MY MOTHER'S HANDS 

The relationship between a mother and a daughter is complicated. Sometimes it feels like we are the same person and sometimes we are not even on the same page. 

My mother

My mother was gifted with her hands... she sewed everything she wore, she knit, quilted, crocheted, tatted, embroidered, re-finished antique furniture, wove baskets and did needlepoint.  

At 70 she learned to spin. Not satisfied with that alone, she carded and dyed wool and then spun the fleece into yarn. Finally, with her loom, she wove the yarn into fabric that eventually became a dress. It makes me tires just writing about it.

I think I was seven

My mother expected that I would follow in her footsteps. I tried... I really, really tried, but my heart wasn't in it. I sewed, I knit, I did some needlepoint... it all just seemed like a lot of work to me. It took me years to understand that my mother LOVED the PROCESS and I LOVED the FINISHED PRODUCT. 

Every stitch, every turn of the wheel gave her pleasure. And when the project was complete she would rest for maybe an hour only to begin a new one. She is what is known as an "artisan"  She valued quality and craftsmanship and things were somehow elevated in value if she made them with her own two hands.

six brothers    

My mother left this world without understanding the differences in our personalities and she was gravely disappointed that I didn't do the things she did. I grew up surrounded by a family of artisans and for a long time I wasn't sure where I fit.

My brother Don Bluth, maker of American Tail,
Land Before Time and Anastasia






Then one night my oldest daughter came home from one of her college evening classes where they had discussed personalities and  said, "Guess what... I found you."

"You're an Idealist. You see the world as you think it ought to be. You make it a beautiful place in your head not with your hands" 

Wow! If there was a name for what I am there must be others like me. I wasn't a failure I was just different. A genuine feeling of relief washed over me.


I am a dreamer and a lover of beauty. I am thrilled when someone else has the skill and patience to make something of quality... a piece of fine furniture, a photograph, a beautifully decorated room. When I go into a quilt shop I don't want to buy the fabric... I want to buy the finished quilts hanging on the wall. My artistic eye allows me to see it and appreciate it. My children laugh and say ...

"Our mom's not the worker bee... she's the designer bee."

With a new sense of value and an infusion of confidence I began to "fly"   Beauty, in all its forms, is everywhere and I am constantly on the lookout.  When I see something where all the elements are combined in such a way that the effect is stunning, it takes my breath away. I have come to realize that my talent lies not in the doing but in the recognizing. 





Now the interesting part of this story is that my daughter, who helped me to understand all of this, is cut out of the "same bold of cloth" as my mother.  She is an amazing "artisan"  with a real passion for piecing and quilting. My mother taught her some of it but when she stood in front of a huge quilting machine for the first time she instinctively knew what to do. There it is again ...

 "LIFE'S A CIRCLE"

BLESSED AND BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY 
Daffodils 

CALIFORNIA

The written word is so delicious! One of my favorite poems...

             

           I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
          That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
          When all at once I saw a crowd,
          A host, of golden daffodils;
          Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
          Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

      

          Continuous as the stars that shine

          And twinkle on the milky way,

          They stretched in never-ending line

          Along the margin of the bay

         Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

         Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

          

                                              

                  


          The waves beside them danced; but they

          Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
          A poet could not but be gay,
          In such a jocund company:
          I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
          What wealth the show to me had brought:

          For oft, when on my couch I lie

                            In vacant or in pensive mood,                         

          They flash upon that inward eye

          Which is the bliss of solitude;

          And then my heart with pleasure fills,

          And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

HAPPY SUNDAY

DISHES IN THE DETERGENT 

"The great giveaway"

Coming out of the depression and then World War II, women were resourceful and companies were clever with their marketing techniques. 

In the 1950s Duz Detergent began a promotional campaign which involved including a piece of 22K gold-trimmed Golden Wheat dinnerware in each box of laundry detergent. 

I vividly remember my mother opening a new box of detergent and pulling out an amber glass. She was always so excited. Companies gave away dishes, glasses and even dishtowels. 

With a little patience and loyalty to the brand they could collect "service" for the entire family. 

