Inspiration Thursday! Turning 40.

When I was young, 35 seemed ancient. I'm assuming this is why my 35th birthday seemed such a nightmare, but I made it through. After that, turning 40 didn't seem like such a huge milestone to me - at least not as huge as it seems to many of my friends who have followed me into 40 in the past year or two.

My family taught me that your 40s are a decade in which you can dream big dreams and make them happen. Mama started her business in her 40s and she and Daddy bought their first rental property in their 40s. My grandparents had similar experiences. They were just getting started in their 40s!

I think this is why I was so excited when saw a Facebook posting from a college friend last week. She's taking charge of turning 40 by living out a dream and recording a LIVE record on her birthday. She's an award-winning songwriter, but this is to be her first solo record. She's lined up a co-producer and is asking friends with whom she's written songs to join her in this endeavor. And she's asking friends and fans to help her make her dream come true, humbling herself by requesting they to pledge as little as a dollar to help bring this dream to fruition. SIGN ME UP!

What a wonderful way to put life on notice that 40 ain't as scary as it's made out to be! I love it. And when I play her CD - because I'm supporting her at a level that gets me my very own copy - I'll be able to smile and say, "Take that 40! Rock on Belinda! Way to kick 40 in the hinie!"  

So Belinda Smith, today you are MY inspiration. I can't wait to hear the results.

And P.S. if you want to get your own copy, hear Belinda sing, watch the video explaining her project or see a cute pug dog begging for support, click the link here. It's worth it just to see the pug....

Vintage Wednesday: Victorian Mottos

I'm a collector. I don't know why I'm a collector, but I am a collector. Maybe because I've always had a sense that history was valuable and needed to be preserved? Possibly because I compulsively put things in order? Maybe it's just that I was taught to see the beauty in the little things? I do know, however, that I've been a collector for most of my life.

When I was young, I was all about books, books, books. I'd beg for a dollar at a yard sale. I've drool over the first editions in the used book store. I'd pour over the illustrations by Harrison Fisher and Howard Chandler Christy. I loved the feel of paper, the typography, the bindings.

As I've gotten older, I'm more specific in my collections - probably because there's just not room to start a library and a museum in my house. It takes something unusual to catch my eye. But that's what's happened in the last year.

It started - as it usually does - with an estate sale. It was the estate of a collector, which is the very best kind for a collector. She collected crystal - loads and loads of crystal. But she also had some unusual things around the house tucked into closets and cubbyholes. As I walked through a bedroom, a picture caught my eye. It had pink and yellow roses on a black background and a rather gothic Victorian picture with the scripture, "The Lord hath been mindful of us". As I explored the rest of the house, that picture stayed in my mind and in the end it was the only thing I purchased at the sale... for about $10.

Several months later I was walking through another estate sale and found another picture with the scripture "Thou art my refuge and my portion" on it. The style was different in that it was printed rather than embossed and was on a white background, but it still had flowers and scripture quote as a theme. I think I picked it up for about $10 as well.

Well, once you have two, you have crossed the line from pretty object to collection. I then started looking for these types of artwork at the estate sales, flea markets, thrift stores and antique shops I visit. And what I've found is that I've been incredibly lucky to find the pieces I've found. Anything I've found online is $100 or more!

Apparently these pictures followed a trend in Victorian ornamentation called Berlin work. Berlin work incorporated colorful yarns (manufactured in Berlin) with low cost canvas or perforated paper (as opposed to linen or silk) that was accessible to the middle classes as an art form. The industrial revolution and the rise of the middle class gave many women the means to have leisure time and embroidery - which had been a pastime of the wealthy - became a pastime of the middle class. It brought color and art to the middle class home.

I'd seen the paper punched versions of these pieces complete with some inspirational motto, hymn reference or scripture verse worked in variegated thread. I'd not, however, seen much of the printed mutation of these works of art. And when trying to research the history, I found it difficult to trace the roots. After searching for scripture verse art and quotation pictures, among other things, I finally stumbled on the moniker "motto," which opened the door to the little history I've found.

