Happy Halloween to all of you! Our first customers of the day (on a Road Trip from Oklahoma) rang the doorbell promptly at 10 am. When we opened the door, we were greeted with masks and a loud “Trick or Treat!” So we filled up their bags and purses with lots and lots of yarn as their treats for the day. (Um, no. Just kidding. They filled up their own bags quite well!) We wanted to make sure you knew that both Big Loopy (who stands on top of one of our yarn shelves, 
keeping an eye on things every day) and the Little Loopies (who congregate on the Loopy Island up front) are dressed for the day. Elf Donna makes sure that they are prepared for the different seasons. And then Susan brought Halloween tattoos and made us wear them. Should I keep mine on for the wedding that I’m attending tomorrow in Ohio?
I have a new cookbook that arrived this week and I think it’s my most favorite ever. (Which says a lot, because I may be guilty of collecting cookbooks…) It’s called “The Pioneer Woman Cooks“. I can’t remember how I stumbled upon The Pioneer Woman’s blog, but I have enjoyed reading it over the past year. What I like about her brand new (first ever) cookbook is: great recipes (and ones that I will actually make), step by step pictures, and fun stuff to read about life 
on the ranch. Most of the new recipes that I have tried lately have come from her, and I was so glad when I read that she had a cookbook coming out this fall. I think it would make a great holiday gift for several people on my list. (You know, the ones I’m not knitting for. And since I’m only 
knitting gifts for a handful of people this year, there are quite a few on the “no knits” list.)
<– Look – pictures of horses! I always wanted a horse, growing up. I never got one. And I also wanted an Easy Bake Oven that never magically appeared under the tree. Do any of you remember “really really really” wanting some particular thing? (Because, you know, that’s the way we talked about such things at that stage of life: really really really. Like you’d REALLY REALLY REALLY die if you didn’t get it). So were there things you really really really wanted and … never did get? Or does anyone remember spending a few hours poring over the Sears WishBook, making your list of things you had to have in order to survive another year of life? Or does this whole conversation just really (really really) date me? Yes? Never mind, then.
Sheri whonolongerwantsanEasyBakeOven.
ButI’dstilltakeahorse,evennow.
There was one Christmas when all I wanted was a pair of rollerblades. “You don’t have to bother with anything else, Mom, that’s really all I want.” So when we were opening presents and my sisters opened up rollerblades I looked around for my box, but there was none. All I wanted was rollerblades, but my sisters got them but not me. I look back on it now and know that it’s because my feet had passed the threshold into adult sizes, so the rollerblades were a lot more expensive for me, but it makes me be a lot more willing than I otherwise might have been to make socks for big feet. Imagine not getting the only thing you wanted for Christmas because your feet were too big!
I always wanted an American Girl doll but never got one… I’m still disappointed about that!
I really,really wanted a dark blue cashmere sweater, just like the ones all of the other girls had in my school. I went to a catholic school (in the day when the nuns wore habits) we wore uniforms, and I remember I had to beg my mom for the longest time, for that cashmere sweater, then finally Christmas came, still no sweater. I cried, my daddy took heart to my distress, talked to mom, then I got my cashmere sweater! I was so happy…I’m still in love with cashmere to this day.
Ha! I also wanted an EZBake Oven! But what I really, really, really wanted was a Snoopy SnoCone Maker. Which would have ruled. And I asked for a subscription to the Economist for like 8 years in a row, but never got it. Now I get it for free at work, so that’s ok.
I remember lying on my stomach, next to my brother, on the living room floor. Between us was the Wish Book, and it was one of the few times we’d not be fighting. Instead, we’d be entranced, slowly turning the pages and dreaming of all the goodies that we might have. Mom would provide us with paper and pencils and stern instructions to make a good list for Santa.
Granted, the lists were long and crammed with stuff that never actually made it under the tree, but it didn’t matter after all. The wishing was the best part. The looking. Hell, half of this stuff we knew we didn’t like/wouldn’t use/never get. But it was toy heaven for the two of us.
And I did have an EZ-Bake oven. I used it once. You didn’t miss much.
I wanted the EasyBake oven and a horse too! 🙂 Never did get the over – mom’s argument was that she let me use the big oven any time I wanted, Why did I need a tiny fake one?
The horse, on the other hand, I did get. I was 10 and he was a 3 year old retired racehorse that was way more horse than we had any business with, but I loved him from day 1, and we worked out our differences over time and I could do anything with him. And I wouldn’t have traded him for all the EasyBake ovens in the world!!
I wanted a horse too, but since I grew up in a city and one of six kids, obviously I never got one. However, my husband bought me horseback riding lessons for my 50th birthday! I took them for about 6 months and it was fun. Unfortunately, I came to the adult conclusion that if I were to really get a horse, I would have to get up really, really early to shovel out the stall before work!q
I still want a horse. I also pined for and never received: Easy Bake Oven, Snoopy Sno-Cone machine, Lite Brite and a Ken doll for my Barbie. Those wishes were never fulfilled, yet Santa always brought me something I didn’t know I wanted but really loved.
