More from Disneyland

Hi! Gold Country sis Lori here with some more photos from our Disneyland trip.
We started off with breakfast one morning in the park at Carnation Cafe. Mine was Oscar's Choice, this plate, which although it arrived lukewarm, was delicious!!

Heidi in one of the Dumbo "planes":

Looking at the Matterhorn from inside a teacup:

Heidi in a teacup at the Mad Tea Party. We chose the bright yellow one, my favorite color!!

This is one of the beautiful mosaics on the wall in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot at Disney's California Adventure:

Heidi onboard the Astro Orbitor at the entrance to Tomorrowland:

Mickey's Sunwheel at DCA, with California Screamin' in the background. We rode that roller coaster for the first time this year. Took the advice of some young men in the seat behind us, held our heads tight against the seat, and loved it!!

Heidi modeling a cute pink plaid scarf with matching ear muffs, which she is still kicking herself for not purchasing!

The Dapper Dans, a barbershop quartet:

It's a Small World, all lit up, beautiful!!

One of my better photos of the fireworks display:

The Sleeping Beauty Castle in all its glory!

Hopefully next time we go, Tina and Debbie can join us!!!

Shiny Brite Cluster Trees

I LOVE these trees! I only discovered them a few years ago, and thus far I have only managed to find two:

They are among my VERY favorite vintage Decorations:
The box looks like this:
I swear I'm a crazy person. I simply do not feel that two of these are enough.
What is wrong with me??

My Vintage Coats

I thought I would show you some of my favorite vintage coats today. I think I found this red beauty years ago in Grass Valley. It has black velvet trim on the cuffs, buttons and lining the collar:
This one was a thrift shop find here in town. I don't know about you, but I don't find gorgeous vintage coats at the thrifts very often!:
Can't even remember where I found this blue one. The color is actually prettier in person, and it's a "swing" style. I love the glittery buttons. (These are all long coats - not floor length - but longer than they would be on me than most people, since I'm only five feet tall. My full length pictures looked awful - sorry about showing only the top half):
This is my oldest one - and it's in poorer condition than the others, but I still like it:
I am not sure I can choose a favorite - but this suede beauty with the fur collar would be right up in there. This belonged to my mother-in-law, and it didn't used to fit me. But now it does!! My picture doesn't do it proper justice:
I LOVE it.
But I do love and enjoy wearing all of the rest, too.
"Button up your overcoat, when the wind is free....take good care of yourself, you belong to me!"

Thrifted Christmas

These are some (mostly) Christmas things I have found recently. While other people were out at the big stores on Black Friday, Lori and I hit the thrifts instead! Found a nice big jar with it's original red metal lid (Alta Coffee), some ornaments, and two green candle holders:
Red plastic candle holders and tree topper, horse head bookends, pillar candle holder, cute Santa box for fireplace matches, and a chartreuse vase:
Two boxes of ornaments, one Shiny Brite, one Coby Glass:
A fabulous vintage stocking! It's done on black velvet with sequin-decorated felt cutouts. It looks even better in person:
A little closer on some of the decorations. I absolutely love this stocking. Somebody put a lot of love into creating it. It even has a sewn-on green glass ring as the hanger::
This is the largest ceramic tree I have. Lori had some little birds I added where a few lights were missing. It just needs a star:
A set of six gold-painted ceramic star candle holders and some red garland. These stars look beautiful with lit candles on top of a little round mirror I found that day, too:
I even found something to wear. I dressed Penny up for the season in my red turtleneck and off-white fleece-lined corduroy vest and Santa hat!
I think she's ready to help decorate! (Don't really see how she'd be much help, though...)

Vintage Christmas Cards - The Ones With The Candles

Just wanted to share these images with you of some of my favorite vintage cards. I find these all to be particularly nice. Simple with green pine branches,and glittered candles:
A decidedly mid-century modern take, with a chartreuse background, glittered in silver:
This dark beauty is glittered AND flocked! Stunning:
Lovely in red and blue:
And the candles on this last one are three dimensional. You can pull out the holly leaves to open it up at the candle's center, and you could have written a message inside, if you liked:

Pretty, aren't they?

