from last weekend

Drivin' the truck with her Daddy ~'::

a little ham with poochy lips

Someone notices whenever I get the camera out these days and wants it. She wants to grab it and eat it (same as with everything else that comes across her path).

rosebud treasures

Aren't these plates just lovely?

diaper bag mommie jewelry

hollyhocks

Echinacea

Echinacea angustifolia

"Parts used: Root. Properties: Alterative, antiseptic, lymphatic, parasiticide, sialagogue. What it affects: Blood, lymph, and kidneys.

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Echinacea is the most effective blood and lymphatic cleanser of all the herbs; and it is tolerated by the system in fairly large amounts. The plant is apparently nontoxic; although, in some people, it may cause mild dizziness and nausea for a time. But combining it with a small amount of licorice root, or making the tea with 2-3 dates, will reduce these symptoms.

Use echinacea internally and externally for acne, bad breath, boils, gangrene, infections, skin diseases, tonsillitis. It is said to be effective against all venomous bites from insects, snakes, other animals, and reactions to poison oak and ivy. It is used for open wounds and painful surface swellings.

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Echinacea is an excellent antibiotic, and ranks with goldenseal and red clover.

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Warning: It should be used with caution by those who are pregnant, or allergic to ragweed or plants in the sunflower family. ... Only take 1 week at a time."

~Excerpt from the Natural Remedies Encyclopedia by Vance Ferrell & Harold M. Cherne, M.D.~

It's glowing...

My wonderful man spent his afternoon and evening putting fresh wiring in my chandelier so it could glow for me. It is so warm and cozy there in my corner. I am thrilled.

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from my kitchen

~ a picture of a mama and her girl hanging out laundry
~ perfectly tarnished silver spoons ... just for pretty
~ little [real] Delft shoes that Daddy brought back from a trip to Holland years ago
~ my violet teapot that has held my hot tea for years (... a decade maybe?)
~ a healthy ivy plant

Rain

There is a lovely little thunderstorm outside my windows. I was able to successfully move Greta Rosie from our bed to her crib without her waking up this morning when I got up to make my man's and my coffee and toast. I heard a peep from her a short bit ago, but when I went to check her she had found her thumb and fallen asleep again. She's such a snuggly little girl in her soft cotton jammies. So I have some moments of quiet with my coffee. Heavy patterings of rain, thunder and lightning. Love it.

rosebud sheets

My favorites.

Too bad they don't fit my bed!

The one in the background was my Great-Grandma's.

Next Size Up

~*~ 3 dozen brand new diapers for Her Royal Sweetitude, which my mama has washed, shrunk and fluffed for me--all ready to use ~*~

Love Bug

Porch

Weekend Road Trip

~ Delivering some parts that my man built to a town a couple of hours north of us ~

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~*~

Treasures

Subtitle: What I Brought Home

The first of my treasures from Auntie D.'s house was a big box full of lovely little girl clothes that are just Greta's size. It was great fun to go through it and see all of the lovely outfits for her, and it has been even more fun to dress her in them each day!

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~'::'~ ~'::'~ ~'::'~

The next thing Auntie gave me was truly breath-taking to me. It was ::drum roll, please:: the living room chandelier from her 1911 house. Now it's interesting how a child's mind works and which things end up holding particular significance to them. To me, this chandelier symbolizes all that was warmth and home and family and hospitality about the years we lived in the city. From back when Auntie D.'s home was our home.

The image in my mind associated with this fixture is of evening-time. Winter, because it's dark out already, and we're waiting for Daddy to come walking home from the bus stop. Mama's in the kitchen making supper (always something delicious), and we've just finished picking up and straightening from our day of playing and school. Most of the time the radio was on at this time of the evening playing instrumental hymns. From the front windows where we were watching for Daddy we could see the far off lights of the highway below us. The glow from the chandelier could be seen from the street through the windows of the four-season porch that french doors opened from into the living room. I always thought it looked so welcoming. I also associate it with waiting in anticipation of family or friends who were coming for supper. The dusting and planning and straightening and table setting would be over and it would be time to turn on the lights and make our home welcoming. We moved often, so for me to have this tangible piece of the best of my childhood in my own home is so wonderful to me.

Auntie also gave me a set of four art deco swing-arm curtain rods that match from that house. They are now beautifying my own living room windows. I am thrilled.

(I look forward to having the chandelier glowing again; it just needs a simple rewiring. Soon.)

