My Mother's Kitchen

cloudy and cool with thunderstorms tonight.|Wind Speed: 10 knots
Sea State: Light chop | Ocean Temp: 55 F | Wave Height: 7 ft


I love the plain simple cabinets and the checked curtains in the window and in the dining room beyond of this kitchen at Posie Gets Cozy.

Isn't it clean and neat and orderly looking?  I love simple and clean lines.
The school house lights are wonderful too.

My Mother's Sink was like this. 

My mother's kitchen was a simple metal sink/drainboard combo from the 50's.
 Above that sink were 3 cabinets like Posie's (the ones dead center in the photo)   held the everyday dishes and glasses and that was it for cabinets.
Other china was stored in the basement for holidays, etc.
Next to the sink was the stove and across from it, was the  kitchen table up against the wall under one of two windows that flanked  the "ice box". Because when I was a kid many still called refrigerators 'ice boxes'.
  At the other end was the entrance to an old summer kitchen that had a sink on the wall , and at first,  a pot belly stove.
 in Victorian times you cooked out there in the summer. It was a small room about 10 X 10 or so with a kind of sloping roof.
The stove was removed, a gas heater put in and my older brother lived in that room until he married and then it was a kind of little catch all /reading room that lead to the back steps.
 In the main kitchen was a long thin pantry wide enough for one person.  The  same base cabinets from the Posie photo with a formica counter top  were in there.  Three long  white shelves over that went  up to the ceiling in an "L" shape (they wrapped round the corner of the little room.)

Staples and canned goods lived on those shelves. Pots and pans were on an indentation in the room that was created by the outside door to the cellar.The bottom cabinets held tons of crockery and pie plates of all kinds.
The drawers held the everyday silver.
A door that had lead from the kitchen to the front hall ( it was a small Victorian house with many entrances, nooks and crannies, French doors and a tiny stained glass window on the stair well) was plastered in , much to my chagrin.  On that Mother hung her pots and pans.

The kitchen  was tiny.   One person at a time tiny.   But the best meals came out of that kitchen, unmatched anywhere else in my estimation.

Pie crusts were rolled out on the kitchen table. Vegetables were cut there, potatoes peeled and pans filled and set to cook on the stove.
There my mother cooked for the extended family and friends at every holiday. Big dinners that everyone raved about.
  The 'new' stove we bought when we first moved into that little narrow Victorian house on the hill was great..wide and had a warming oven on one side.  It replaced the old black coal stove that had been there.

 Kitchen's don't need size, they need a skilled cook and lot's of love to go into the meals prepared there.

What kind of kitchen is your dream?

Day by Day on the Bay

The quilts are washed, scented with lavender, folded and ready to be put on the shelf until they are wanted.
The smell of freshly laundered linens is one of the simple joys of life.
It makes this rainy spell we are having just a bit nicer.

A little gentleman sits watching the great outdoors and the falling rain from the laundry room screen door.
What a friend he is. Patient, sweet, even tempered and loving. You can't ask for more.

 

Outside the bay is stirred by the wind and the rain.
The foam sizzles around the rocks while each new wave sends a spray flying up and over them.

Kids

I love this commercial and can relate to it a lot and it touches my heart.

What about you?

May Flowers

May is the month of flowers.

Here are some from my garden.

Lilacs beginning to bloom.

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.”
Sir Francis Bacon

Mountain pinks by the small elevated pond.

There are miniature roses of all colors ringing the small elevated pond.

All the photos can be made larger by clicking on them.

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Happy Mother's Day

60F° (21°C) and a sunny day.

 

Happy Mother's Day


It is the end of the week. Later t his weekend the famous anonymous kid and I are going to see a move together. It is the “Lucky One”. She likes the Nicholas Sparks stories and now they have made several into movies including this one.   We always have a nice time when we go see movies together.
I was always the kind of person who never really wants to go places and then has a great time anyway.

I  miss and think of my own mother and both  of my dear grandmothers every single day.



















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How to Store Weather, Moods on Blogger

A partially sunny day and temperatures a wee bit higher but I still feel that spring chill in the air.

Blogger does not have a service to host your icons, mood girls, photos etc.  Sad but, it is a free blogging service and very good for the 'price' you must admit.
You can, however, host your photos and images at Photobucket, tinypic, Image Shack, etc. And Photobucket especially is a great place to save your images.
However, while keeping them there for safe keeping is a great idea they are not convenient for use on a daily basis. For blogging it is nice to have them right on hand.
I recommend saving them to a host like Photobucket etc and then copying and pasting the urls to notebook or wordpad and placing that on your desktop for quick use and reference.
But, another way is to host them right inside your own Blog.
Just copy and paste them in html to your post and then either save it as a draft or date it years ahead for future publication.
Here is how I host the days of the week icons I sometimes use:(click to make it larger)

This is a really good way to store them. I do this but I also keep them on notepad for very quick use. Since it is right on the desktop, it can be opened alongside Blogger and inserted quickly.















You just have to use the following formula in html mode and Blogger will do the rest for you. You can still use your align feature, etc and you can still size it anyway you please after the image is on the page.

This is the formula to place an image ::

Of course you insert your own url .
After it is in you can change the location and size with Bloggers features. So don't worry.

You can save anything this way.   I also save all my html tricks on a page within my blogs. This way there is no hunting for them.  But I keep them in several places so I never lose them.

