Weekending

And it was a good one!

Saturday morning I went to the NJ Sheep and Fiber Festival. I'm lucky enough to live just 20 minutes down the road from the fairgrounds, and it's always a good time. This year it was even better because in addition to sheep of all kinds, yarn, new-to-me dyers, and even angora bunnies, I got to meet Dee and Vera in person! They are both lovely people and wonderful company to wander through a fiber festival with.

We asked a vendor to take our photo, and this was the best of three attempts.
 None of us is blurry in real life and we all look much better than this photo shows. :-)

Bridget was also there, but sadly I didn't get to meet her. I had some family obligations and had to leave after being there for only about an hour or so, but I still had time to see the sheep and all manner of fiber-providing animals.

And then there were all the vendors and yarn. This is a Goldilocks type of festival, just the right size to provide plenty of beautiful yarn, but not overwhelming.

White Birch Fiber Arts was new to me, and she had loads of gorgeous self-striping sock yarns, beautifully displayed with samples of how they knit up.

I had to get two skeins because I knew Ryan would covet the fingerless mitts I intend to knit with "Nothing Says Screw You Like A Rainbow" and I would feel like a terrible mother when I wouldn't give them up. This was my only purchase, but that is only because Wandering Wool didn't have the rainbow gradient she used to make this sample sock that stopped me in my tracks.

Luckily for me , Joelle has a website and said she would be very happy to dye some for me, so I know there will be matching sock cakes of this yarn in my hands and on my needles in the future.

It's a rainy, gloomy Monday and I'm back in MD, but the fun of spending time with Dee, Vera, and sheep along with the potential of rainbow knitting makes up for this dreary day. I do hope your weekend was as nice as mine!

Eighty-Two Years Ago ...

... there was an attempted burglary.

We bought furniture for the house in MD, but couldn't find a desk that we liked at the right price at furniture stores. We looked around at antique stores and yard sales before we found something we thought would work on Craigslist. It was miles away in Baltimore and we weren't sure that it would fit in my Subaru, but then the universe presented us with another option.

We were home in NJ for the weekend and headed to Goodwill to donate some of the stuff I've cleared out of this house. We decided to take a look through the store, just in case, and came upon this desk. I was skeptical because the top looked pretty beat up, it wasn't even attached, and some of the drawers were in bad shape. But when I looked at the price tag, we decided we could afford $24.00 to see if it would work.

We loaded it into my car in the pouring rain, and it fit perfectly with just a couple inches to spare. I drove it to MD last week, where we unloaded it into the garage and started taking it apart for refinishing. Things had gone well to that point (a really good price, it fit in my car), but it got even better.

When we took the drawers out, we found this penciled note on the bottom of one of them. "Burglars entered store Sun. nite July 19, 1936 and ransacked the office - opening the drawers that were locked in my desk but apparently nothing was taken - the same nite they broke into the Kauffman store Hatfield and took cash in register and the marks of tool used in prying open is identical in both places."

I am a sucker for stories, so this made the desk darn near perfect for me. I haven't been able to find out anything about where this desk was located or the Kauffman store, but when we're done sanding, fixing, and finishing the desk, I'm going to pencil another note about how the desk ended up in MD to continue the story. I love it, pry marks and all!

Three on Thursday

Today I'm joining Carole and friends for Three on Thursday. Yesterday I had to drive back to NJ from MD, and it was one of those clench-the-steering-wheel, white-knuckle drives due to traffic, trucks, and construction. Luckily I can listen to my favorite NPR station all the way, so here are three things I learned from listening to WHYY yesterday.

1.  Andrew Wyeth was an interesting and complex person. On Radio Times, Marty Moss-Coane talked with a filmmaker and a Wyeth curator about the artist and a new documentary, entitled simply Wyeth, that will be shown on PBS' American Masters on Friday.

My mother loved "Christina's World" and took us to the Philadelphia Art Museum several times so we could see it and the rest of a Wyeth exhibit in person. At that time in my childhood it felt like a boring trek to stare uncomprehendingly at some dull, muted paintings. I'm not sure that I appreciate his paintings much more as an adult, but I did enjoy learning about Wyeth, his wife Betsy, and especially the fact that he painted Snow Hill above, one of his few paintings to show some color and joy.

2.  I know William Shatner from Star Trek and Priceline, but I learned that he has done almost everything, including "singing" Rocket Man. He was interviewed on 1A talking about his new memoir Live Long and ... What I Learned Along the Way. The host was a poor interviewer, and I'm still not sure whether Shatner is enthusiastic, crazy, or both, but I did learn that I can pre-order his new Christmas album.

3.  The last and best thing I learned from NPR yesterday was that Steven Johnson has written a great new book, Farsighted. I was so excited to hear about this that I had to pull over and write it down so I wouldn't forget. The subtitle is "How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most", which sounded so intriguing and timely for me that I had to start the book last night. I don't think it's a self-help book, but more a discussion about how to consider all the factors involved in making consequential decisions. When I learned that the final chapter has an analysis of Dorothea’s decision-making in Middlemarch (one of Margene's favorites), I knew I had to read it. I'll let you know what I learn about decision-making. 

