Come and See! The Project I Have Been Working On Since January!

In January, my future with my employer went away. In February, I started working on designing silver jewelry, and now am ready to launch.  I've had an Etsy shop for a while to test a few things, but my main marketing  method will be in person at shows and events. The show I will be exhibiting at is a 3-day event that draws about 25,000 people. It should be a good starting point. I am so excited I can hardly stand it. :-)


Here's a somewhat edited version of the press release I sent out to media yesterday:
  
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

Local Artist's Handmade Silver Jewelry Celebrates Texas Wildlowers and Our Christian Heritage             

Announcing Pecan Corner, featuring fine Artisan and Christian jewelry by Tina Howard. Original designs in Fine Silver, handmade by the artist, one at a time, in Texas, USA.    

Artisan Tina Howard introduces a new line of Fine Silver jewelry celebrating the beauty of Texas and our Christian heritage, all handmade in Texas, USA.  Howard is exhibiting in Booth #56 at the Brownwood Reunion this weekend, Sept. 20-22.

Created from her original designs and cast in .999 Fine Silver, pieces in the collection range from a large statement "Matthew 6:28 Cross" with Bluebonnets and Sunflowers, and a figural Oilfield Pump Jack, to a series of small charms with individual roadside flowers: Bluebonnet, Wild Geranium, Primrose, Thistle, and Shepherd's Purse. New designs are being added as Howard creates them.

The artist makes each jewel herself, one at a time. She begins by sculpting a prototype by hand, from which a single basic mold is created as the starting point for each successive piece. The nuances of individually molding, firing, and finishing each piece with a significant amount of handwork assures that no piece will ever be identical to any other.

Howard points out that "My pieces look handmade because they are handmade", and notes that you might find her fingerprint permanently cast into a piece once in a while. Even earrings, because each half of the pair is made separately, will vary ever so slightly from its mate. Howard explains that these artistic details are marks of human craftsmanship which machines cannot produce, and anticipates that you, too, will find beauty in the variety.

Howard is proud to offer jewelry that is completely made by hand right here in Texas. In addition, she purchases all of her raw materials from domestic companies and looks for "Made in USA" on her supplies whenever available.

 Howard's designs can be purchased on Etsy.com in her shop named "pecancorner".

Tina Howard is a native of Oklahoma, who has lived in Texas her entire adult life, raising her family in the Big Spring/Midland area, and spending a few years in Port Lavaca before she and her husband Paul moved to their current town  in 2007, where they live in a tiny cottage shaded by pecan trees.

~~~~~~~

Homemade Sweet Cherry Ice Cream: First Freeze of Summer Fresh Fruit

 I know it isn't quite Summer yet, but it is here since I have made the first batch of homemade ice cream. It is cherry season, at least in those places where they grow cherries. Central Texas doesn't get cold enough and gets too hot for the quaint stone fruit, so this is something we must import from places like.... New Mexico*, which I think of as close enough to be almost local.  Anyway, whereever they come from, fresh cherries are abundant and relatively inexpensive right now.

I found a bargain on some that were past their prime, and had been drastically discounted. For ice cream, we want them cut into quarters rather than halves, plus they need to be fully ripe, so this is a good use for imperfect fruit that has reached full flavor. The necessity of tiny pieces of fully ripe fruit I discovered last year when I made the mistake of using commercially frozen peaches in large chunks. They froze so hard that they were not pleasant to eat.

My recipe is a custard-type. It uses egg yolks and is cooked. This makes a luscious, rich ice cream with just the right amount of body. Mema used flour to thicken hers, but I never liked that, I prefer the smoothness of the eggs. The fact that we can buy yard eggs with golden yolks from our neighbor's happy hens is a bonus.

It takes a little practice to learn how to make a custard. There isn't really any secret, just have to be whisking the eggs really fast while pouring a stream of the hot milk into the eggs to "temper" them, then whisk the hot milk really fast while you pour the tempered egg yolk back into the pot and finish cooking. Until you get the hang of it, pour the whole cooked batch through a strainer when it is cooked. That will remove any "scrambled eggs". Eventually you won't need that step any longer.

*(*THINK FOR YOURSELF TIP O' THE DAY: I won't go into the politics of the northwestern state fruit growers and the unreported twists in a lot of the mess our domestic food and immigration policies are in but it is something worth researching sometime. Hint: you will learn a lot if you read news from about 1995 through 2005 on sites sympathetic to Migrant Labor, Fruit Growers, etc. )

Now without further ado, on with the recipe!
