Does She... Or Doesn't She?

The age-old question asked by Miss Clairol in their advertisements....

Does she or doesn't she?
Color her hair?
Oh, I'll bet she does.
Unless you are one of those women of a certain age who has decided to just leave her pretty gray hair alone - in which case, I applaud and admire (and am a bit envious of) you!
Otherwise, with even young girls coloring their hair sometimes nearly as often as they change clothes, I think you're probably among the millions of us who do, indeed color their hair.
Here's the way some boxes of Clairol Hair color look now:

I read a statistic somewhere quite a few years back and the number of women it said (as a percentage) who colored their hair, at that time, sounded ridiculously low to me.
I didn't believe for one minute that it could possibly be accurate, and I don't even remember what it was!
After I quit working, I was still paying someone else to color my hair, at a cost of about $52 every 6-8 weeks, including a simple haircut. (And by simple, I mean trim my bangs straight across, and even out the ends of my straight, long hair by trimming it along the bottom - I don't think it gets too much simpler than that.)
I'm not even really meaning to complain about the cost; that's just how much it WAS, but I no longer had an income, and could ill afford it at the time.
 And yet, I continued to do so.
 And I came up with the money, somehow - every time.
I finally decided to ask my friend Heidi - who had a bit of a background in cosmetology - to help me do it myself.
She did it for me the first couple of times, and then I think each of my sisters may have helped me too, at least once.
Then I realized that I COULD do it all by myself.
You see, the entire idea of it just scared me for a very long time - I was that afraid something would go terribly wrong.
And now, the thought of how many hundreds of dollars I spent over the years, needlessly, is almost painful!
Here's how my roots looked before.....

     .....and after one of my recent colorings:

And this is what I use, below:

L'Oreal Excellence Creme, in 8G.
(Sorry, Clairol - I'd probably try yours if I knew it would turn out exactly the same. It's just that when something works for me, I tend to stick with it - and this was the first one I tried!)
And I buy it on sale, with a coupon - sometimes saving as much $3.00 (total) off of the sale price when buying two.
 I never run out, I always have a box or two in the cabinet, and I do it whenever I feel like it.
Never costs me any more than about seven dollars.
Which is how much I pay to get my bangs trimmed - that is, unless I do THAT myself, which I have quite a few times.
I've decided the ends of my hair only need to be cut once or twice a year. And my friend Heidi did that for me for nothing the last time. Yay!
Long hair, don't care.
Because I do not want to spend my hard-earned (through selling vintage) money on my hair!
It's just a Heidi thing.
I'm about as low-maintenance as it gets.
Seriously. (You have no idea...)
And THAT, my friends, concludes the tale of MY hair care.
And if you even made it this far and have read this whole post, I thank you for being interested enough to finish it.
The End.

Ten Years As A Blogger!

This month marks the tenth anniversary of our blog here at Gold Country Girls.
With over 3000 posts now under our belts, my sisters and I would like to say thank you to every single person who has ever read (and, hopefully, enjoyed?) one of our posts.
We three do write about a wide variety of subjects, so it is my hope that there truly may be something for everyone here, if you were to go back and pore through our "archives".
 Please be prepared to sit a spell and linger for a while, if you do! There's an awful lot to read and a myriad of pictures to go along with all of the text.
I also wanted to ask our loyal readers to please "Forgive Me"!

 For what?
For my lack of regular posts, of course!
I have been devoting all of my time to working on my business selling vintage goods, and also to the long-neglected task of organizing all of the things I want or plan to sell, and also to putting my house and storage areas in to some sort of  order, rather than the disorganized chaotic mess it has all been for far too long.
This has left me with little to no time for blogging, as I am also now working at Mountain Treasures at least one day a week here in Sonora.
Writing this blog is still important to me, but it does require a fair amount of time, and that is what has been lacking.
I fully intend to start posting more often, and I will be trying my very hardest to do just that!

On a completely different subject, I wanted to share with you all today a photo of our Mother that I found when looking through old family photos at Tina's while I was at her house for a visit last month to celebrate her birthday.
(Oh, and that vintage sheet music above is Tina's too - I loved it and had to snap a photo of it!)

