I am drawn to the different colors that I see being painted across the trees and landscape. I have vivid memories of white birch trees in the New England states, their aged and peeling bark shooting up to the sky, while orange tinged yellow leaves hung on to branches or playfully danced across the back country road while I hung out in the back of our family station wagon driving home from a trip to Maine.
I remember the colors sweeping the hillsides and mountains in the distance, like giant bouquets of yellow, red and green.
I remember pressing leaves between wax paper as a child. The redder the better!
I remember years later, pressing leaves with my children. Sigh.
Then I remember the crisp, clean scent of apples.
The smell of a big batch of apples cooking down for applesauce.
My mom’s rosy applesauce.
I’d help her make applesauce. Somewhere I have her handwritten recipe, even though I don’t really need it. It is one of those recipes that is a memory ingrained. I can smell a good, fresh, apple and I can remember making it. And, also want some. 🙂
Especially, if it is Fall.
I’m the only one who eats applesauce in the house anymore. So, I don’t need to make that much.
I had a few apples that I had left from a trip to the grocery store. Not too many, but just enough.
When I was in High School I couldn’t wait until I could pick the electives I really wanted. It wasn’t too hard to choose. We had a three “tracks”. College, Business, Vo-Tech. I knew I wasn’t going to college. Isn’t wasn’t something I ever considered. Growing up, college was never discussed as an option. My parent’s didn’t encourage it, in fact the Watchtower Society spoke against it, and it was considered a disfellowshipping offense. It was assumed that I was going to get married and stay home, or possibly work outside of the home. My sister was a secretary at an engineering consulting firm, and my parents seemed okay with that, so I figured I’d take business courses too and maybe do something like that. (For a brief time I had secret dreams of being an airline stewardess, or actress/model to go and see places. Oh, well I guess that isn’t a secret anymore is it.) 🙂
My electives involved various business classes, Accounting, German and my personal favorites of art classes and wood shop. I also tried my hand in drama and music. I looked forward to my art class every day. When I was able to, I had art class daily, and shop class daily. It was in the art class that I tried various mediums. I was fascinated at the projects that my art teacher worked on. Once she constructed a miniature house in the classroom (remember my fondness for miniatures?) Not once did I think about going to an art school, or becoming an art teacher. Please don’t think I’m saying that in a bitter way. It’s just a fact. It didn’t cross my mind. It wasn’t an option that had ever been discussed or promoted in my home. It was just the way it was. At that time in my life, I accepted it.
I loved art class. I loved to paint. Particularly with oils and watercolors.
However, somewhere along the way I stopped painting until the end of last year.
We are talking a long hiatus. Ahem, a real long time……over thirty years. Oh, my, I am getting old! 🙂
Anyway, Craig presented me with a gift certificate for watercolor classes last Christmas.
Well, let me tell you….my, how the quality of the paints and the paper changed from when I painted last! I’ve learned new things too! What a treat it has been to pick up a paintbrush again! The class rekindled the creative spark that I had put on the back-burner for far too long, or had let others discourage.
So now I am painting again.
Thanks again, Honey, for the classes, and the continued encouragement!
I hope you don’t mind if I kind of “toot my own horn”, okay, I’ll say it, “brag”….. but I’ve just taken two pictures for entry in the State Fair!
Just tea for two
And two for tea
Just me for you
And you for me
A little tinkle of a melody triggers fond memories and weaves it spell on a few of my favorite things.
As I have often said, I loved to visit and spend time with my maternal Grandmother. One thing we did together was have tea.
When I was little, we would have what we called “Cambrick Tea”. Perhaps it had a different name, perhaps I pronounced it wrong. I did have a little trouble with some of my speech (but that is another story). This is the way I remember saying it. It consisted of warm milk, warm water, and sugar. As I got older, my teacup started having proper tea in it.
Having tea, whether real or Cambrick was special.