Love the 50s!

FINDING MEANING IN LIFE

One person CAN make a difference in this world. Darcy Creech, a remarkable woman, believes philanthropy is a "lifestyle"

I first discovered Darcy Creech when I went looking for a hat. I fell in love with her store, Peter Beaton, and the story behind it. Then I noticed on her website that there were some philanthropic adventures and that made me curious. I did a little digging and "chapter two" of her life is equally as fascinating as the first.




When newly divorced Darcy, and her two year old son Peter moved to Nantucket and opened a hat shop, the budding success she had already been experiencing ballooned. She was the "toast of the town."

Once destitute, she now was more than solvent. She married again and gave birth to a second son. When that marriage failed she began a whirlwind social life, trying to fill the whole inside herself that was formed by two failed marriages and an abusive childhood.

In her own words... “Everyone thought I was living the dream, but I was so empty inside. My life was a great big party. Everyone envied me. I had celebrity clients, a beautiful house, beautiful children, party invitations, and the attention of men." 

"But I had no joy.”

“I tried to anesthetize myself with another season of parties. One summer night, after coming home from a fundraiser, I sat on the staircase in my floor-length dress and wept.”


“I thought, I’m either going to kill myself, or I’m going to surrender my life to God.”
Surrender she did. 

She continues...

"I’d always been interested in philanthropy, but I thought I had to make a bazillion dollars before I could do it. But $38 a month?  I can do this. I can catapult someone out of poverty"

She became sponsor to two children, Patrick in Kenya and Witness in Tanzania. In January 2011, she traveled to Tanzania to see life there firsthand.

On her trip she discovered that people in the village walk 2.4 miles everyday to get water from a swamp.  Water that makes them sick. 

Upon her return she attended a world crisis conference and learned that all the worlds water problems could be solved with  $20 billion, less than half of the $50 billion Americans spend shopping on "Black Friday"


Very familiar with consumerism, she went to work developing products. Her first item, a watch priced at $500.00 garnered  $44,000. in 30 days. 

100% of the money went to building water wells in Tanzania where contaminated water is killing 5000 children a day. Her efforts are ongoing with her foundation Hydrex Philanthropy. 

Darcy Creech is a truly remarkable 
woman of a certain age.

“I get more back by giving than my sponsored kids could ever imagine. Giving is not a one-time thing, it’s a lifestyle,”

Want to help change the world? visit... 

http://www.hydrexphilanthropic.org/

 THE AMERICAN GIRLS 

As the librarian in a large charter school I am constantly putting on programs to try and promote reading and draw families into the library. We have had some fun times with "Spooky Night" "Mystery Night" and "Evening at Hogwarts"  It's been seven years and the list is pretty long.

One program all of the girls love is the "American Girl Book Club"  The dolls are wonderful of course but the books and the history make the whole experience come to life.  This year we tweaked it a little and made it...

 "The American Girl Cook Book Club"

I had our logo printed on little aprons for the girls to wear... they were so excited!

So this afternoon we are cooking with Kit, an American Girl from 1934, right smack dab in the middle of the depression. As I began to study and prepare a presentation I was completely in awe of how resourceful people were and especially women.

When it came to planning meals, there was not always an abundance of food. Instead, they worked on their presentation.

A plain old sandwich was cut into triangles, often open faced and always with a little garnish like an olive slice or sprig of parsley. Sometimes they used two kinds of bread to make it look like a checkerboard. They ate interesting sandwiches... cucumber, cheese and pickle or egg salad. Everyone grew a garden and the lucky ones kept chickens. Then I discovered the recipe for...

"Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie" 

Because apples were rarely available, women substituted Ritz Crackers and produced a pie they swore tasted like the real thing. I remember as a child in the 60s my mother's friend made one of these but I refused to taste it.

I was up very late last night making four of them and wondering if I was crazy. Was this really going to taste like apple pie?

The answer is ...........YES   I'm sure a true "foodie" would turn up their nose but this taste pretty darn close to the real thing. So I thought I would pass along the recipe. Try it and see what you think.

