Old Fashioned

 Take my word for it, you can't find a synonym for old fashioned that makes it sound any better. I know, I tried. There's stodgy, musty, passé and worse. The best I could come up with was timeless.

I'm not talking about the cocktail but did find it interesting that the Old Fashioned remains the top selling classic cocktail internationally. No, I'm talking about myself.

Every year during high school Prom season I think about posting this picture of me before my senior prom. This is the year I do it.

 

Taken in 1961 in my parents' living room, here I am in the dress I begged my mother to make after not finding one I loved as much as I had loved the one bought for my junior prom. Prom dress styles were becoming less bouffant but I still wanted an old fashioned one. 

I asked Beth, a talented girlfriend, to draw the one I dreamed of and she nailed it.

 

My 23 inch waist (up an inch since my junior prom) didn't do justice to Beth's design but Mama did her best and combined two Vogue patterns and yards of material. My curly hair didn't do well in a french twist so Mama's hair stylist pulled it to the side in the best Southern Belle style she could. RH had the florist make up a pink rose wrist corsage and one for my hair.

I  adored it and thought Mama was a genius but it has to be said, none of my three younger sisters ever wore it to their proms.

If you need proof that I am even more old fashioned now, here's a picture that proves it.

 

That's right, I collect Vera Bradley purses. Hey, they used to be popular with women other than grandmothers. High school girls even carried them!

I bought the black and purple one on the bottom years ago in Dillard's because my shoulder was hurting and I couldn't take the weight of a leather handbag. And it wasn't cheap!

By the way, that's our dear Otis and Milo there beside the purses, in heaven since 2017.

Last year I found the green and black one, shown on top, at the Goodwill and decided it was just right for spring, and retired the black and purple one for winter's use. And then last summer I found the white and blue one at Goodwill and it became my summer purse. It has a few worn spots but then so do I.

Next came the purse that would complete my seasonal collection, an autumnal olive green and brown Vera Bradley, brand new and found at Goodwill.

Notice the pretty birds in the pattern and the cute tortoiseshell-like toggle?

 Life was complete. I now had a Vera Bradley purse for each season. There was no reason to go by the handbag section at Goodwill. Until they moved it right by the checkout lane.

And there she was, a like new gorgeous purse that surely had to be a Vera.

Oh, it was lined with red cherries and poppies!

But where was the Vera Bradley tag?

 

There it was, my July and August Vera Bradley purse! Just when I thought my search for Vera purses was over, it occurred to me that there could possibly be a MONTHLY collection out there waiting for me.

Yes, I'm old fashioned--stodgy, musty, and passé. But I still go weak-kneed when I look at pretty clothes and confess to following three or four YouTube fashion influencers.

Do you do that? It's not that I watch them for ideas of clothes to buy. I'm too stodgy for that but a girl can always dream.

Here's a dream dress I fell in love with last fall when it was shown in a Garden & Gun November issue (from Lela Rose in Dallas).

 

Who knows why a particular dress wins the heart of a woman just about to leave behind the seventh decade of her life, but this dress won mine.

Notice how the neckline falls just below the collar bone (clavicle)? Once upon a time, for my senior prom, I had a pretty collar bone, one you could see, and a 23 inch waist. 

I may be old fashioned and have misplaced my waist and collar bone but I still love a pretty dress.

Wear one for me, will you?

 

Vintage Western for My Texan

We moved to a 1935 cottage and cottage rules here...except in one room.

My husband's bedroom is Western, no doubt about it.

The old knotty pine paneling suits it and all of his vintage Western touches look at home here.

These 1950s cowgirl boots that RH's father had custom made for his wife (RH's stepmother), take center stage here. Our daughter used to wear them.

There are other Western reminders in RH's bedroom. 

Let's put some Texas swing music on and show you around.

My Texan is proud of his roots. His mother's father's father's father, a French Huguenot, settled in Texas in 1833. We used his first name for one of our sons but couldn't quite get up our nerve to name one after his middle name:

Ptolemy

RH is also proud of his other heritage. His mother's mother was a Cherokee.

Here's a photograph of RH with his beautiful mother, older brother and little sister taken with Tex Ritter, one of the early "singing cowboys" in many movies. The photograph was taken about a year after Tex Ritter's "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling" won an Oscar for Best Song in the movie High Noon.

My husband remembers Mr. Ritter telling him "Don't touch the gun, son."

I gave RH this vintage steer horn mirror for Christmas many years ago, paying for it on layaway at an antique store.

For a while I tried to corner the market on these little china cowboy hats.

Our daughter surprised her daddy with this pretty painting one Christmas.

It hangs over his chair.

This picture of Sequoyah and his Cherokee alphabet was a gift from a son.

But the 1960 cancelled check that came with it drawn on the Texas State Bank makes us smile too--$45.50.

I never did get around to baking a cake in this heavy pan shaped like the state of Texas, but it makes a great catchall for little things in his room.

I cut a few herbs to go with some blooms for RH's bed table.

The curtains we found for the bedroom came from Goodwill when we moved here in January.

You might think these curtains don't belong in a Western room but when I spotted four panels I grabbed them. I thought they were just the right touch to give a little old world elegance to the room.

We liked them so much that I found another two panels on eBay after finding a label that they were Burlington, a rare pattern called Monaco Rose Hydrangea. 

