Spring things....

Two exciting events coming up this Spring...... the arrival of V and S's first grandchild, and the marriage of  V and B's daughter.  Both occasions bring such joy and promise to everyday life, and we're all just thrilled. 

I've already bought my dress for the wedding. Dress shopping can be daunting at times..... you want to buy something that's age-appropriate but you don't want to look like you're wearing something from your grandmother's closet.  So many pretty dresses are made for 20-somethings, and you just can't wear those styles when you're over a certain age, unless you want to look like a fool. 

We have one clothing store in town here that has a nice selection of dresses, especially now when Easter is coming up and all the Spring dresses are coming in.  I went there last week, and saw rack after rack of dresses not-to-be-worn by anyone over the age of 50.  My favorite saleslady was there, and I told her how important this wedding was, and asked her if they had anything other than strapless, sleeveless, size-0 dresses with ruffles from bodice to hem.  She took me towards the back of the store, and there they were..... six racks just filled with beautiful dresses, not strapless, not filled with sequins...... and not a size-0 in sight.

I found a pretty black dress with the fabric below the waist set into diagonal ruffles that were sewn down onto the material, not bouncing around like ruffles usually do. It has a white silk puffy flower at one side of the waist...... just a classic-looking dress a la Audrey Hepburn...... it was sleeveless, but I knew I had the perfect little bolero-style jacket at home that was peacock blue on a black background. The saleslady said to take the dress home and try it on with the jacket..... if I didn't like it, then I could return the dress. Perfect.  Nothing beats a little black dress, especially when the fabric is satiny smooth and rich-looking.

Shoes....... the store had a pair of sparkling silver heels.... which looked so nice with the dress....... but when I got the shoes home and walked around our wood floors with them, I nearly slid from the front hallway to the end of the living room.  Way too slippery, those shoes. I could just picture having to call an ambulance at the wedding reception after sliding down a staircase...... not a good thing. I returned the shoes, kept the dress........  I have brand new black heels in my closet to wear with that great dress.  So excited about this wedding...... to see V's daughter all grown up and walking down the aisle, and her sister will be maid-of-honor....  in the same church where her parents and grandparents got married. It will be a wonderful day.

And then....... V and S are giving a party for their son and daughter-in-law, to celebrate the upcoming birth of their first child. Not exactly a baby shower, because V is inviting the husbands.......... it will be a party with family and close friends, filled with all the love and intimacy that was present when V and S's son got married.  We went to Austin for their wedding... it was our first Texas wedding, and it was beyond lovely.  V and S are so excited.... their first grandbaby, and they already know it's a little girl, which is even more exciting..... the first little baby girl in the family.

I had been looking around for baby gifts.  I'm not too good at picking out baby gifts, not having children of my own. All those clothes, and the different sizes for the ages--- how do you know what to get? How do you know what's going to fit?  I usually get baby books for baby showers........ books for babies, not books about babies.  Kids get more than enough clothes and toys for birthdays and holidays.... but never seem to get enough books, in my opinion. (Spoken like a true book-lover.)

I was in one of the antique shops in town and happened to see the prettiest vintage tea cup.............. and it was pink, a beautiful shade of baby-girl pink. Gorgeous old porcelain cup and saucer, and its pink color got to me thinking that V's daughter-in-law really loves vintage things, and sooner or later, she will have a tea party with her little girl.  What would be better for a tea party than a vintage pink china tea cup and saucer?  I bought that teacup, and then started searching for a child-sized teacup, also in pink.  That took more than a few stores, but I found one, white china with beautiful pink roses all over it......... perfect little-girl sized teacup and saucer.

I will put both teacups in a pretty basket, tucked into pink tissue paper, with a soft pink baby toy or a few pink bibs...... and I will make a card that says "Someday you and your little girl will have a tea party........."      I think the two vintage teacups will make a wonderful keepsake gift for V's daughter-in-law and her baby girl.

Such exciting things to look forward to this Spring....... along with all the wildflowers that will soon be blooming in our fields. Life is good.  Wildflowers, and the perfect little black dress. What more could you possibly want?

February Feast Pot-Luck

Call it February Feast, or call it a Valentine's Party.... we hosted it this past weekend.  Last year, some of the neighbors here just didn't seem to be 'into' Valentine's Day, but those that came to last year's party appreciated the abundance of red and pink hearts and two Valentine trees dripping with hearts and cupids.

So this year, I thought I'd do away with the Valentine invitations (except for those that I was sure wouldn't mind getting a red-heart card in their mailbox) and I sent out invitation cards that said "A Hoot and a Holler."  Underneath that, I wrote "We're having a February Feast Pot-Luck Dinner."  Not a red heart in sight on those cards, but that didn't mean that this house wasn't smothered in Valentine decorations.

