Mugs on Monday

This was a Mother's Day gift this year from my older son and his wife. It is so full of whimsey! I am always saying , "Now when I have my sheep farm in the Dales...." I have been having my tea in it every morning this summer!

Let's just say I miss the tots who once drank from these!

Can you name some of the characters featured here?

These Lord & Lady Celtic mugs are the work of Pamela Kohler-Camp.

I discovered her several years ago at the Alabama Highland Games in Montgomery. Her studio, AND SARAH LAUGHED, is located at Stone Mountain Georgia. I really love her work.

Click on images to enlarge!

This is mug I use quite regularly. This series of mugs featured the names of the three Shakespeare plays of the repertory season. Turn the mug and you will see Love's Labour's Lost and The Merchant of Venice were the other two plays .


During the first twelve years of the ASF productions, a single mug was commissioned for each play. I did not get one for every play, but I think I may have a dozen of these. I regret that these do not include the year.
Can you name the plays?


I was fortunate enough to visit the Globe in London during the summer of 2000. I was always sorry I did not get a mug. Several years later, my younger son was there and knew exactly what to bring home to his English teacher mom. Study the image? Can you name the play?

During the summer of 1989, I participated in an NEH seminar taught at Oxford. As part of the course we would travel to significant locations related to the writer and his works which we had studied during the week.
I purchased two of these: one for me and one for a dear friend and colleague who had done his doctoral dissertation on this writer.
This mug had been designed and produced for a big event which had been held in the town during the previous summer.
Can you guess the purpose of the event? Or can you name the chapel and town featured on the other side of the mug?


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I am not sure I understand this meme business for Mug Monday. Am I to feature another mug next Monday? Or was this a one week event? Willow? Acorn Moon, or Weaver of Grass? Help me out.

AU Market, Plates, & a Willow Recipe!

This round platter from my "Pursuit" pattern

would look even better with a special cake!

This is a little blurry....I should name it: Still Life, Still not Focused!

Every Thursday afternoon from three until six in the evening during the summer months, local farmers, bakers, and gardeners bring their produce and products to the Auburn University Market. This is just the fifth season, but it is growing and getting better. Each year I add a new favorite vendor to my Must Visit list. Yesterday Lee ( a high school friend of my older son) had buckets full of deep red and ultra flavorful strawberries. The blueberries are from a NEW person...need to get his name...they are large and plump and so sweet! Mr. Hooks had shelled peas and squash and homemade strawberry jam. Harman Farms had the tomatoes and cucumbers so I came home happy.

So...all this had me remembering that luscious recipe Willow posted last week while I was at the beach: Raspberry Buttermilk Cake! Then I remembered that she and Derrick and a few others had a made posts on PLATES!!!

Now, I am sure I don't have as many as Our Lady of the Manor (wink), but I do love china and dinnerware, so I pulled out a few. The problem is that I am working with a different camera....a 'bigggun' that has too many bells and whistles. (My favorite one is out of town.) This Bad Boy gave me fits....almost had me cussin' this morning. Well anyway, you be the judge! Click on a photo to enlarge it.

This is a one of a kind piece by Shirley Ingram who has her studio - Mud Hen Pottery - in Smith Station, AL. She called these plates Moon & Stars. She used a glaze named Albany Slip from Albany, NY. When I asked for more plates a few years ago, she sadly reported that the area where this glaze was extracted had been covered up by a mall. (deep sigh) I set the plate on the seat of a dining chair.

This was a problem to photograph with the Big Bad Nikon D100!
It wanted a central object on which to focus....or at least the particular lens with which I was stuck wanted it! (I tried not to end my sentences with a preposition for all the grammar police out there.) Hmmm, wasn't it Winston Churchill who said,

"That is a rule up with which I will not put!" ?

So here is another version of our Coalport Hunting Scene. Several companies made this over nearly a fifty year period, possibly longer, beginning with Crown Staffordshire, then Coalport, and finally Wedgwood. It is now discontinued.
(Be on the lookout, Willow, Derrick, Michael, & Rowan!)
I sometimes can find it on eBay if I wish to add a piece.

And here is my variation of Willow's recipe. I used some of the strawberries and blueberries instead of raspberries. I do want to make it with the raspberries and will when I can find some good ones! I turned my cake out on the round platter from our every day dinnerware: Pursuit by Keltcraft (made in Ireland by Noritake)...yet another hunting scene. I guess you could say I am always hunting for china....}chuckle{ !

Well this last photo is a little muted and glazed over...just like we will be when we savor this cake! Yum, yuuuuuum, yummers!
Have a wonderful Saturday evening !

