Savouring the moment...

...as I put the finishing touches on my dining room make-over, yay, and return my mother's tea cups, all clean and sparkly, to the China cabinet which belonged to her I am transported to another place in time.   A time when she was here and I was young and life seemed so easy.

My mother was English and Irish and loved her tea.  As far as I know it was what she sipped with every meal growing up and before bed.  They rarely had milk delivery so she probably had a dash of cream and a little sugar in it.  The English way.  As a child I remember drinking tea every morning.  There were other things to choose from but I always, every day, had toast and tea.  Tea with cream and sugar.  The English/Irish in me.  As I grew older I continued the toast and tea tradition but drank other beverages during the day such as milk.  Then came the days of diet soda, specifically Tab.  Oh my, I drank Tab as if the world was about to end but always kept my morning routine of toast and tea.   As time moved on for my mother she gave up her precious tea for coffee.  Instant coffee.  I guess the need for a jolt of coffee outweighed the need for a cuppa.

When I left home for college and marriage my tea drinking waned in favour of espresso coffee.  Much easier to grab a jolt during studying or work than to savour a cup of tea.  Soon it became relegated to the 'sick room.'  Have a cold?  a headache?  a stomach-ache?  what you need then is a nice cup of hot tea, with cream and sugar.  Eventually I went through an organic phase and the sugar was replaced by honey.  But I never really gave up the need for a cup of hot tea.  (never iced. never)  My mother on the other hand found that warm milk at bedtime could do wonderful things for a restful sleep, she rarely had tea again.

I've always desired to take my mother out for "High Tea," and made plans to do so when we traveled to New York for my brother's wedding.  We never went, no traveling, no visiting, no tea-party...as I lost her just days before.  Two years ago I found a place in our little town that serves High Tea and decided that I would take my daughter.  I tried to tell her how important it was to me, how much I had hoped to do this with my mother, how very special it was to share with her.  It was wonderful, and beautiful and especially fancy with tiny tea cakes and sweet treats, and of course TEA.  with cream and honey.  It was lovely and I hope that one day she will understand what it meant to me.

So here I stand, holding the cups my mother drank from and collected, holding her memory tight in my hand and my heart.   Missing her more than mere words can say.  And as my mind floats to another place I will put the kettle on, brew myself a nice cuppa hot tea, with cream and honey.  I will find a nice cozy place to sit by the window and as I sit and sip my cuppa I will watch the rain and my tears softly falling to the ground.

History lesson...

...my hubs collects insulators.  Old insulators that you usually see on the top of telephone poles along railway lines through the Midwest.  I noticed today, while I was dusting, that he likes to line them up like little soldiers!  We do have quite a few and some of them are very unique not only in colouring but also in size/shape.  We have a few that are crackled as though they couldn't stand the heat any longer.

A little history;   *from the Wiki*

Insulators have been around longer than most people realize. The first rudimentary telegraph line was built between Paris and Lille, France in 1793. The need for insulators to insulate the wire from grounding out soon became apparent. There were a number of early experimental lines in Europe and the United States before Samuel F. B. Morse finally developed a fully functional and commercial system using his particular code. He built his first commercial line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. in 1844.

Insulators were first used extensively in the mid-1840s with the invention of the telegraph. They were necessary to prevent the electrical current passing through the wire from grounding out on the pole and making the line unusable. The first insulators were a beeswax soaked rag wrapped around the wire. They worked well in the dry laboratory but soon broke down when exposed to the weather. The next concept was a glass knob, which looked much like a bureau knob one might still find on antique furniture today, mounted on a wood or metal pin. From this evolved the pin style insulator, which had no threading inside the pinhole. It was cemented to the pin by driving it down on the pin with a mallet on an asphalted rag. This was not a perfect answer because the weather worked on the rag and eventually the insulator would work loose and pop off the pin allowing the wire to contact a grounding surface. Inevitably, however, as telegraph lines traced the westward expansion of railroad lines across the states, glass manufacturers began to create many new designs in an effort to secure a niche in the rapidly growing insulator market.

Thus, by the advent of the Civil War in 1860, original insulator models could be found in both porcelain and glass. While glass was more common from the beginning for telegraph and telephone line insulation, porcelain would later gain a firm foothold as the preferred material for insulating high voltage power lines. Over time, glass manufacturers would produce hundreds of designs; millions of insulators were made of glass and porcelain, then later of rubber, plastic and other composite materials."

Another article speculated the reason for the different colours.  Supposedly the insulators were made at the end of the day with the leftover glass, so if the company was making green glass bottles that day then the insulators would be green.  Most of the ones we have are clear, although we do have two porcelain ones, a brown and a white.  They don't seem to be as sturdy as the glass ones.

Do you have a collection with an interesting history attached to it?

Pitter-pat...

...I had an hour and a half between doctor appointments on Monday.  Not long enough to go home but just long enough to leave the building for awhile.  I decided to grab, literally, some coffee as I was caffeine-free for 24hours.  Also, I needed a bite to eat.  I drove around a little looking for a place to stop and walk but for some reason or another (dog agility class) there were no parking spaces downtown.  So I went to the next best place to walk and rest my weary little head...the thrift store!

