Just Hanging Around the Cottage...

(I finally manged a focused non-flash version of this,

but I had to put it on the front door!)

Perhaps some you have wondered where I have been...well, I have been right here at home. As many teachers do, I keep a running list of projects I will get to during the summer. Without going into all the boring details, one of the biggest projects was emptying two closets which needed painting. These two caverns had many hidden treasures and yes...much trash. One was in our bedroom upstairs, so we moved to the downstairs guestroom. I must say it has been pleasantly like staying somewhere else! If not for the long, tedious tasks of sorting through "stuff"-- I might have been on a vacation. One of my lighter chores has been to carefully clean all glass and frames of pictures, dusting and vacuuming all books and shelves, and keeping my small flower pot garden going. I cannot really say it has been all work. I enjoy the leisure of taking care of my dogs or enjoying my doll collection (rearranging, changing, and sewing new clothes for them). Blame that on my parents. They bought me a set of encyclopedias when I was five. Looking over the old set, I noticed that I have nearly worn out Volume D: dogs, dolls, Dickens, Dickinson, etc. I loved my World Books. Since I have been just hanging around in the house, here are a few images for you to see where I retreat indoors from the heat and humidity of July.

This is one of twelve folk images - blurred- for the year by Nancy Thomas.

The entire set is displayed on the dining room hutch, but I put the current month on the guestroom door.

Here is my favorite old volume. I was the youngest of four children, often left behind each year when school began. I lived in a rural area. I was outdoors a great deal, but loved to curl up with books whenever the weather kept me indoors.

I have always loved dolls --- baby dolls or dolls that look like children. This beauty is an Italian felt Lenci from the 1930's which I had to pass up on eBay! My sister Sue once led us right up to Santa at Loveman's department store in Birmingham and announced, " I want a cowboy outfit, guns and holster, and NO doll. Get my baby sister a cowgirl outfit and a baby doll. "

I wore my cowgirl outfit. Sue wore her guns, and I carried the baby doll when we got on the pony!

I used this page to identify our beloved dog, Ruzzy. He looked most like a Great Pyrenees with thick white fur with pale rusty splashes. He was a stray who wandered into our yard. I wanted to name him Fuzzy, but Sue wanted to name him Rusty. We compromised. He was not as GREAT in size as a Pyrenees, but he was GREAT in heart and spirit. I used to tell my dad that one day I was going to have a Bobtail---Old English Sheepdog. He told me about seeing them when he was in England. When my husband returned from Vietnam, he got us one for a first anniversary gift: Beau is featured in the side bar pictures.


I have to say, we like posters as art. This is one I found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford during the summer of 1989. Sadly, the exhibit of children's literature had been in 1987, but there was enough in brochures to help me understand the significance of the Opie Collection and its role in preserving and promoting children's books. I was able to explore and read in the library. As a member of a seminar, I was issued a library card, but I had to take an oath first! (More on that in an upcoming post!)

Speaking of children, here is one of my German girls, Gerda. She is made by Zwergnase and designed by Nicole Marschollek -Menzer. You really must click on the photo to enlarge this one to see her darling freckles!

Here is a Madame Alexander Margaret (face sculpt designed after Margaret O"Brien and used as Princess Margaret as well). I bought her on eBay from someone in England. She did not have her original Princess Margaret dress, so I found a pattern on eBay....and well -- she looks ready for school!

Here's our getaway from Upstairs....Downstairs. Another little German girl named Ada keeps the pillow fluffed. The large poster is an original 1930's travel poster for London & North Eastern Railway of England & Scotland featuring Lincoln Cathedral. The artist is Schabelsky (?) I need to check this. The name is in script and hard to read.


Joan of Arc keeps watch over us in the dining room. This is a WWI American campaign poster encouraging the women of America to save their country just a Saint Joan saved France. It only required buying War Savings Stamps from the United States Treasury! The artist is Haskell Coffin.


One small project: Find the RIGHT frame for the portrait of an acorn by Country Girl. This is the most charming photograph. It came as one of the "get one free" extras when she had a sale last spring. Some of you may remember when Sesame Street had a parody of This is Your Life. It featured a Big Oak Tree. Of course, his baby picture was a little acorn in a baby bonnet. I loved watching that show with my children!

Ironically, the flowers which are thriving in the heat are named Diamond Frost (euphorbia). Click to enlarge so you can see the delicate blooms. Feed the plants!

Feed the birds. Pick up the dog toys. Feed the dogs.
Ahhh, the dogs, denizens of our kitchen!

Hanging in the kitchen.....Wind the clock. Clean its glass. Dust the clock. Set the clock. Start the clock. It is midmorning...when all good dogs should be napping.

This is a small reproduction of a 1930's travel poster by Paul Henry which hangs in the kitchen near the back door...where all good dogs exit for their morning walk....

More Windex, to clean a poster for Alice in Wonderland at the Auburn University Little Theatre performed sometime in the sixties before I came. This is just one of my mementos from my years and many hours in the costume shop at AU and as costume mistress for several plays.

Here is Lucy, dreaming of chasing a chipmunk. She is the Princess of the Pups and holds court from her chair

She turns to recognize her audience.

Litter mate/sister Paddy suggests she come down

and allow someone else a look out the window.

Gracie could care less, as long as she is close to Mom.

These two are philosophical about the whole "Lucy in the Chair with Diamonds" attitude. Let her have the chair! Give me a Milk Bone, Mom!

Back to napping!

It's summer time and the living is .....

easy. Turn up the AC.

I am back and have lots of ideas I have been saving up for all of you!

Kindest regards to all!

When in the course of human events...

John Adams

by Gilbert Stuart

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
by John Trumbull

(That's John Adams in the center of the painting,

which is exactly where he should be!

Click on image to enlarge)

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

Thus concludes our Declaration, and begins our American story. Want to know the details of how it was written? Revised? If you missed the HBO series JOHN ADAMS last year, find it and get ready for American history to come to life before you. If videos are not your cup of tea, then read the book on which it is based, David McCullough's JOHN ADAMS. McCullough makes clear the fact that when our founding fathers made that final pledge, it was not just a manner of speaking: "What was the source of their courage? Who were those people? I don't think think we can ever know enough about them." One of his primary sources for this book were the letters exchanged between Abigail and John Adams. What a life these two shared! And, what a life they helped shape for generations to follow.

"The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people."

John Adams

Have a glorious 4th of July!

Pray for peace.

Four hundred years from now...

Photo used by permission of Virginia Jones of

http://birminghamalabamadailyphoto.blogspot.com/

National Public Radio is conducting a survey in honor of the 4ooth anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare's sonnets. What lines from a love poem ...or song...or lines from fiction ...or even a film... do you believe will endure for the next four hundred years? They call this their "Summer of Love Survey." You can go to http://www.npr.org/ to offer your choice.

I once read that James Joyce's wife said to him, "Why don't you write something that people can read?" I guess she was not too fond of his distinctive stream of consciousness style in Finnegan's Wake and Ulysses

I hope she did get around to reading the short stories in The Dubliners.

"The Dead" is a bittersweet reflection on first love juxtaposed with the current disillusionment of a marriage which leads to a great epihany for the main character, Gabriel. These last two pragraphs of the story represent one of the most beautiful examples of modern prose written in English.

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from THE DUBLINERS by James Joyce

Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a gray, impalpable world: the solid world itself which these dead had one time reared and lived in was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

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Let me know if what passage or poem or song, etc you might submit for the ages.

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.