Flickering Light

Hello everyone. In an effort to teach myself one more task of creating blogs, I guess you might say I needed the help of the Fairie Folk! I confess I have long been a believer. I think it all started with a fascination of lightning bugs as we called fireflies in the South. Then of course, I must mention Mr. Barrie's Tinkerbell. My brother, who was the oldest of my three siblings, and my sister Sue, once staged a marvelous visitation of Tink to my bedroom with the aid of a small mirror, a flash light, and a tiny sleigh bell. Sue woke me in the night to say, "Look! Wake up Tinkerbell has just flown into the room." Indeed the window was open, and a dazzling dainty light was flitting all about the room and responding with a faint, shy jingle when I asked was she ok, was she with Peter Pan, was she lost, and told her that I was glad she came to my room! I must not forget the the 1935 black and white film of Midsummer Nights Dream starring a 17 year old Mickey Rooney as a very convincing Puck! (That is Olivia deHaviland as Hermia in the photo. James Cagney plays Bottom the Weaver!) I saw the movie years ago as a child. I was totally enchanted. Then of course, whenever the lightning bugs appear for the first time each year in late May, I am convinced once more that fairies are alive and well in my garden!
A few years ago, I was listening to Thistle & Shamrock on NPR when this Christy Moore song seemed to capture the the magic of the natural & fairy world. It is worth a listen. You may want to go to the site and read the lyrics too if you have time!

Here goes my very first time to have a YouTube link at The Keeping Room! (No video...just listen if you want to know what the fairies dance to!)



How about you? Do you believe in fairies? Before you say no, check out a film named FAIRY TALE: A TRUE STORY!

By the Sea, By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea...

Here is our 2009 Seaside address: Ivy Cottage. It is one of a very few rentals which is pet friendly. The sweetest Golden Retriever ever and his mom & dad are my hosts here on Tupelo Street. (Click on any photo to enlarge!)

The Gulf of Mexico is just one block away. I took these photos looking toward the east just after 4:00 P.M. CST from the Tupelo Street Beach Pavilion. The green flag was posted (safe waters) and the air was just warm not hot with a wonderful soothing breeze.

Here, I am looking toward the west. Almost center in the foreground is the storage hut for a section of the blue umbrellas and chairs which are set up each morning by 10:00 and taken up each evening by 5:30. You can look westward down the beach, and they go one for nearly a mile.

Just a few minutes from our door is the Tupelo Beach Pavilion. There is a WC & shower on either side where you see the windows with a lovely, breezy sitting area inside. Where a street travels due south to the beach, there is usually a very distinctive pavilion leading to the beach named for the street.

Cathy & I love to sit here early in the morning when the beach has no umbrellas. I bring my tea; she brings her coffee. We make a good effort at uncovering the mysteries of life and and counting our blessings, which are many.


This is the pavilion from beach side as we descend to the sand.

Looking west on the beach...

The unspoken rules: get your toes in the sand as soon as possible; leave your shoes and cares behind!

Some carefree toes and white sand and emerald water...

Introducing Jake! Everyone who stops to meet Jake has to spend time playing Throw Jake's Frisbee! He was bringing it straight to me!

The houses and streets of Seaside are woven together with an intimate network of wonderful nearly hidden, narrow footpaths.

Here's the yellow house just to the left of the above path.

Inside Modica Market at town center, if you need it for your kitchen, it's here!Did you see the movie The Truman Show? It was filmed at Seaside.

Willow, here is Vera Bradley's Inn by The Sea!

I thought I heard it calling your name, my dear!

Front porch of Inn by the Sea

This a little section of Seaside which includes an old

fashioned styled motor court.

This is the Tupelo Gazebo on the circle just outside our cottage. The little girl just visible to the right was flitting around with a butterfly net.

It was nearing sunset and time to settle in for dinner and reading tonight. I hope you got your toes in the sand and had a chance to feel the sun.

Funny the Way It Is...

Debbie Douglas Pearson April 13, 1951 - April 9, 2007

My childhood friend and Maid of Honor, on board the USS Alabama Battleship in Mobile Bay, June 1968.

Debbie and D.S. married just weeks after my own wedding.

Funny the way it is, when I think about it...I have been blessed to celebrate a landmark anniversary...and she cannot - now gone for two years.

We miss her ..... constantly.

Okay, I know I have homework due to all of you. I will be posting some photos from class and telling you all about my big three days of studying architecture and visiting 150 year old farm houses and the characters who lived in them in LaGrange and Troup County, and I really woke up this morning fully intent on getting this done. But first things first.....the Dave Matthews Band was appearing on The Today Show. Now kids, I have to tell you, I love music, and my tastes are eclectic to be sure, but it is summer and it is time for rock and roll! Wooohoo......so he began with some of his classics, but definitely included a new song.....and these lyrics really made me stop and think ... the music was good...but these lyrics....