Pastry for 2-crust 9" pie

36 Ritz Crackers, coarsely broken (about 1 3/4 cups)

2 cups sugar

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 3/4 cups water

2 TBS lemon juice

2 TBS butter

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees

ROLL out half of the pastry and line a 9" pie pan. Place the broken cracker crumbs in the crust and set aside.

MIX - sugar and cream of tarter in a medium saucepan. Gradually stir in 1 3/4 cups of water

BRING this mixture to a boil. Reduce head and simmer for 15 minutes.

ADD lemon juice and cool.

POUR syrup over the cracker crumbs, dot with butter and sprinkle with cinnamon.

TOP with the second pastry and flute the edges. Make sure to slit the top of pastry to allow the steam to escape.

BAKE for 30 minutes or until the crust is crisp and golden. 

 I think it needs a big scoop of ice cream... yum!

A PRETTY TABLE

www.nancysdailydish.blogspot.com

I LOVE dishes. Its not a hobby its a passion. I rotate the table settings in my dining room monthly and when I pass by I smile. It just makes me happy to see a pretty table.      

This amazing hutch is from Nancy's Daily Dish. (see her address above the photo) I gasped when I first saw this picture. It is so similar to my mothers hutch and pink dishes that for a minute I thought it was. 

Here is a sample of two of my favorite patterns. I acquired them 24 years ago in a darling little out of the way shop. I didn't have enough money to purchase them but the proprietor offered to put them on lay-a-way. I couldn't resist. 

With each payment my anticipation grew. As a surprise, my father and my oldest son, then 14, brought them home for my birthday. I was thrilled. I have used them many times and I find it satisfying and almost therapeutic to fill the sink with hot sudsy water and wash them by hand.  

I blame my mother for this "gene" and I in turn passed it to my youngest daughter.  Food just tastes better on PRETTY DISHES!

This is a wonderful "tablescape" from Stone Gable. She has an amazing blog... check it out   www.stonegableblog.com

SOLITUDE

“I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.” 
Henry David Thoreau

Over the past seven years I have spent a considerable amount of time alone. My children have flown and my husband departed. This was new territory. I panicked at first, checking the locked doors multiple times and talking to my kids on the phone when there really wasn't anything to say. Eventually I settled in. I let go of the embarrassment that divorce brings, the feelings of failure and the endless looking back. Then one day I ran across a little book in a used bookstore. The title said,

It immediately became my mantra! I would go forward, I would break new trails. I felt a twinge of excitement.

My "aloneness" afforded me opportunities to see myself more clearly. I was no longer a wife or a mom with a mini van full of kids. There was a "new me"  inside somewhere. I had to decide... would the world break me or would I get strong? 

I started by doing the unthinkable...I went to "lunch" alone. Filling my plate at the salad bar in Jason's Deli, I tried to look nonchalant, and maybe a little mysteries. Inside I was horrified. I didn't want people to stare at me and think ..."Look at that lady, she's all alone, poor thing."
  

I picked a table and quietly began to eat, checking my phone multiple times so as to appear that at least I had contacts in the world. To my surprise no one was even looking at me. They were busy eating. I wasn't a spectacle, I was just a person who was hungry who had stopped to grab some lunch.

Next I took myself to the movies. That was fun. I bought a "kid size" popcorn and a big butterfinger and enjoyed the movie without someone talking in my ear. Hey... I was liking this. My journey continued as I navigated my way single handed through "check in" at the airport... that was hard, and as I learned that attending a social event "single" just required a smile and a willingness to reach out. I gained a sense of real autonomy. I was steering my own boat, course correcting along the way. 

As time passed I settled even more. Although there are plenty of moments in my life when family and friends are paramount, I have come to enjoy and value my solitude... quiet moments when I can reflect and sort things out.


I have had non-stop company for two months. It's always fun to fill the house with people and noise. Good conversation by the fire is my favorite way to spend an evening. When at last the clutter has been cleared and I've waved the last good-bye and hollered the last, "I love you" I shut the door and listen... its quiet!

In the solitude I meet myself again... and I'm great company.