I did not remember Mother having one of those great, colorful embroidered burlap bags, but the proof is in the picture.
 (I do wish I knew what color it was, though! I'm sure it was colorful, not that you can tell in this black and white photo.)
That's not a very good picture of our mom, so here's one of my favorites of her school teacher photos, taken somewhere around the same time frame, so that you can see how pretty she was:

 Didn't she just have the loveliest smile?
Yes, she really did. We miss you, Momma!
Okay, so back to those beautiful embroidered bags - here are some much more colorful photos of some that I have found.
 We'll start with the most colorful:

 And next we have this lovely one in aqua and white:

 And one in brown and russet tones:

 And last of all, a cool sort of zig-zag pattern in pink, black and yellow:

I love them, but I don't use them, so I'm planning to offer them for sale - just as soon as I can find the time!
 (The one in the first photo has already sold.)
So, that concludes the colorful part of today's celebratory post.
And thank you again, dear readers, for sticking with us for the last decade.
And if you have just found us, PLEASE comment; the comments make us so incredibly happy - because it makes us feel as though we are actually connecting with people out there in this big wide world.
:)

Vintage Popsie: He's A Man-Eater - And I'm Not "A Lion"!

I love "Popsies", and I just wanted to share photos of this one.
He isn't mine; I found the pictures of him on eBay.
( I only have one Popsie, and the last thing I need to do is start another collection, believe me!)
This particular one is a man-eating lion.

Do you wonder why he is "licking his chops"?

Well, here's the reason:

I don't think there's any help coming, buddy...
I'm pretty sure you're a "goner".

He doesn't LOOK like a mean, man-eating lion, does he?

His eyes look innocent enough.
A little crazy, maybe - but innocent enough.

Nope, not a mean lion - just hungry, I think!
(Sorry, buddy.)
 I DO own the lion you see below, made by the same company, Pride Creations.
He's a cute little pencil holder:

 Nothing sinister there.

I'd Like An Electric Blanket Like They USED to Make - Is That Too Much To Ask??

I found this vintage advertisement for a NEW Simmons Electronic Blanket from 1946 in a magazine.

 With "the miracle of electronics", this was a blanket that would have given "you comfort and safety never know in a blanket before".
Well, I really like the sound of that.

 I want to wake up raring to go.
I want to wake up full of zest for the day.
(I don't sleep well so I'm not sure a blanket could help me with that - and yet, wouldn't it be nice if it could?)
I want fleecy luxury.
I want a blanket that can be easily hand-laundered (smirk).
You know, $39.50 was quite a lot back then.

But I would gladly pay that and more for an electric or electronic blanket again that is soft and nice.
Just NICE - you know?
Do your remember them? The way they used to be?

You see - I basically hate our electric blanket.
I'm not going to say the brand.
It's just weird. I hate the light on the control, it disturbs me, so I have to put it in a weird place so I can't see it at all. The lights on the old type of controls were dim and not obnoxious.
I hate the texture of the blanket. It isn't strong enough to tug on.
And it doesn't seem to want to stay pulled up to the point where I need my covers to be. I'm thinking there is no cotton in it, no natural fibers. It's sort of a stretchy velour type of stuff?
It is soft - but not in quite the way I like. And it's not as thick as the old type of blanket, either.
So I don't like anything about it, really - except that it's warm on a cold night. Sure, there's that.
Oh, and they are quite expensive, too.
If our old one still worked, we'd still be using it.
I don't know if anybody makes them like they used to be. We haven't seen any.
And it would be great if it was made in the good old U.S.A., too - while I'm at it.
Yes, so I'm picky.
And I'm a dreamer, I suppose.
Because I guess it probably IS too much to ask.
I'm done.

You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me!!

I came home one day this past week to find that a package I had ordered had arrived in the mail that day.
When I saw the box sitting on the table where my husband had set it, it occurred to me that it wasn't a very big box to hold what I knew to be inside.
That right there scared me a little bit, already.
Then I picked it up and I could hear things knocking together inside.
Fragile things.
Um - not a good sign, right?
It was also dented - a little smashed on one corner.

Seriously, I was getting upset - and I hadn't even opened it yet!

I decided to take pictures of every step as I opened the package - you know, for evidence.
(I am not showing you all of the pictures here.)
I figured I needed to document how they'd been packaged if I was going to have to try and get reimbursed - or whatever.
When I carefully CUT open the top of the box and lifted it open, this is what I saw:

Excuse me! (?#%@&*!!!)
Again - this - (see photo taken by bewildered recipient, below) - NO bubble wrap, no tissue, no wrapping nor protection of ANY kind and two items inside that are nearly 50 years old, and quite fragile.
Like, "they-could-chip-if-you-look-at-them-cross-eyed" kind of fragile.
Seriously, folks have you EVER??

