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The flowers bloomed at exactly the right time.
Guests were fed.
The weather was perfect.
And once all the diplomas were in hand ...
a lake was jumped into.
New chapters got off to a good start. (Jay's on the right.)
Even siblings made their peace.
Long enough for one picture.
It was a perfect graduation weekend.
Regular blogging begins once things get back to normal around here. Might be tomorrow, might be next month!
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Hey, Patch here. Things are a little crazy in the house right now, so I took advantage of the situation and snuck out. I'm not supposed to be outside. I miss it. I miss the sunshine and fresh air and terrorizing the little creatures that live around here. I guess it was that part that kind of got me permanently grounded.
I also miss rolling in fresh catnip. I don't even know why they mess with all of this oregano and tarragon and stuff. Chamomile? Whose idea was the chamomile? Where's the catnip?
Ah, here it is. Let me get settled in here and I'll tell you what's going on. There seem to be more people showing up every day. The grandparents are here. The aunt and uncle are coming tomorrow. And then an uncle and a niece, and then a bunch of people for a party. I think that little kid is coming to the party. He's crazy about me. A little too crazy, if you know what I mean. "Hiding in basement" is right on the top of my to-do list Saturday.
There also seem to be truckloads of groceries coming in. (But, I'd like to point out, not a single bag of Purina.) At one point my owner seemed a little calmer and said that she realized people weren't coming to see if she'd repainted the lawn furniture, they were coming to see her son graduate. Then all of a sudden it occurred to her that although they were coming to see her son graduate, they were also spending several days and would need to be fed three times a day. Apparently feeding humans is more complex than pouring dry food into a bowl every morning.
I wouldn't know. I'm just thinking that all of this commotion is working to my advantage right now. I'm going to soak up the sun and roll in the catnip and hope nobody notices me out here. Some days it's good to be the cat.
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There are three items without which this household cannot function: coffee, dishwasher soap and mystery novels. Most everything else I can live without for a limited period of time. I found a hat this weekend that reminds me of my new favorite detective, Maisie Dobbs. I am late in discovering her, which is wonderful, because it means there are a lot of books I haven't read yet. Don't you hate waiting for your favorite writer to come out with a new book?
I would like to think that this is the kind of hat that Maisie would wear: a trim, snugly fitting straw hat with just a sprig of lilacs. It might be just a little too fancy for her, but if she were meeting the handsome Dr. Dene for a Saturday lunch ... well, who knows? Maisie Dobbs is everything I like in a detective, which is a) British b) female c) smart and d) a bit sad and complicated. She also dresses well and drives a really great car (an MG, although I think it got wrecked twice in the third novel.)
Here are the mysteries that are on my nightstand: the fourth Maisie Dobbs novel, Messenger of Truth, and Peter Mayle's Chasing Cezanne, which I'm guessing will be kind of fun, light escapism. I just finished Ruth Rendell's A Judgement in Stone, which was excellent - beyond excellent - and terrifying. So terrifying that even though I have to read every night before I go to sleep, I couldn't keep reading it Friday night, because it was getting to the really terrifying part. I had to turn to my commemorative Barack Obama edition of Newsweek instead, just to calm down.
Without giving away the plot - which, actually, is spelled out on the first page of the novel - the book involves an evil housekeeper and her only friend, a religious zealot, who perpetrate a horrific, senseless crime. So it was getting to the horrific crime part Friday night when I stopped reading, and on Saturday morning I went out to yard sales. And the last one I went to was at the rather remote farmhouse of two elderly women. In the pouring rain. Where, it turned out, the bulk of their possessions consisted of religious pamphlets. The kind that I find kind of scary, with lots of thunderclouds and lightning bolts and amateurish artwork on the covers. I am not exaggerating when I say there were hundreds and hundreds of boxes of these pamphlets. One of the women followed my every step, peering at me through her very, very thick glasses, pointing out objects I did not wish to buy. She completely reminded me of the murderous zealot in the book.
Obviously I survived. I bought 50 cents worth of stuff I didn't want just to get out of there alive. The hat didn't come from that sale, nor did this pretty millinery flower.
I'm just trying to forget the whole episode.
Even though I can't wait to read another Ruth Rendell book.
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I went to one of my favorite kinds of sales over the weekend: not too far away, at the home of a sweet older lady getting ready to move south, with a little of this and that. Found a little crocheted dress ...
pretty hankies and an aqua damask tablecloth ...
some great old blocks that will be useful on an upcoming holiday. (My daughter just looked over my shoulder and asked what ZERT means. It means I was too tired to pay attention to what the blocks above July 4 said.)
Particularly fond of these.
Found some other things over the weekend, too - some ornaments, some hats, some Giant Pixies! which I will most certainly post about because I just like saying Giant Pixies! I also went to a house where I was pretty sure I had just become part of a mystery plot (alas, with me cast in the role of victim, not the perpetrator) but I survived. I would have illustrative photos except I got a little sidetracked. Family members start arriving Tuesday, the graduation party is Saturday, graduation is Sunday, and I thought I'd better get the house looking in tip-top shape. I decided I would start with the kitchen, starting with a paint ripple in the ceiling that had been annoying me for some time.
