Monday's Postcard: Maine

I just love these postcards from Maine. They are all from the 1930's and feature Casco Bay, near Portland, ME. The first is Portland Head Light.


Also as a side note, I am already thinking about the postcards I will be posting next year, for 2014. I want to post cards that I have received from friends and family over the years. If you would like to see a postcard that you have sent me, all it takes is a stamp!! My address is Amanda Arkebauer PO BOX 16131, Seattle, WA 98116

Monday's Postcard: More Racey Helps cards

The Tug 'O War

The Diving Board

Picking Blackberries

Catching the Post

Singing Practice

I have so many of these Racey Helps postcards. They were very popular during the 60's and 70's and were distributed by the Medici Society of London Each one is a little self contained story, as a kid, I would just gaze at them for hours, making up my own stories about what was happening in the world of the postcard.

Also as a side note, I am already thinking about the postcards I will be posting next year, for 2014. I want to post cards that I have received from friends and family over the years. If you would like to see a postcard that you have sent me, all it takes is a stamp!! My address is Amanda Arkebauer PO BOX 16131, Seattle, WA  98116

October Reading

 It started a couple of years ago as a New Year's Resolution to keep track of the books I read each month. So here I am again in 2013 with a list of the books I read each month. If you subscribe to my posts, they will come directly to your email inbox --just enter your email address into the box on the right hand side of the screen. And now for the books:

Books I read in October

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight (library) a woman's daughter commits suicide and she investigates
The Homecoming by Carsten Stroud (library) sort of sequel to Niceville and I like this author, but the story, some parts I like better than others and I had to suffer through some stuff to get to stuff I liked
New Stories from the Twilight Zone by Rod Serling Spooky short stories
Confessions of A Prairie Bitch by Alison Arngrim (library) fun, but she really had a horrible dysfunctional childhood. Survived it with style, Good for her!! I love the quote "Little House, no convictions, no jail time"  so many child stars on that show and they turned out great!
Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child reading the Jack Reacher novels out of order, easy read fun fast moving thriller
Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery Anne and Gilbert finally get married! So this book is all about their own home, a nice break after reading about a bunch of serial killers, or murders etc
Nine Inches by Tom Perrota (library) Short stories by the author of The Election (one of my favorites and a great movie too)
Worth Dying For by Lee Child I'm on a roll and enjoying these thrillers
I Love You Kid, But Oh My Wife by Stan and Jan Berenstain of the Berenstain Bears fame, Cartoons with more adult themes by the Berenstains.
Long Ride Home by Louis L'Amour short stories, so easy to read at work because I often have just a little window of time--sometimes in more complex books I get lost picking it up and putting it down again all the time, I end up rereading the same page all the time
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (library) Stephen King's son does it again, not my favorite of his but okay
One Shot by Lee Child this is the one the Tom Cruise movie is based on
Sammy Keyes and the Killer Cruise by Wendelin Van Draanen lots of fun with Sammy and her Dad on a cruise
The Hard Way by Lee Child  another Jack Reacher novel
Where She Went by Gayle Forman (libary) sequel to If I Stay, so it's sad

Shock Wave by John Sandford (library) Virgil Flowers novel by Sandford and an easy fast thriller to read
The Killing Floor by Lee Child (library)  now i start with the first Jack Reacher book
The Silver Star by Jeanette Walls (library) I always like these young girls growing up in dysfunctional southern families type books
The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty (library) I really liked this one, She is the author of "What Alice Forgot" --only bad thing is that I had trouble sometimes distinguishing between the different voices of the different women...keeping the characters straight in my head, oh that is the mother of the dead girl, not the woman whose husband is leaving her...hmmm Plus, I enjoyed the Australian slang, I read a lot of British Authors and I am used to boot for car trunk or biscuit for cookie, but Australia has some interesting slang or word choices...like abseil for rappelling, star jumps for jumping jacks, uni for university or college.
Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick (library) still getting a history education, I was surprised at how much I already knew, but then Ryan and I had just visited Minute Man National Park in Mass
Running Blind by Lee Child Another Jack Reacher, out of order, but I am waiting on some from the library and have to take what I can get
Big Brother by Lionel Shriver (library) loved it, love this author...I highly recommend
The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch (library) good, my sister recommended. About estuaries in Puget Sound
 The Leftovers by Tom Perrota (library) like Left Behind, these are the people "leftover" after a Rapture-like event I liked it
Frozen in Time by Mitchell  Zuckoff (library) story about a WWII plane crash and the search and rescue missions, very good, author also wrote the Shangra-lai WWII rescue story


25 books read this month

Monday's Postcard: Halloween

Here is a quartet of Antique Halloween Postcards in celebration of Halloween coming up this week!

