Terror in Daylight

Every fall, we make a trip to the local nursery to get our Halloween pumpkins. And every year I end up, for a short time, scared out of my wits. Why? Because I’m afraid of the soon to be Jack-o-Lanterns we buy? No. My fear stems from something much more sinister.

The corn maze.

On the surface, what’s to be afraid of? It’s a small maze, and from the outside I can see where its borders are. Some of the stalks aren’t even that tall. It’s a maze designed to be fun for the smallest of children. I know all of this. Plus, it’s broad daylight as we head for the “ENTER” sign.

But once we are in there, among the corn, my sense of reason leaves me. I am the last to go into the maze. Stuart heads down one row, Amy heads down another. My indecision lasts for just a few seconds, but it’s long enough to allow the corn to swallow them both up. I start down the path that Amy has chosen, hitting one dead end after another, the corn  suddenly seeming much taller than it did from the outside. As hard as I try to stay calm, I am gripped with the unreasonable terror that if I ever do get out, my family will have vanished, never to be seen again. I’m about ready to run blindly through the stalks and make my own exit (strictly against the rules, by the way-but then so is leaving your parents unattended) when I suddenly catch up with Stuart.  I’m ok after all, and maybe I’m even having fun. “Have you tried going that way?” I ask him. But when I turn to hear his reply, he has vanished again.

For two years, when I was a kid, my family lived next to a big corn field in Pennsylvania. “Stay out of the corn,” my mother would warn us. Why, I wondered? But I never asked. Maybe it was best not to know. When I was older, I read some Stephen King stories, and I understood. Terrible, terrible things happen in fields of corn.

I am so spooked by this time, and so lost in my thoughts of worry and regret for even allowing this trip into the corn maze, that I can hardly see. And then all of a sudden, I am standing in a clearing. Miraculously, I have found my way out. Stuart is right behind me again, and Amy is up ahead, running in the grass and playing with a fat brown cat named Pumpkin. I take a deep breath, straighten the collar on my coat, pull a stray piece of corn silk from my hair, and soon I’m laughing and enjoying the beauty of a bright fall day in October.

I do have just one last piece of advice though.

Don’t ever, ever go, into a corn maze after dark…

                            *****************

Photo sourced from the internet.

Walnuts

My grandma had a walnut tree in her yard.  Tall and massive, and I’m guessing as old as my grandma, it was situated next to the driveway, near the street.  Even though my grandma is gone now, has been for years, I hope the tree is still there.

It was her fall ritual.  To go out and pick up the fallen walnuts.  I guess that’s how you harvest walnuts.  You pick them up.  You don’t have to climb up and get them.  Not that my grandma wouldn’t have tried. In her early nineties, she insisted on mowing her own yard with an electric mower, the long power cord always trailing precariously around her feet.

Those walnuts.  I remember the sound they made when the tires of passing cars crunched over the ones that had fallen in the street.  Grandma would take a box, or basket, or whatever container was handy, and pick up the fallen nuts from her yard and driveway.  She’d carry them up to her attic where they would dry over the winter, waiting to be cracked open the next spring. She did not own a nut cracker, but seated at an old TV tray in her kitchen, armed with a cutting board and hammer, she would slam the nuts out of their shells, walnut shrapnel flying everywhere.  She would crack nuts by day, and when insomnia struck, she would get up, and slam away in the middle of the night.

At Christmas time, we could always count on getting a package from her, and the contents never varied.  A jar of her mincemeat, and a jar of her walnuts.  The walnuts were like gold. My mother used them sparingly so they would last as long as possible.  (They were also used cautiously as bits of shell were bound to be mixed with the nuts.)

I have my grandma's mincemeat recipe.  Amy and I make a batch every year.  I like to think it’s every bit as good as that which my  grandma made.  I miss those walnuts, though. We buy a bag at Christmas time now, because there is no package coming in the mail. Because there is no longer a grandma who lives at the house with the walnut tree in the yard. 

I just hope the tree is still there.

I’m missing my Grandma Helen today.  I wanted to write this little tribute to her.

Revealed! The Bathroom Makeover

Before…

 

Not very much to love here.  Bad wallpaper, wood paneling that had seen better days, funny angles and corners, a dirty glass shower enclosure…It seemed hopeless.

 

But with some new paint, in two different hues of green-on the walls, wood paneling, built in shelves, and wall cabinets, and by taking out the glass doors and putting up a barkcloth shower curtain (that I made), installing a new sink and light fixtures, the transformation began to take place. (I am so thankful to have a husband who knows a thing or two about electrical work and plumbing!)

 

I found this wall mounted hand dish and thought it would make a good hand towel holder.

 

I found these two dishes at Goodwill.  They used to be part of a 50’s lazy Susan snack set.  They will be useful for keeping small items like Amy’s hair bands organized.

 

A couple more vintage finds-a really neat piece of art pottery that can hold wash cloths, and a 50’s plastic kleenex box cover.  I splurged on two new sets of towels and new bath rugs-both on sale for 50% off!

 

 

The biggest expenditure was the two new light fixtures.  I wish my pictures did them more justice, but they are really gorgeous.  I got them from a company out of Portland, Oregon called Rejuvenation.  I also found the new soap holder and cup holder there too.  An incredible source for old house style lighting and fixtures.

 

 

 

 

I was not crazy about the wall cabinet and medicine chest, but they were too good to get rid of, and so I just painted them.  They look much better now.

 

So there you have it! 

