Happy St. Patrick's Day...

 Which means I'm thinking of my mother today, as it would have been her 100th birthday!

circa 1920

Date on photo is date taken, I assume.

circa 1923

I have no idea who the blonde child is, but it sure looks like my mother was enjoying herself.  I think they were climbing on a trellis.  Not many photographs of her with a big smile, but this one looks just like she always did when she laughed.

circa 1923

So studious in her glasses.  Doesn't she look like a kid you'd see in an Our Gang movie?

circa 1940

I know I've shared this one of her here before.  This was while she and my father lived in Washington DC right after they married.  So ahead of their time.  My father moved with her when she got a job with the government.

So Happy Birthday, Mom.  I'm wearing a shamrock for you.

Chaos here, chaos there, chaos, chaos everywhere...

As if my entire house were not in enough chaos, what with the kitchen remodel and having to cook in the laundry room, it now looks like my closet has exploded all over my bedroom.

My closet has been beyond insanity inducing for way too long.  I never have found an adequate arrangement.  You can see my last clean out here.  I was happy with it for awhile, but still it just wasn't a comfortable fit.

I had to work today, but when I got home I decided to take advantage of Carey being gone for a few days, and I just started emptying it out.  I'll finish clearing it out after work tomorrow.  Then on the weekend I will sort through everything before putting a drastically reduced inventory back in.  I am going to donate the majority of my 'work' clothes.  Now that I'm only working sporadically, usually never more than 2 or 3 days in any given week, I do not need to have as many different outfits as when I was full time.  

And of my casual clothes, I am only going to keep what I really like.

There.  It's written down.  Hold me to it.

Estate sale...

I have seen other bloggers post about great thrifting finds, and I have bemoaned my lack of luck in this department...until now.

 At the estate sale that I happened upon during our long weekend, I found this beautiful blue and yellow appliqued quilt top.  The prices at the sale seemed to be higher than I liked.  I thought this would be more than I wanted to pay, since it was still there on the third and last day of the sale.  But nothing ventured, nothing gained.  When I asked the price, I was told $10.  Score!

It does have one little piecing 'flaw,' in that the quilter seemed to run out of fabric on the very last square.  One corner has some fabric substitution...which I find absolutely endearing.

This quilter did beautiful applique, and the fabrics seem to be in very good condition.  There is some blue discoloration in a few places on the muslin background.  I think it may be that the blue fabric's dye ran a little.  I'm assuming that (and the corner substitutions) may be why it was never quilted.  I think it is an excellent opportunity to maybe practice some free-motion machine quilting someday.

Unfortunately, I had no cash on me, and I knew they wouldn't take an non-local check.  Susan saved the day by loaning me a ten.

On the way to the pay station, I spotted this vintage tennis racket.  These are showing up a lot in decorating these days.  So I picked it up as well.  I told the cashier that the quilt top was $10 and the racket was marked $2, and I would be happy to pay that, but I only had a ten dollar bill and some out-of-town checks, and I asked if she would consider letting me have both of them for just ten dollars.  She accepted.  Yea!  I think the fact that it was the last day of the sale paid off for me.

Making this Monday...

Today I am making a mess.

Bobby has a school assignment to research family history, and Kasey asked if he could come over one afternoon this week to look at family photos and documents.  First thing this morning I pulled out a box full of photos to get them organized a little.  I know, I know...they shouldn't be in a box.  I actually have photo albums to put them in, so maybe now is a good time for me to start that little project.

This represents one-fourth of all the vintage family photos my parents had.  After Mom passed away I painstakingly divided all of them as equally as possible into four equal batches. I labeled the boxes A, B, C, and D, and my sisters and I drew from a hat to see who got which box.  I figured we could ask each other later for copies if we were so inclined, but if we had to sit around discussing and dividing them together, we would never have gotten through all that had to be done when distributing the household goods in the limited time we had.

It is sad how few of these photos are labeled with names.  I can actually identify all of our direct family members.  But a lot of these are photos that my mother brought home from other relatives' homes after they passed away, so they are photos of in-law's nieces and nephews etc. 

Exhibit A: I have no idea who the child in this photo might be.

However, I am greatly amused by what is written on the back.

It reads: "This was my first experiment with an electric flash bulb.  It wasn't so good of sister but I took it especially to show you the chair.  I am enjoying using it so much.  The wood refinished beautifully."

Hmmm...experimenting with photography...sharing images of her home and latest furniture project.  I'm thinking that this person would be a blogger if she were around today!  I love the wallpaper and radio...the huge open dictionary and the encyclopedia volumes on the shelves...the berried-branches arrangement barely showing on the right-hand side...and yes, the chair is very cool.

'Sister' is pretty cute too...even if she was only propped up there to have an excuse to take a picture of the chair.  :)

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

V from Stick Horse Cowgirls asked me about the mirrors I have hanging over my floating books shelf. I love those mirrors. They are all vintage. One is inherited. Right after it came to my house to stay, I saw one at an estate sale. I loved its cute shape, and thought it needed to come home with me too. Then I thought they would be really great hanging on the wall together. But, you know, it's always more harmonious to display collections of odd numbers, so I kept my eyes open at auctions, estate sales, and Ebay. You know how that goes. The collection grew and grew, as they are wont to do. There are actually a few in a drawer somewhere that I should probably add to the grouping.

V also wanted to know how I hung them. I'm pretty proud of the method I devised for that. I didn't want to do anything that might mar the bakelite.

I took cut lengths of ribbon and a split key ring (the kind you break your thumbnail on when trying to add or remove a key). Fold the ribbon in half, slide the key ring onto the folded end, then place the two loose ends of ribbon through the fold and pull the fold down tight against the key ring. Tie the ribbon in a bow around the handle, making sure that the key ring was on the back side of the mirror. Also, be absolutely sure that the ribbon is tied tightly and securely, and that the handle widens above the tie, so that the weight of the mirror won't allow the mirror to slip out of the ribbon and fall to the floor, because that would make you really sad (not to mention unlucky for the next seven years).

I laid the mirrors out on the floor first to determine an arrangement that I liked. Then when hanging the mirrors on the wall, I placed the nails in the wall at an angle so that the rings wouldn't slip off.

And there you have it.

Getting ready for Valentine's Day...

I was going through my little stash of vintage valentines, and this one made me stop cold and say, 'What were they thinking?' Those facial expressions. That body language. And is it just me, or does that puppy look a little...um...constipated?

Hope this doesn't offend anyone, but here's my naughty altered version...