So what have you learned lately? Head on over here to read more Three on Thursday posts to learn what others are thinking and doing.

Words in the Wild ...

... and in my purse and on my mind.

When I was in Colorado visiting Ryan, I ran some errands for him. I was waiting at the Walgreens counter with my purchases when I saw this notebook. I almost always try to resist impulse purchases of things I don't really need, but it turns out I needed this.

Over the past few months I've had a series of experiences that have felt a lot like failures. Some have been my fault, others I think I could have prevented, and some were just fate, but no matter the cause there have still been a lot of them. I did need a new notebook for my to-do lists, but even more, I felt that I needed this notebook. It now has a place in my purse where it reminds me every day that behind these failures, there are lessons for me to learn. I haven't discovered all of them yet, but this notebook is serving as a colorful, necessary reminder.

Sometimes Monday ...

... is a day of Labor in Maryland.

We've refinished a desk,

finished the pad so the new shed can be delivered tomorrow,

and best of all, John built clothesline poles for me and cemented them in. I can't wait to hang laundry out when the cement is dried and set. 

I mowed the lawn while he was working on the clothesline, and at 93 degrees and 73% humidity, that definitely felt like labor. Here's hoping your Labor Day is relaxing and enjoyable.

Flowers on Friday

The clematis in this photo is originally from John's grandmother. She grew hundreds of lovely flowers in her garden, and when she passed away, we dug up as many as we could and shared them throughout the family. This one didn't bloom at my house for over seven years, until I finally moved it to a sunnier location and mulched the roots to keep them cool and protected. It's still not a prolific bloomer, but since we've estimated that it's most likely 70-80 years old, that is to be expected.

Last year I thought it might be time to plant another clematis, in preparation for the sad day when Mom-Mom's finally gave up. I bought one cheaply at a big box store, and since it was labeled jackmanii, I expected the blossoms to be purple. The first surprise was that it bloomed last fall, and the second surprise was that the tiny white fragrant flowers were those of a sweet autumn clematis. I was a bit disgruntled because I really wanted a second purple one, so I didn't pay a lot of attention to it last year.

This year it's impossible to ignore, and who can really be grumpy about such a profusion of flowers? Mom-Mom's has only had a very few sad blossoms this year, but it's still hanging in there while surrounded by hundreds of the sweet autumn clematis flowers.

There is still room along the trellis for one more clematis, so I think I'll try my luck with another one. I do want more purple blossoms (labeled correctly this time), but it turns out that some surprises can be unexpectedly beautiful.

Three on Thursday

Carole is staycationing this week so there may not be an "official" ToT linkup and you can go here to read more Three on Thursday thoughts! I've got three things, so today I'm going to share with you three meaningful objects in my home that I often take for granted but have recently cleaned and now feel a renewed appreciation. (How's that for a long description that I couldn't shorten?)

Back in January of 2002 my mother was quite ill with metastatic breast cancer. Hospice had told us that there wasn't much more time, and I was making the drive to my parents' house every day as soon as I put the kids on the bus. I wanted to do something for my mother, but she wasn't eating, speaking, or responding at all, so I wasn't sure what that "something" might be. I stopped at our local florist, and was lucky enough to find a small pot of daffodils in the depths of winter. I also got this daffodil cache pot, and these graced her bedside for a few days until her death. The pot has had a place on my kitchen windowsill ever since then, and eventually became a place for the wishbones that the boys loved. I think of it a holder for extra luck if we might ever need it, along with some bittersweet but loving memories of my mother. 

Ryan had a digital photography class in high school, and he had to do a final project. Ryan chose to take a discarded book from the library and alter it to present his photographs, bits of text, thoughts, and drawings in a unique way. We were working out the typical teenage son trying to become more of his own person/mother not learning how to let go relationship struggles, and I was truly touched and grateful when he gifted this to me. It has a place of pride on the mantel, and I recently spent a very pleasurable hour looking through it. I wish I could show you every page, and I wish Ryan was here so I could ask him what some of his drawings mean, but it is a very special and loved treasure.

Lastly, here is another very special and loved mantel treasure, this time from Justin. 

When Justin worked in Texas, it was on a very remote ranch, so he had to find creative ways to entertain himself in the evenings. One of these was knife making. He didn't have forging equipment, so he made knives from metal he found around the ranch, like old files. He was looking around in an antique store one day and found this vintage Ford ratchet wrench. It used to look something like this:

and Justin crafted it into this:

John has always had some sort of vintage Ford car or truck in the process of restoration. Sometimes they even get finished, so Justin thought John would appreciate his own custom vintage Ford knife for his birthday, and of course, he did! I love and appreciate Justin's creativity and generosity, along with the sewing and leather-working skills he practiced to also make the sheath. 

I'm not much of a housekeeper, but I am glad I was motivated enough to dust and rediscover these things I love. I hope you have plenty of your own beloved treasures and appreciate them, dusty or not.