Monday's Postcards: Castles

Here we have Balmoral and Edinburgh Castle. I have been lucky enough to visit both of these! Both of these cards are actual photographs from the early 1900s.

Monday's Postcard: Panama Canal Zone

These Postcards are from the Panama Canal Zone circa 1930-1935 according to their postmarks. We have a street scene in Cristobal

The card at the bottom depicts a piece of machinery that was used to dig the canal,  reclaimed by the jungle as trees grow around and through it and it becomes part of the tree! 

 The card on the left is not very politically correct. Here is the text from the back of the card:"Wild Natives and Their Home, Interior of Panama. Thirty miles north of the canal, almost within sight and hearing of the industrious army busily engaged in bisecting a hemisphere for Uncle Sam, the natives are wild. As witnessed by the photograph of the young fellow taken under difficulties in the shade of the almost leafless Paupalla tree on the left, very little consideration is given to the question of clothes." I imagine you would have difficulties taking a picture if you were a white man trying to grab a young, naked black boy and hold him still for a photo!

Monday's Postcards: Yellowstone National Park

This is the Giantess Geyser in Yellowstone National Park from a photo taken in 1887!

This is is the Brink of Lower Falls in Yellowstone's Grand Canyon. The Photo is from 1886

September Reading

Books I read in September:


 Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King (library) about the painting I learned a lot
Anne of Windy Poplars by L. M. Montgomery rereading these for the rest of the year. So lovely
Belle Weather by Celia Rivenbark (library)I am serious when I say that I read everything by an author, just discovered Celia Rivenbark and now I have read 4 books by her, I have 2 more on hold at the library and will be waiting with bated breath for the next to be published (it comes out in October, so I don't have to wait that long)
Love All by Callie Wright (library) enjoyed --Peyton Place ish
Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a day by Doug Mack (library) cute, a guy takes the 1960's book "Europe on 5 dollars a day" and tries to follow it today.
Stop Dressing your Six Year Old Like a Skank by Celia Rivenbark (library) more humor from Celia
The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison (library) liked it, not as creepy as Gone Girl, but similar
Until She Comes Home by Lori Roy (library) a missing girl and how the search affects a neighborhood, just okay
Red Water by Judith Freeman (library) about Mormans on the frontier, enjoyed it
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout  did not realize it is different stories all with their focus the title character....okay
She Left Me the Gun by Enma Brockes (library) a daughter researches her mom's family after her mother dies--I liked it a lot recommend it
We're Just Like You Only Prettier by Celia Rivenbark (library) so funny
What was She Thinking by Zoe Heller (library) the movie Notes on a Scandal was based on this book.
Before Gatsby the first 26 stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald (library)
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer (library) interesting
The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim Defede (library) OMG, I cried the entire time I was reading this book thank goodness it was only 244 pages. I really should not read 9/11 stuff. Anyway, it was awesome, highly recommend
The White Princess by Philippa Gregory (library) more "war of the roses" history from Gregory
Serena by Ron Rash (library) kinda creepy, NC mountains, logging/timber barons story
The Widow Waltz by Sally Koslow (library) man dies and his wife finds that all their money is gone
The Son by Philip Meyer (library) a western story, family saga
The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (library)
TV Treasures; A Companion Guide to Gilligan's Island (library) everything you ever wanted to know about every episode. Yes, this is how I spent my formative year, so it was fun to revisit
The Returned by Jason Mott (library) what happens when people start returning from the dead I liked it

23 books read this month

Monday's Postcard: Glasgow

These 4 postcards are all from Glasgow from the 1940's. When I visit Glasgow, I like to visit the charity shops to hunt for old postcards. In the UK they have multiple charity shops (like Goodwill in the USA). There is Oxfam,  the British Heart Foundation,  St Margaret's Of Scotland Hospice,  Cancer Research UK,  Prince Of Wales Hospice Shop, P D S A Peoples Dispensary For Sick Animals, and many more!!

