The Nuts and Bolts of Life

Do  you ever stop and think about what grounds you?  I mean what really makes you who you are, what has shaped you over your life, and what rocks you to your very core when you think about it not being there anymore.  For me it is more than one thing, but I think that's true for most people.

Of course family is and always will be at the top of my list, with pets right up there.  When I look around my house there are certain possessions that remind me of my lineage, like the pieces my parents made for us, antiques I bought when we didn't have two nickels to rub together, heirloom pieces I inherited, gifts we've been given, and sweet mementos my children have made or given us over the years, but aside from photos, the other stuff is mostly just stuff.

This weekend we went over to help our son mow the farm property I own with my siblings.  There is a lot to mow there, especially when the fields need trimming, so it's a two tractor event that takes awhile to do.  My grandfather used to do this all on his own, though he did let us drive the tractors, and I learned to drive on an old tractor complete with a metal seat and hair trigger clutch.

From the day I was born, this land has been a part of me, the nuances of its hills and furrows are burned into my brain, and I know that they will remain there forever.

After my grandparents had both died, the farm was passed to my mother and father.  At times I think tending to it was a burden for them, having land requires work, but most of the time it was just a place they felt great affection for as they lovingly cared for it.

After my parents both stopped working, the farm became their own playground of sorts.  My dad planted blueberry bushes and they always had a huge garden each summer.  They built a cabin for the grandkids on the property, hosted big parties complete with roaring bonfires, and took us on hayrides in the snow...it had become a place where my children were now deeply rooted just as I was, and our family before them had been.

Now, this land is in the hands of myself and my 3 siblings, each of us with a different take on what it means to us.

As I wandered the property with my camera, I was struck by how many memories I have stored from every vantage point, even though so much has changed since I used to ride my bike or walk from my own home to spend time there as a child.

I could recall how it felt to run through the fields of hay or rye grass so tall we could hide in them.  How the horses who grazed the fields smelled and how it felt to run my fingers through their manes.

I could smell the flowers and the honeysuckle that lined the ditches, and hear my grandmother's voice as she hollered to my grandfather to come in for lunch or supper.

I could smell the freshly baked cakes, canned tomatoes, and Sunday suppers we all shared here, and see my grandparents sitting on their side porch watching the horses and life go by as they aged gracefully.

And I remembered those crazy sleepless nights when we brought our own firstborn home to this house which we rented as a young married couple.  It was a small place, with a tiny kitchen and one bathroom, but it felt like a palace to us.  Every wall held memories of laughter, every creak in the floor spoke of children playing, and every slam of the screen door meant that summer was here and sour grapes needed eating and old junk cars needed 6 year olds to drive them, even if weeds were growing through the floorboards and they never moved!

They say you can't come home again, and although that's true because things are always changing, what they don't tell you is that home never leaves you, it's always inside of you.

Home is the seed that never stops growing, the one that can lay dormant during a drought or rot from too much rain, but then springs forth despite the hardships of life.

It is the tree that may lose branches, but its roots run so deep that it can weather any storm and provide shade on the hottest of days.

Things change, people change, but the things we hold dear endure in a way that rust and decay can not touch.

Cracks can form, wrinkles may appear, but underneath it all is the place that grounds us, the heart of it all.

The nuts and bolts of our lives are what we use to construct our own destinies.  We can be mindful architects or careless builders of places that won't stand the test of time.  We must all chose to use quality materials that will give us solid foundations, chose a site that will ground us and not wash away, and constantly tend to ourselves and make the repairs necessary, because if you love yourself you will be ever mindful that even after you are gone, others will feel and benefit from the strength of your structure.

Winging It

I am behind on any number of things, including but not limited to...

Laundry
Dusting
Work
Cleaning out my closet
Uploading pics to my website
Returning emails
Mowing my yard
Delivering birthday presents to friends
Answering questions by sweet commentors!