 

Fresh Cherry Ice Cream
Makes about 1 1/2 Quarts

1 1/4 Cup Sugar
2 Cups Whole Milk or Half and Half
5 Egg Yolks (freeze the whites to use for meringue)
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Heavy Cream (Whipping Cream)
2 Cups Cherries, pitted and coarsely chopped (about 1 1/2 pounds)

Pit and chop the cherries, stir in 1/4 cup of sugar and set aside until the end.

Scald the milk in a 2 quart saucepan ("scald" means heat to steaming but do not boil).

Whisk the egg yolks and 1 cup of sugar in a mixing bowl.  Temper the yolks by pouring about half the hot milk in a thin stream while whisking the egg yolks very fast. I like to use a pyrex measuring cup for this, just dip it out (careful not to burn yourself) and pour. Makes it easier to keep whisking if you don't have someone to help you.  A stand mixer is also a good helper for this task - it can be beating the eggs whilst you pour.

Then pour the tempered egg yolks back into the rest of the milk while whisking the milk. Cook and stir, to prevent boiling, for 3 or 4 minutes until the mixture has thickened some. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temp. It is at this stage that you can strain it if you wish. 

After the custard has cooled, add the heavy cream and the vanilla extract.

Freeze in your ice cream freezer, following manufacturer's directions. Pay special attention to the need for salt in the freezing process - it is the salt that lowers the temperature below that of ice alone to enable freezing.

When the custard is frozen, remove the dasher and fold in the cherries. At this stage, I transfer my ice cream to freezer containers and put them in the chest freezer. If you want to finish the freezing in your ice cream maker, leave the canister set in the ice, remove the lid and the dasher, stir in the cherries then replace the lid securely, fill the whole bucket with more ice and salt, cover with a towel and let it sit for an hour or two until you are ready to serve, adding more ice as necessary.

I used to use a hand-cranked freezer, but last year I bought an electric one - mainly because my little manual one was not large enough. The electric one seems to take longer to freeze, but since I am not powering it that doesn't hurt! :-)

Enjoy!


About the photo:  Fresh Cherry Ice Cream gets pride of place for its picture in my great grandmother's Pink Cherry Blossom Depression Glass. Big Granddaddy gave this set to Big Grandmother for one of their anniversaries, and I inherited it from her.   Isn't that vintage spoon adorable? It says "Betty Lou" on the handle, and is Carlton Silverplate. I have a funny little collection of figural spoons. I'll take pictures and show them here sometime.

Victory! A World War American Homefront Collection

Well I had planned to blog about starting the garden, but Pat's latest antiquing "Take A Trip" got me thinking it has been a while since I shared some of my World War I & II "Home Front" collection. So let's do that first, then we'll talk gardening (maybe even Victory Gardening!) later.

I've blogged before about the shop-made toys of the WWI and WWII eras: how Germany and Japan had previously been the source of most playthings, trinkets and knicknacks found in the "5 & 10 Cent Stores", but when war started, those imports were cut short. In addition, local factories all converted to making necessities. So the wartime sources for toys were local small workshops, print shops and mom-and-pop side businesses all over America. 


Here's a cardboard playset called "Forward March". The many little soldiers are diecut standees, and the board opens out as a map on which to array the armies.

The little set of red and yellow ships, tanks, and "Big Bertha" type guns are molded composition, died with cochineal and yellow food coloring.

The carved and wood burned "Tank Bank" has little wheels on the bottom, a place to insert pennies for saving, and it is a souvenir of Victoria, Texas. Sometimes known as "poker work", by using a poker or soldering iron to decorate it, no paint was needed. Electric woodburning tools were a popular Christmas gift for kids & adults for many decades.

That little growling bomber plane is a pinback, probably a bit of sweetheart jewelry worn by a mother, sister, wife or girlfriend of a guy in the brand-new "Army Air Corps", which was the forerunner of today's Air Force.

Ever-popular Jigsaw puzzles reflected hopeful themes during the war, and this one titled "Welcome Home" probably gave a serviceman's family much comfort as they dreamed of the day their boy would return from where-ever  Uncle Sam had sent him. The box prominently features the "Buy Savings Bonds for Victory" advertisement.