We had a smaller group than usual on Saturday night...... two couples were sick with whatever bug has been going around (that my husband and I caught last week and the week before), and two of the neighbors were out of town for the weekend.  One thing about living out here, the guest list isn't as long as we used to have (because there are fewer neighbors here)........ so when two or three can't be here, their absence is noted by everyone. When we lived in Clear Lake, I had a guest list of 40, so when a few people couldn't make it for any given party, no one else seemed to notice till days later because the house was so filled with people. 

However.......... before we got started on the pot-luck dinner on Saturday night, I quickly re-arranged chairs and place settings in the dining room so we could all be at the one long table rather than in three separate table-groupings.  Everything worked out fine, and the dining room table never stopped humming with talking and laughing and catching-up with the goings-on around our little community in these hills.  During dinner and dessert, no one seemed to even want to leave the dining room, except to get another sampling of the pot-luck dishes, or to try just one more taste of one of the desserts. The rule with desserts seems to be 'Take a small taste of everything and then go in for the kill with the one you liked the best.'

So... for next year's Valentine's Day......  I'm thinking that maybe the way to go is just to invite our Valentine-saavy friends here for a sit-down dinner at the dining room table (which seats 14 people with both leaves put into the table-top).  Honestly, if a country-themed invitation card saying "A Hoot and a Holler" doesn't get the attention of the neighbors out here, then nothing will.... at least not during the month of February when red-heart-phobia turns tractor-driving neighbors into quivering piles of jelly.

February? Already?

Didn't we just start January?  Days fly by, weeks disappear, months vanish into the universe. And let's not even start talking about the years........

We're having a rainy morning today..... very warm outside, more like Summer than Spring, and Winter has been a distant memory these past couple of weeks, which is fine with me.  We need all the rain we can get (within reason, of course) to make the wildflowers bloom all over the fields here. I'm waiting for that first April morning when I can look out from the third floor windows and see an ocean of bluebonnets from our yard out into the woods.

Speaking of April, we're looking forward to a wedding that month....... our old-neighborhood  next-door neighbor V's daughter is getting married. V's two 'little' girls used to stop by our house all the time when we lived next door...... they'd come by for tea, or ice cream, or just to say hello and play with Gracie and the cats. "Do you have any new cats, Miss L?"--- that's what they would ask me, since we were always finding strays here and there in the neighborhood. (Nothing has changed... stray cats find their way to our porch here, but we take them to the local shelter.)

V's two little girls have grown into beautiful women.......... one lives up in Dallas, the other is living in Germany.  The Dallas girl, the older daughter, is getting married in April.  I've looked at her wedding web-site, which the 20-something and 30-something crowd seems to do now.... the pictures are beautiful and the engaged couple looks like a perfect fit.  This will be our second Texas wedding.... friends V & S's son got married in Austin--- was it last year, the year before?  As I said in the beginning of this, time is just flying by out of control.

Paper-crafts........ My cousin F sent me these little gift boxes that look like miniature books. She happened to see them at her local Dollar Store and bought them for me because I had mentioned that I wanted to make a Christmas tree for the library, and decorate the tree with miniature books. (Miniature books that don't cost a small fortune, that is.)  So F found these little boxes........ they were covered with red and green paper in a Christmas design. Which would have been fine, of course, but me being me, there's always a way to 'fancy it up' a bit.

The little boxes are only about 3" tall and maybe 2" wide, and the top opens up like a hardcover book, with a space inside which was probably meant to hold a gift-card, or a very small gift.  I got the idea to cover the boxes with artwork from old books..... paperback books from the thrift store, which cost less than 25 cents each.  I found vintage paperbacks:  "East of Eden," "Pride and Prejudice," "Anne of Green Gables," "David Copperfield," and I even found an old copy of "Bridges of Madison County."   I hated to cut up those book-covers, but knowing that it was all for a good cause, I risked the wrath of the Book Police.

I cut the artwork from the front covers and fit it to the size of the little book-boxes..... I used whatever I could from the paperbacks to make each side of those little boxes look like real books..... then I covered everything with clear packing tape. The result.... little miniature books that will decorate a tree for the library.  The little boxes do indeed look like real books, and if I find the right kind of tree, I can just have those little books resting inbetween the branches of the tree. My cousin F suggested that I find the perfect book-lite to use as a tree-top, and to have bookmarks hanging from some of the branches.

So that's how February is starting out.... with a paper-craft project for Christmas.  Love, love, love working with paper.  Hated to cut up those covers on the old paperbacks, though.  I have one more book-box to cover..... so I'm on the search for an old copy of "The Age of Innocence" for that one. I'm hoping that F's Dollar Store gets more of those little boxes.... and I'll be searching the Dollar Stores here for the book-boxes as well.