In the meantime, I continue to keep an eye open to these little works of art. During my visit to Gettysburg, I found one more piece to add to my collection. This time it cost me all of $12, and had more roses along with Victorian and Nouveau motifs. This one says, "Love One Another" - another scripture reference. And so my collection continues to grow as I search for bargain additions in my newest treasure hunt.

Working Tuesday: Photographing Jewelry

I found myself with a bit of free time this weekend since the hubby was out of town. Since I'd been thinking for months about doing new photos for the website, I called the owner of Milk Money Designs and asked if she'd come help me do a shoot. She was happy to assist!

When I first photographed the jewelry, I was worried about making the photo pretty by setting a scene. The problem with this is that although the jewelry is the focal point of the photo, there's quite a bit to draw the eye. Gradually, I used fewer and fewer props. I've eventually learned that jewelry photographed on a plain background puts the jewelry in focus - as there's nothing to distract the eye. I feel like it took me WAY too long to get to this point given the pictures that caught my eye on Etsy were these kinds of pictures: simple, white background, close up, prominent in the frame.

I've also learned the importance of natural light to photographing my work. If you're using conventional lights, you'll notice a slight yellow tinge to your photos. Using natural light or halogen lights with full spectrum bulbs (such as an OttLight) helps pull out the true color of your pieces. I've not yet gotten the hang of pulling the shadows out by using diffusers (which can be as simple as white fabric), but I'm getting there.

I've invested in a portable light box - like the one shown here - to help, but I know there are do-it-yourself demos online that can help you build a cheaper version. I've also found great success with just a piece of white fabric propped up against a wall under a skylight in my house.

I'm learning more every day!

Weekend Wanderings: Gettysburg, PA

We went to a wedding last weekend and on the way back passed through Gettysburg, PA. I've been there several times, but never with the hubby. We started our afternoon grabbing lunch at The Pub & Restaurant in Lincoln Square. The waiters were all quite friendly and the food was delicious.

After lunch my husband patiently trailed me through an antiques shop called 17 on the Square where I found a piece I'll be highlighting here next week. It was about what you'd expect of an antique mall in the center of a tourist town - some booths with new items, the upper floor mostly full of glass cases with shelves of collectibles, some textiles downstairs and, of course, quite a bit of Civil War memorabilia and even a costumer if you wanted to dress in Civil War style.

Once we'd finished downtown, we headed for the official battleground visitor's center. They've opened a new visitor's center since I was last there, and it's really a beautiful place. Friendly Park Rangers will guide you along the way to the films and exhibits and the gift shop is a Civil War buff's dream with books, videos, audio CDs and other souvenirs of this nation-changing battle.

We grabbed a guide and went on the auto tour of the battlefield. Many of the roads around the site are one way with space to pull your car over and explore for a time. I was struck by the number of visitors to the site late on a Sunday afternoon in early summer - of every race and nationality. Even with the volume of people and cars, the battleground has the reverence expected of a place where so many lost their lives. And I found myself imagining men who'd walked from places so far away to this lonely field. It's a place worth visiting. A place where freedom found a name.

Foodie Friday: Feta Burgers

Looking for a twist on your 4th of July burgers? How about Feta Burgers? If you like Feta cheese, you'll love these burgers.

 

Ingredients:
1 pound lean ground beef
1 egg
1 packet Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix
1 8 oz. package Feta cheese, cubed

In a mixing bowl, mix 1 pound of ground beef, pour in cubed Feta cheese, crack an egg over it and add your packet of salad dressing mix. Mix with your hands and form into patties.























Place patties on the grill or fry them up in a skillet to your desired state of done-ness. Throw the cooked burger on a bun with lettuce and tomato and you'll have a delicious holiday treat!

Inspiration Thursday! Why?

We all have hallmark moments in our life. For my parents' generation, they remember the day Kennedy was shot. For my generation, it's the Challenger explosion. All of us remember 9-11. But there are other, less tragic, but senseless moments that imprint on my brain. I doubt I'll ever forget the footage of Nancy Kerrigan in the floor after she'd been attacked holding her knee and sobbing, "Why? Why? WHY?"