And the list goes on and on, but I have to say that we have way too much going on here at my house, stuff that occupies our minds and our bodies, and keeps us swimming upstream some days.

But I made a promise to myself when I came back to blogging that I would need to let things go sometimes and focus on the important stuff, even if it meant not returning every email or being as faithful to this blog as I would like.

Real life happens, and real life can't be put on hold, so that is always the priority around here now, and I'm ok with just winging it most days.

Because winging it can actually be quite beautiful!

Enjoy your week everyone!

Talking Turkey

I'm so glad you all liked my Fatty Breadkins post from yesterday...I think she would be pleased to know that her legacy lives on through my feeble attempts at silver polishing.

I awoke this morning at 4 am, and could not for the life of me fall back asleep for over 3 hours!  In case you are wondering I watched a little bit of the movie Babe and realized that it's not the happy go lucky story of a pig that I remembered...at least the part I saw had a much darker tone when I was watching it pre-dawn.

I also can tell you loads of info about Lewis and Clark's expedition, the show I found on PBS, which I opted for once the sheep dog in Babe was muzzled and drugged and I realized I had probably traumatized my children by letting them watch that movie when they were little and we had herding dogs like we do now!

It turns out that as the sun is coming up there is a heck of a lot going on in the field next to my house which I can see outside my bedroom window.  None of the pictures in this post are what I saw then, these are all from later in the day, but I'll give you a rundown of what I did observe at about 5:30 this morning.

Eagles were flying, 2 deer were chasing one another, bats were flying (which would normally freak me out if I hadn't been so exhausted), songbirds were flitting about, and the neighbor's cat was doing a balance beam routine on our fence...which would normally drive our dogs nuts, but they were exhausted because I had been awake half the night.

When I did finally get up around 10 am, after just a few hours of actual sleep, I was greeted by turkey vultures sitting on our fence, hmm should I consider this a bad sign I thought?

Then, as I mulled over the possibilities of why turkey vultures would be sitting on our fence when they never have in the past, my attention was drawn to a juvenile eagle making his way across the field.

His mottled head feathers made him look almost vulture like I thought.

Turns out they weren't here for me, they were just feasting on something dead in the field, so that's a relief.  They aren't the prettiest birds in the world, but I know they serve a purpose and who am I to judge right?!

English Shepherds are not fans of interlopers in their yards or on their fences, so after taking a picture of the 3 vultures on the fence through the french doors, I slipped outside and took a few more pics of the two remaining before letting Mr. Quinn and Misty out to inform the trespassers that it was time to move on.

All was quiet for a few hours until our resident wild turkeys showed up...

Accompanied by some deer.  I think it may have been a party of sorts, or maybe with the rain we've been having I could say that in this picture they may have been looking for an ark.

Whatever their purpose for being nearby, it wasn't good enough for my ever attentive watch dogs.  Misty Belle says that her work is never done, and she thinks she and Quinn deserve a few extra hugs and treats for their very full day!

Thank you to those of you who left comments yesterday, you guys make me smile and I just think I have the smartest and most amazing readers on the planet!  And for those who asked, I did try the foil, soda, salt thing for removing the tarnish, but it was no match for my tarnish, though it did help a lot.  I ended up using Twinkle silver polish and then using a special polishing soft cloth, because when I tarnish, I tarnish big! :)

Also, Phyllis is an eagle eye, because my chandelier is by Solaria!

Oh, and I read this quote on Pinterest today and thought, how perfect for my sleepless night...I wonder who was dreaming of me?!!!

(source)

Dear Fatty Breadkins

First of all I want to thank all of you for your wonderful comments and emails from my last post.  It's nice to know that many of us have a bit of design schizophrenia due to all of the images and beautiful homes that inundate the web these days.  And I'm also glad to know that like me, many of you have decided to go your own way and not feel badly about the things you have and the homes you dwell in.

Ok, so you are probably wondering what the title of this post is all about and I'll be happy to tell you, but be prepared for a long post with lots of pics.  I should have broken it up into two posts, but I'm just too darned lazy to do that today...well most days to be honest!