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A day in the city ~'::

In the neighborhood where I spent the majority of my growing-up years there is a little Italian grocery on a street right next to the park. Delmonico's Italian Foods. I have good memories of walking down there to pick up something for Mama. I felt so grown up! The older gentlemen who ran it were always friendly, and they would make sure we got a sample of their Italian cheeses and salami before we left. A slice of cheese and one of salami on a piece of waxed paper for each. Those guys are gone now, but the grocery is still running. I got to visit the other day when I went with Mama to pick up a friend of ours, Miss A., from the airport. It still smelled and looked just the same as it always had. Beautiful produce, cheeses, crusty Italian breads, vinegars, olive oils, pastas, and anything else you might need at a moment's notice for supper. It was so good to be there for a few minutes again. My Greta Rose got to visit the neighborhood for the first time. It's not an easy neighborhood to live in, being in the middle of a big city, but there is a community of believers there ministering in Christ's name who are very dear to me. Their homes are what I consider to be "my native planet" (in the earthly sense, you understand--my real home is heaven!)

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After Delmonico's, we went to Auntie Dorothy's house for a visit. Dear ones from across the alley came over too. It was too short (as always!), but wonderful.
The gate of Aunt D.'s home (where I lived once!) ~':: ~also: undoing little girls' braids~
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We drove home in the rain ~
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I brought pictures back with me of course, and I had to frame a couple for my kitchen.
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That wasn't the best of what I brought back with me though. Aunt Dorothy sent some real treasures back with me. But that will have to be for another post ...

I don't think I could ever get tired of the smell of browning farm hamburger and onions. It's the smell of home to me!

the Beauty of Nature

If you want to spend a few minutes enjoying the beauty of God's creation today, I suggest you visit my brother's blog Stream and Fencerow. The birds, insects, animals and plant life in his gallery will show you a little bit more of the wonder of our God's creative power. Each post is so full of beauty and color that I revisit them often and each time the pictures are like new to me.


"O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures." Psalm 104: 24

Miss Read's Home

..........The Village School..........

A passage from Village School, by Miss Read,

Chapter 4 "The Pattern of the Afternoon"

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"I had my tea in the warm sunshine of the garden at the back of the school-house. The schoolmaster who had lived here before me was a great gardener, and had planted currant bushes, black and red, raspberries and gooseberries. These were safely enmeshed in a wire run to keep the birds off, and I bottled the crops or made jelly and jam in the evenings or in the holidays.

I had planted two herbaceous borders, one on each side of the garden, both edged with Mrs Sinkins' pinks which liked the chalky soil. Vegetables I did not bother to plant, not only because of the lack of room, but also because kind neighbours gave me more than I could really cope with, week after week. Broad beans, shallots, peas, carrots, turnips, brussel sprouts, cabbage, they all came in generous supplies to my doorstep. Sometimes the donors were almost too generous, forgetting, I suppose, how relatively little one woman can eat. I have found before now no less than five rotund vegetable marrows, like abandoned babies, on my doorstep in one week.

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I made some jam in the evening with a basket of early black plums which John Pringle, Mrs Pringle's only son, and a near neighbor of mine, had brought me.

The kitchen was very pleasant as I stirred. The window over the stone sink looks out on to the garden. A massive lead pump with a long handle stands by the side of the sink, and it is from this that I fill the buckets for the school's drinking water. When the water supply is laid on through the village, which may be in a few years' time, I have been promised a new deep sink by the managers.

In one corner stands a large brick copper and my predecessors used this to heat water for their baths, lighting a fire each time, but I have an electric copper which saves much time and trouble. The bath is a long zinc one, which hangs in the porch outside the back door, and it is put on the kitchen floor at bath time and filled from the tap at the bottom of the copper and cooled with buckets from the pump. With a bath towel warming over the hot copper and the kitchen well steamed up it is very snug.

The rest of the house downstairs consists of a large dining-room with a brick fireplace, a small hall and a small sitting-room. I rarely use this room as it faces north, but live mainly in the dining-room which is warmer, has a bigger fireplace and is convenient for the kitchen.

Upstairs there are two bedrooms, both fairly large, one over the kitchen and sitting-room, and the other, in which I sleep, directly above the dining-room. Throughout the house the walls are distempered a dove grey and all the paintwork is white. It is a solidly-built house of red brick, with a red-tiled roof, and in its setting of trees it looks most attractive. I am very fond of it indeed, and luckier, I realize, than many country headmistresses."