Mondays are the worst day to go to a vintage-thrift store.  The weekends are usually busy and the shelves rather bare.  As I wandered around though I did see a few things that made my heart go pitter-pat. (or was that due to the fact I had just come from a stress test, having to run fifteen minutes on the treadmill??

old books get me every time.  Especially when they are inscribed.  "Mrs. Horton, 1933."  Except for the yellowing of pages and the torn jacket cover, this was in fantastic condition

...and then there is hob-nail milk glass.  Four ten-ounce tumblers with nary a chip.  Oh yeah, baby!

BIG chunky glass pieces fascinate me.  Look at all those little air bubbles!  This will soon be filled with coffee-beans, cinnamon sticks and a big candle.  Tied with some burlap ribbon and set on the entry table.
I also have, for many years, in my possession, a glass battery case.  It is quite large and extremely heavy and the next time I climb up on the counter top to dust it I will get some photos.  It dates from the 30's also.

and last, but not least, for today...mismatched dishes.  This is called "Tea Rose" and just looked like Fall to me.  Someday, I would love to have a dinner and serve each person off of a different place setting of China I have collected over the years.  It's a small collection but it would be so much fun.

It isn't the actual object or the having of material things that gets my little heart happy but it is the memories that are attached.  The memories that I have created of my childhood and family functions.  It's always sunny in there.  What gets your heart to pitter-pat and smile?

Apothecary love...

...every year when all the stores start putting out their oh so beautiful, artfully designed, Apothecary jars, I begin to covet them.  Mercy me, I just don't know what happens but I say to myself..."I must have one of those!" 

Truthfully, one of 'those' are quite expensive, so my lust quickly turns to dust where it resides in my head until the next season rolls around.

This year, the year of frugal, thrifty, living, I have discovered that many, many people do not share my love of the Apothecary.  This is, of course, to my advantage as I have found several of them to put away for holiday time.

This weekend I pulled them all out of my secret hiding place, got them all washed, rinsed and shiny, and began the search for something to fill them with.  Mind you...this is a 'shop the house' project.

one holds a child's card game...memory, if I remember right!  Another holds acorns.  I have one with corks we've collected over the years and for people who don't drink that is not an easy collection!  Then there is one with watch faces and another one with large skeleton keys.

But my most favorite of all, the one I would choose if I could have only one...is this one.  I love the shape, sort of a round-square, and not very tall.  Just tall enough to put my husbands grand-mother's tea spoons in.  And I just love me a good cup of tea.

What would you put in an Apothecary?  

White Wednesday...

...I have recently been on a self-imposed hiatus from thrifting.  Sorry to say, it somehow lost it's appeal.  Maybe I was going to often or expecting too much.  Maybe I was bored waiting for summer to arrive, oh, I don't really know why.  Yesterday the hubs and I were up the hill at a friends place when on the way home I spotted a 'thrifty' place that I had not seen before.  Hallelujah...the break is over.  Found a few things to add to my collection of 'everything' and even better~~it is white!!

a pretty, petite table cloth.  About 30 x 30..perfect for my porch table.

a small cannister for sugar with a cute little apple on top and a criss-cross design.

a basket-weave bowl, ironware from Italy...

to add to my growing collection.

For more White Wednesday just click here.  Have a good Wednesday y'all, and be sure to get out of the heat, stay cool and hydrated!

White Wednesday...35 (4)...

...I don't believe that it is Wednesday again, how did I manage to fly through another week?  Do you feel it too? 

Thanks to Kathleen at Faded Charm for hosting our Wednesday get together.  For more whites, head on over and check out her blog...believe me, you won't be disappointed.

when my daughter was growing up she wanted to collect something 'different.'  Something that no one else (at least no one that she knew) would think of collecting.  What she came up with was, beaded purses and hand-held mirrors.  It has been a very interesting time trying to find these things to add to her collection.  She now has approximately a dozen purses and half-dozen hand-held mirrors (vintage only!).  When she left home many years ago she left a few of them for me to enjoy.  

these gloves and the below hankie belonged to my mother.  I have been told they were worn/carried at her wedding in 1945.

one of the beautiful hand mirrors...

I hope you enjoyed the whites as much as I did.  Check back next week to see what I can come up with...it is beginning to be a challenge to find the whites, but it is so much fun looking for them everywhere I go!  Have a good Wednesday.

White Wednesday 33/2...

...if you are like me, and you enjoy your whites, then head on over to Faded Charm and check out all the other White Wednesday posts this week.

I am a little lite on the whites this week.  I've been sick with the head clanging, ear ringing, nose running, headache, sinus pressure, fever, chills, aches,  misery of a major cold/sinus infection.

Once I roused myself from my nesting place on the sofa, it was late in the afternoon, and, I had already lost the best light of the day to take the photos.   I had no choice but to use the flash but the pics were just awful. 

So, I'm wishing you a happy, healthy Wednesday and leaving you with a little preview of next week.

take care y'all.