 

So a few years ago when my siblings and I were going through and cleaning out my parent's home after my father died, we got to a pair of candelabras that had belonged to my great aunt.  Aunt Frances was a lovely, funny, and always elegant woman who lived in a beautiful neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia.

She had wonderful taste, and visiting her home as a child was like wandering into an old English country estate mixed with a healthy dose of Virginia gentility.  It was sort of intimidating as a child to visit what seemed like a mansion at the time, eat tomato aspic, and play on the supple leather club chairs in the library, but it was also a place where you felt like a grown up and used your best manners.

Though she lived into her 90s, Aunt Frances left a very big hole in our lives when she left.  She was the last surviving member of my maternal grandmother's immediate family and like a grandmother to us since ours had passed away.

When she died, my mother inherited and/or bought at an estate sale many of her things, including the candelabras you see above.  I should have known something when neither of my sisters jumped at the chance to grab these silverplated beauties.  My one sister even flat out said,..."no, I don't want anything silver that I have to polish, living on the water is murder on brass and silver!"

But me, being me, and thinking, oh don't be such a baby, what's a little silver polishing in the grand scheme of things, I took them!  For awhile I was faithful, I would use a polishing cloth often and keep them gleaming, but then our love affair ended.  I would walk past them in my dining room and mutter under my breath, "just look at yourselves, you've let yourself go, and you used to be so shiny and pretty."  That gave way to me thinking, "tarnished silver is all the rage, yes, that's the ticket," but like with all things, you have to face the truth sometime, at it's at times like these that you have to call on Fatty Breadkins.

About 4 years ago now, we visited the Biltmore Estate while on a trip to NC for a family reunion.  Mr. Tide, myself, and our kids decided to take a day trip and go visit the estate since we had never been there before.  I'm not a big lover of Victorian decor, but I did want to take advantage of being that close, so off we went.

We decided to take the self guided audio tour, and while our kids zoomed through and didn't listen to most of it, Mr. Tide and I took our time and thoroughly enjoyed the narration.  As many things as they told us on that tour, the one thing that stuck, was a story about one of Mr. Biltmore's favorite staff members, a woman he supposedly lovingly referred to as Fatty Breadkins.

In the narration, or to the best of my not so good recollection, she was someone who either worked in the kitchen or polished silver.  Either way, in my head she became synonymous with silver polishing.  Yup, Fatty Breadkins has turned into my silver polishing heroine, a woman who loved her job, or at least was said to have found joy in it, and who I dearly wish would show up from time to time at my house to polish silver!


  

You see, though I may not like Victorian decor that much, I can still appreciate their attention to detail and love of beauty and decoration!  When we left the Biltmore, I looked at Mr. Tide and informed him that with lighter wood choices, and a few changes here and there...I could have lived there back in the day.  He was quick to remind me that I would likely have been Fatty Breadkins, not one of the people changing clothes 8 times a day and traveling, painting, and perfecting my operatic voice or piano skills.  I simply gave him a look that said "I beg to differ."

So what does this have to do with anything?  Well, over the past 2 days I have tapped in to my inner Fatty Breadkins, and I'm happy to say that I think she may just be giving me 2 thumbs up on my efforts.

My hands are sore, I worked like a dog, but oh how shiny those candelabras are and how pretty they look again after a year's worth of salt air, humidity, and utter neglect on my part.  Yes, once again they are gleaming and screaming for a candlelight dinner, anyone want to join me?!

And I even have a few tricks up my sleeve to help them become an epergne, with a few glass candle/vase holders that I've had for years and only used a couple of times.  I've always wanted an epergne, one of those gorgeous hand pierced silver and glass centerpieces that graced many a Victorian table, though they've been around since the 1700s.

Now I just need to find a few more of these glass holders, which aren't so easy to find, so if you know a source, do tell please!  I used to have 4, but can only find 3 of mine, and ideally I would like to have 6 of them, so that I can either use candles, or put flowers in them.