Sometimes, we used little teacups, or demi cups, with the daintiest of handles. Such petite, pretty, cups. Now, as I’ve ahem, aged matured, I realize older fingers aren’t as nimble as the younger ones, and wonder if she would have preferred the larger cups. Grandmom didn’t complain though, she would get out these tiny plastic spoons for stirring sugar in the tea, otherwise we would use gold spoons.
Most times we used regular sized teacups. There was a large assortment of porcelain cups with pastel roses. Sometimes we used teacups with an iridescent quality that glistened like pearls. She also had a cup that a man would use to protect his mustache. I thought it was the funniest thing. She told me it was used by my Great Great Grandfather. The cup was fine white porcelain surrounded with a thin gold band. I think about that cup when I see all the mustache things now-a-days. I wonder what happened to that cup?
Some days we would have lunch or some sort of snack on her shell shaped plates where our cups would nestle in the ready made indentation.
I was always allowed to select the cups and the teapot.
She had different teapots, however my favorite was the one that had a wind-up music box on the bottom that played Tea for Two. If she tired of me always picking the same one, she never complained.
I know we didn’t dress for the occasion. Often she would sit in her comfortable chair, our tea things placed in a tray on an organ bench in front of her. I’d sit nearby on an old settee or on my knees on the floor.
When I moved into my first apartment, she gave me a brown teapot which had been in the family for years. I’d use it once in a while. But mostly I made my tea in just a mug.
After I was married, and we were moving out of state, the moving truck stopped by Grandmom’s to pick up an old dresser and bed to add to the truck along with “a few things she packed”. She told me later she “wanted to climb in the truck when she saw all our things”.
When we unpacked, the teapot, teacups and plates were among some of the things she gave us.
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We were blessed to have her visit us in that house we moved to back then, and also to stay with us for a few weeks. She also was able to visit us in almost every move we made until her death.
Tea, warms me inside. Somehow, tea tastes better from that little teapot.
Even though there may be only one teacup when tea is served on some occasions, there is always two in my mind and heart.
There are days when I try to take the speed approach.
I get out the Swiffer. I zip around (well, as much as I can zip around) and reach and grab at the dust here and there.
For my own particular reason, I find I like what some think is the “old fashioned way”. I like picking up each piece and wiping down the surface and then wiping each piece before replacing it.
I find you have to think about what you are touching. Do you like this? Do you want this? What does this mean to you? Whose was this? Who gave this to you? Why did you buy this? And then often – Why is this here? This touching exercise makes me think about each thing.
Was this my Mom’s way of thinking? I like to think so.
“Make sure you get everything, including the rungs of the chairs”, were my instructions on dusting from Mom.
“Don’t just gloss over it, when for a few more seconds you’ve got the whole thing”.
Today, some may call it a touch of OCD. Maybe it was. I just know that was the way she was taught by her Mother, who was taught by her Mother, and so on. I was taught the same way. So then I guess I have it too.
“Dust all the rungs, and don’t forget the bottom of the chairs”, Mom would remind me.
That thought runs through my head as I dust my own home.
Back then we dusted with an old shirt or a sock slipped on our hand (now you know what to do with that random sock!) and a can of Lemon Pledge.
For years I used old shirts or towels. Now I use a micro-fiber cloth and a can of Lemon Pledge. However, the process remains the same.
This mundane task for many provokes memories for me. The smell of the Lemon Pledge, the sheen of the gleaming wood, and the touch of each item awaken senses and sometimes, I think I can even hear Mom’s voice as I remember dusting with her as a child.
My hand glides over the desk that my Grandmother Miriam sat to write cards, letters or her bills at. I spray Pledge on the cloth (as appropriately taught) and rub the legs of the side board of Great Great Aunt Anna’s Lemmon side board. The shine on Nan Nan’s piano brings up the cherry tones while the walnut perks up in the little side table that Great Great Uncle Bill made. My dust cloth glides over the same wheel spokes of the tea cart that I dusted forty years ago under the direction of my Mom.
