Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas,

Love to all from Dewena and R.H.

The Madonna of Humility by Fra Angelico 

[Cover of Ladies' Home Journal December 1951]

Here's Home

Home is waiting for me and RH and Otis and Milo.

Waiting for our beds and books,
     
      and dishes and pans,

      broom and mop,

      dreams and plans.

Home is waiting for boxes of Christmas ornaments

      that won't go on a tree until next year.

We hope you'll join us there and keep us in your

      prayers and thoughts as we travel home to 

      Tennessee on January 6th, to a darling 1935

      cottage on 2 1/2 acres.

We feel it waiting for us, even the sweet barn

      that's waiting for a new bonnet.

P.S. Remind me to tell you sometime about the emotional weeks waiting for our new home as our son Defee chased down one 1950s ranch brick after another only to realize that it was this old cottage that was calling our name!

The Shorter the Sleeves, the Longer the Gloves

[Ladies Home Journal 1951 ad for Van Raalte Gloves]

The Van Raalte glove ads always reminded women of the main glove rule, "The shorter the sleeves, the longer the gloves."

Did any of you wear above-the-elbow gloves with a strapless dress to the prom? 

I did but I never realized that wearing gloves as a "career woman" was as important as wearing my panty girdle back in the early 1960s when I was hired as a receptionist at a large religious publishing company in Nashville. 

Soon after beginning work one of the young editorial assistants firmly suggested she go with me to Cain-Sloan department store on our lunch break to help me choose a pair. 

They were soft black leather wrist-length gloves and I wish I still had them. I was wearing them here -- on my honeymoon -- with the tailored red wool suit my mother made me.

And I was wearing my mother's mink stole. You can bet I felt sophisticated, even in my white harlequin glasses. [I wrote about it here, at my old blog Across the Way.]

I didn't know any women then who thought wearing fur was wrong. All of my girlfriends wished we could afford furs.

I have to admit that if someone had given me this gorgeous chinchilla coat that was in the Ladies Home Journal of 1951, I would have worn it proudly then.

I know--bad, bad, bad. But we didn't know any better, and honestly, speaking from first hand experience of our son's utterly mean tempered pet chinchilla, I might not turn down the coat now. 

After a few months of him always biting the hand that tried to feed him -- me -- I ignored my son's tears and begged the pet shop to take him back.

And believe me, I knew it was a him. The chinchilla knew he was a him too and was very proud of it. [Don't ask.]

So while today if I could squeeze into this to-die-for red wool suit, I would not buy the Persian-lamb collar, or the fur of any other animal.

But it's best not to tempt me with an offer of a chinchilla coat. 

And I still miss the ratty old mink jacket that I left in Nashville when we moved to Florida. I bought it for $40 at a yard sale back in the 1970s, and nothing was warmer on a cold windy winter day when I took Tex and Penelope, and later Otis and Milo for walks through the valley. 

I may have to haunt the estate sales when we move back to Tennessee. Is wearing old fur coats PC now? If I don't wear them out in public and risk getting paint thrown on me? If I only wear a ratty old yard sale one in the privacy of my own back yard? Isn't that just a thrifty form of recycling?

What do you think?

A Halloween Memory

I'm reaching back to the late 1970s for this memory.

One Halloween Day a beautiful good witch came to call on me, escorted by a handsome hippie.

That's my Mama and Daddy there!

They were on their way to a party at my sister's.

Why wasn't I going to the party?

I was home with this little boy who wasn't quite old enough to go trick-or-treating.

This good witch left some red lipstick on Zack.

She'll be celebrating her 92nd birthday next week.

Her charming rascally hippie has gone on to his heavenly home, but would you like to wish the first Dewena a happy 92nd birthday?

Thank you!

Home to Tennessee

A year ago today my post led off with this picture:

I wrote in that post of the joy of clipping berries and wildflowers for our home in Valley View. [here]

Less than 6 months later we had moved from our 1920 Tennessee valley farmhouse to Pointe Vedra Beach, Florida.

Some of you who were slightly dubious of the wisdom of this will not be surprised to learn what I've been doing the past week....

Once again I'm packing up our bits and pieces because R.H. and I are moving back to Tennessee.

I could write pages here about why but since it's been almost two months since I've last posted here, it's probably best just to test the waters and see if I still have any visitors left at the Window.

A big thank you to so many of you who checked on me when Hurricane Matthew visited us! And yes, we did evacuate, to Destin, Florida.

Our daughter and son-in-law took both sets of their parents safely away and we returned two days later as soon as the bridges were open to the island. To very little damage in our own neighborhood but Matthew sure did his best to tear up Christy and Bryan's beautiful yard.

Florida has been a lovely place to visit, but it has just not been home. Put plain and simple, R.H. and I miss living in Nashville, Tennessee. 

Our family in Tennessee will be searching for a place for us to live, and I'll keep you updated as we know more. Prayers would be appreciated so much!

I'm missing out on my favorite season in Tennessee, Autumn, but if we could be home for Christmas it would be lovely.

Everyone should be home for Christmas, don't you think?

Taking a Break

We had a lovely weekend recently 

with Zack and Courtney.

I meant to write about it but here

is a photo of them with R.H. one night

as we ate near the beach.

Taking a little break now from Dewena's Window.

Love to all of you,

Dewena

The Grocery Cart Mysteries

Any other Louise Penny mystery fans out there?

This is the time of year we await her latest Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novel.

My copy of A Great Reckoning: A Novel was pre-ordered and is due to arrive on August 30. That means I'll be pretty much incommunicado from then until I finish it. 

[April 2016 when I'm still on a no dessert diet.]

Here's hoping all my favorite characters will still be alive--and not arrested--in the new novel, including and most of all, Armand himself. Don't tell R.H. but Armand does make my heart go pitter-patter.

[Memorial Day weekend.]

But one other character from the hidden village of Three Pines most intrigues me, that is a bookshop owner named Myrna. I hope her whole story will be told in a future Penny book.

[Late July, pre-doctor appointment grocery cart.]

Myrna is wise and intuitive but most likely as flawed as most of us are. Myrna feels that "if she could just get a good look at a person's bookcases and their grocery cart, she'd pretty much know who they were."

[Same grocery cart as above;

what item did I break before this 

grocery trip? And what "school supply

can I absolutely not run out of?]

Would Myrna have you figured out if she saw yours? Your bookcases and your grocery cart?

My bookcases might be fairly easy for Myrna to sum up since I winnowed my books down to my bare bones essential self when we moved from Tennessee to Florida this spring. Let's save bookcases for another post and focus on grocery carts now.

[August; after hearing lab report at

doctor's appointment.]

Can you put on your detective hat, look at four of my grocery carts since we moved here, and tell me what you know about me?

[Same grocery cart as above, but some

ingredients might mean a TN son is coming

to see us--just saying.]

And what about you? What would your grocery cart tell us about you? 

[These did not get put in my grocery cart

even though I lusted after them.

Can you tell me why?]

I'll start you off by telling you one thing that is always in my grocery cart here in the sunny state of Florida--my pale yellow Sunbrella! I don't leave home without it.

[Saturday's loot from Atlantic Beach

Farmer's Market. There's homemade sun-dried tomato/basil pasta there and rosemary olive bread. Small coconut-pineapple loaf for R.H.

Blistering hot day, 

very grateful for my Sunbrella.]

Are you as sharp as Myrna? Can you solve the grocery cart mysteries?