And getting back to what I was saying yesterday, I am making sure that each day I take stock of the beautiful things in my own home and learning to love its flaws.  I haven't shown you my living room and dining room for quite some time, so I thought I would take some pics to share with all of you.

In the past I would have probably shown you a vignette instead of the whole room, because I would have thought that I needed to make it perfect, or I would have wanted to wait until I had replaced this or that...but no more, here it is, air conditioning vents and all.  Do I still want to replace the dark wood tea cart and buffet in there, yup, but not until I find just what I'm looking for, and that could take years people.  I'm one of those people who knows exactly what I want, so asking the universe to help me find it, then afford it, is often the trick.

And here is the living room, with egads...a ceiling fan and the dreaded green couch I want to replace.  But instead of not showing it to you because my perfectly comfy, perfectly usable green couch is still here and not the pale blue confection that lives in my head, I'm letting it all hang out because, I still love this room just as it is.

And I'm betting that a lot of you love your rooms too, you're just afraid someone else will think differently.  Such wasted time worrying what others think, isn't it? 

Because let's face it, Fatty Breadkins would have loved my house, my silver, my ceiling fans.  I bet she dreamed of ceiling fans and lights in the ceiling to make her job easier!

And what's not to love when you have one of these in your house...he says, "Mom, have I mentioned that I love these floors, they are SO comfy!"

I hope you find something to love today! :)

There's No Place Like Home

For a long time now I've been wanting to simplify my life, but I wasn't sure exactly what that meant.  Did it mean that I needed to quit working, quit writing, quit shopping, quit doing anything I didn't want to do?  The answer seemed kind of elusive in a way, because quitting anything for me usually means filling that void with something else.

As time has worn on, and as I have simplified a number of things in my life...mainly that I'm no longer writing for the most part, I hardly shop, and I don't do things I really dislike doing, I have realized that simplicity means different things to different people.

I've decided that maybe simplicity really isn't the word I was looking for, even though I love that it can mean lack of pretense or guile and uncomplicated.   Maybe the words I needed to add to my vocabulary were calm, wellness, authenticity, and peace...these somehow seem more descriptive and more direct than the generality of simplicity.

I have never been one to pretend to be something I am not, and I have not tried to keep up with the Joneses...because let me tell you folks, I know some pretty amazing Joneses!  But I have grown weary of looking at beautiful homes online, and feeling somewhat let down by aspects of my own home.  Which is silly really because I too live in a beautiful home, filled with beautiful things, and that's not bragging, that's just realizing how truly lucky you are!

I realized recently that as I was waiting for my new sunroom, my new backsplash, my new master bathroom, my new amazing gardens, I was doing just that...I was "waiting" to live!  Of course I have been living, but I haven't been living fully, nope, I've been in a sort of holding pattern.

Now, please don't think that I don't appreciate amazing homes, I've been privileged to visit and write about many over the last 15 years, but the fact is that I'm tired of waiting.  During all those years I never once thought, "hey I wish I lived here," when I left those homes, I appreciated them, but never envied them...if that makes sense.  I was content and happy to drive home to my little piece of paradise, no matter where I was living at the time.  But then came blogs, and pinterest, and tumblr, and every other online entity that can make you wish for things you don't need, or sometimes even want.

 

So, I have pledged that from now on...

...I will no longer wait to have friends over until my house is perfect...I, nor my house will ever be perfect, but having friends over is always perfect!

...I will no longer put anything in my house that isn't truly me, no matter what the trends, or who says I should, and though I have rarely put things in my house I don't love, I have on occasion been taken over by the trend demons!  Henceforth,  I will promise to be true to me, because this is MY house.  (though I promise to defer to Mr. Tide because technically this is his house too...just don't tell him please!)

...I will share my home with others (see pledge #1), because what is the point in having a wonderful home if you don't share it?!...then it is just a prison, or maybe a lovely museum.