The "Buy War Savings Bonds and Stamps NOW" notice is in a deck of Russell Artcraft Pinochle playing cards. Card games were a HUGE source of entertainment in those days, and nearly every family had a card table they could set up to play on. Couples got together and played rummy or bridge or pinochle or Canasta (Canasta was THE game in my family! Anybody wanna play?)whenever they had the opportunity.

The Victory theme was everywhere! These are two of my favorite little items: a spool of thread and a little box of bobby pins. The Victory Hair Pins' "Vicky victory - Hair Aid Warden" (playing on the "Air Raid Warden" who helped coordinate evacuation plans for each neighborhood), and a sewing thread company's mascot, "the Corticelli Kitten" in his own little kitty helmet, with weapon and bayonet, marching off to
serve his country. 

In both instances, the cute themes reflect serious rationing of raw materials as well as manufactured goods and food items: the hair pins were meant to be carried back to the beauty shop for reuse on your own hair, just as we carry our shopping bags today, because "Uncle Sam needs the Steel!", and the Belco thread was a substitute for unobtainable silk and nylon, both of which were being consumed as parachute material for our fighting men.

I keep running out of "blog space" before I get to the books, albums, and paper items in my collection. Oh well, there's always next time!  If you collect Home Front or World War memorabilia, please post and tell us about your favorite items in your collection, and why you appreciate them.

We Occupied Our Own Home For Thanksgiving Dinner

What a nice day. It was a day to be thankful for. God has blessed us so abundantly. I hope we always remember to appreciate the blessings each moment carries for us.

It was just the two of us, but we cooked the full meal. I gathered some shrubbery and weeds for "flowers" for the table. We talked on the phone to all the various family strewn far and wide. Paul watched the Dolphins pull defeat out of the hat again. I took a nap! We cleaned up the kitchen together and the dishwasher is running. We just wrapped up with pumpkin pie and whipped cream.

I have a set of Lenox china. It's a plain pattern with no decoration but a simple platinum rim. So I pick up odd pieces here and there for variety. Since Lenox uses its distinctive "American Beleek" china as the base for all wares, it's easy - and beautiful - to mix & match.

I found (aka bought) this neat set of Bicentennial plates marked "Courtesy of the Delaware Fund", and used them today. There are four of them: one pictures Independence Hall, another Delaware's Old State House, another the Frigate United States "The Old Wagon".

And then there's this one. This plate pictures the New York Stock Exchange, on Wall Street.  Heh.

The irony was delicious, but not as delicious as Paul's turkey!

We are thankful today. Thankful to occupy our own home. Thankful to live in America. Thankful to have family and friends. Thankful that Jesus Christ came and died, and rose again, to give us the only real hope there is: the hope of eternal life with our Father God.

I hope that the sincere remnant who are taking part in the "Occupy" marketing campaign will someday know the kind of appreciation and gratefulness that comes of earning one's way past the debts & unemployment & low wages that young people in all eras struggle with.

It's a beautiful world, and life is worth the effort and work that a good life requires.

May God bless you and yours with grateful hearts this season.

Here's the Bible passage Paul used for today:

"Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
... Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.

Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.

Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name."
I Chronicles 29:11-13 (NIV)

Adding To Our Media Library: Best British Mysteries, Clean Comedy, and Awesome Nature & Travel Documentaries

So today I have been searching for DVD bargains on Amazon. We are fleshing out our collection with clean comedy, documentaries, movies we'll watch over and over. I do not have an Amazon affiliate account, so it you are going to buy from there, be sure and use the Amazon Search Box on your favorite blog. They'll make a little on it and it won't add to your cost. :-)  Amazon has great promos lately.

Clean Comedy: The funniest comedians make us laugh without embarassing us, and comics like Jeff Allen stand right up there with Jeff Foxworthy. My husband has a new by-word: "I'm a happy, happy, man." Heh.

Two great collections to pick new favorite entertainers from are the Apostles of Comedy and Thou Shalt Laugh (several volumes available - we started with Volumes 1 & 2. Read the reviews before buying - viewers say Volume 3 contains inappropriate material).

Used Boxed Sets on Amazon can be a real bargain. Be sure you are getting the DVD version, because there are still some VHS tapes down in the "lowest price first" sort!

If you don't yet own "Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series" with the original David Attenborough's narration, it's a great bargain right now. I got a pristine set last month for less than $15.00. That's 550 minutes - more than 9 hours - of magnificent footage. Get the regular dvd, not the HD one - the regular boxed set contains hours more programming with fascinating "behind the scenes" footage.