"Funny the way it is, if you think about it
A kid walks ten miles to school, another's dropping out
Funny the way it is, nor right or wrong
Oh, a soldier's last breath, and a baby's being born

Funny the way it is, if you think about it
Someone's going hungry, and someone's eating out
Funny the way it is, nor right or wrong
Somebody's heart is broken, and it becomes your favorite song..."


These lines seem to have followed me all day long whenever I would think about the passengers of the lost Air France Flight 447 and certainly their families and friends who have loved them..Then I had to go out to an adorable store called Giggles and Coos for baby gifts for a very special baby shower tomorrow. My priest's daughter is expecting her first child. She and her husband are close friends to my younger son; they "hang" out all the time when they are not working. So tomorrow, I get to share in the joy and anticipation of a new life...a precious gift to the world. Then later, I am on my way to the Gulf Coast for a week at Seaside with dear friends and family. So....I was trying to catch up on my emails, and... D.S. Pearson, my personal poet, had sent me several poems....all good-- but one was particularly perfect for the end of this day.

Uninvited

Sorrow doesn't

call ahead

and inform you of its coming.

You answer the door

and find it

waiting there.

D.S. Pearson June 2009

School's Out...but Not Quite Over!

This is my number one vacation spot during the summer: my home. When school is in session, I drive 40 miles one way into the Eastern Standard Time zone, over the Chattahoochee River, and into west Georgia to get to my school.

The most interesting exterior feature is the granite rock work on the front of the house. It was shipped in from near Warm Springs, Georgia in the late 1930's. It is the only house in the neighborhood which has not had a major addition or remodeling. The other 18 homes are painted brick or red brick.

The most interesting interior feature? Hummm.....I once had a knock on my door one 23rd of December ... someone looking for work. She said she used to work in some houses on the street. Did I need any help? Boy did I ever! Upon first entering my keeping room, Lola declared,"Umphhh.....this house has ghosts.....but they are all GOOD ghosts. I can stay and help you." Indeed the house is seventy years old, so it has seen a few generations. It does have a granite fireplace and many quaint nooks and built-in shelves and corner cupboards.

This summer we will celebrate our 30th summer in Graystone Cottage. Once upon a time, summer was nearly 12 weeks long for most teachers, and even longer for students. Now it is barely 10 weeks, and a teacher may be obliged to attend classes at a university or a regional program to acquire professional learning units to maintain his or her teaching certificate. My school system offers some innovative programs which will help teachers use local resources such as county archives and museums. My first official day off was Thursday, May 28th. I celebrated by lounging around the house and drinking cups of tea, and reading and catching up on blogs I love and have missed! Tomorrow, I will begin a three day course in the west Georgia city where I teach: Heritage Education Workshop "These Walls Can Talk." My homework assignment for the first meeting is to share a photograph of my home or apartment and tell about its most interesting feature. Were I resident of Troup County, I could have chosen the topic of "What Troup County House Would I Most Like to Live In." I don't know enough about the homes to go with that one, but maybe after the three days of touring, I will have a favorite. I thought I might try this as a post to get me back on track for the summer. This way something I loathe (homework) becomes something I truly enjoy: creating a new post to share.

A Wedding Anniversary

Mountain Laurel on the bank

"If you came this way,

Taking the route you would be likely to take

From the place you would be likely to come from,

If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges

White again, in May with voluptuary sweetness."

This Sunday the Colonel and I will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Yes, it was 1969;

he had just finished the US Army rotary wing flight school a few weeks before. We had been engaged for 5 months, and there was really no one to plan a wedding for us but ourselves. So, we did. Well, he did. He suggested the church camp he had attended in northwest Alabama. I wore the white dress I had made for graduation, and my First Lieutenant wore his dress blues. Our two best friends stood with us, D.S. Pearson and his wife. The Rev. Epps and his wife did all the rest. This is the chapel where we married. It was open air at the time with no glass. Though it was a simple building, and the service was read exactly from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer,

late on a May afternoon, it was quite grand to us.

"You are here to kneel,

Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more

Than an order of words, the conscious occupation

Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying."

We felt just as these two may have felt because we also had reason to be fearful for our future. The four people there with us knew and did all in their power to make this our very special day.
Mrs. Epps picked a glorious bouquet of mountain laurel from the steep bank leading down to Clear Creek behind the chapel. I carried it as if it had cost thousands. We had really beautiful gold rings etched with roses enhanced with black carbonising to make the images stand out. Our best man and maid of honor wore their Sunday clothes and their love for us.

