A Contented Heart

Do you ever feel like life is better than you could have ever imagined?

Do you feel like God has blessed you infinitely more than you deserve?

I feel this way on a daily basis and even more so earlier this month when I celebrated my birthday. In addition to my oldest son returning home from Guatemala and having the best rescue dog ever make our home his forever home, we also went to the best estate sale ever.
We bought my birthday presents there :)

We missed the first day of the sale, but were excited to see the half off sign on the door when we were finally able to go on the last day...

I've always wanted a stack of firkins and we found the bottom two and the top one at a reasonable price ~ I started hyperventilating immediately! I just love them and find myself just looking at them and smiling periodically (my sons think I have gone crazy!)

We also found this beautiful wood bowl and...


this great wooden trencher.

I love the make-do repair where it had split. It adds great character.

There were really wonderful antiques throughout the home. And wonderful handpainted murals on the walls of the dining room. One thing that really intrigued me were the wonderful clothes from the early 1800's through the 1920's. Each outfit was labeled with who wore it, when they were born, when they wore it and when they died. My favorite was a brown silk dress worn for a wedding in the early 1800's. I wondered aloud to the man running the estate sale, "How could the family part with these incredible treasures?" He replied that there was simply so much and that the family had taken so many incredible treasures out before the sale that these were merely the leftovers. Who knew that a 1920's suburban home just blocks from my own house contained such incredible finds...

I went home and lovingly cleaned my purchases while my mind thought of all the other wonderful things that I saw. I decided to go back the last half hour to see if anything was left that they might want to make a deal on...

I came home with this lovely wool blanket in perfect shape gifted to the family on Christmas Day handwoven by an aunt from sheep on her farm. The blanket was gifted in 1934, but the dealer running the sale insisted that it is almost 200 years old. I don't know about that, but the blanket and letter are just precious!

I also picked up this old cutter quilt.

a pewter childs mug, a redware santa, and a sweet original paper cutting made and signed by Claudia Hopf.

Each of these are treasures that I will cherish.

I truly possess a contented heart!

Blessings, Patti