I ordered the "Reader's Digest Journeys of a Lifetime Boxed Set" today. It has 13 hours of armchair travel for as low as $5.00. These kinds of things are nice to unwind and settle down with right before bed time.

More than 6 hours of "TV Classics: Westerns Vol. 1 and 2 (Box Set)" for a penny - $3 once you add in shipping. Buy from Amazon for $2.98 with free shipping. Or find a "just launched" seller and buy from them - support home businesses by helping a new seller get of the ground!

The BBC did a series of "The Chronicles of Narnia (BBC)" in the 1980s that reviewers say is even better than the recent movies. One reviewer notes that the BBC version is carefully true to the story as written by C.S. Lewis, so the nuances of the books remain intact. I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Speaking of the BBC and Masterpiece Mystery, some of my favorite recent discoveries on the British Mystery front are:

New Tricks - There just aren't enough praises for this well written, perfectly cast ensemble series about an engaging trio of retired detectives dragged back into service by a cute, tough, woman inspector who's young enough to be their daughter, good (and old) enough to be their boss, and real enough to need their friendship. The age jokes are realistic - and funny - but it's the serious plots that won me over. Interesting cold-case crimes that unfold in fascinating detail, that require both deep historical research and human deduction to unravel. Warm and believable relationships between the characters (nearly all the supporting cast recur, just as they would in real life). Love the characters, love the scripts, love the theme song, love the series!

Sherlock - Another that rates pure applause. The premise sounded like a bad idea: Conan-Doyle's detective set into the 21st century world. I thought: "Yawn." I feared Romeo & Juliet in blue jeans. Then when the show started I sat up and paid attention. Wow. Simply, truly, brilliant.

Here's an idea of how good "Sherlock" is: 259 reviews on Amazon, and 247 of them are 4 star or better (224 are 5 star!)! Smart. Witty. Fast paced. Clever. Not suitable for young children, as the violence is dark, but not gratuitously so, and so far it is relatively "clean".  Martin Freeman's Dr. Watson is perhaps the best I've ever seen, and Benedict Cumberbatch pays tribute to Jeremy Brett's fearless high energy while making the role his very own.

Speaking of Sherlock, Gerard Van Der Leun of "American Digest", has a downloadable PDF of his book "The Quotable Sherlock Holmes" available free to his readers. Or, you can buy a print copy or the Kindle Edition on Amazon.  (I'll also take this opportunity to thank him for permission to keep and display the nifty "Welcome to Texas" Bilboard over on the left (my other left).

Other Greatest Hits of the BBC and PBS Mystery include Mr Palfrey of Westminster - a surprisingly clever (and believable) series about a cold war era consumate British spy catcher working within the heart of London to foil Russian efforts to undermine Western governments. Presents as a "cozy" but it is not.  The cloak and dagger deceptions extend even to his own staff, and Palfrey's counter-espionage skill will keep you guessing. It reminds me pleasantly of LeCarre's low-key approach.

I've written before about Inspector Lewis. It's still a favorite and I plan to buy the series soon. I'll watch this one for a long time. (P.S. Paul says "You forgot Lovejoy. You need to mention Lovejoy in there. It's still a favorite of your husband, who plans to buy the series soon." Hee!)

Once you get past the low budget cinematography, the BBC movies (actually mini-series - some are nearly 5 hours long) made from PD James' books that star Roy Marsden as Adam Dagliesh are very good. The two more recent, standard-length movies in which Martin Shaw is cast as Dagliesh, Death in Holy Orders and The Murder Room, are also excellent. Each man brings a different look at the complex poet-detective's personality.

I ordered a couple more neat dvds totalling less than $5 each with SuperSaver shipping, but I can't mention them here yet because I want to surprise Paul with them, and he reads Pecan Corner. Hi, Honey! Love you much! :-D

So what great media bargains have you found recently? Or have you discovered a fab British, Scots or Irish show that we all need to know about? Do tell!

Have Fairy Potters Been in My Garden? A Wonder From One of God's Little Creatures

One of my earliest collections, when I was a little kid, was miniature pitchers.  The two white porcelain ones near the front of this photo were in our little shoebox of playthings at Big Grandmother's house from my tiniest days. One is actually a doll's sugar bowl but it had lost one handle long before I came along. The dark pewter one just behind them (and in front of the Holy Bible) was the first antique I bought for myself, when I was about 9. It is very old, and until Sunday was the smallest of miniature pots in my collection.