I hope this is useful for you.

Raining Buckets

And the rain keeps coming.

Rhododendrun

O n a positive note, the plants are loving it and the ponds are topped off with fresh rain water yet again.

The fish love to play in the rain drops as they bounce on the surface of the water. They really do like to play.
I have watched the seagulls play also but they play in the wind and updrafts. They like to catch an updraft and ride it way up high just riding on the surface of the wind.  Then, they break free and soar down and around and back again to catch another draft.
Outside the Rhododendron has burst into bloom.   It should have been trimmed back as it now covers a few windows almost completely. They just grow and grow.

Garfield

Garfield sends his best...

Have a  wicked happy Wednesday as they would say in Maine.....

Blog Ideas...

Not sure why I waited so long to post something like this. It is long overdue.
I didn't like that Blogger offers a generic default anonymous avatar with no personality and since some people don't have an avatar of their own I added one.
You can do it too if you follow the instructions  HERE
Now, on this blog I used the first option and it worked. The second one, the update, I had to use on my other blog because the first did not work. So, experiment.
Remember to back up your blog first! Do that in XML and follow the instructions but, also you may like to copy the entire thing and paste to notebook as I do.
It is very easy to do and I think it makes things a lot nicer.
Just keep your image on the small side and host it somewhere like tinypic or photobucket,etc.
To see how it worked out check out this post and look at the avatar by the little anonymous comment . You can use any kind of face or photo you wish.
I just tried a little animation of potted flowers.
You can find some great ideas for your blog online.

One site that I really enjoy and that gives very easy to use instructions is Blog Bulk.  She does a great job helping you out.
Right now I have found that the add CSS function in blogger can screw up your entire blog. It will probably improve once Blogger finishes changing everything over.
No problem you can add right into the html yourself. Just remember to add where instructions say.
And if they don't say I might be able to help you find out.
Blogger can be personalized a lot if you just experiment a bit. Just always keep your blog saved because accidents do happen.

Additions I have made on this blog were to add a double line around the outer border between the white and the outside background.  On the scribe based templates you can add an image there. That is a great template to use if you are using old Word Press templates etc. as you can layer things.
I also have added my own personalized blockquote and a dropcap for the beginning of sentences.
I also added the border around each post.

Here is a sample blockquote:

The rain in spain falls mainly in the plain because it is such a pain.
Little lambs follow Mary as she trips lightly through the dust covered plains of Spain.

Blockquotes are easy to do and you can make them so many pretty ways.
Hope this was a help to someone.

Mary Petty's Final Cover...

March 19, 1966 Petty final cover

The last cover self taught artist Mary Petty drew for The New Yorker Magazine showed the Dowager Mrs. Peabody reaching for the bell pull to call her maid Fay. Sadly the old ribbon cord breaks from age as does the string of pearls that always hung around her neck.

The cover series, which appeared from 1927 until the last one on March 19,1966, were about the fictional Peabody family and their wispy maid Fay ("half sylph and half butterfly") .  

For 40 years readers followed the family as one by one they disappeared from the story and only Mrs. Peabody was left.  I find the last cover haunting and sad. How hard for the elderly to be left alone in a world where all their contemporaries are gone on ahead of them.

Mrs. Peabody by Mary Petty

In learning more about Mary Petty, I discovered this sad quote at American National Biography Online about her own ending.

"Petty's career was tragically cut short when on 1 December 1971 she was assaulted and badly beaten by a mugger. She was found on Ward's Island three days afterward, bruised and incoherent, and never wholly recovered. She died five years later at the Pine Rest Nursing Home in Paramus, New Jersey."

Fay," half  sylph, half butterfly". by Mary Petty

Reports say she had been beaten to the point that she was left with the mind of a 3 year old child.
So sad an ending but she left a bit of herself for us to enjoy and her legacy lives on in new admirers of her work.

She  illustrated a few books which included Goodbye Mr. Chippendale and This Petty Pace, a collection of her work from the New Yorker
I  highly recommend both .

A Rainy Day with Mary

Fay calls a taxi for Mrs. Peabody painting by Mary Petty

Rainy days have been the norm and the sun has been hiding for a few days. Also, it is chilly out especially at night. The only sign of spring is the flowering trees and bushes. Otherwise, it is more like early April than early May.

This picture is one from a  series that appeared  on the covers of  The New Yorker magazine during the 1940's - 50's.  They are the work of  artist Mary Petty 
In the old days,women of old money,ruled New  York City from their mansion sized apartment homes in the city.  All of high society and it's accompanying rituals were in their hands.
They were the reigning Grand Dames of the day and right up  until fairly recent times.
This series was about fictional Mrs. Peabody and her 'angelic maid.' The entire series is wonderful and you can find most of them on Art.com by looking for the art of Mary Petty.
I call the maid 'angelic' because of the 'wings' on her apron but also because she is seen serving like an angel.
Was that the impression Mary Petty meant to give?

I want to begin to collect all of them, frame them and hang them in a series on a wall.
That's the plan, whether it will come to pass is another thing entirely!

Playing cards by Mary Petty

Some of the grand apartment and row house homes in New York are upwards of 10,000 square feet and come complete with ball rooms, large glass conservatories where gardens grow, including the occasional orange tree.

I think this series of drawings is delightful.