The Baby Quilt

Some more family history for my kids.  I have had this baby quilt hung on my wall for many years.  It was actually my quilt and my mother told me years ago that my father's grandmother made it for me.  That would have been my great-grandmother.  It is various colors of blue.  Was she hoping for a boy?  Did they designate blue for boys and pink for girls back in the day?  Don't know the answers but it was my baby quilt.  

In this picture you can see the damage in the corner of the quilt.  It is torn because my little sister used it to wrap her cat, Bonnie in.  No respect at all, right?

I guess I am just glad it made the journey through the years with me.  It is a simple quilt and yet must have taken lots of time and patience to produce. 

Now I have to find a new home for it as we continue to lessen our possessions.  

Love and Hugs,

Mèmére

Being Wise

My Grandma Turner's Ball of String

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without." 

--unknown

Love and Hugs,

Mèmére

Teacup Thursday - Found It!

 

Last week I shared about how my Shelley teacup collection began.  I told you about the misc. pieces I had found so low priced in Kentucky that I could not resist the purchase.  I already have a Shelley Blue Rock teacup and saucer but hey, you can't walk away from a great deal.

 

This is the lone saucer that needed a mate.

 

Well, yesterday I stopped at a favorite antique shop while I was enroute to my grandchildren's home.  There it sat on the shelf - a Shelley cup all by herself looking for love.

 

Now two singles have become one sweet pair.  

This little pretty is going into the hope chest 

of one of my precious grand-daughters.

P.S. Remember, the fun is in the hunt.

 

Betty Crocker and Silverware

Giving my children some more family history today.

 

When I was a girl Betty Crocker had coupons on their products worth points that could be redeemed for silverware.  My mother had a shoe box full of these coupons and my grandmother came over to babysit us while my mother and father were away one weekend.

Grandma decided she was going to count points and order silverware for my hope chest.  According to grandma, "Your mother will never do anything with these so we are going to get you some silverware."  I always thought that was cute.

Today some 50 years later I set my table with Betty Crocker's My Rose Onieda silverware and I smile thinking of my precious little grandmother who ordered it for me.

So kids, now you know where the silverware I set the table with daily came from and why it is so special to me.

 

What is it Wednesday

With Precious Husband retired now we often hit the thrift stores in search mainly of books.  We are both pack rats for sure and we really do need to get a little control over this but anyway . . .

Because we are pack rats we often look around the house, shake our heads and wonder what in the world the poor kids will do with all this stuff.

With this in mind I am once again going to try to give my kids some info on our belongings so that they will know what they want to do with our junk treasures someday.  To toss or to keep that will be up to them.

Today's what is it is an aluminum serving tray created by the Forman Family.  This tray was a wedding present given to my parents over 63 years ago.  

The past memory tied to this serving tray is of my mothering carrying a meal in to my father who was bed ridden with a flue bug or something.  She would make him what they called back then, "milk toast".  This was just bread toasted and torn into pieces and covered with warm milk.  Yuck, but my father liked it when he was not feeling well.

My father seemed to get "the flue" regularly each year otherwise he was always healthy.  Owning a dairy and having no hired help for many years I believe his flue bug was a forced vacation for him.

Because he was healthy otherwise this tray was not used much and remained on a shelf in the linen closet most of the time.

Now, the tray is mine and has a prominent place in my kitchen.  It is used quite often to serve Precious Husband coffee and goodies and even more fun is using it to serve hot chocolate in the yellow teapot to have "coffee with Mémère".

I hope someone will want to take Mémère's tray and continue serving their family with lots of love like my mom did and I do.  

True Value

I failed to take a picture of the Honeysuckle pattern Shelley Teacup I purchased while in Cambria, California last week.  The above picture is the best I could find of the pattern off the internet.  Shelley teacups are easy to recognize by the scallop in the cup and the saucer as you see above.

Shelley cups and saucers are expensive, averaging about $85 for one in perfect condition .  My friend Dolores started my teacup collection with 5 Shelley cups and saucers many years ago, cups given her by her mother-in-law.  If you know anything about me you know I would never never spend that kind of money for a teacup.

