The hundred dresses

After a mammoth shop this morning I came home and reorganised the pantry - fascinating stuff I know.
It looks much better though.

Unbeknownst to me I have been stockpiling wholemeal pasta spirals of a particular size. Very specific isn't it? I have no idea why I have so much or why I keep buying it. I must have 2kg or more now. Don't be fooled by the photo, those glass jars are huge.
Have you ever cleaned out the pantry and found you've got an inordinate amount of a particular ingredient?

A little gem I picked up recently is this crocheted doiley complete with standing swan heads. It's the height of kitsch. I couldn't believe my luck. What better to pair it with than a footed bowl of faux candied fruit.

I also recently found this (supposedly) 1970s gumball machine, sans stand, this one would have sat on a shop counter. Remember they used to be outside every corner store.

We did have it full of lollies at one stage, but we've since eaten the whole lot.
I wish I could time travel back to 1982 and tell my 10-year-old-self, trying to jimmy more lollies out of one of these things at the North Street store, to relax. 'One day you'll own one yourself, then you can eat all the damn lollies you want, sweetie', I'd tell her.
Actually on my way back to now, Í may as well drop in on 1989 and tell my 17-year-old self to stop sun-baking and hit the books -  'this isn't a joke Miss'.
Do you remember the book called 'The Hundred Dresses'. I had it myself as a little girl and I recently bought it for Mim who is days away from turning eight. The story has aged well. She finished the whole book in one day and loved it. It was only when I was trying to buy it on-line that I realised what a classic 'The Hundred Dresses' is. You can even buy reading companions for it.

It's about a little girl who tells everyone at school she has a hundred dresses. She gets teased by the other girls because she wears the same old dress everyday. I didn't realise it the first time around, but it has an anti-bullying message.
I also discovered why my pseudonym is always 'Wanda'. You know how sometimes when you buy a coffee or a juice or something you need to give your name, which irritates me no end for some reason. I always say my name is 'Wanda'.
As it turns out, the main character in 'The Hundred Dresses' is Wanda Petronski. It obviously left more of an impression on me than I realised.