Well, little did I know that the paint ripple was evidence of a little undetected water damage, and the funniest thing happened! I had no more than scraped away that little section of paint when a chunk of ceiling fell into the sink! Oops!
So this would be a photo of my husband measuring for a new piece of drywall. I thought it would be bad form if I left him to repair the kitchen himself, so that's what I did this weekend.
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Thanks to my mom and my grandma, I had a lot of early exposure to gift shops. All of those childhood influences resulted in what is probably an abnormal affection for any sort of paper or party goods: ribbon, gift wrap, greeting cards, office supplies and decorative plates and napkins. I happened across a treasure trove of party goods at the same sale that yielded the paper lanterns and cocktail napkins. They allow me to believe I'm actually going to do some entertaining this summer. By happy coincidence, I found a little wooden tote at another sale to keep them in.
Here's the tote before a couple of coats of white paint. White paint pretty much takes care of anything.
By strange coincidence, I have a piece of fabric that is about a perfect match for these Hallmark napkins and cups. That mustard and red combination was popular for about two weeks in the 1970s, so it's pretty fortunate I have several examples of it in action.
Clearly, these were too cute to use, because there's a full set.
I would have a tailgate party just to use these cups. This is probably a good moment to explain that I don't buy paper partyware unless it's sealed up in its original packaging. I have some standards.
Finally, not one but two packages of Hallmark strawberry napkins. To go with the strawberry tablecloth, the strawberry shaker and, I'm hoping, local strawberries this weekend.
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I never go out. I never wear jewelry. These two facts are not unrelated. Wearing jewelry and going out just aren't me. Yesterday, for example, I wore a charm bracelet to work. I came home, looked at the garden, realized something was eating the spinach and decided to protect it with a row cover. Today's tip: Take off your charm bracelet before unrolling the net row cover, unless you want to become hopelessly tangled up in it.
Despite all of this, I am wearing jewelry and going out (or what passes for going out in my life) tonight. It's my son's annual golf-team banquet, and my annual wearing of my favorite piece of vintage jewelry - the golf bracelet. I'm pretty sure I'll be the only woman at the country club tonight wearing jewelry from a yard sale, which pleases me no end.
If I can talk my husband into wearing one of the bow ties I picked up today at the thrift store, I think we'll make quite an impression.
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Peonies in an old jam jar.
A luna moth on the kitchen window screen.
An old soap dish, white soap and bubbles.
Little things that made me happy today.
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My plans last week took an abrupt turn when we got some last-minute company. There was precious little time for sales and thrifting this week, but I did find something I like a lot at the same place I got this tiny crocheted doll.
A bag full of vintage doll patterns. Next to vintage apron patterns, doll patterns might be my favorite. Especially these old ones, which have so many tiny details.
I can't find a date on this one, which says "Garments will fit popular Film Star Dolls." I love the ringlets and the epaulets.
Another outfit from the same pattern. Did you notice the jointed elbows and knees on the doll? The little blouse underneath the jumper is called a "guimpe," which was a new word for me.
This pattern is marked 1938. The hats are wonderful, aren't they? I would think that mothers in 1938 had too much to do to attach tiny leg bands and eyelet trim to baby-doll rompers, but they must have found the time somehow.
Jumping ahead a decade and then some - a wardrobe from 1953. The three dolls on the bottom are sisters. The middle one hangs out in her pajamas until early afternoon, smoking cigarettes and reading movie magazines. She's sick of hearing about her flaws from Little Miss Goody Two Shoes on the left, who rises every morning at dawn and puts on a fresh housedress and apron. The sister on the right just wishes everyone could get along.
My personal favorite, though, probably based on happy memories of the Betsy McCall paper dolls at my grandma's house, is this 1956 Betsy McCall doll pattern. There's a pattern to make a stuffed doll with an embroidered face, plus a wardrobe. (As if you need to ask, they'll all be on eBay this week.)
Betsy hopes you have an entirely pleasant week.
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Time to break out the paper umbrellas!
Know what these are?
When they're unfolded, you'll know.
Paper lanterns!
I put them on Etsy. These came from the same sale as the cocktail napkins. I think those folks enjoyed entertaining!
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The best thing about auctions are the box lots. They're usually only a couple of dollars and almost always have a surprise or two. Everything in this picture - and I think everything in this post - is a box-lot find from the weekend auction.
A songbook, and a woven piece that I think might have covered the top of a piano - it seems like the right size. Is there a special name for this kind of thing? Is it something really obvious like "piano scarf"?
I was so pleased to find this little pillow. The fabric is really, really fragile, and the pine needles inside aren't helping it any. I think I've figured out a way to preserve it, though.
Lots o' linens, including those crinoline ladies.
And heaven forbid that a week should pass without another anthropomorphic object. (These are Holt Howard kitty salt and pepper shakers.)
The original owner of these objects is a woman in her 90s who only recently moved into an adult care home. She seemed to collect things of every kind from every era, and all of it was in great condition. I could have moved right into the house and changed hardly a thing - the white beaded board cupboards in the kitchen, the shelf paper, the flowered wallpaper. The beds upstairs were still made up with chenille bedspreads, with quilts folded across the bottom.
I wasn't quite sure what this was at first.
I'm pretty sure it's a tea strainer.
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