Monday's Postcard: Cattails

When I was younger, I really had a thing for Cattails. I LOVED them! My mom would let us pick them in the wild and bring them back to the house and I could have a display of them in my room. So the first card was chosen by me when I was a kid and wild about cattails. These cards are from around 1910.

Monday's Postcard: First Issue

First of all let me say that I am not a stamp collector, so I really don't know anything about First Issues or what makes them important or not. I just like Winslow Homer and these postcards were sold as a pair with their 1960's stamps that were put onto postcards that had the same artwork and then postmarked. The Postcards were from the National Gallery of Art and they don't have any message at all on the back. The top piece of art is not even Winslow Homer! It is called The Biglen Brothers Racing by Thomas Eakins. The bottom piece of art is by Winslow Homer and it is called Breezing Up

Monday's Postcard: Sir Francis Drake Statue

Another of those images that is now gone but not forgotten. This is from circa 1910 Germany. A statue of Sir Francis Drake in the town of Offenburg, Germany, celebrating the Potato.

In 1853 an Alsatian sculptor named Andreas Friederich erected this statue portraying the English explorer with his left hand holding a potato plant. At the base of the statue it stated:  “Sir Francis Drake, introduced  potatoes into Europe, in the year of our Lord 1586.”

This statue was torn down during the  Kristallnacht event of the Nazi regime in Offenburg. The Kristallnacht riots were aimed at Jewish owned businesses, so I don't know why this statue suffered. Perhaps in the heat of the moment, the Hitler Youth were just wrecking everything in sight?  Or did Hitler have something against the potato?? I found this fascinating news article from 1960 discussing whether the Germans were going to replace the statue or not: News article from 1960

The final week of Hike-a-thon 2013

My last week of hiking in August for Hike-a-thon 2013, I was in San Francisco on a layover and my sister and her husband came out to see me and we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to do a little hiking in the Marin Headlands.

It was foggy in the morning and the marine layer did not burn off until after noon so I got in an easy 2 miles that morning.

Ryan and I flew to New Hampshire on Wednesday and I hiked 2 miles (I think he did 3 or more--he did an extra loop that I did not!!) at Horse Hill Nature Preserve on the Loop Trail.

On Thursday, August 29th, we drove over to Lexington and Concord, MA and I hiked 5 miles on the Battle Road Trail at the Minute Man National Park. It's an awesome history lesson.  We walked along the original route of Paul Revere's famous ride to alert the local militia that the Redcoats were coming!!

We stood at the location of the "shot heard 'round the world", the first shot of the Revolutionary War. April 19th 1775. This monument to the fallen British Soldiers was nearby. Ryan did more miles than me again. We split up and I returned to the car and drove ahead to pick him up at the end of the trail.

On Friday, August 30th, we traveled to Groton, MA and I did 2 1/2 miles on the Yellow, White and Red Trails at Grotonwood Camp. I did not have time for more mileage because we were doing YARN BOMBING! :-)

 Finally on August 31st, we got in our final miles for hike-a-thon on the Mark Trail, White Pines Trail, White and Orange Trails and the Chapel Trail. I did a final 4 miles to make my goal of 60 miles for the month of August!

 Ryan does his grumpy cat face because it is 100 percent humidity and 80 degrees outside! Yuck!!

Thanks so much to everyone who helped us toward our goal of $1500. I am dropping off the last minute cash and checks to the WTA office this week and you can still  make a last minute contribution on the website!! Just follow the link posted below. Thanks so much!!

http://www.gifttool.com/athon/MyFundraisingPage?ID=1468&AID=2449&PID=369509

Monday's Postcard: Alki Beach

These postcards are some of my absolute favorites in my collection. The postcards on the left are of Luna Park, this was one of those Coney Island style amusement parks that were so popular in American in the early 1900's. There were many all over the USA and many of them were named Luna Park! There was a Luna Park in Coney Island, Pittsburgh, PA and in Cleveland, OH. Seattle's Luna Park operated from 1907 to 1913. It was built by Charles I.D. Looff on pilings extended over Elliott Bay and was called the Greatest Amusement Park on the West Coast. The last of it burned in the 1950's and today only a few pilings can be seen at extreme low tides. Several postcards were made of the park during it's heyday. I have found them challenging to locate. They are often out of my price range, so that is why these are  favorites. Easier to find are cards depicting the Alki Bathhouse. This is the other card in today's post.