On Sunday, I added a new pot, so tiny and fragile that it is protected in the clear glass jar to the right of the peach pit basket.

Let's open the jar and see. It doesn't look like much in there, does it?

Ah. That's better.  It looks for all the world like the seed pots that studio potters were so fond of in the 1970s.  Except it is so tiny it makes a penny look large.

I found this little pot a couple of weeks ago. On a geranium leaf in the side yard!

A tiny mud pot, as round as one coil-built of clay, tapering to a slender neck and finished off with oh so thin and fragile flaring rim.

At the time I found it, the neck was still open, as though it were a vase waiting for a flower. But I knew that it wasn't, even though I'd never seen this before.  So finely made that it might be at home with one of Rose Cabat's Feelie Pots, this was not made by human hands.

It was, instead, the home of a tiny creature. When I went back to check on it  a few days later, the hole in the neck had been sealed up. So I just waited.

On Sunday, the side of the vase had been broken open and the small creature had moved on to the next phase of its life. So I carefully picked up the tiny pot and brought it inside.

With the opening in the side, it now looks something like the crockery bottle birdhouses that the Prichards' make at the Luling Icehouse Pottery  ( They are a warm and friendly couple - we bought birdhouses from them for our gift shop when we lived on the coast ).

Wow I love the internet. I used to have an enormous library of references on all kinds of subjects, and it was a labor of love to spend hours searching through various volumes to try to find an answer. But sometimes I just didn't have the right book to find it. That's where Yahoo search and Texas A&M's amazing online resources come in.

In just a couple of minutes, I learned this little pot is made by the Potter Wasp as a cradle for its next generation. It's scientific name is (Order) Hymenoptera: (Species or Family) Vespidae: (subfamily) Eumeninae. 

We've had blue-black mud daubers (aka dirt daubers) everywhere I've ever lived. They are a harmless - actually beneficial - wasp that does not sting so I leave them alone, but their houses are not very attractive.

The Potter Wasp is kinfolk to the dirt daubers, a small, solitary wasp that can sting but usually won't. It sounds like it keeps to itself, so maybe that's why I haven't seen it before.

From lightning bugs to butterflies to potter wasps, is it any wonder people once believed in fairies?

Pottery is one of the oldest arts of mankind. And throughout the Bible, God's relationship with man is referred to as that of The Potter to the clay. Even the anthropological history and linguistics identify Man with the clay, and God with The Potter.

The shared attributes of various creatures, even down to the need for a home, points to the maker's mark. Some creatures are more simple, some complex, but a single Creator.

The infinite variety of God's creatures is so amazing. There are wonders everywhere we look, if we pay attention.

Display Ideas For Vintage Recipe Booklets

A lot of my collections are made of paper. Vintage advertising recipe booklets are one such, and I have a few I just couldn't part with. Colorful and witty, those cute little recipe folders are just too fun to leave in a drawer.

I mean, in our Tex-Mex kitchen, who could resist 1920s and 1930s "Tasty Tested Anglo Recipes", "Gebhardt's Mexican-Style Foods" and "Walker's Red Hot Chile Con Carne"? The Walker's one, red with a bright green sombrero, is actually from 1918, the WWI era.

The company was based in Austin, Texas. Gebhardt is also an old Texas company - I still use their chili powder today for general cooking (I use Morton's Chili Blend for actual chili). And Anglo not only made canned hams and corned beef, but also advertises Deviled Ham, Deviled Tongue and Liver Spread!

One of the little projects I've had on my list was to find a way to display them that didn't take space away from some other wonderful thing that needs a prominent home!

Inspired by my new cabinets, I finally got around to it last month.

This is a super-simple project. I used the hard clear cases that sports cards collectors use, and glued a piece of sheet magnet on the back. It's a good use for those magnetic business cards we keep long after the realtor pictured has moved on.

Voila! (which is how the word "Walla!" is spelled!)

Refrigerator magnets that can be changed out, and the keep the booklet available, just in case we suddenly decide to try that recipe for jellied liver tea sandwiches.

Aren't they cute? If you have other ideas for showing off vintage paper, please share! There's always something cute that needs just the perfect treatment....

A Few More Examples of Vintage Mexican Pottery

For those of us in the Southwest, the fusion of cultures has always been evident in our lives, and a big part of the reason we are so passionate about the places we live.