But you did buy a Shelley you say.  Yes, I bought a Shelley and I did pay much more than I normally pay for my cups and saucers but I bought it for two reasons.  First of course it was a Shelley and not selling for $85.  It was not tagged $85 because it has a flaw.  It has a hairline crack running up the cup.  You can not feel the crack nor does it affect the use of the teacup but held to the light it is evident.

Flaws, not a pretty word.  Negative in context for sure.  To be flawed is to be thought less of.  To be priced and valued for much less.  Not a good thing to be flawed the world would say.

BUT God!  Our lives easily represent that flawed teacup.  God picks up the flawed from the rubble heap and lovingly fills it with Himself making it perfect and perfectly useful to bring glory to Himself.  The value is not in the object itself but in what the object now represents and what it produces through God Who fills it.

Emily Barnes writes about this concept in several of her teacup books and first brought this beautiful concept to my knowledge.

I love giving a teacup to someone and if it has a flaw, well, all the better because I can include a letter that shares Emily Barnes view on flawed teacups.  Last Sunday I was blessed to give my Shelley teacup to a beautiful young woman who the Lord has brought into my life.  I wrote to her about the value of her new possession and the value she had to the Lord.  As, I wrote the letter I of course was touched and blessed of the Lord too proving once again it is more blessed to give than to receive sometimes.

If you are out and about junking or antiquing and you run across a teacup that is marked down because it has a chip or flaw don't be too quick to pass it by - it might be a Shelley of great value and hopefully will remind you of your value to the Lord - flaws and all.

Linking up with http://www.sandimyyellowdoor.blogspot.com/

Light in the Window

 

The guest room has been vacant since Aunt Jo left for her ultimate joyous destination nearly a year and a half ago.

Anthony sleeps in here amidst the roses and butterflies maybe once a month when he comes for the weekend otherwise the real estate sits unused.  It is a shame I think that it is unused so I add another light to the windows. 

A light has always been in the front window in this our new home and as long as I can remember in our previous home. 

I wonder often if my children know the meaning of the light in the window.  Do they know why mom has placed the little lamp that begins to glow with the last rays of light and the beginning of darkness all through the night in the window?  Do they know?

The little lamp (to me) is the symbol of love.  Welcome.  Hospitality.  Warmth - most of all love and hospitality. 

I pray the light represents hearts living here that are more than willing to share love and to share hospitality to whosoever would walk through the front door.  I desire more than anything that love, welcome, hospitality and warmth would be evident to anyone entering our home. 

Our children, our grandchildren and whoever else might enter our home - they are the reason for the lamp in the window.

So I pray and I wonder, Lord, who would you send to sleep under the pink rose covered bed with the light that glimmers from the recently added little lamp in the window of the Butterfly Room?  May they find love, welcome, hospitality and warmth evident in this little piece of real estate.

Do The Next Thing

Elisabeth Elliot often quotes an old Saxon poem that contains the phrase, "do the next thing".  This  has been on my mind a lot lately.  It is so easy to get bogged down and as we view our surroundings we wonder, where do we begin?  Such simple, such logical, such wise advice - do the next thing.  We find the same concept in the quote, "inch by inch life is a cinch, yard by yard life is hard". 

So advice to myself today is "do the next thing" do what makes sense.  Prioritize.  Good simple example in the homemaking arena would be if my bedroom were a mess.   First, make the bed.  Amazing, looks better already.  Now I feel encouraged to go on and do the next thing, pick up the dirty socks on Precious Husband's side of the bed : )  Get the picture?

This morning I cleaned out my silverware drawer and the jar pictured above was in that drawer.  It is a baby food jar filled with rice and pecans.  Many years ago a good friend gave me the jar and gave me this explanation of the lesson of the jar:  if I put in the big pecans first there will be room to put in all the rice but if all the rice goes in first there will be no way to fit in the pecans.  The pecans of course represent the important, the priorities of our life and the rice is all the other little daily things that also call for our attention.  The jar was to remind me of the spiritual priorities of putting the Lord first and then there would always be time for the other things.  So true. So true. Such a needed reminder. 

I cleaned the drawer and returned the very old jar of pecans and rice to continue to remind me to do the next thing and to do the important things first.

I noted once on an earlier blog that I wanted to start a journal about the history and/or reason of some of the things around my home so that someday when my girls have the joy of going through our things maybe they will understand their mother a little bit better if they know the history of things they come across.  Like the jar full of pecans and rice.