August Reading

Books I read in August:


Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery rereading these classics
Three Graves Full by Jamie Mason (library) Murder mystery/thriller liked it alot
Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman  explores how scribes, through both omission and intention, changed the Bible over the many years as it was written down over and over again
 The Searchers: The Making of An American Legend by Glenn Frankel (library) The story of making the movie and the true story it is based on
 Z: A novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Fowler (library) loved this fictional account of Zelda's life
Winged Obsession by Jessica Speart (library) like the Orchid Thief except about butterflies
Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery it is always nice to take a paperback along on a camping trip
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (library) fun, very lifestyles of the rich and famous
Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire (audiobook) I am not a huge fan of Maquire and this is his version of the Snow White story
How Lincoln Learned to Read by Daniel Wolff (library) I quite enjoyed this one
The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner -thriller that Ryan passed along to me when we were out and I forgot to bring a book to read
Mariposa Road by  Robert Michael Pyle (library) about a Butterfly big year
 Pure Drivel by Steve Martin (audio book) listened to in the car on the way to trailheads
A Single Shot by Matthew F. Jones (library) really liked it. Reminded me of Winter's Bone and has a forward by that author too!!
Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir (library)The Story of Lady Jane Grey, who I only knew from the movie,  Lady Jane. She was Queen for nine days after the death of Henry VIII and his son Edward
The Sinner by Tess Garritsen (audiobook) listened to on my way to and from Mt. Rainier this month One of the better Rizzoli and Isles stories I think so far
The Telling Room: A tale of love, betrayal, revenge and the World's Greatest piece of cheese by Michael Paterniti (library) It's about cheese and Spain and everything else the title implies I liked it a lot 
The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton Disclafani (library) mysterious and interesting, lots of sex,  I enjoyed it
Ape House by Sara Gruen (audio book) ugh, just okay, probably would not have finished it if it were not on audio. some of the characters annoyed me
You can't drink all day  if you don't start in the morning by Celia Rivenbark (libraray) hilarious a Modern Southern Erma Bombeck!! I am getting everything else she was written to read now
You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl by Celia Rivenbark (library) I am loving these, laugh out loud and I have to read portions to whoever will listen
Joyland by Stephen King (library) enjoyed it, carnivals are creepy like clowns are creepy
Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld (library) loved it about twin sister who are psychic
The Quick and the Dead by Louis L'Amour - made into an HBO movie and I enjoyed it quick read
The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel (library) the movie will be out this fall--great history
Bless Your Heart, Tramp by Celia Rivenbark really these are too funny



26  books read this month





 Ryan and I just finished up our hiking in August for the Washington Trails Association. We are still looking for pledges to contribute for the protection and maintenance of Washington State Trails. Please consider making a donation, no amount is too small!!  You have until September 8th to make a contribution. Just follow the link posted below. Thanks so much!! http://www.gifttool.com/athon/MyFundraisingPage?ID=1468&AID=2449&PID=369509

Monday's Postcard: Shenandoah

Shenandoah National Park is such a wonderful place. The Appalachian trail runs right through the park and it is a lovely place to go hiking. I have enjoyed all my visits to this area in Virginia.

Ryan and I are hiking in August for the Washington Trails Association. We are looking for pledges to contribute for the protection and maintenance of Washington State Trails. Please consider making a donation, no amount is too small!! Just follow the link posted below. Thanks so much!! http://www.gifttool.com/athon/MyFundraisingPage?ID=1468&AID=2449&PID=369509

My Edward Gorey Spool rack Necklace Holder

I just recently visited the Edward Gorey House in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. One of the things that impressed me in the house was a spool rack that Mr. Gorey used to hold his necklaces. He was quite Mod in his fashion sense and had many necklaces and he kept them on an Antique Spool Rack.

I was inspired. I hope to find an antique spool rack one day, but until then. I happened upon a rack at JoAnn's Fabrics yesterday and decided to give the whole concept a try first. Here is a spool rack being used for it's intended purpose.

I think I will be very happy at how this keeps my necklaces untangled and on display! I also put some bracelets on there and I have plenty of space for more necklaces too!!

This would be great to hang on the wall in your bathroom as I have done or in your bedroom or closet! And even though this is a new rack and not an antique one, I am pretty happy with the way it looks.