Who are we? We're Texans. We aren't Swedish-Texans or Mexican-Texans or African-Texans or German-Texans or Vietnamese-Texans or Spanish-Texans or Californian-Texans or New Yorker-Texans. No matter where we're from or how we grew up, we aren't hyphenated: we're all one. The American Melting Pot is alive and well and still doing its good work in Texas.

This applies to our decorating styles as well as the way we live and go about our business every day. And Mexican pottery is a part of the exuberant style that characterizes Texas homes of all sorts.

Some of Pecan Corner's more popular posts, week in and week out, are about collecting vintage Mexican pottery. So I thought I'd show off some more of my collection, and add a little information about the styles and types.

The pieces that stay with me are special in their own right - my focus has always been simply whether I love the individual piece. As antiquers, though, we've sold a lot of it over the years, and I tend to sell things if the price shoots up - mainly so I don't have to worry about breaking something valuable! So while I never needed to learn about it in order to collect, I did learn some things in order to sell those pieces that don't need to stay in my house.

There was a time where Mexican pottery chicken casseroles were as common in Texas homes as Singer sewing machines. For years, we bought them weekly and sold them just as quickly. So many of them have moved in to larger collections now that they are harder to find. This one was a present from Paul a couple of years ago. We think the "come hither" look in her eyes is adorable.

This pottery skillet is done in a style called "Fantasia", for obvious reasons. Most commonly found in the blue decoration on cream colored background like this one, it can also be found in other colors, such as green
on terracotta ground. The all-over pattern of stylized florals and animals in a single color is the telltale characteristic. Paul loves this, and is partial to the blue-and-cream.

The urn-shaped vases in this group are my favorite type of ware, called "Petatillo". The detailed crosshatching filling all the space surrounding the main images make it immediately recognizable. Written in pencil on the bottom of the largest one is "Guadalahara Bought in Tampico 1939". The middle-sized one has the partial remains of its original paper label "La Casa Del _____ Monterrey".

This colorful wall plate is purely decorative, and made of "burnished ware", meaning the partially-dried clay was rubbed, or burnished, to a sheen with a stick. Probably made in Tonala, this technique was shared by pueblo Indian potters, including the famous San Ildefonso wares. It isn't as highly fired as the lead-glazed redware that is my favorite, so it didn't last as long, but it has a character all its own.

My bean pots are just that: bean pots. Made for households to cook in, utilitarian but still decorated to make the work a little more pleasant. we all love pretty dishes, no matter what culture we come from. And that may be almost instinctual - pottery making was one of mankind's earliest arts, and those early pieces are identifiable because they are decorated.

In our globally-uniform professionally-marketed designer-driven retail culture, everything is the same, no matter where it is from. Machine-made or hand-made doesn't change that, and we can find ourselves driven from novelty to novelty in a fruitless search for the authentic and original.

This old pottery is both of those things. Authentic and produced by people who sold it to make a living using the materials at hand and the techniques developed by their grandfathers, original in the work of each artist that painted it using his own ideas and natural talent to express himself that day.

It is what it is. There's very little we can truthfully say that about these days.

6/6/11 Update: Thanks to Pat @ SIGIS for the link! :-)

Bluebird Bathroom Remodel

This house is over a hundred years old, and when we bought it, we locked the door on the old smallest bathroom until we could get it redone. As it turned out, my eldest, Devin, took the bull by the horns and rebuilt it. What a wonderful thing a son is! :-)

Here's the finished product:

And here's the scary "before":

The old floor had rotted, except for that under the cast iron tub, so he took it down to earth and built a new subfloor for the main part of the room. While the floor was out, he also did some leveling and reinforcing.

Tearing into an old house is always an adventure. (Maybe I'll post pictures nexxt Halloween ;-) )The original wall is solid wood boards, and backs up on a bedroom. Not wanting to lose space in either room by messing with the wall, we made the choices to limit what we did there. Thus, the single high electrical outlet is still the only one; and the medicine cabinet hangs on the wall instead of being recessed.

The room is 3 feet wide by 8 feet long, not counting the tub enclosure/hot water heater closet. Replaced the toilet and added a small pedestal sink to free up as much space as possible, but removing half a ton of bathtub wasn't happening, so I refinished it (more on that later, in my next post).

The new window went into the same hole the old one came out of - again to avoid a cascade of consequences: the solid wood exterior wall, the exterior siding, and more important, the location of structural elements.

