Halloween at the Patch

I truly don't think a better TIME was to be had than those I spent in the Call Center of Gooseberry Patch. A place where the walls could be found painted shades of purple or green, where each office had it's own casement window, and vintage goodness was the talk in the air.

 

We loved our customers, and our customers loved us. We were encouraged to ask about family and holiday plans. We were encouraged to speak as though over the garden gate.

Between our calls we pulled back our headsets to chat with each other and share our calls. I will never forget a most interesting one I had in the days before Halloween.

"Welcome to Gooseberry Patch, this is Elizabeth. How may I help you shop today? Halloween? Oh yes! we have lots of wonderful things to offer you!"

My customer placed an order for every single Halloween item in our catalog. This was most unusual, I just had to ask. The customer replied, "It so happens my daughter's birthday is on Halloween."

She asked if I could please write a personal gift card to enclose for her daughter. "Dear Wendy, Have a wonderful Halloween birthday! Love, Mom and Dad". I just couldn't help myself, "Oh my! Your daughter's name is Wendy, and she is born on Halloween?"

The customer giggled, "Oh that's only the half of it. Her father and I are morticians, our last name is Black. We live in the town of Killdeer, and our street is Killborn Avenue. Don't worry, we are used to surprised responses."

To this day I can not help but think about Wendy Black celebrating her yearly milestone on this most spooky of days and the giggles shared with the women of Gooseberry Patch.

This and That on Sunday

Thank you so very much for my Birthday Greetings yesterday. I don't know how you knew it was the actual day. I have been celebrating each day of the month of September to keep you from truly knowing. My husband returns from his Home Alone trip today, birthday cake soon to follow!

Speaking of birthday wishes, are you smiling ear to ear over Diane's,  Etsy Shop, Scrabble wishes and kitten? Numbered vintage birthday cards are my absolute favorite.

In other crafting news, "Six white pom poms, 3 wooden beads, 4 orange buttons, etc, etc, etc,"  What a Cute as Can Be way to hold the tiny little items you need for a project. Michaels summer clearance rack, (.49 cents apiece),  Yo Yos and vintage buttons are added by mE.

My gosh, how time is flying by now that fall has officially begun. Even quicker still is my eagerness to visit each blog to see all of your wonderful Halloween crafts. (Pattern found here.).

And speaking of Halloween, have you gotten your Magpie-Ethel yet? May I tell you I have come to a realization about the style of crafting of my favorite artist. IT'S ALL IN THE LEGS! Just look at the stance of this witch, un huh. You can see Laurie standing like this, can't you? Her personality is wonderfully bold.

My characters, on the other hand, all have straight legs. They say about me I am someone who always follows the rules.What do your craft legs say about you?

Vintage Halloween supplies are very hard to find; so What's on Hand came to the rescue again.

A little hot glue does the trick!

How cute are these hanging from my Cutie Pie Cottage garland? And the view outside my craft room window?

Gloriously beautiful on a This and That Sunday!

The Lady in the Vault

I loved working at the bank during my earliest of Honeymoon Days. It was the first time as a young person to be in a community of women with a like minded purpose. A paycheck on Fridays. Conversations during our lunch hour revolved around the direct deposit time, layaway payments to be made, and Christmas Club deposits marked in little blue books provided by our employers.

Our lunch room was in the basement of the bank. Brown paper sacks lined the shelves of an ancient refrigerator,  the crinkle of wax paper was the soothing background to our familiar routine. Sandwiches cut on the diagonal, an apple or an orange, a Tab or Fresca to quench our thirst.

Our lunch room was many floors underneath the lobby of the bank and could only be reached by the same elevator customers used to visit their safe deposit box in the bank's vault. Watching customers come and go during my lunch hour,  my curiosity to see the vault for myself got the better of me.

A long hallway and several turns ended at two steps that led to small landing that could be seen through imposing black iron gates. A desk just like my own receptionist's desk was pushed into one corner where the most striking woman rose to greet me. Tall and slender, elegant in our navy blue bank uniform; she had jet black hair piled high above her head in a fashion I was too young to recall having ever seen before. A beehive. Her eyes were heavily lined with black mascara, her lips fire engine red to match her long finger nails, her voice asking if she could help me was familiar to someone with parents both from the South. It seems time had stood perfectly still in this place.

Visiting the lady in the vault became a part of my daily lunch routine. Homespun advice from another era was mesmerizing coming from someone who looked as she did. It seems her husband met her in the 1950's at a street race when she was only 15 and fell in love with her velvety black hair. He loved it to this day now 25 years married and three children nearly grown. Her husband was a very successful owner of several eye glass manufacturing companies.

I know now I would not be where I am today in life it were not for The Lady in the Vault. My daily visits to say hello led to an invitation to dinner for my husband and myself. In conversation about my husband's working for his relative's moving company and not being happy led to an offer of employment on the spot to manufacture eye glasses. The opportunity to leave the family business gave him the needed confidence to stand on his own and re-enlist in the military which was his true calling.

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Time Slipping By Days

Yesterday was Joe and Kellye's sixth anniversary. Joe suggested they celebrate this milestone by preparing a Hawaiian meal for their dinner. He drove Kellye to the store to purchase ingredients needed to make Macadamia Encrusted Chicken and Fruit Pilaf, recipes chosen from her favorite cookbook from the Hali'imaili restaurant on the island of Maui. After numerous ingredients were chopped to perfection, dinner was served at 10pm. Kellye called me at 11pm to tell me Joe loved the meal and that her wedding dress had arrived, would I meet her to choose her shoes the next day.

Arriving at DSW first, I was so surprised to see my daughter struggling to carry in a large, flat shipping box. "Mom, I have to match the dress to the shoes!" I was not surprised at all to see her remove from the box a simple cotton strapless short dress with underskirt. Perfectly perfect for a young girl getting married on a beach.

When she stepped into her dress right there in the store, pulling off her first layer of clothes and slipping her gold lacquered toes into her strapy sandals, I wasn't surprised at all to see her give a twirl in front of the full length mirror. Of course my Twirly Swirly Girl had found a twirly swirly dress!

As she fell into my arms to thank me for her dress and shoes, I was awash with the knowing that these are our Time Slipping By Days. The very days at the end of one chapter of a life just before the beginning of a new one. You can already see the moments as they will be recalled in the future. They are swift and fleeting, and oh so tenderly sweet. You are not able to hold on to them to make them last because everyone knows the next chapter will be even better than what came before.

Please do not pin pattern to Pinterest