Our own present day kitchen table comes back to life with a happy shine and the rungs of the chairs get a happy wipe with special attention to the corners and the bottom rungs.
Juglans nigra or black walnut, a Portland heritage tree. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When I was younger I used to go visit my Aunt Anna Lemmon. Well, she was actually my great, great Aunt Anna, however, she was just Aunt Anna to us. I always liked visiting my relatives and hearing what they said, and also wandering around and looking at everything. The Aunts, (I had another great, great Aunt, named Lily) lived in orderly, well kept homes with their possessions that they had accumulated over their lifetimes. So, I was used to seeing old (i.e., antique) items and would often be told what they were used for and by whom. There were always fun things to look at, and interesting stories. (Alas, I wish I could remember all their stories).
Aunt Anna’s house was located outside of town on a bend and had a wide wrap around porch (I think that started my fascination with miniature dollhouses with wrap around porches) and had a barn with a fantastic “miniature” black iron” fence surrounding a black walnut tree. This fenced in area always fascinated me, I would go inside it and wonder why the tree was fenced in, where the walnuts so special? I knew that we would collect the walnuts, and my Great Grandmother while she was living would make a mean black walnut nut-bread. (My Grandmother faithfully followed after her, and gave me the recipe, however, it never tasted the same.) Apparently, I must have commented about the fence being pretty short for horses or ponies, or about the special walnuts and was promptly corrected that the fenced area was a “proper croquet” area. After that, I would visualize ladies and gentlemen playing croquet inside the fancy black iron scrolled fencing, in Victorian dresses and garb playing a game of croquet.
At the side door of the home was a plant she called a “money plant“. I had never seen a plant like it. When it dried it was pale, round, and papery with an almost transparent quality. They were quite fun.
The kitchen and dining area was combined, and she had a big hutch with a wide assortment of salt and pepper cellars and shakers along with various tea strainer or brewing baskets, one of which was in the shape of a miniature teapot which I usually wanted to play with. (are you noticing an common interest here?)
There was a steeply curved staircase to get to the two bedrooms upstairs, even being younger, tall and lanky, I remember the awkward turn.
Aunt Anna’s, late husband, whom I only knew as Uncle Bill, was known in the family for his wood-working skills. He produced the tables, chairs, toys, working miniature Grandfather clocks (woohoo) that he gave and/or sold, and at least two (that I’ve seen) detailed inlay tables all from the wood off their property.
I don’t recall exploring the barn, perhaps I wasn’t interested in wandering there, or knowing my Mother, she would have kept me away from the barn with warnings of poison ivy, as I was highly allergic to the stuff. However, it is more likely I was too nosy about what my Mother and Grandmother were talking about with Aunt Anna during our visits.
Most of my recollections of her house come from when we walked through it after Aunt Anna’s death. Both Aunt Anna and Aunt Lily (who had passed earlier and had left her estate to Anna) did not have any children to leave their estates too. Aunt Anna left her estate to my mother and her three siblings (the connection is my maternal grandfather who had died at age 30). The siblings best decided they would distribute the estate by having a sort of “bid” on items they wanted at the estate and then subtract that their share of the value of the estate.
Prior to the days of the “bid”, Mom took me (I can’t recall if my sister went, however she probably did) and we walked throughout the house. Mom wanted to she if there was something that I wanted to remember Aunt Anna by. I choose a wooden vase with some dried money plants in it, a black box from an upstairs bedroom and the miniature teapot brewing basket. I don’t recall if when I moved out if Mom asked for the wooden vase and dried money plants or if I left them, however, I have the other items, along with some of Uncle Bill’s handy work, a miniature Grandfather clock (one he did not get finished), a Chinese checkers board he made for my Grandfather, and a side table.
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Part of my Clutter Cleaning Process A.K.A. C.C. is going through things that I have accumulated that were Aunt Anna’s, my Grandmother’s and my Mother’s and other family members and I will have to decide what to let go off.