...I will no longer feel the need to apologize for or focus on the negatives of this home.  We all have negatives in our homes, but that should always take a backseat to the fact that we HAVE a home!

...I will use my home as a safe haven, a place where I get to cook, read, sleep, and wander around in my pjs however the heck I want...this is my castle and by golly I'm gonna call the shots.

Each day I stop and tell myself how grateful I am for so many things, and yet somehow over the past few years I have slowly let myself get swept up into a world where nothing is real, and everything is done for people who are peering in from the outside.  I am thankful that I have only stepped a few feet into this world, but there are days when I've felt as though something was wrong with me if I didn't like a certain type of decor, or wanted to DIY the hell out of everything in my house...it resulted in a little bit of design multiple personality disorder, something I've never known and never want to take hold.

So, in closing, because I'm not even sure what to say from here, because let's face it, I AM part of the machine that makes us all so crazy and want to rip out perfectly good kitchens to replace them with perfectly "better" kitchens.. I am throwing back the curtain and revealing that wizards aren't all they claim to be.  I'm offering you a hand to get off the Merry Mixer, to get your wits about you, and to stop beating yourselves up because you and your home aren't everything "they" say it should be.

Wanna know how to get back to YOUR home?  Just click your heels 3 times and say "there's no place like home, there's no place like MY home."  You see, you've known it all along and if you ever doubt it, just remember what Dorothy learned about home...

“If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.”

OOH AHHH

I hope you each had a wonderful holiday weekend, or regular 'ole weekend if it wasn't a holiday in your part of the world.

In my neck of the woods it was Independence Day, so from the 4th through yesterday we were celebrating.  In my world, I don't think we really need a reason to cook hotdogs and hamburgers on the grill, hang out with family and friends, or watch fireworks, but apparently there are rules about such things, so these activities are mostly confined to one, or maybe two times a year...such a pity!

On the actual 4th it was a beautiful and hot day, which was a nice contrast to all of the rain we have been having.  And even though it was hot, there was a great breeze coming off of the river, enough to create white caps and make me cradle my camera like a newborn to prevent it from being attacked by salt spray.  In the photo above, the opposite shoreline is 5 miles away...thank you Canon for my big honkin lens!

I had taken my big lens out with me in hopes of catching the fireworks down river from us.  We can also see them over on the other shoreline in Virginia, but they are far away and rather small.  Not to worry though because some folks down at the mouth of our creek must mortgage their house each year to pay for their fireworks.  

Not that I'm complaining, as the beneficiary of their careless spending, I'm all for their reckless abandon each year on the 4th of July.

The trick to taking pics of fireworks is to use a tripod, and to use a remote shutter release.  I had the tripod, but my shutter release has gone to that great photo field in the sky...ie. it died just in time for my first attempt at shooting fireworks!

Instead of admitting defeat, I decided to use the "bulb" setting on my camera and told myself that whatever I got would be better than my pics last year...mostly because I didn't take pics last year, get it?!

The cool thing about the bulb setting is that it allows you to control the shutter by holding it open for as long as you care to press the button.  It's a pretty nifty setting, and this was the first time I had tried it. 

I had also read that if you held the button during multiple explosions you could capture more than one firework at a time, which I also thought was cool.  The pic above looks like a palm tree doesn't it?!

When we got home I realized that my technique needed a little work, and acknowledged that remotes were really necessary equipment for getting clean crisp shots of fireworks in high winds and low light.  But I have to admit that I am kind of psyched with the results I got, to me, they are almost cooler than regular shots of fireworks.

Sometimes it's the so called mistakes that make me love photography so much.  Even your screw ups can become things of beauty...and let's face it, a positive spin is so much better than banging my head against a wall and lamenting that fact that I will have to wait a whole year to try again!

I'm calling the image above the Big Bang Theory, because if you give your accidents cool names, well that makes them even more legit.  Runners up for the name are Studio 54, To Infinity and Beyond, and It's Electric (made you say boogie woogie woogie didn't I?).  

