My Collections

Monopoly--I started collecting Monopoly Games years ago--again without planning to. At the time, our son was "into" Star Wars, so we bought him a Star Wars Monopoly. Then, I started seeing other versions--cities, National Parks, ball teams, US Navy, etc. So, a little at a time, I started buying them and receiving them as gifts. I think I have over 30 different versions of the game. I keep most of them in my library. But, I put all the sports versions out in Manland.

Baskets--I have a lot of baskets. Most of them are grouped in two places in the house--mostly on display. But some are put to practical use--baskets with tops are great for storage. They look nice and hide clutter. Others I use to serve bread and other food. I put plasticware in them at parties. I grab a basket when I go out to cut fresh herbs.

Postcards--I buy postcards from everyplace I go. They are easy to pack, and the pictures are gorgeous. The photographers usually get better shots than I do at major attractions. I need to find a way to display them. Some of them go into my photo albums with vacation photos. I wish I had a good way to display the others. Right now they are just in various bags in cabinets or storage containers.

Collector's plates--I have a collection of Disney plates. They are displayed in my sewing room--on the shelf that my Dad made originally for my bells. The bells outgrew the shelf. But, it displays my plates beautifully.

Disney's Eeyore--I love Eeyore. They make him so sad, he's cute. Those big sad eyes. Then, I noticed Disney was making an Eeyore for every season--a baseball Eeyore, a Santa, snowman Eeyore, summer Eeyore and so on. I have them up on 2 shelves in my sewing room. I even named one of our cats Eeyore.

Mugs--we started buying mugs from our vacations and received them as gifts. After a while I realized how many mugs we have. But, they are all unique, practical and are pretty easy to pack when returning from a trip, especially if we drive. I have them all over the house and try to use different ones on the weekends. That way they stay clean and ready to use.

Teapots--again, never planned to collect them--but as my interest in tea grew, I would see nice teapots in stores and would buy them. I have received many teapots from friends and family--and now I have a large collection of teapts and teacups.


Bells--my bell collection is quite huge. I never intended to collect bells. It started with the gold Sandwich Glass bell Mom gave me from her Tiara Glass collection. Then Bob gave me a Ziggy bell for Christmas. Then Bob's parents gave me some bells. Next thing I knew I was collecting bells. Dad built me a shelf. Now, I usually get a bell from cities, states and countries I visit. I have Christmas bells, crystal bells, cow bells, a Diana and Charles bell and many, many more.


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Things I love

I love to exercise--the more the better.

I love tea. It's very soothing. I love to have tea with my friends. My favorite is a traditional English afternoon tea. On weekends, I like to fix a pot of tea, brewed in the proper English fashion. It sure beats the foam cups I use all week at work!

I do like to cook and bake--but during the week I'm usually pretty tired when I get home--so everything is pretty plain, fast and simple. On the weekends I like to spend more time trying new recipes, and finding different herbs and spices I can put into food. I love to learn about herbs, spices and flavored vinegars and oils. I'm also learning to cook with wine.

I love to sew, cross-stitch and crochet. I'm always looking through craft magazines to see what crafty things I can learn to do. I also like to paint--water colors--but don't spend a lot of time on that anymore.

I love any beach, but especially an ocean beach. Just listening to the water melts my stress. That and any Kenny G CD.

I also love the mountains, the woods and wildlife. I always say I need a house that sits on a mountain, overlooks the beach, and has woods all around with plenty of wildlife to watch.

I love to travel---when I prepare for a major trip, I start studying the guidebooks months in advance, learn every detail, figure out what I want to see the most. If it's a foreign country, I start learning the language, especially the polite words, food words, signs and transportation and emergency words.

I love to read--especially murder mysteries--but not horror or gross and gory stories. I do like to read biographies of people I'm interested in. Lucille Ball, Mary Tyler Moore, Bill Cosby, Jay Leno, Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeve--and many more.

I love my library. After Sarah got married and moved, Bob turned her room into a library. And, in typical Bob fashion--he did a beautiful job on it. It looks like a traditional English library. I have my books divided into fiction and non-fiction. Kids books. Then within the non fiction section I have them divided again by cooking, history, biography and so on. Even my fiction section is divided by author. I love it. I don't loan books to people though. I have loaned out books to people before only to either have them returned damaged or not returned at all. When I ask about the book I learn the book was lost or they gave it to someone else. So, now I'm very selective about who I will loan a book to.