Part of this process is also about finding things. I came upon this piece of paper that I wrote in 1973 (ahem, when I was younger) at the time they were closing Aunt Anna’s house.
The Lemmon Estate
The grass is green and blowing with a breeze, of an early summer evening.
Horses of every color are running in the wind, before they are hitched and leaving.
The sun is red and gold, a sight to behold, and everyone is dreaming.
The children run here and there, saying catch me if you can, the shine on their face is beaming.
The house is white and green, tall and kind of lean, as it reaches for the heavens above it.
It brightens with it’s lights, as the sun is sinking right, and on the porch, everyone can be seen.
I glaze at this sight, of peacefulness at night, and wish that I could live there.
I could sit all say, without being afraid, and never want to move away.
I open my eyes to catch a better glimpse, of all these marvelous things.
I strain and strain my mind, but nothing still remains, as I go to turn off the alarm ring.
Today, I will see, the place of which I’ve dreamed.
But now it is lonely and crumbling.
I look at that old house, and move my eyes about, but dirt is all I see around me.
Ah, memories. Things are just things, however, you can still keep the memories.
Cooler weather has me getting out the afghans and comforters…
So, I started organizing the top of my bathroom linen closet…
I pulled out some more of the afghans that my Grandmother made.
Now, I had pulled out some afghans earlier when my cousin and his family visited in September. (note to self…future blog post) I wanted to make sure that they had an afghan that my Grandmother had crocheted. I have an assortment that Grandmom made for me and some that Grandmom made for my Mother. They seemed pleased to be able to pick out some to take home, and I know Grandmom would have enjoyed that too.
Afghans were always something I associated with my Grandmother. She was always crocheting or knitting. Mostly crocheting.
Afghans were draped across every chair and sofa in her house, and across every chair and sofa in my house growing up, and I think in every home of my Aunts and Uncles. There were lap afghans, and large afghans. There were patterned afghans and scrap afghans, (those that were just made from the left over scraps of yarn).
Then were were the slippers.
If you had cold feet, there was always a warm pair of slippers that could be easily whipped up to warm your feet. I still have a couple of pairs of slippers that she made. I wear them occasionally to bed if my feet are really cold, but I don’t walk around in them, because if they wear out, I know then they are gone. Sentimental, I know. But she isn’t here to replace them. She’s been gone since 1994. I have her pattern, and I can make them…but it just isn’t the same.
The very first afghan she made for me was a blue and white chevron pattern. It matched the colors of my bedroom. That afghan went with my oldest son when he moved into his apartment. Blue is his favorite color. It is only fitting it should go there.
I have a pink and white pattern that is long and covers me from head to toe. She made that to keep me warm. (She made long, huge afghans for all the tall members of my family. We have some “tall drinks” in the family!) The colors were to match the colors of our home at the time. We had the 80’s colors of pink and blue. I still use it at night, it is nice and toasty. I don’t have those 80’s colors anymore in the house though. 🙂
Do I have a favorite afghan? Hmm. I can think of memories of each of them.
I have a fond memory of one in particular. It is the white one with roses. I saw this particular pattern in a magazine and showed it to her. She had not crocheted this pattern before. I asked her if she would try it. She said she would. I remember her making the squares and laying them across her bed in an arrangement and showing them to me to ask what I thought. She had changed the pattern slightly. The centers were supposed to be yellow. She had changed them to be black, and was going to edge the whole thing in black to “make it stand out”. She also had used left-over colors of yarn she had in the flowers. She had changed the color palette of the pattern to something she thought she liked better, and wanted to know what I thought. I thought it was beautiful.
I can still mentally see us standing in her bedroom that day. Sigh.
It isn’t the warmest afghan, but it is one wrapped up with love. I found it in the closet, cause there were some places that needed mending. I’m mending them. I think it belongs out again even if to serve as a reminder of that time.
Just As I Am 