What A Family!

Those dear faces! 

I love each and every one of them! 

All there recently to help celebrate my birthday.

 

 

It was a rare treat for me to go out to a nice restaurant. RH and I just don't get out nights much anymore and we stick pretty close to home instead of going downtown. 

The staff at The Optimist in Nashville served us the delicious seafood they're known for. I wish I had a picture of a granddaughter eating her first raw oyster, and then the second and third!

I felt as if I were Julia Child in her first French restaurant in the movie Julie & Julia as the browned butter pecan whole flounder was expertly deboned for me.

I think three of us ordered this dish while one ordered scallops with sweet corn and bacon vinaigrette, one ordered the New England lobster roll, and quite a few ordered the dry aged Kansas City strip with ramp butter.

The kitchen even fixed a chicken dish for this sweet young lady...

And soon we left with take home desserts, mine being a yummy chocolate pudding cake enjoyed before an early bedtime for a very tired birthday girl.

And the next day brought another gift when my granddaughter, above, and her mom and dad gifted me with this...

That's not a photo op, friends! This little one worked for hours with her dad scrubbing the siding and railing and floor on our front porch and across the front of the house as well as washing windows. 

And she claimed it was fun! She's always outside at home helping her dad and mom with yard care.

 

Tree limbs and holly bushes got trimmed away from the roof and hauled away.

 

I couldn't get a good picture of my daughter-in-law because she was bent over for hours weeding the front beds and planting seeds and pots of plants that RH hadn't got around to.

 

Even big sister helped out when she wasn't helping her Mimi inside!

 

I couldn't believe how much they all got done to help us with so much that needed doing. My front porch alone was an answered prayer and I'll try to do a post later on about that but here is one picture of my clean front porch that has been greatly decluttered now of my vintage primitive collection that had grown out of bounds until there was hardly any place to sit. 

 

But it was the back garden that everyone gathered in that late afternoon after more family arrived. 

 

 

I took this garden picture the next afternoon when I was in the kitchen and looked out and saw all the garden chairs pulled to the sunny patio and wished so much that I had taken one the day before of all the people who sat in the chairs.

We all talked for hours, laughing at old family stories, and going inside to the kitchen to sample food--I'd baked a double recipe of biscuits, roasted pork tenderloin, and made a green bean casserole, all thrown together while my helpers worked in the front yard.

RH had worked for days in the garden after we'd visited the family nursery down the street from our old house that was having a 25% off sale. I spent my Christmas money and some of my birthday money on pots of annuals in bloom for the added color I craved as well as herbs and pepper plants for the kitchen porch. 

Below is a picture of this garden spot when we moved here seven years ago when there was nothing but grass and trees and a few bushes. The sunflowers covered the old well.

RH has given me this gift of a garden to look out over while I'm working in my kitchen and a place for us to sit and talk and watch BreeBree and James Mason play. 

And I thank him continuously for that. 

I know this is far too long but it was my birthday and so I'll show you two more pictures taken inside my office where my daughter and grandson kept me company after granddaughters and their parents got back on the road to drive home, always an emotional time for me.

Here's a picture of my handsome first grandson and me, and my lack of smile is because I hadn't brushed my teeth yet after eating, not because I was as sad as I look.

 

They did coax a smile out of me for this one with my beautiful darling daughter.

We had an hour to visit some more before she and our son-in-law had to leave for the airport. And there was a special birthday gift from her that took me completely by surprise. I'll share that with you when the third part of her three-part birthday gift arrives soon by mail. 

A hint about what it is: it has to do with blogging. But no, you'd never guess it so you'll just have to wait.

I stretched out celebrating my birthday the whole month of May and now I'm stretching it out into June! 

Many thanks to my dear blog friends who left me birthday wishes in my last post. They blessed my heart!

And my thanks and love to my wonderful family, every one of you. You made it a birthday to remember!  

 

 

The Gifts of May, Including Celebrations

 

 

May is my favorite spring month, for many reasons. Partly because the view out of the living room window shows the porch covered in purple clematis, with the young Kousa dogwood across from it putting on more and more white bracts each year.

 

 Another gift of May is the gift of birthday cards arriving that I display on the kitchen shelf to enjoy all month long. Some of them are Mother's Day cards but even more birthday cards will be added when I celebrate it again when out of town and out of state children come in on Memorial Day weekend. 

I love stretching out a celebration, don't you? So don't feel sorry for me when I show you what I had for dinner on my actual birthday, frozen pizza. 

 That's right, I asked RH to pick up a frozen Screamin' Sicilian Pizza and fresh arugula because it's a favorite treat. I pile on the arugula as soon as the pizza comes out of the oven and drizzle it well with Greek olive oil and tons of freshly ground black pepper. And I think I had Cherry Garcia ice cream for dessert. 