Epps Hall as it is called today served as a reception hall where Mrs. Epps served us pound cake and Coca Cola. After we helped her put things away, we changed clothes, and went canoeing on Clear Creek for about an hour. Then we drove back to the city. We weren't too keen on a honeymoon because we mostly wanted to be with family.


So we said goodbye to what would become a very important and even sacred place in our lives.


Both our sons attended church camp here.


On Tuesday the 27th, I graduated from high school. My mother and ailing father, and my husband were in the audience. I am ashamed to admit that I cannot remember if either older sister was there. Afterward, I remember turning in my gown folded neatly in a box, and having a big cry as I said goodbye to classmates - many of whom I had known since the first grade.
We spent the rest of the week staying alternately at our parents' homes.

On the following Saturday, June 1st, our two best friends, my husband's mother and father, my husband and I, drove together to the airport. I vowed I would be brave and not embarrass my soldier. I was ... briefly ... until that plane took off to the other side of the world. I am forever grateful to the four people who peeled me away from the huge window looking on to the runway and upheld me through the longest year
ever....

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

excerpts from T. S. Eliot's THE FOUR QUARTETS: Little Gidding

Wednesday Poem: A Spark Divine

One of my favorite Christmas presents last December was a collection of poems on the creatures I most cherish in this world -- dogs, of course. THE DOG IN BRITISH POETRY edited by R. Maynard Leonard was originally published in 1893. It features two hundred poems. I have been very blessed to share my time on this earth with some very memorable and loving dogs, but one was outstanding in her beauty, manner, and sheer devotion to our family. I will save the story of how she came to us for another day, but for my first offering of a Wednesday Poem, I came across the perfect tribute to our Chelsea.....aka Chelsea Pudding....aka Pudds.....and......well.....Damn!......I still miss her so much. This poem is from the chapter titled "Elegiac Poems."

I have color photos of her rich liver and white coat, but I call this her Walt Disney pose. My older son made this picture when he was taking a photography course. Look closely, and you can see the tip of her tongue. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

A SPARK DIVINE

Not hopeless, round this calm sepulchral spot,

A wreath presaging life we twine;

If God be love, what sleeps below was not

Without a spark divine.

by Sir Francis Hastings Doyle

Becoming REAL: Why I Feel Like the Skin Horse

"It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

****

Five Random Facts on Being a Mother

1. My first son was born while his father was flying missions in Vietnam,

and nearly twelve years later my second son came along and joined us...

so I have really had two distinct motherhoods!

2. I loved having a teen and a toddler...sort of like two only children... big brother loved dragging out all his classic Fisher-Price toys and Dr. Seuss books.

3. As I look through old photos, I recall the sweetest sound:

I can almost hear tiny feet thumping down the stairs in fleece sleepers

making a beeline to me for that good morning snuggle.

4. The hardest part of being a mother - the part that really HURTS- is knowing when I cannot interfere and that MY child may be hurt or disappointed

or betrayed or disillusioned no matter how much I love him.

5. My greatest joy is in celebrating each son's happiness,

his accomplishments, and his unique gifts to the world.

****

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.

"When you are Real, you don't mind being hurt."

*****

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse.

"You become. It takes a long time...

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

In the swing of things with Son #2

Outdoors with Son #1

High school senior, Mom, and kindergartner

Son #2 - May Day Program 1987

Even though I look at my younger self in these photos, and ask the inevitable, "How did these boys grow up so quickly as I grew older?" I just smile and remember my many, many, many happy hours, days and years spent with them. I embrace who I am today because of them and will enjoy our years yet to come!


"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.



from The Velveteen Rabbit
by Margery Williams


This post was inspired by yet another wonderfully rendered
meme posted by Willow of Life at Willow Manor

on May 10, 2009.

My Neighbor's Garden

My favorite May scent.....Honeysuckle! (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Down the steps to the garden...

English Roses & Boxwood

Rosemary

Oak leaf hydrangea

Hastas

Gather ye rosebuds....

Perhaps there is a resident named Charlotte here?

It seems the custom in our little Blogdom here is that one should declare a theme day......Hmmmmm?? Well don't hold me to it, but it did occur to me this morning, as I was strolling through my neighbor's Oh-So-English-But-Right-Here-In-Alabama Garden, that if I were to have a theme day it could well be sharing one beautiful lady's one beautiful garden. Here are just a few images I plucked today! I Hope you enjoy them as much as I have! If only I could engineer the technique to have the scent of these roses wafting from your screen...(sigh)