Yesterday, I was mugged at Homegoods. Mugged by coffee mugs, that is. I have been mugless since I moved to Tennessee. The set of dishes I inherited came with teacups, but no coffee mugs. I knew I wanted something interesting … Continue reading
Certain things can’t be rushed. One of those things is creating a piece of art. I purchased a large canvas for my living room shortly after I moved to Tennessee with the intention of painting a scene from my family’s … Continue reading
When I was in Burkesville the weekend before last, trying to do some super sneaky research for my barn quilt square, I asked Papa if there were any old cast iron skillets that I could have. He had mentioned that there might be some in the basement that had come from my great grandparents’ house. We went down to the basement to investigate.
Well, find a cast iron skillet we did not. But, we did unearth a bunch of really old stuff.
This is an old hand plane that must have been my great grandfather Daddy Barnie’s. Papa mentioned that my Dad would probably really like to have this since he is into woodworking.
I’m not really sure how old this is, but I think it’s hilarious. I need to find out the scoop on this “antique.”
Some of my dad’s old trophies.
8-Track tapes. This form of technology was phased out before I existed.
This here was Papa’s pointer when he was in the army, training soldiers at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. Apparently, if you were in charge, you had a pointer, but not just any pointer. The body of this pointer is made from a hackberry branch that had been overtaken by a vine, thus leaving it grooved in a spiral shape. The ends are a bullet and a casing from a 50 caliber machine gun. I would take that pointer pretty seriously if I were you.
This little contraption is a butter churn. Mama Bersie, Papa’s mother, made all of her own butter. Often, it was Papa’s duty to churn the butter, a job he says he did not much care for.
Papa’s report card from a few years back. Looks like he was a good student.
Papa pulled out Mama Bersie’s trunk and showed me some really neat and REALLY old treasures.
Mama Bersie’s first watch. This must be at least 75 years old.
Letters that Papa wrote to Mama Bersie and Daddy Barnie while he was in college at the University of Kentucky. I will have to read these someday.
Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum that Daddy Barnie gave to Mama Bersie when they were “courting.” This stuff is older than Papa. I wonder if it still has any flavor…
Papa’s housing fee at UK for the semester: $51.00. I’m not sure that would cover one night of housing in a dorm these days.
Tuition certainly has gone up over the past 61 years. There are very few textbooks these days that cost as little as $61.50
This is what Papa really wanted to show me. It’s Mama Bersie’s blue silk wedding dress from over 80 years ago, ordered from the Sears catalog. Papa requested that if/when each of us granddaughters gets married that we sew a little piece of Mama Bersie’s dress into ours. Not only would that be a great treasure on such a special day, but it would be something old, something borrowed, and something blue. I suppose if we were to sew it into our dresses in a functional way, such as a pocket, it could also be something new, too.
This book belonged to Papa’s uncle Nile, who I believe would have been my great great Uncle.
So I went home without a skillet, but Papa cooked up quite a family history lesson for me.
Y’all come back,
Sugarlump
I decided to make my grandparents a barn quilt square for their anniversary gift. I had always been intrigued by these and thought this would be a nice gift considering my grandparents are nearly impossible to shop for and love … Continue reading
Things of which I never tire:
1) Sunsets
2) Laughter
3) Shoes
4) Floor plans
5) Chocolate
6) Family and close friends
7) Mystery
8) Sitting on a porch
9) The unconditional love of my little furballs
10) Mexican food
In an ideal moment, I would be sitting on a porch of a home I designed the floor plan of, with family and friends, furballs at my feet, eating Mexican food followed by something chocolate, while laughing in a fabulous pair of shoes, pondering the great mystery that is life, as the sun sets.
Y’all keep it real,
Sugarlump
I had another one of those serendipitous shopping moments last week. I think, after a while of coming up empty-handed and discouraged, you build up good shopping karma and exactly what you have been looking for everywhere appears right before your eyes. I had this moment in Bed Bath and Beyond. I had looked a couple months back and there was nothing that excited me as I searched for drapery panels for my main living area. My ceilings are 9 feet tall so I needed 108” length panels because I wanted them to puddle slightly at the bottom. You almost never see this length available in the store. Normally they have the 84” and 95” stocked and then the “extended lengths” are available for order online.
Having given up on finding something readymade in the textured woven oatmeal-ish genre, I looked into custom drapes, which would likely be 3-4 times as expensive and take 3-4 times as long to arrive. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to spend that kind of money on drapes for an apartment that is likely temporary and full of abnormally large windows. I also wasn’t sure I would have a use for 7 long panels of something very specific. And I’m impatient.
My solution to this whole dilemma was to ignore it for a while.
It was very effective. Except when I was in my apartment and able to see my naked windows.
Then, one fateful day last week, I stepped foot in Bed Bath and Beyond for the first time in months with low expectations and a glimmer of hope. I didn’t even grab a cart or a basket as I sped toward the drapery department. I walked through the first isle and saw nothing but dreadful polyester in 84” length panels. I headed down the second isle, sure that my drapeless fate was sealed. I reached the end of the isle and saw some drapes that had a nice, chunky woven texture like I had been searching for. And they even had a color that could work: a sandy, oatmeal-y, taupe-ish color. I figured I would have to order them online, but as I pulled back the sample curtain, there lay at least a dozen of the panels in the color I wanted in 108” length! I nearly fainted. Then the adrenaline kicked in and I sprinted (almost) around to the front of the store to grab a cart. I tore around the corner on two wheels in the direction of the drapery section. Thankfully, no one had scooped up all of the panels in the 13.4 seconds I was gone. I quickly pulled out 7 packages and violently threw them into my cart like I was on Supermarket Sweep and headed for the registers.
I only had 1 coupon with me and it was for 20% off one full-priced item. The nice lady at the register asked me if I had any more because I could “save a bundle.” I had had other coupons, but they had expired and I was pretty sure I’d recycled them already. One lady behind me in line had a handful of coupons and offered me a couple of hers. It was so sweet of her but I told her I couldn’t take her coupons from her. The cashier said if I found any more coupons that I should come back and get my receipt adjusted. Wouldn’t you know that I dug around in my car for my coupon folder (I have to have this otherwise I always leave my coupons either a) in my house or b) in a different purse that I am not carrying that day) and found a coupon for 20% off my ENTIRE PURCHASE (read: $84 plus tax in savings). The only issue was that the coupon had expired at the end of July and it was now the first week of September. I know some stores will still take coupons after they have “expired” so I went back into the store and played dumb like I couldn’t read the large print indicating that my coupon had expired on 7/31/12.
It surely was a fateful day because instead of the surly, gum-chewing 20-something woman at customer service, I was called over for service at the register of a nice young man. I gave him the coupon and my receipt from earlier in the day, telling him that I had found my 20% off my ENTIRE PURCHASE coupon I had meant to bring in when I made my purchase. No problem. He was going to take care of that for me right away. And he did.
And I got exactly the drapes I had been looking for, for ¼ the price I had considered spending, in the correct length and color, AND I was able to drive straight home and put them up in 30 minutes.
To say I was/am pleased would hardly cover it.
To say Gus and Scarlet are pleased would hardly cover it. Though it took them weeks to warm up to their new, plush cat beds, they took to the drapes immediately, even before I had them hung on the rods.
If you need me at any point in time for the next few years of my life, I will be lint-rolling and vacuuming these drapes.
But at least I have drapes.
I mean, Scarlett has drapes.
If you need Scarlett, she’ll be snuggling with/guarding the drapes.
Y’all come back,
Sugarlump
The Sugarlump 