What kind of person packages something like that?
O.M.G.
And this was not even a sturdy box, but a thin "no protection from getting smashed" type of food packaging box.
Remove the items - nothing left inside, see:

Oh, I mean nothing except a couple of little tell-tale paint scrapes on the side there where my fragile, collectible, beautiful items rubbed against the side of the box in transit.
Here's one more shot of that flimsy box - just for effect, you know:

And yet - this is a miracle, there's no other way to explain it - somehow, they made it from Pennsylvania all the way to California without getting smashed to smithereens.
Here's the proof:

And here:

 They are in remarkably good condition, despite the poor packaging.
I absolutely could not believe my eyes.

One more look at their crowded quarters where they resided, side by side, for their journey across our great nation:

Boy, oh boy - am I lucky or what??
"Lucky, indeed", she said, in the understatement of the century.
And I am very, VERY happy that they made it here safely.
Yes, I surely am.
But not too happy with the person who mailed them.

Fall Is Nearly Here, And I'm Thinking Of Apples

Whenever fall is nearly here, even if we are just barely feeling a touch of autumn in the air,
my thoughts turn to Apple Hill and I find myself longing for a visit.
It's one of my favorite places, and holds some great memories for me.
 Lori gets to go this weekend, and I wish that I was going, too!
I found this sweet Joan Walsh Anglund print in an old calendar of mine:

And seeing that print brought to mind this old song,
"Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree":

When I opened up the sheet music to have a look, I found lyrics that I'd never known, choruses that I'm not sure I'd ever heard before.
"Don't start countin' the stars above with anyone else but me,
anyone else but me,
anyone else but me,
No! No! No!
Don't start singin' those songs of love,
we'll sing 'em in harmony,
when I come marching home."
And :
"Wrap your kisses in cellophane,
don't give 'em away for free,
keep 'em exclusively, salted away for me,
Yes! Yes! Yes!
I'm on record, I'm talkin' plain,
 you're gettin' the third degree,
 when I come marching home".

The song was written in 1942 by Lew Brown, Charlie Tobias and Sam H. Stept.
Below, I'm sharing a YouTube video of the Andrews Sisters singing the song.
I think I want to bake an apple pie......

Random Photos - And Have I Really Been Doing This For Eight Years?

Today I just have a rather random assortment of photos for you.
We'll start with this lovely box of ornaments, below.
 I took it up to the counter and asked the young gal the price at the thrift store.
"Seventy-five cents".
Oh, um - let me think about that for a fraction of a second;
"Yes, I'll take them!"  (It does have a lid).
Gorgeous:

I took an afghan that my mother-in-law made years ago and put it on the sofa that has seen better days.
 The pillows were all thrift store finds.
I like how it looks:

Another thrift store had gotten a pretty darned cool donation of a bunch of vintage Bauer Pottery dishes.
 They were too good a deal to pass up, but I couldn't afford to buy all of it, so I got this set of four 9&1/2 inch plates.
Absolutely delighted to add them to my collection, yes I was:

I paid fifty cents for this cute matchbox  - here's the front of the "building"....

.. and the back:

It's not the real small size, it's actually about 4&1/2 by 3 inches.
It was empty; I added the new matchsticks when I got home.

On a completely different subject, today marks eight years since I began this blog.
 Here I am, 2729 posts later, still here.
Tina contributes on Wednesdays, and Lori still posts occasionally, also.
I hope you won't mind if I very politely ask that if you read - and hopefully, enjoy - our blog, won't you please consider taking a moment to comment if you haven't ever done so?
And if you wanted to become a "Follower", I would truly appreciate that, as well.
Most importantly, I hope that if you ARE a regular reader, whether you follow publicly and comment now and then, or read it privately and silently, that you will continue to do so until I/we cannot write it any more.
Thank you very much.
And I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Heidi

Hoping for Rainbows

Good morning. Tina here. 

The weatherman says we might be getting some rain.

We could use a bit of rain.  

We had a couple of drops (literally) a couple of days ago.

It smelled good, that herbal scent you get when dried weeds become wet.

I am hoping for a rainbow.

I want the sky to cry and the land to rejoice.

Come soar overhead, lovely colors of light.

Beautiful Bartlett Collins Cookie Jars

Today I am simply sharing photos of gorgeous glass cookie jars made by Bartlett Collins.

 I have not (yet) been lucky enough to find one of these at a price I was willing to pay.

 I see them fairly often at antiques shops, but I'm hoping to find one at a thrift store.......

 ....at a "thrifty" price!

 A girl can dream, right?

 After all, stranger things have happened.

And I might get lucky.
You just never know.