I guess it stayed with me because of the poignancy of the moment. Maybe it was the dreams that had been compromised? Or possibly it was the deep, intense pain contained in the footage? I remember. I'll probably always remember.

This week I've been presented with several "WHY?" moments - deep, intense pain that spills over from one life to another. And I've been left with incredible feelings of inadequacy as I'm compelled to try to sooth the pain. Sometimes things happen in our lives that escape our understanding. For those of us with faith, there are days we're down on our knees begging God, with great emotion, to explain, "WHY?" And there are not always answers immediately forthcoming.

I've noticed there are some phrases Christians turn to when faced with these situations. They're easy. They're scriptural. They're always close at hand. "God gives you the desires of your heart" and "God's timing is perfect" are two of those phrases. I hear them all the time. I don't question the statements. I accept them as truths. But accepting them as a truth and believing or living them are two different things.

I've been challenged with this thought for the last several years in my own life. I've been challenged enough to stop saying these phrases when trying to comfort others. Instead, I've gotten a little more personal in sharing my faith. Because even though I don't have any answers to why these things happen - and especially why things don't happen for good people who are worthy of good things - I believe there is a reason these things we want do and do not happen. I accept I may never know these answers. And I continue to believe despite the sadness this can bring.

Life doesn't always turn out as we want or expect, but with faith, it can turn out better than we imagined. I believe that. I still ask "WHY?", but I've found that accepting I may never know the answer makes for a much less bitter me. And finding joy despite the "why" is an important battle to win.

Vintage Wednesday: A girl and her chair, part 2

Remember my obsession with chairs? Well, meet my newest addition.

It started back in 2003 in a little town called London. Mama and I had braved the metro to find a pokey upholstery shop in an "interesting" part of town. Freezing cold, we walked through a door into paradise. Well, it was paradise for those with a love of good upholstery fabrics. I have many obsessions.

While Mama was looking for fabric for costuming, I was enjoying the colors, textures and designs surrounding me. And then I found THE fabric. Gold and red. The right red. Mackintosh roses. Nouveau lines. Spectacular. I was in love.

Taking a deep breath because of the price, I got enough to cover a chair, a SPECIAL chair, a someday chair.

Years passed and many chairs came through my life, but none was right enough to use the golden fabric - until last Christmas when we found THE chair. Technically, it's a rocker - with swan arms, long lines, padded cushions, and a rose carved in the top. Given my recent obsession with swans (check out the Swoon Studios logo) and my love of roses and Nouveau lines, the chair was perfect. It had a textured mint green fabric from the 50s that was begging to be changed. Enter the golden fabric, some red trim, a gifted upholsterer and voila... my latest addition was born.

And as I gaze at the regal glory of this chair, my mind drifts back to that cold, cold day in London and a piece of fabric that inspired a dream come true - because I know that one day I'll rock babies in this chair. What a story that will be.

Inspiration Thursday! Three roads to walk down. One road to choose.

You might have noticed some lag time around here. Life has been fast and furious lately. And the last two days have brought some interesting choices into our lives.

We have three life-changing choices in front of us. We can take one or none of them. This year has already brought quite a bit of emotional upheaval. Being the slow and steady girl I am, there are some days I just want to pretend all this isn't happening. I know, however, that hiding my head in the sand never works. Eventually you have to face life head on, make choices and live with the consequences no matter how hard.

"I've been searching for a reason, and I'm running out of time. I can feel that it's the season. It's time to make up my mind."

We've been in a season for a while now. It's a season of striving for something... actually several somethings. We're used to reaching our goals, but these goals can't be reached with hard work and dedication. These "somethings" are going to need some supernatural help to make them happen. And for the most part, I've been able to find contentment with recognizing that this is just a season. Suddenly, this week, we've been presented with several opportunities that could be the doors opening on these goals.

"And I can't really tell you what I'm gonna do. There are so many thoughts in my head."

Given these new developments, I'm left wondering if we're coming out of this season. Could this be the time we've been waiting for? Could the opportunity finally have dropped into our laps? I don't know. We don't know. All we have left is prayers and patience. And the belief that God has a plan that doesn't always match with our plans, but He has a plan nonetheless.