We did add a shower, which this bath had never had, and the window placement presented a clallenge there. The window extends into the shower enclosure past the edge of the tub, so there isn't a wall area to attach a curtain rod on that end.  We handled that by using a curved shower rod - worked like a charm!

Paul said "I can't believe you actually had a laundry bag with bluebirds on it!"  It has been in the laundry room for a while but it never really "fit" in there - this is a much nicer spot for it. It pays sometimes to be a packrat.

The pale baby blue and white are comforting in such a small room. The curtains are a pair of crisp cotton pillowcases with a rod pocket sewn into the top. The soft vintage embroidery at the wide hem is touched with blue.

These little sconce shelves are made of metal - iron, I think.




This little guy is from the 1960s heyday of ceramic and chalkware figural wall art. He's made of ceramic and I love his pretty googly eyes!

This glass Blue Bird of Happiness hides in the medicine cabinet, along with an antique Victorian Sunday School card and assorted pretty guest soaps,  ready to promote a smile from a visitor.

The bluebirds were a sort of accident - I didn't have to buy a single one. Who knew there were so many blue bird themed items lurking around my house?

The famed Bluebird of Happiness does live in one's own backyard... and kitchen cupboard... and desk drawer... and linen closet... and laundry room... Hee!

The entire project took Devin several days of hard work over the course of a couple of months  - rushing down here to work on his days off when he wasn't needed at home (he lives four hours away).  The demolition was the most difficult part. What an amazing rennovation once it was complete!

What an amazing son to do this for us. Thank you so much Honey!

If You Love Paris

Erin Elizabeth, of the blog My Heart Belongs To Me (link from the sidebar as well), recently traveled to France with her sister Neile. Her posts overflow with memorable photos of Paris - can you smell the rain on the avenue, the clementines in the market, the flowers on the vendor's corner, the sugar from the treat shop window?

The "love locks" along the Seine made my heart melt. What a romantic little memento to leave along the way in a love story!

From mossy tombs to modern museums, from french fashion to fresh design, from morning of the day to the lively night, Erin's posts make for a lovely armchair afternoon in the city of light.

we’ll always have paris

paris. day 1.

paris. day 2.

paris. day 3.

paris. day 4.

paris. day 5.

paris. day 6.

Part Two: 18th Century Business Women in Publishing: Limited Only By 20th Century Interpretation

We like to recognize "firsts", but so often that's the least interesting part of the story. Mary Katherine Goddard's career is most fascinating to me because it was neither unusual nor controversial in its time. In fact she reflects the ordinariness of a successful business woman in the 18th century, when women published 16 newspapers in the colonies - nearly a quarter of the 78 papers put out each week.

And that is only the women who owned the presses: how many more were employed in all these various shops, as unheralded as the also forgotten men who worked beside them?

Printing was actually a rather common occupation for a woman in the 17th and 18th (and 19th) Centuries. So common that it was little remarked. In 1638, Elizabeth Glover (who later married Harvard's first president) founded the first press in Massachusetts. Her Cambridge Press published the famous "Bay Psalm Book", the first book printed in the colonies.

A publishing dynasty began in 1738 when Elizabeth Timothy took over publication of the South Carolina Gazette as Benjamin Franklin's partner, then left the press to her son who operated it until his death, when he was succeeded by his wife Ann. Cornelia Bradford succeeded her husband as publisher of Philadelphia's American Weekly Mercury in 1742.

Anne Catherine Hoff Green continued the family publishing business in Anapolis after she was widowed in 1767, and became the official printer for the Maryland General Assembly in her own name. Her business was later renamed "Anne Catherine Green & Son, Printers", but she retained control of the reins and they worked for her. Two of her sons and her granson followed her in earning their livelihood as printers.

Following her husband's death in 1773, Clementina Rind ran the Williamsburg Virginia Gazette and was named official printer of Virginia.

Again and again we hear feminists say these women "don't count" because they were only in business by default through their husbands or fathers. They are excluded from lists of Firsts and from lists of accomplished women.

These stories do not show what they are assumed to by people who fail to understand the substance of legal marriage in a predominently Christian or Jewish society as a full joining of male and female into a single social and economic entity as well as a spiritual and physical one. In older days, widows were frequently elected to political positions, including Governor, in
their own right, by a citizenry that fundamentally credited women as full partners in all the achievements of the marriage, recognizing either party's success as stemming from a united purpose.