Ok, my work here is done!  I hope each of you had a wonderful weekend and that this week will be even more exciting!

Wanderings

It's raining...again...and there's no end in sight, but some things are quite happy with all of this liquid gold.  Above are two volunteer mushrooms which are growing alongside our tomato plant in a giant container.

And my laissez-faire attitude towards the tomatoes seems to be paying off, see that blush of color on the tomato with the drip hanging off of it?!  Yup, they are finally "breaking" and hopefully turning red, just in time for a big 4th of July picnic, yay!

Even with the rain, I'm beginning to settle in to a summer groove of sorts.  I love summer's simplicity.  Fewer layers of clothing, lighter fare, and longer days...even overcast ones, make me happy.  And I find that the quiet, uncluttered nature of summertime is also reflected in my decor this time of year.

Unlike during the winter holiday season, I have a bare minimum of accessories out.  And with the purchase of a few new rugs, including the one pictured above which is a combo of sisal and cream canvas, I am trying to incorporate a more casual beach vibe throughout the house year round.

  

Of course, I still put out some things here and there for the summer holidays, but a less is more mentality has taken root in me over the past few years, and I'm content with just a few items.

I doubt I will ever be able to not accessorize for the various holidays.  My mother loved changing her accessories out each season, and this apple did not fall far from the tree it seems, as I do it too, just to a lesser extent.

So, though things like mason jars and other antique glassware can be found year round in my home, they are often my vessel of choice when it comes to getting gussided up for the various holidays.

And other antiques, like beautiful mangle cloth, feel right at home with seaside finds, while providing a little red, for a red, white, and blue color scheme.

I'll be doing some wandering over the next few days as I prepare for 4th of July events which trickle into the weekend, so my little blog and email will be taking a back seat as I gear up for Stars, Stripes, Sousa, and if we're lucky, even a little Sunscreen!

And as always, thank you for your comments and emails, they are truly appreciated!

To Jo, HERE is the link to the flooring and tile company, but I plan to keep our tile choice a secret until the backsplash is all said and done.  After waiting so long to do it, I don't want to jinx anything!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Little Drop of Rain

It's been raining cats and dogs here, and I blame myself for this.  You see, the past few years we have been so dry each summer, so I really worked hard this spring to try and visualize a wet summer, one that didn't require us watering everything in 100+ degree heat.

Yup, I'm that powerful people, I wished for it to rain, and now it won't stop!  It's ok though, so long as my roses don't rot and my tomatoes still ripen, I'm ok knowing my powers are being used for good and not evil. ;-)

Besides, a little drop of rain never hurt anyone...well except that girl from Les Mis, but other than that it's all good.  And I have to say that rain droplets and plants are a match made in heaven from a photography standpoint.

These shots were actually taken about a week or more ago, and I love how each droplet delicately covers the feathery stalks of the plant.  Like tiny jewels reflecting the light, they shimmer and shine.

In other news, I was bitten by something unknown over the weekend and was laid up in bed with pain shooting through my foot and up my leg.  It has subsided, but I can tell you that it wasn't fun...not even a little.  I still have no clue what it was, and I had no swelling or even redness, just a tiny stinger looking thing, that I was able to get out by soaking my foot in warm water.  But for a long time afterwards the pain was pretty intense.  

As I was walking to our bathroom to soak my foot I noticed that Quinn was also limping, and wouldn't bear weight on his front left paw.  It was my left foot that was hurt too, so I don't know what we each stepped on or what bit us, or even if Quinn was being ever faithful and limping as a sign of solidarity, but we are both back and mobile once again.

And before I leave you this evening, I want to say that my heart breaks for the young firefighters we lost in Arizona today.  As the mother of a volunteer firefighter, I can tell you that I worry each time I know my son is going to help save those in need.  As the saying goes, firefighters run into a situation, when others are running out.  May their families find strength and peace during this devastating time.