"Am I ready for forever. Oh God show me a sign. 'Cause if we're to be together, then it's got to be divine."

I can finally see a means to meet at least one of these goals. I can see there's a path opening up that I fully believe is an answer to prayer. I just don't know which road this is going to be. And it's a more than a little scary to take those first steps.

"Father which way should I go? I cannot clearly see."

So for the time being, I'm asking for wisdom. I'm asking for answers. I'm asking for neon signs to show me the right way!

"I'm thinking over, thinking over the things that you said."

I don't want to get in front of the plans God has for our lives. I know that leads to disaster. And so I continue to watch and pray - knowing that "to everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose...."

Vintage Wednesday: A girl and her chair, part 1

 I have a little obsession - with chairs. I love them. I especially love a chair with good bones. My family accepts this about me. My husband patiently lives with my obsession. I try to control my obsession.

I've found chairs at yard sales and estate sales - enough to fill my house with several left over in storage for the day I have a house big enough to hold them. I have tiny chair jewelry my obsession runs so deep. I even have chairs in my living room picked from the side of the road. One is a gorgeous red mohair I picked out of the trash and repaired. I'm assuming the trasher thought it was going to cost too much to have it recovered. Luckily I, the trashee, know how to do repairs. The matching couch and chair I brought to my marital home was found while Mama and I found were driving back from my taking the bar exam. That episode went something like:
Driving down a country road.
Me: "MY CHAIR!"
Mama: "Do we need to turn around?"
Me: "Yes. I think we do."
Mama: "Ok then."
Hairpin u-turn in the middle of nowhere, complete with tires screeching and spitting gravel. Negotiate for the chair and couch after discovering the matching couch in a cinder block "shop" next to the sellers double wide. Unload every seat and all our luggage out of the back of Mama's van. Reload my new couch and chair, random van seats and all our luggage. Drive another 5 hours with a van full of couch, chair, random van seats and all our luggage.

Mama was very patient with my obsession before I found my husband.

Working Tuesday: Wedding flowers

Every once in a while, for people I know and love, I do a bride's wedding flowers. I'd imagine my love of flowers started with clumps of flowers, pulled from my parent's yard. Mama would search for just the right "vase" - that could be anything from a fruit jar to a tiny pitcher that belonged to my great-grandmother - so she could put my makeshift bouquet in her kitchen window. I always wanted to arrange those little violets or hyacinths or hydrangea or peonies or daffodils (whatever was in the yard that season) so they'd be beautiful for Mama.

Mama was also a great role model. I can't really tell you the number of times we drove out into the country to pick wildflowers for someone's wedding. And then there was the butterfly weed. We'd drive down the interstate, someone would spot the bright orange clump of flowers and shout, "BUTTERFLY WEED!" Mama would quickly pull over to the side and, when traffic cleared, BACK UP (scared the you know what out of me) to get back to the spot we'd seen. I learned early to look way ahead so we'd not have to do much backing. Then again, we still tease Mama that she drives better backward than forward - especially when there's butterfly weed to be had.

We'd gather buckets of those flowers, take them back to the church, and just as we did when I was a kid we'd find the perfect container for that particular bride to arrange her wedding flowers. The riot of color from those wild blooms was always glorious to see. And I learned over the years the best time to pick those flowers, how to handle them to keep them alive longer and how to arrange flowers by watching and then helping Mama.

Living in an urban area, I can't use wildflowers in my arrangements. I have to rely on wholesalers for my bounty. My favorite time, however, is the moment the boxes arrive and I pull out bunch after bunch of beautiful flowers. This weekend was no exception. And in the end, from that mass of flowers, I was able to create these little beauties. I love.

Inspiration Thursday! Awakening Longings...

"’I don’t like things,’ he said, ‘which interfere with one’s heart strings.  

It doesn’t do to awaken longings that can’t be fulfilled.’” -Enoch Powell

I found this quote in an article today. Enoch Powell was a British politician. Apparently as a young man he'd been a gifted musician, but as his parents thought he should focus on more scholarly pursuits, he put away his clarinet and didn't touch it again for at least 50 years. Instead he devoted himself to words and writing - a full professor of Ancient Greek at 25 (according to Wikipedia). The quote above was his response when asked why - in his older years - he rarely listened to music.

