Upcycled Vintage Finds ... it's not about what it was made for - it's what you need it to be ... plus I blame chemtrails

ruler picture holder - I use this for biz cards sometimes, too

This week has flown by - how did it get to be mid-October already??

Instead of an actual post which I would have to have some functioning brain cells to produce at this very moment I have grabbed my trusty Canon

(although it is not so trusty these days because I have to manually focus, which creates lot of problems for someone like me who's right hand can't remember what her left hand is doing ... )

and snapped a few quick pics around here of some upcycled goodies that may inspire someone, somewhere, someday to forget about that cute and colorful whoseewhatsee from Target and use what they already have in some of clever way ..

cork storage in vintage sugar bowls and barn sink - you
may not have this much cork - I hope for your sake
and the sake of your liver, that you don't have this much cork

Olive's Red Ryder porch bed - with her favorite wool blankie for fall

vintage microscope with family photos in the glass slides

Also I should report that I had to get my driver's license renewed this week (yay, I finally got rid of that crappy picture so I could get ... a slightly less crappy better picture) and I was chosen for a random eye exam (?) - at least I think it was random,

because everyone else went right to the "get your picture taken" line and I went right to the "get your eyes checked" line - maybe I was the only one in there who wears glasses - is that possible ... does anyone not wear glasses these days, or do I just know old people now -

anyhoo, a man who'd probably been filed under A for Alive at some point during the last century, I kind of thought I recognized him from the state seal, called me over.

He put on a pair of THICK eyeglasses that could double as a welding mask (at least someone else was wearing glasses now), picked an invisible thread off the J in his NJMVC patch, and told me to have a seat.

my license looks kind of like this -->

except for the picture and the name and the address and the driver's license number and also the fact that this man is smiling BIG

(because it screws up our state's facial recognition software -  
which I do not believe for one second we actually have - we are not allowed to smile BIG in New Jersey for our driver's license photos - which is surprisingly not a problem for those of us living in New Jersey)

After I have no trouble reading the ten-letter clump of nonsense on the eye exam he asked me to look at four different shapes through the view finder. "Tell me what each of these are," he said, his accent thick enough to join the cast of Jersey Shore if Snookie ever needs a really, really tired looking great-great grandfather.

"A red octagon, a yellow rectangle, a yellow circle, and a yellow triangle." "Well, that's a first," he said, picking another invisible thread from his shirt.

"What? nobody else knows what they are??" (I am thinking what the hell is happening to the brain cells of the people living in NJ ... I blame chemtrails)

"Nope. Nobody else ever just told me the shapes. You're s'posed to tell me what the signs are."

"Oh." I was less embarrassed than I was excited that I'd done something no one had done before.

"A stop sign. Um... maybe a warning sign? Or a children playing sign like in that one development, the one where all of the houses look like the red monopoly pieces .."

"And the next?" he interrupted.

"Uh, that one's a railroad sign, you know, my husband had a cousin who was hit by a train."

He blinked, almost audibly. "Continue."

"Well, he may have been drunk and fell asleep ..."

"With the signs. Continue with the signs."

"Oh. Maybe a Men Working in Trees?" (we do have such a sign, I'm not just randomly making stuff up here)

He said nothing, picked the last invisible thread from his shirt, took a deep breath, stared at his hands and sent me over to get my picture taken.

Which I did.

And it looks amazing actually (in a sort of attractive if you squint, slightly less crappy than my last driver's license photo kind of way).

I love New Jersey.