wanted to go shopping with us today he laughingly said, 'Get lost!' and we have!!"

We laughed until we couldn't breathe *i'm sure you had to be there* and then I got out of the car to take these two pictures to show how lost we were in the middle of nowhere! Too funny!

Thank goodness we found lunch before we died of starvation - LOL.
You can see on the sign that this place *also in the middle of nowhere* got an award from USA Today for it's hamburgers - bring 'em on!
If you so desire you can have liquor with your burger.
Patrons enjoying their burgers and liquor.
I happened to have my camera in Ray's bathroom (it was in my coat pocket!!) and I couldn't resist taking a picture of this {ridiculous} sign.
Now feast your eyes on my junking finds - oh, I did so enjoy myself!
Square head nails, sweet "simple goodness" can, wee small locks, cufflinks, rhinestone something, lock plate, backing to a pocket watch, wierd lightbulb and cool bottle. All fun!
Cool turqouise frame and stop watch clock thingy which I plan on taking apart and using the parts elsewhere and the body as a frame for a piece of work. Oh, yeah, baby.
And, finally today we found some must have's in Indiana just down the highway! Vintage cabinet card frames, glass dome, doll parts, a boatload of rickrack and single bias tape *I was stinkin' excited about those!*, baby spoons, hankie, some paper things and vintage millinary flowers - woohoo!
That was a lot to read and to look at - I hope you had a good time! I sure had a good time taking the pictures of the cool buildings and finding the fabulous "junk"!

I have loved this trip so far and look forward to the next leg which starts tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will leave my sister, Joan's, and head to Grove City, Ohio, which is a suburb on the south end of Columbus, to visit my sister-in-law and brother.

Eileen is as close to me as a sister and I always look forward to seeing her! I enjoy my brother, Randy, too, but you know how it is with girls!

My niece and nephew, Meghan and Matthew, are a heck of a lot of fun so I'm looking forward to spending time with them.

There's some kind of scrapbooking thing in Columbus so we'll hit it - the vendor's part anyway!LOL

So, I'll see you in Ohio!

Thanks for taking this trip with me - you've been a lot of fun. hahaha



xoxo, Jan

THE GREAT BACKROADS ADVENTURE, POST #6 - JUNKING!!

My sister, Joan, and my niece, Carly, and I left this morning and drove over the state line into Ohio to see what we could find in the way of junk/antique stores. We had no agenda in mind - just driving the country roads into the little towns looking for junk and photo ops.....we were not disappointed.
First photo op was this fence. I just liked the lines.
An old shed and bicycle propped against the front of it.
Great barn with lots of small windows and a green roof - isn't it great?
We stopped for lunch at a diner in Bryan, Ohio, called Lester's. We all had cheeseburgers and {diet} cokes and it was wonderful. Don't you love their corner sign?
Oh, yeah, the regulars were there!
We saw this amazing brick building in Stryker, Ohio. Don't miss the balcony under the third window to the right which is the center window and is above the front door. Isn't it great?

There was this "antique and old stuff" store in Stryker that had the most amazing pieces! Oh, my gosh, we were so excited and spent about an hour walking around picking up pieces saying, "Oh, a dollar; I need this....oh, TWO DOLLARS! I need this..." LOL! We had such a good time shopping in this sweet store!I adored this lamp - and check out the shade! I don't need this lamp, I have a houseful of wonderful lamps, however, the price made it impossible for me NOT to buy it! LOL! I plan on putting it in the master bath - it will look mah-velous!
I thought that these (2) plates would be so lovely to serve dinner on when just Frankie and I are at home - they were a dollar apiece - can you believe that? Her prices were amazing - that's why I ended up spending 23 dollars and my sister spent 34 dollars!
A wonderul smaller platter and serving bowl that I will use when it's just Frank the Tank and me eating dinner after Clayman leaves for college.We hit this next antique "store" en-route to somewhere in Ohio!

Here's the stash I bought in this lady's "garage antique store" - what a hoot. She had her double garage completely packed with all kinds of stuff - lots of glass things - and when you walked into the garage some kind of bell went off and she came into the garage from the house! She was really nice and we had such a good time looking at all of her "stuff".

Fabulous rhinestone jewelry at the BEST prices, old skeleton keys, wee flash cards {some will be listed in my Etsy store after I get back home}, part of a doll and a doll hat.
Five salad plates that I fell in love with - here's a pic of one of them, a wee wedding couple - love them, and a great doll in a satin dress.Wonderful doll parts.

Okay, they're a bit creepy but wonderful just the same, don't you think?
Those are our photo ops, our lunch and our great finds! We had such a good time finding wonderful stores and one loser store where the lady was real proud of her junk - I've never understood pricing junk like that - it's junk for goodness sakes! LOL

Thanks for coming along! Loved having you - be sure and leave a comment so I'll know you were here!

xoxo, Jan

THE GREAT BACKROADS ADVENTURE, POST #5 - WE'RE GOING TO INDIANA TODAY!

Well, it's Monday morning and all my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.
Oh, wait - that's a song.
.....It's no wonder that I was doing everything I could to keep my mind off of the fact that I was fixin to say good-bye to my mom.
We had just spent several weeks together at the ranch and had become really good friends. She's no longer just my mother, she's my friend and I didn't want to tell her good-bye.
I didn't want to tell little Sophie goodbye either!
But I did tell them good-bye
and then I cried, oh, all right, it was more like sobbing, all the way to Schoolcraft, a good 15 minutes away. I'm sure the proprietor of the antique store wondered who had died when she saw my eyes! LOL
But I'm getting ahead of myself - before I left I stepped outside the back door to take a picture of the beautiful view mom has of the snow covered woods behind her. That's the picture below.
Too funny - when I went outside to take a picture of the snow I was witness to the path that Sophie had made over the winter for her to run around and look for a place to "do her duty"! For some reason it cracked me up!
A SNOW FENCE! Oh, my gosh, what memories it brought back! For those of you that don't know what this is, it's a simple temporary fence that you put up to help keep snow from drifting. I remember these from growing up in Kalamazoo!
A wonderful long white barn in a field of snow as I was leaving Kalamazoo. I had to stop *in the middle of the road - no traffic* to snap it!
My favorite antique store in Schoolcraft, Michigan, just south of Kalamazoo.

The basement of the antique store. The whole place was packed with stuff but I only managed to spend $3.00! Where's all of the vintage wallpaper of the world hiding???
I drove through Shipshawanee, Indiana, on the way to my sister's house in Angola, Indiana, and stopped long enough to snap this picture of an Amish horse and buggy. It's real important to be careful to only take photos without interferring on the Amish people's privacy. They don't like to have their picture taken by the "English".
The best Antique Mall in Angola - I love it!
This basement is one level of FOUR of this huge antique mall. I found some great rhinestone jewelry and some other stuff - I'll take pictures after tomorrow's outing and show you everything:)
Tomorrow we're going to drive over the border into Ohio and hit a couple of towns that Joan (my sister:) knows about - should have some good junking. And she's the type that I think I can talk into helping me dive into a dumpster if I see a good one - "YES!!"

xoxo, Jan