Is that an old fashioned way of looking at things?

Strangely, even this common occurance in our earlier history of electing women as Governors is poo-poo'ed. Texas tied with Wyoming, both electing women as governors on 1924 - the same year than New Mexico's Hispanic Woman Secretary of State served as interim governor of New Mexico.

These stories are ignored, discounted, and actively hidden by agenda-driven feminists and progressive writers & academics, playing with semantics. One wonders why they refuse to admit to those early accomplishments, and even more why they dually ignore similar husband/wife mutual interests today.

Why? It does not lessen any person's own accomplishment to admit that others have also achieved a position. It does not make the one greater to ignore history and accuracy in reporting.

Did anyone blink when Kimora Lee Simmons took over as CEO of Phat after her ex-husband & company founder Russell Simmons stepped aside? Do people say her achievements "don't count" because her husband started the business or because they ran it as partners? No? Of course not - it would be outrageous to apply that logic. It is just as outrageous to discount the talent and earned prominence of other wives in earlier eras.

Consider how the legacy of Mrs. Coretta Scott King was her own yet inextricably joined with that of her husband, Dr Martin Luther King.

Or the appointment of Missouri First Lady Jean Caranhan, widow of Governor Mel Carnahan, to the US Senate in 2001 in the place of her husband who had passed away during the campaign for Senator and been elected postumously. Had Hilary Clinton been more focused on winning the nomination and less intent on proving she was not running as Bill's wife, she'd be our President today.

Margaret Chase Smith still holds the record as the longest serving, most successful female US senator - and she was originally elected as the widow of the Congressman upon his death.

Does anyone discount the achievements (or controversies) of Indira Gandhi because she succeeded her father Jarawalal Nehru as Prime Minister of India? Or claim that Benazir Bhutto was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan only because her father had held the office before her?

Just so, these women in Colonial times were not mere tokens thrown by chance tragedy into business, struggling ineffectually against an adversarial society. Far from it. The original sources show they were accepted without question and with full confidence in their capacity to run a profitable business and meet the exacting needs of their clients.




Photo: From an 1865 issue of Harper's Weekly "The Magazine of Civilization", image of workers (both women and men) in a large commercial printing operation.

Other articles in the theme:

Read Part 1 - 18th Century Equal Opportunity & Success: Some Women Printers in Colonial America

Read - Working Women in Earlier America: Not so Uncommon After All

A Texican Christmas Tree

We are slowly changing over the decor in our house to be a little more SouthWestern / Old West / Texican Ranch style (YAY! some of our cute things can come out of storage!), and this year we used items from my collections to decorate the Christmas tree.

Some things are on our tree every year - like the Nina, Pinta & Santa Maria ships in bottles and old world explorers globes. We carried these in our gift shop when we lived on the coast. Down there, they were "beachy". And I saw pics of a great steam punk Christmas tree the other day that used similar ones of steam ships (done by Steampunk Awareness on Facebook).




Paul had the brilliant idea of putting hangers on my redware salt & pepper shakers (they are in the Tlaquepaque style). He also me brought the tiny Native American baskets.








The DeGrazia bells are miniature versions of the traditional wind bells so common in Arizona and New Mexico. I have some large ones hanging on the porch. Their deep and sonorous toll is a low, occasional sound on the wind. Because of their weight, it takes a strong wind to move them at all, so high or constant winds are not a problem for them.



Here's a bona-fide mexican pottery ornament. This type of ware is called "burnished", and it is characteristic of some Tonala pottery. The piece is rubbed - or burnished - with a smooth stick before firing. This gives it a nice matte finish compared to glazed pottery. My heart still belongs to the old lead-glazed redware, though.



This box reminds me I need to show off my Mexican lacquerware sometime. That is a stylized rabbit figure in case you can't tell. This kind of work used to be done by painting on layers and carving down to the different colors. Now, it is often done as a sort of decopage, by pasting on cut-out paper shapes and then painting and glazing over them. Mexico is the only other culture to have developed genuine lacquer work as a decorative art.




The little Madonna was originally part of a creche set.






What is a tree without toys? This pottery whistle and pyrography (wood burned) gourd rattle are worlds apart but both are owls! :-)

Feliz Navidad to one and all!