Another trip to Goodwill produced a Longaberger tabbed curtain that was perfect to cover the wide closet that didn't have a door.

I need to start searching Goodwill again for frames for these 1958 lithographs of famous western artist Charles M. Russell.

I think they'd be perfect lined up vertically between Sequoyah and the Pottery Barn silver mirror the kids gave me for my birthday one year. I thought RH's room needed a little sparkle and swapped mine for his old oval wood framed mirror that seemed to disappear into the knotty pine.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing RH's Western bedroom.

Since I've shown you the listing photos in every other room in our new home, here's what this room looked like when it was for sale.

It seems like Western never goes out of style, it just keeps getting reinvented. Maybe it's because Western is intrinsically an honest-to-goodness American look. How could we do without it?

While we both love the old cowgirl boots in RH's room, and I have used them many times on a Western table as a vase for his birthday dinner, I think that someday I'm going to surprise my Texan with a pair from the King Ranch 
collection.

Or should a Texan pick out his own boots?

Where's My Fashion Style?

There's probably a reason I never, absolutely never, blog about fashion.

I don't blog about nuclear physics, either.

But I do know that when I see Autumn styles, I want this…

I want plaids, woolens, nubby textiles, rich Autumn colors.

So I go to Goodwill and add to the jackets in my closet,

never able to resist them but never really knowing how to use them either.

I turned to Pinterest today for help.

How could I use this 1960s Fashion Bug jacket I found at Goodwill?

Could I somehow make it look like this outfit? 

[source]

I doubt it.

What about this red plaid jacket with black velvet collar?

Would this inspire me?

[source]

Do you think I could pull off that look? I wish!

I love this short jacket I found at Goodwill a few years ago…

Maybe this look?

[source]

I have a black purse fairly similar to that, well almost.

I could buy a red plaid scarf.

There's this old Pendleton jacket I snapped up at GW…

How about copying this look?

[source]

Hmm, black leather purse again.

I have some red flannel sweatpants,

and I could borrow R.H.'s black rubber boots.

But no, here's the look I'd prefer…

[source]

Might need to actually buy some boots for that one

and maybe order new legs, etc. too?

Here's the prevalent look when I searched for 

Autumn plaid jackets on Pinterest…

[source]

And…

[source]

Hey, I used to have skinny legs like that,

when I was 13.

Or was I just 12 there, posing at Myrtle Beach

with my Uncle Leon?

Even then he had better calves than I did.

Wait! I've found it, my Fashion Style!

[source]

She probably has the attitude necessary to pull it off.

I guess attitude goes a long way in fashion

and these ladies have plenty of it.

[source]

I love the ladies on the Advanced Style blog.

Wish I could get them to tell me how to use my Goodwill jackets.

(Oh, no, not that, ladies!)

From Chicken Shed to Picnic Shelter, continued

In the previous post I told our story of the chicken shed becoming a picnic shelter and how it was time to move R.H.'s grilling station out of it so that it could become the outdoor dining pavilion I had envisioned. 

After years of my nagging he finally did it this spring! After working on it himself for a few hot days he enlisted the help of son Gurn and grandson Drake.

On went the roof.

Drake helped supply R.H. with old bricks for edging the floor.

Otis wanted to help too.

At last R.H. got to move his grilling equipment into his new cooking shed--and out of the picnic shelter. Hurrah!

Then everything went out of the picnic shelter where Drake could power wash it all.

So nice not to have R.H.'s cooking stuff crowding the food serving station.

I love the old washing machine. We used to fill it up with ice and water for parties to chill drinks but it was so much trouble to drain. Now we use it to hold garbage bags and other things that aren't so pretty.

Everything was ready for my Texan to start grilling.

We launched it on Memorial Day weekend when Christy and Bryan were home to visit.

This week we dressed it up a little with banners that are actually curtain panels bought at the Goodwill store.

They're heavy canvas material with what looks to be hand-painted fruit on it.

Brown Eyes is enjoying the shade they provide and two fans pointed at him. R.H. wondered what in the world I'd ever do with those weird curtain panels when I grabbed them at Goodwill but I believe that sooner or later there's a use for anything you love.

The table was set...

with more odds and ends from Goodwill plus the enamel spatter ware plates from Texas that I have a stack of for outdoor meals.

I starched and ironed another Goodwill find for the table. The old white cutwork cloth has buttonholes around all four sides. I wonder what it was once buttoned to?

Here's a view to the other end of the picnic shelter, and yes, it probably still looks like a Cracker Barrel wall but you wouldn't believe how much stuff I got rid of.

This old screen door from a grocery store is the better of two doors we lugged around through every move we made. I was astounded to see American Pickers pay a small fortune for the Holsum Bread sign alone. Wonder what they would pay for the whole door?

Here's Defee standing in front of it in our living room 20 years ago. Do you think he's trying to sign--"Live long and prosper"?

So there you are, from chicken shed to picnic shelter.

R.H. has other touches he wants to add. There is an old white farm sink that's been in the barn for years. It would be nice to wash our hands outside, even if it was only cold water. Now if I could just get him to move his mowing equipment out of the other side of the building we could put a fridge in there and maybe a bed and never have to go inside. Well, we might have to build an outhouse somewhere near. 

There's always something that needs doing at Valley View, and it's always a family affair.