Another Favorite: Globes

It was over 10 years ago that I brought home my first vintage metal globe bank. Dub Ingram had the cutest little junk store in an old house on Main Street in Holdenville, and that's where I spotted three globes in a grouping. They were marked $12 each. I took one home that day, then eventually collected the whole trio.

What I love about these metal banks is that they were so common. Most of mine are advertisement pieces, so they were probably given free to customers back in the day (1960s-70s?).

Another thing I love about globes...I'm a peacemaker. I love our earth and all the people on it. Seeing them just reminds me we're all in this thing together.

These days, I collect globes of all sizes, not just banks, but mostly the smaller globes appeal to me. (In other words, I'm running out of room.)

I ordered one from eBay and was especially pleased to find that it was WAY smaller than my smallest globe. I figure it's pretty rare. See him, right there in the middle on the bottom shelf?

Prices on these shabby little globes have steadily gone up since I started collecting them. My rule is $20 or less, and now that I have quite a few,  I have to be sure I don't have the exact globe.

One year I grouped all of them above our mantel in order to make room for the Christmas decor. Vaughn was aggravated when I split them all up again in the spring because he loved the way they looked up there. They DID look awesome as a "club".

Not long ago, I was in Joplin, MO, visiting with friends. Here we are in some funny hats at a super cool antique mall we all loved.

All this to say...this happened to be right after I did Marie Kondo's "tidying up" in my house. I told my friends I would love to go junking with them that day, but wouldn't be bringing anything home because I had just done all this organizing and clearing out of the excess at my house. Well, who was first to claim something for purchase that day? It was me! When a globe is available at a decent price, I just can't resist.

I even use two globe banks in my fourth grade classroom as my bathroom passes. No, they don't take my precious globes to the bathroom with them. If there's a globe on the shelf, students know they can put one on their desk as a sign to me that they're currently away from their desks for personal reasons. Works like a charm.

I got this awesome globe from Kirk at Gatsby's in Wewoka. Not a bank at all, but certainly worthy of my collection. Wonder how many people have a shabby globe with John Glenn's orbit around the earth on it? Very neat!

The Day Before Vacation

It's funny how much a person CAN get done in one day. Not just any day, though...the day before vacation. I wake up earlier, start marking things off my list from the very beginning. Laundry, started. Bed, made. Must get going. There's a sense of urgency. The wheel is turning and it cannot be stopped. All day I'm scratching away at my mental list of chores, the ones that will get me closer to heading out, away. Besides those chores I'm working ahead, accomplishing the things I'm obligated to for the whole time I'll be on vacation. Bills, paid. Emails, sent. Jobs, delegated.

I'm usually pretty organized, but on this day, I'm just plain effective. I use my time much wiser when my energy is all focused on one thing...vacation.

Thursday I leave for a much-anticipated 10 day trip to Europe with my friend, Sue Anderson. We'll travel to Detroit, then Amsterdam, tour for 2 days, then get on the SS Antoinette for a Rhine River cruise. Each day we'll stop at castles and tour vineyards and villages in Germany, then France, and 7 days later, wind up in Switzerland.

Of course I'm effective with a trip of a lifetime to motivate me.

A Drawer a Day

Beginning today, I will clean out, organize, discard.

A drawer a day.

The potholder drawer should be fairly easy. I might should will wash them.

A drawer a day. It might not be as easy as it sounds. There are things to put back where they go (how did they end up here anyway?), things to toss, dust to wipe away. Hair collected in a corner. Fuzz. Food crumbs. Ew...I should be ashamed. But maybe you've encountered such things in your drawers as well?

Never know what you'll come across in the drawer of your day. This is a kitchen drawer of which Cora has claimed its contents for quite a while now. She loves to drink water out of the salad dressing bottles. And blow birthday horns. And sort of stir all this around. And no kidding. I just opened this drawer to photograph it's BEFORE status and realized her slinky dog she got for Christmas is HERE. (I promise. I didn't hide it here in order to play with it myself, although that slinky dog is pretty darn cute.)

Drawers are a little too good for hiding things, don't you think?

The dreaded 2010 tax drawer. I'll be here very soon. Too soon.

So here goes one. And then another. 

Something tells me...when I've made the rounds, it will be time to start over again.