If I’d had an unlimited budget, I would love to have had a claw foot tub and new floor too, but I am really pleased with how this project turned out.  I never could have imagined that such an ugly duckling of a bathroom could turn into such a swan!

 

Pinup art by artist Joyce Ballantyne (1918-2006)  She is best known for her iconic 1959 Coppertone ad with the little girl and the naughty dog. 

Technorati Tags: bathroom,makeover,vintage style,Rejuvenation,decorating

The Right One

Part of the finishing touch I give to every bag I sew is the addition of a vintage button.  I am extremely picky about this.  For me, it’s such an important detail, that I’ve even delayed finishing a bag when I can’t find just the right button that works.  Great barkcloth and high quality workmanship are always a given.  It’s finding the right button that is the unknown element.  The deal maker, or breaker, so to speak.

I was so excited to come across the collection of buttons above.  They are all winners, and they will all inspire me at some point in the future.  I love the big and bold ones.  I love the small, playful ones.  In short-I love a great vintage button.

This black button has to be the most enormous button I’ve ever come across. ( I’m wondering if I’ll need a building permit when I decide to use it some day!)

My question for you is-what part of your craft has to be just right?  Is there one detail in what you do, that if you can’t get it just right you are not satisfied?  This is a unusual question I know-but I’d love to know your thoughts!

Technorati Tags: vintage buttons

Happy Fall!

It seems each morning now, the temperature dips a little lower.  Soon, we'll have our first freeze. 

Yesterday, Amy harvested  the pumpkins and gourds from our garden.  I love the colors!

I did some deadheading and cleaning up in the flower beds.

 

And we picked an autumn bouquet for the table.

This season conjures up so many feelings for me-sadness over the ending of another summer, nostalgia for times gone by, a sense of urgency that I must prepare for the coming winter, and a feeling of excitement over something I can never quite put my finger on.  It’s the time of year for woolen coats, and hearty soups and sidewalks scattered with fallen leaves.  It’s the potion of the calendar that I love most of all.

Happy fall, my dear readers!  Here’s wishing each of  you the best these golden months have to offer.

Gifts

 

I thought this would be an appropriate post to re-post today.  I’m taking a little blogging break while we do some cosmetic work on our downstairs bathroom.

 

We live in an old Victorian house. Not the gingerbread variety, but the simple farmhouse variety. It was built in 1900, and has seen a lot, and not all good, in those 11 decades. 

When it came on the market a few years ago, we were living quite happily in a 1940 bungalow.  But there was just something about this house that compelled us to take a look. While it had a lot of good things going for it, like wood floors, ornate moulding and French doors, the negative aspects made us say "not for us," and "too much work."

This house was not going to give up so easily, though. It kept forcing its way into our thoughts. We started to think more and more about what we could do to fix it up, and what a really incredible place it could be once again. We began to see that by saving this house, we could save a piece of the history of our town. The house didn't care what our motives were. It simply wanted to be loved, and have owners who didn't  shoot BB’s into the walls, or write on them with markers.  Owners who didn’t park half a dozen cars in the front yard.

As we moved in shortly before Christmas, and began the task of restoration, the house, or maybe the spirits of those who lived here before us, began to thank us.  Our first evening as new residents, an overwhelming aroma of cigar smoke and perfume filled the living room.  Perhaps we were the guests of honor at a small welcoming party, given by a grateful, but unseen host. The following spring, we unearthed a gold wedding ring.  We discovered it buried in the dirt while we were putting in a flower bed. Another time, while cleaning out a pipe, we found a very old dime from 1869.  And most mysteriously-and oddly of all, there was the time when a dishpan full of water was found emptied on its own. Some help with housework?  That would be appreciated!

While having this house is a gift in itself, we wonder what tokens of appreciation it will offer us in the years to come.  In any case, we will continue our labor of love on this place we now call home.

My Choice

Feeling uninspired as a writer? Check.  Feeling a lack of success as an artist?  Check.  Feeling sorry for myself? Perhaps the biggest check of all, and if you’ll bear with me for one more-I recognized a reality check was in order.

Yesterday I spent a few hours doing some good old fashioned home canning.  I’d been staring at a 23 pound box of red Bartlett pears for a few days and decided they weren’t going to can themselves.  And I also kicked my own can a little and told myself that moping around and staring at a computer screen were not how I want to spend all of my time.

What I love about canning is not only the satisfaction of a job well done, when I am done, but I love the process.  It’s hot, and I dirty a lot of dishes and utensils.  Boxes of produce and kettles of water are heavy, and I get tired.  My back hurts.  But I’m serious about liking every second of it, because sometimes it just feels good to do some hard physical work.

Women in the past knew all about that.  My mom told me recently that her grandmother used to get so tired she wanted to die.   Cooking for the threshing crews and cleaning up, only to have to do the same thing over and over and over-plus do all the other household work too.

I have it pretty easy.  I wash a couple dishes, and then moon about my lack of inspiration as I try to write a blog post.  I sweep the kitchen floor and then obsess over my Etsy shop statistics.  So it’s no wonder that when I bought my vintage canner a few years ago, the clerk asked me what I was going to use it for.  “Canning,” I replied quizzically.  I guess the  obvious wasn’t so obvious any more.

 

Today I am pretty satisfied with my gleaming jars of pears.  Due to the gorgeous red skin of these particular Bartlett’s-the finished pears have a lovely rosy pink tint to them.  I know that come winter they will taste good as well as being pretty to look at.

Now back to the internet…

(To post this!)