How sad that he should abandon something that stirred his soul this way? How true this sentiment for many who share a love of music? 

I write. I have seen the power of words. I don't think my words have ever even begun to "awaken longings that can't be fulfilled." I do, however, understand this power of music. Take, for example, the third movement of Brahms' Symphony #3. That piece of music pulls me into it's longing - makes me yearn for something unknown. Albinoni's Adagio in G minor evokes the longing of separated lovers - especially in this arrangement where the violin calls to the organ and the organ answers. And if you've seen The King's Speech, you know how the director wove Beethoven's 7th Symphony into a speech, which together conveyed the longing of a nation for peace though they were on the brink of war - and the longing of a King to be worthy of his new reign.

I sang in a Chorale while in college. We would welcome new students by teaching them our alma mater - the theme was taken from the sextet in Lucia de Lammermor. We also had many occasions in which we were able to sing while accompanied by a pipe organ with over 4,000 pipes - and on several occasions we were lucky enough to sing with the WV Symphony. There's really nothing that lifts my heart like feeling the music - the deep notes of the pipe organ reverberating up through your feet to burst from the top of your head or being bathed in the sound of strings. Even now, it evokes a longing to just once more join in a chorus of song. 

Awakening Longings... thankfully my musical longings are fulfilled. I would never have the discipline to live without the joy of music.

Vintage Wednesday: Social History

There are moments in life where a word or phrase opens a new door - one you'd not known existed before - into a world that delights you with it's rightness. College was full of these moments for me. Things I knew in their randomness suddenly started finding order. Much of this order I attribute to a history professor named Bill Mahoney.

Professor Mahoney - as we called him when we first met him - was still finishing up his doctorate so he was still close enough to being a student that he seemed to identify with us just a little better than the other professors. Most of the other history professors were in the latter stages of their careers, which made Mahoney a breath of fresh air. His classes were FUN.

History had pretty much been a part of my life. I joke that we've probably seen every fort on the east coast, but I don't really remember going to the beach until I was 14 (I don't count the trip that happened when I'd just turned 4 because it's a little hazy). I'd dressed up in 18th century costumes and traveled to rendezvous since we celebrated the bicentennial. Daddy is a huge American history buff we'd often hear stories of how our neck of the woods was settled. "It was down on the other side of the Cheat River, when we came up on this meetin' in the middle of the night...." History was everywhere. Taking history classes was inevitable.

The thing that Dr. Mahoney taught me, the thing that brought randomness into order, was the concept of social history. Now, there's a high falootin definition of the theory of social history, but to break it down into layman's terms, social history takes into account the way people lived. It's not just a series of dates and the study of wars. Social history values the entire picture of life as our society evolves.

Social history doesn't just mark the industrial revolution. Social history looks at the way people lived before the machines, the threat the machines brought to their way of life, the emotional reasons the Luddites rose up, the art and architecture that resulted, the population movements that ensued. It looks at the entire picture. And suddenly Mama talking about the lines of furniture or the designs in dresses changing from the 18th to the 19th centuries fit into Daddy's talks of battles and freedom. And every antique began to tell a story.

Even though I wasn't a history major, those classes opened my eyes. Instead of seeing a corset cover, I can tell you the class of person from the fabric and cut. Instead of seeing stitching on a sampler, I see the precursor to home schooling. Instead of seeing a wooden bowl, I see how that bowl fit into a family's life. I identify antiques by thinking about how we developed as a society. I probably couldn't tell you the important battles of the civil war or dates of international treaties, but I probably could tell you how people lived, what they wore, the kind of music they played and how they fed their children in a particular period of time. History is relevant to me in a way it wasn't before I took those classes.

Dr. Mahoney is still at my college teaching history - and I'm pretty sure he's still sharing obscure Irish and Czech punk music with students like me (I doubt I'd ever heard 3 Mustafas 3 without him). I don't know if what he's teaching as revolutionary to them as it was to me. I do know, however, that I'm very thankful he chose a little college town in WV to ply his trade.