Plants I Know and Love No. 3: Matilija Poppy

Good morning. Happy Wednesday. Gold Country Sister Tina here. Today I am going to share one of my very favorite plants, the Matilija Poppy. This is a perennial which loves full sun and isn't picky about soil. Mine grows in our foothills red clay soil and is so happy it has sent out runners and we now have about 3 plants where I planted only one.
I first discovered the Matilija Poppy when I was attending a weekend watercolor workshop in Sutter Creek in the 1990's. We had taken a walk to look for good subjects to paint. Along a back side street was a pretty yard attached to a victorian home and there along the sidewalk was a gigantic bush with the most beautiful flowers, about 9 inches wide. They looked like the crepe paper flowers you can buy in Mexico. Or like a giant sunny-side-up fried egg. I fell in love. I never did try to paint them, but someday...
I don't have a way to scan my photos from that first meeting, so I am showing three photos I took in Mendocino on a vacation in 2005. These Matilija Poppies grew to the side of what I believe was the book store. The bush wasn't very big, but the flowers were!

They look really nice up against a picket fence or trellis.

The Matilija Poppy loves full sun, can grow to be about 8 feet tall, and is invasive, so plant it carefully. They are hard to propagate from seeds or cuttings. I had a bit of a hard time finding a plant when I wanted one, I finally did find a small plant at the Front Yard nursery in El Dorado. Now it towers over my head and blooms like crazy from about May through July.

This is my prize Matilija Poppy, enjoying its view of the South Fork of the American River.

It sits away from the house, but that makes it a special trip to get closer and smell the wonderful blooms. They make fairly good cut flowers, but they don't last for days. Enjoy them for a couple of days. Did I mention they smell good?

My bush enjoys a spot all its own, except for a few "naked ladies" I have planted beside it for some late summer bloom.

I have a fence around it because when it was small the deer liked to taste it. They didn't really like it, but they just have to see if they want to make it dinner. Now it is so large they find it intimidating and pretty much leave it alone.

This photo shows the definite "fried egg" look of the blooms. I wish I could take a photo of the scent.

Here is a honey bee going in for a taste. Since they have such a lovely scent, they attract all kinds of bees and little wasps. I like to think I am helping the honey bee population by planting my poppy.

The buds of the flowers are gigantic and look ready to pop in this picture.

This flower looks like a ballerina spinning in an ecstatic dance.

Probably too many pictures but I can't help it, I just love this plant.

At the height of bloom, the Matilija Poppy is covered with hundreds of blooms, you can smell it from 20 feet away.

Although it is sometimes hard to rip my eyes away from the river view, the Matilija Poppy insists that I concentrate on its loveliness. If you have a nice open spot with full sun, you should try planting one too. Mine has been hardy down to under 20 degrees, but we do live in what is called "the banana belt" since we have the air flow along the river. I believe it is worth your while to try to grow one. December is a great time to plant. Ask for one for Christmas!

Mary Martin as Peter Pan

Mary Martin was born on this date in 1913. I'm sure you know that she went on to become a HUGE Broadway star. Many people remember her best for her portrayal of Peter Pan, which was also staged for telecast on NBC. The color production of the play was first shown in 1960.
In addition to the VHS, shown above, I also have this music book from the original Broadway production of the musical play:

These are pictures from inside the book:


I am unsure how old I was when I first saw the NBC production, but I do know we all watched it and loved it. We were also familiar with Mary Martin because Mother had the Original Broadway Cast Recording album from Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound Of Music. We loved listening to that, too. You know, there are a couple of songs that weren't in the feature film with Julie Andrews, ones that I always really liked, such as "No Way to Stop It", and "How Can Love Survive". So, when I need a Sound Of Music fix, I enjoy listening to both albums.
Mary was also lauded for her performance as Nellie Forbush in South Pacific. She won the Tony Award for all three of these roles, and another for "I Do!, I Do!" She also won an Emmy Award for the TV production of Peter Pan.
Here she is ,below, in caricatures done by the late, great Al Hirschfeld (I feel another favorite artist post coming up!), on the cover of my "This Is Broadway's Best" LP :

She was one fabulous entertainer, of that there can be no doubt.