It was a wonderful birthday full of cards in the mail, texts and phone calls and FaceTime visits, and one in person visit from my firstborn son who joined me for lunch. Didn't even think to get a picture then or when two grandsons dropped in on me that week

I had another birthday treat a few days later when my favorite way of entertaining occurred--when family brings the party to me! All I had to do was set the table.

 

Zack and Stacey brought my birthday dinner to me along with beautiful flowers for the table!

The dinner from Carne Mare in Nashville was fabulous, the Salt-Baked Florida Red Snapper for me (seafood lover) and various cuts of steak for the others. We had potatoes with rosemary and parmigiano and broccolini with garlic and oil and delicious salads.

And the signature bread along with birthday greetings from some of the restaurant staff. The bread is to die for!

And the most scrumptious 17-layer espresso cake with chocolate caramel mousse I've ever had, gilded cherry on top. I stole a picture of it from their website.

 I stretched out my piece for three nights and then RH gave me half of his. 

Even better than the dinner were the birthday hugs and conversation at the dinner table for hours. It was so much fun, something that even those of us in our eighth decade need. Maybe even more so, lest we forget. A big thank you to Stacey and Zack for a delightful evening!

 God willing, I'll soon be posting here in a couple of weeks about my second birthday dinner. Stacey, lucky girl, will be in Italy then so RH and I will be looking forward to seeing pictures of her trip when she gets home. Meanwhile, this mama is looking forward to having all her chicks come home to Nashville for another celebration. 

Because those are the best gifts of all, right?

Thank you, beautiful month of May!

 

Calling Gladys Taber Fans (A book by her daughter and some Christmas at my house)

 

There was another side to our dear Connecticut countrywoman. For a time she lived in the biggest city of all, New York City where she taught at Columbia University. Oh, to have been a student of Creative Writing with Gladys Taber for a teacher!

Her only child, daughter Constance Taber Colby, despite growing up in Southbury, Connecticut, raised her two daughters in Manhattan.

 The View from Morningside, One Family's New York, published in 1978, is the story of the riches that the City That Never Sleeps offers for children. For Constance's girls, who early on fell in love with the subject of Tudor England the way some children fall in love with a sport, New York was rich with resources for their passion. 

 Interested in the Tudor period? For Colby's daughters there was the Metropolitan Museum, the Morgan Library, the New York Public Library, the Cloisters, Renaissance concerts all over town, Renaissance dance at Lincoln Center, Elizabethan cookery at Riverside Church, and the New York City Ballet.

 

As Colby's daughter Anne says in the book, "living in New York was the next best thing to living in London."
 

 

For fans of Gladys Taber, her daughter's book is not to be missed. For those who love New York this book should be fascinating, including those who like me have never been there. 

I'm definitely more of a Country Mouse than a City Mouse. I live in a 1935 cottage in what was once farmland outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

Before that I lived for twenty-six years in a 1920 farmhouse where sausage once hung in the smokehouse. I love the country!

In this house I'm enveloped by old board paneling that calls for country style.

But the older I get the more I lean toward what goes with the first true antique RH and I purchased as newlyweds.

 An 1800s Staffordshire Blue Willow ironstone platter.

 

 

There's not anything more country than Blue Willow and it's just as comfortable in a humble cottage as in a Georgetown townhome dressed to the nines with Chinoiserie.

Speaking of Chinoiserie, I think a touch of it looks well on our eighteen year old Ethan Allen red leather sofa. So does BreeBree, don't you think?

 

Here is a Christmas pillow I found on Etsy with a red amaryllis in a blue and white cachepot. The front is like a hooked wool rug, the back a velvety fabric, with zipper and quality insert. 

It's fancy but is perfect with an old wool tartan throw from Canada.

I will keep it out through winter and must get a picture of it with our Black Pearl amaryllis from White Flower Farm, which won't bloom until after Christmas anyway, as it did last year when I could not get the lighting in this picture to accurately show the rich dark red. 

If you're interested in Constance Taber Colby's book on raising a family in Manhattan, you can find copies of The View from Morningside, One Family's New York for under $10 online, unless you'd rather pay $43 for it on Amazon. I wouldn't!

Any thoughts on whether you would be up for raising a family in a big city? Cons and pros?

Are you ready for Christmas? I need at least another month!

[I do appreciate every comment you leave! For some reason I can no longer publish comments from my phone even though I've signed in and out from Google over and over trying to. I have to go to my laptop in order to publish them so sometime I'm delayed in getting to it. And emails about new posts from me are no longer being sent out and sometime after Christmas I will try to figure out what to do instead. Thanks for your patience!] 

 

Atuumn Longings

 I never buy novels like this one, about men and written by a man.

The cover caught my eye at our local antique mall. I picked it up and found that The Hardhats, a 1955 fictional book by H.M. Newell, is abut the construction of a huge northwestern U.S. dam.

I had to buy it because one of my many unpublished novels is about a man who works for the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. and as part of his job he visits the national dams each year.

You can be the first to read my first page, below, and probably the last to read it! [And spot the cobweb on my lamp.]