This year? Yarn. I am always befuddled that I don’t get it for X-mas. Ever.
They are too cute in costume 🙂 I never got the Easybake oven, but I get to play with a real one now 🙂
No Easy Bake Oven here either – I was baking w/the real oven pretty early. Same with the toy sewing machine – here, have some fabric scraps, needle & thread. I made a ton of ‘couture’ doll clothese that way! I did get my Liddle Kiddle Cinderalla Castle; my poor parents ’cause I was up at 3 am that year! They had probably just gone to bed (Dad was a truck driver & always came home in time to put the presents out for his two little girls.
I wanted my own BB gun instead of always glomming on to my brother’s. But I did get a real bow and arrow!
I absolutely remember looking at every single page of the Sears Wishbook and making my long, long, long list of things I just HAD to have! I am with you, Sheri! (Guess I am dating myself, too!)
OMG!!! Easy Bake Ovens were the most fun things ever. My sisters and I spent hours playing with ours. I think we had several over the years (they didn’t last very long). And the Sears Wishbook, I couldn’t wait for it to come out every year! I think you should go ahead an get an easybake oven, if they’re still available, you’d love it.
I was very lucky since I did get an Easy Bake Oven. It wasn’t near as much fun as it looked like on TV. The only thing that I really ever wanted BAD that I didn’t get was a pair of green patent leather shoes. (how impractical was that?) So…I did the next best thing and bought a shoe store when I grew up! I now buy my granddaughter totally impractical shoes and it makes us both happy!
I always wanted an Easy Bake Oven too. I also wanted a horse. I never got either one! lol I never had a Raggedy Ann and Andy doll either so when I was about 14 I asked for a set. My mom and dad got me a set from a lady who made them. Darn it…mine looked like the real deal but Ann did not have a heart embroideried on her chest. Oh well….I still have those dolls. 🙂
I learned to play the piano when I was 4. I would go over to various friends house and play and play. I begged and begged for a piano, even thru my teens. I practiced thru the years at friends and at church, but I never got a piano. I moved out at just before my 23rd birthday (yes I moved out late in life not counting leaving for college) when I got married. I never did get the piano. About 2 years later, my parents purchased a piano. To this day it is a sore spot with me. After they got it, my mother had the nerve to tell me, you will have a piano when I die. I answered back that I would burn it before I would let it in my house. What my mother doesn’t really realize is I have no plans of letting that piano in my house.
I really really really wanted a dog. We lived in a small apt in the Bronx (my mom is still there after 52 years). My parents would say that when I grew up and had a home with a yard, I could get what I wanted. Well my husband had a dog when we married but the dog died when our youngest was 7 months. I waited til she was 3 to consider a dog and found out that she was highly allergic to dogs. So I have patiently waited for 18 years. She left for the summer June 3 and I got a dog June 7. My daughter was home for a few weeks before starting college and her allergy wasn’t that bad. So at 53 I finally got my wish. Happy is 1/2 lab and 1/2 golden retreiver and didn’t make it through guide dog training. She is a joy.
Friday I needed an easy apple tart and found a recipe from Pioneer Woman on the web. It was great. I had no idea this really is a person with a blog and a new cookbook. I can’t wait to see it.
I don’t remember wanting anything that badly. We moved a lot growing up, so anything I became too attached to was easily something to go into storage the next time we moved. I mostly wanted books, which was fine because Mom loves books too.
I really, really, really wanted a bride doll. I probably got socks and underwear and a blouse instead. I was raised in the 40’s and 50’s and there was little money for gifts. :o)
HAH !
my parents have 3 horses …uhm…lets call them pets …well, they dont ride them ….
they just love them …and put them in and out of the barn every day..clean the stalls …get the water ….open the different grazing gates ….and my mother feeds them carrots and apples ….so Sherri …maybe you could just ‘horse sit ‘ the next time they go on vacation !!
Did you know the Pioneer Woman will be in St. Louis, Nov 17 at the Left Bank signing her book?
Oh man I was spoiled. I would look through the Fleet Farm Toy Land Catalog. No sears wishlist for us. I got the cabage patch doll when it was the craze. I got my barbie (fake) house, the barbie convertable, a 10 speed, a walkman, the easybake oven, and a turtle.
My brother & I never got what we really wanted, another brother or sister. Dang.
I was absolutely floored when I got the easy Bake Oven because the only person I told was Santa in the Goldblatt’s store in Hammond Indiana (I grew up in NW Indiana) My mom was totally against that toy, so I never told her I wanted it. But I knew Dad had something to do with it because the package was marked “Yo Ho Ho” instead of Santa’s “Ho Ho Ho”.
We lived on a farm so I had the horse-lots of work but wonderful.