Is It Getting Warmer?

It's going to be about 15 degrees warmer today than it's been for days! I can't imagine it - 25 degrees! And it's supposed to be in the 40's by Sunday! It'll be a heatwave! Hope everyone else has good weather and does something wonderfully fun this weekend!

I think I'll be switching time between writing - thesis and other stuff! - and reading a wonderful mystery: Well-Schooled in Murder by Elizabeth George. Although I'm way behind, it's the third (of about fourteen) in her Inspector Thomas Lynley series. Fantastic books, phenomenal writer!

One World One Heart 2011

The last one! I'm so sad, but I want to thank Lisa Swifka so much for hosting them the past five years! Anyway, I'm finally participating in the fifth and final One World One Heart 2011!

I'm a fifty-something widow who is also a graduate student in mid-nineteenth century American history, a grandmother of several, mom to five kids and two cats (first time I haven't had a dog in several years!), and a lover of writing, art, and craft. I also love to watch (when I can) old television shows (Ironside, Hawaii Five-O - new and old, Columbo, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie, etc.) and British shows (crime dramas like Inspector Lynley and Inspector Lewis, and comedies - my favorite being As Time Goes By). And a lot of the time when I'm watching the old shows, I'm gazing fondly at the decor because I love mid-century modern anything! So, while all of my current history projects are centered in the 1860s, my heart floats in the 1960s! I even find the arts and crafts of that era amazing, both in observation and in creation. I also am adamant that if we don't fix our environment, nothing else will matter much. So in that vein, most of the crafts that I enjoy involve at least some recycling.

I'm giving away the book "A Treasury of Quilt Labels" by Susan McKelvey, a wonderful source of all manner of labels to attach to your quilts! In order to win, leave a comment at the end of this post. I'll be choosing a winner by random generator and will announce on February 17. If possible, I'll be adding another gift for a second winner. Hope you win!

Snow! And Ice!

Wow! Snow, then ice, then snow again! Finally, today nothing much is happening - but it's freezing! I can't wait for winter to leave!

It's Been A While!

I've been quite busy with school and writing - my thesis still isn't done, but it's getting there! And I've become fond of pen and ink - doing a lot of writing NOT on the computer. I've also been participating in things like Swap-Bot (http://www.swap-bot.com/) - and loving it! And I've been planning and mostly dreaming about fitting my mid-century modern mindset within the confines of a house built in 1870! Not an easy task... But there is quite a bit of historical support for people living in older houses and "updating" them in between 1940 and 1970. That's why you sometimes see old frame houses with 1950s front doors. Or why, if you're able venture inside, you sometimes find living rooms or kitchens that, while not reflecting 2011, certainly don't look like they came out of the nineteenth-century. It used to bother me (as an historian) when houses were treated this way, but there is such a precedent for mid-20th-century remodeling that I've made my peace with it!

Now I'm hoping to get this blog more active again, hopefully posting at least a couple of times a week. We'll see how it goes... I'd like to center my posts on writing topics, mid-century design, my pets and occasionally, a craft I find splendid! Wish me luck!

The Things We Miss When We're Not Looking

Well, summer has put a crimp on my blog entries, hasn't it?
Over the years, I've become more and more (and more) interested in mid-century design and the history of material culture of the 1950s and 1960s. Lately, in looking at our family photos, I've begun to look beyond family and have become intrigued by structures within the photographs...a chair, the wallpaper, floors, cars, etc. Most of these things were around when I was a child, but they were such fixtures in the background that I never really took notice of them. Here are a few photos I recently pulled from the hundreds I've already scanned that show some really neat things in the background (or foreground, as the case may be). I think they're fantastic (and kind of miss them, too).


My mom's wedding shower, February 1955. My grandmother's kitchen table was sooooo cool!


My grandpa Ralph and a family friend. Love the chairs - each one is different!



Great-grandma Katie in her very 1950s kitchen. Look at the metal cabinets - I wonder if they're still in this house?

Speaking of Green...

This is my new rechargeable electric lawnmower. Yes, it's in my living room (well, it was when the photo was taken)! That's the battery charging at the left side of the picture. I love it! Well, if you can love a lawnmower, anyway! I have a reel mower, too (for anyone who doesn't know, the kind that has no motor and the blades rotate kind of like a cylinder), but this one is so much faster on a big lawn - and still green!

Green Sewing

I FINALLY got a copy from my local library of Green Sewing by Betz White. I have GOT to get me one! I love this book - possibly the best "being green" book I've ever seen. I hope to have more on this post later, but for now, just go check it out! (http://www.amazon.com/Sewing-Green-Projects-Repurposed-Materials/dp/1584797584)