Oddly enough, I enjoyed the story of the characters in The Hardhats who are part of the temporary town of construction workers building the fictional dam.

A young woman named Margaret works in the office of the top staff and I recognized her autumn longings as something I experience myself. Perhaps you do too.

...suddenly now the deadening weight of summer was gone too, folding away into the haze of the hills and here were these longings come on her again, sharp and sad and sweet and bitter.

Margaret thought, if it were a thing one could understand about!

But her mind went groping and searching and could put no name to what it was she wanted. She thought of each dessert of which she was especially fond, and of the separate pleasure of sun and rain and breeze on her face, and of country fragrances and sounds she loved and she thought about the voice of Marian Anderson on the radio, and the holy face of Saint Margaret, and she thought about all the beautiful things she had ever seen and some she had never seen at all but only knew by instinct must exist.

...And she thought, exasperated, Whatever is it? What are these cravings so sharp in me?

She thought the gnawing nameless ache was hers alone.

 It's not hers alone, I believe. Margaret's autumn longings may be universal when autumn arrives, even among those of us who claim autumn as our favorite season. 

I love autumn so much and yet there always is that "nameless ache" that Margaret describes. I have made friends with it in the later years of my life.

When I turn my calendar to October it's always true autumn for me. [And here, dear family and friends, is where I ask you to pretend it is early October, when I first began to write this!]

 I go on to do certain things I know will make me happy beyond understanding. I hang up autumn tea towels in the kitchen.

And wash a few autumn pretties.

[That's my October plate in the kitchen, Spode Blue Bird, my wedding china and October is our anniversary month. RH out in the garden watering.]

Unlike years pre-pandemic, RH and I no longer drive to the Nashville Farmers' Market and load the car with beautiful pumpkins and gourds. This year I settled for a few from the grocery store for outside and just sprinkled a few cheery items from the attic around the house. 

 

I make time in autumn to simply stand and watch the trees around the pond in their daily journey to their autumn finery.
 

And I guard the Virginia creeper vine from a husband whose inclination is to tear it down.

[A hard frost stripped the orange leaves from the vine but has turned the huge maple gold.]

I cherished the last few bell peppers growing in large pots on the kitchen porch.

And we pickled the last few jalapeños for vinegar hot sauce for winter pots of pinto beans.

And in October I listen to the music of Marian Anderson and other opera albums that autumn calls for.

Although last week I listened to the music of the legendary country music star Loretta Lynn after her passing. This album done with Jack White, The Van Lear Rose, is a favorite of mine.
 

I've never met Ms. Lynn in person but feel that we're old friends since I claim a "by marriage" relationship to her and her sister Crystal, who I have met, through sharing grandchildren and great-grandchildren with their sister. And I'll miss knowing that she is here, still writing her authentic songs.

Of course in October I bake apple desserts.

And I light my two favorite fall candles from Milkhouse Candle Co...Rake, Pile, Leap!

 And Brown Butter Pumpkin.

 Every couple years I order a fun fall perfume, Demeter's Mulled Cider, not able to afford one I would love from Jo Loves. Although if Santa ever wants to bring me Jo Loves' Advent Calendar at 350 pounds (can't find the symbol for that!], I would not turn it down.

 I turn to seasonal mysteries in October. I think I own every single Charlotte MacLeod mystery ever published, including those under her two non de plumes. But her Peter Shandy mysteries are my favorite. I love the professor detective.

And I dip into my favorite nature book, Edwin Way Teale's Autumn Across America, with the most beautiful prose about nature ever.
 

I also lost an hour of my morning falling down a rabbit hole learning about the fascinating Saint Margaret of Scotland that Margaret of The Hardhats lured me to. I'm an inveterate researcher and she's well worth the time! 

 

And I indulge in another gift of time, curling up with the Harvest Holiday issue of Old World Design Society where creator/curator Angela brings her Door County home to those of us who love antiques and rich layered colors.

The quarterly magazine and being part of the online Old World Society group is my gift to myself year round. It's so much fun and inspiration to see what other members post about their own homes from around the world, many who have been featured in the magazine. Members who post pictures in the group and ask design questions get great advice from other members, many of them professional designers. I admit I've rarely posted there myself because my own cottage is humble compared to many in the group. 

I am madly in love with Angela's huge old copper butler's sink that sat in her barn for two years until they moved to Door County, Wisconsin.

 I get so much pleasure from the Old World Design Society that I'll link to a page about it in case someone is interested. I believe there are three price options for the group. Here!

I guess that the autumn longings that Margaret muses about in The Hardhats is actually a longing for beauty. Why that is more prominent in autumn is something I don't understand but I experience it in my own life.

Do you ever experience any of this?

 

Maybe I'm longing for an Autumn Tree like I used to make at Valley View. It was magical but I guess I'll wait and put up a Christmas tree. 

Do you think November 3rd is too early? If I haven't put you to sleep with this extremely long post!