Decisions, Decisions-Update

Last month, I asked for every one's advice about recovering this stool which had been lovely with my Uncle Ben's gorgeous, but extremely uncomfortable Empire sofa, which my husband refused to let into the house (and nobody else who had sat in it over the years wanted it either!) and was sold. It did not, however, go with the colors in this house.  Three years later I was finally irritated enough to do something about it.

Thanks to all of you who commented on the blog or who sent emails.  The consensus was that I should go with this fabric...

However, I really loved this one...

Paralyzed with indecision, I let the Joanne's Fabric Sale go by and stewed and fretted.  Finally, I realized for $10.00 and about 1/2 an hour of my time, if I did not like the result, I could easily redo it.  So I began...

Taking the top off involved only four screws, one of which I promptly misplaced. The beauty of oriental rugs is that they hide dirt and debris.  That is also the drawback.  If you drop something you have to get down on your hands an knees and feel around for it and discover all the other things the rug is hiding! 

Found that the upholstery was original to the piece.

Horsetail and Curled Hog filling, fortunately sterilized!

 Even the wheels are made of beautiful brass with the company's name etched into their sides.

I decided to leave the original fabric on the stool and just put the new fabric over it in order not to reduce the value of the piece, should my heirs decide to sell it someday.

I did buy enough fabric to cover the matching stool that my sister has in case the stools eventually re-unite at some future date.  However as long as my sister has the stool, she will not want this particular fabric.  Her comment was, "I second Brit. The traditional floral would disappear and the modern graphic would demand all the attention."  And she is right, it does demand a lot of attention.

Steve, at Urban Cottage encouraged me to go with my favorite fabric anyway, so here it is.

In the room

Up close.  The early morning light makes it look a little more pink than it really is.  It is a rusty red color somewhere between the dusty rose of the rug and the lamp.

Of course, one thing always leads to another, and with its spiffy new cover, the stool's wood looks a little shabby, so I haven't screwed the cushion back on until I find a bottle of Old English Scratch Cover to touch up the scuff marks.  My favorite grocery store no longer carries it, and I am loath to pay a $6.00 shipping charge from the manufacturer which would double the cost.  Guess there is not much demand any longer for this product since everything now is covered in polyurethane.  Maybe I will check out Pinterest to see if there is a recipe to DYI it.

I think the fabric is bold and adds a touch of whimsy to my fairly traditional room.  What do you think?  Too much?

Orchid Encore

Today, we gathered at Manzano Del Sol where my mother, Rose Lee, and Norm's mother, Dorothy were honored for 63 years of motherhood.  Over the years they have been given a lot of things to mark Mother's Day, but now, as they are in their nineties, they assure us they don't want one more thing.  However, last year's gift is being re-cycled.  We gave both Moms orchids, and after they finished blooming, they were a bit of a burden for them to care for, so I brought them home, put them in a south window and watered them.  They have bloomed several times for me and now they are blooming again just in time for Mother's Day. So back they go for an encore until they finish this bloom cycle.  Then, I will foster care for them again until next year.


Speaking of bloom cycle, my rock garden is doing well after two days of rain...such a surprise for this time of year (the rain, not the garden).  

Yellow iris and blue flax (flax planted from seeds gathered at my friend, Susan's house).

Blue flax, Centranthus (Jupiter's Beard), and yellow broom.

Originally from my friend, Susan's yard, divided when the parent red hot poker threatened to take over its spot.

Pink Penstemon (grown from seeds picked alongside the road up to our house) maybe Penstemon pseudospectabilis 'Coconino County,  Nepeta 'Walker's Low' (blue catmint)

A gift to myself was this iron topiary frame that I found when out shopping at thrift stores a couple of weeks ago. For $12.50, if is about one fourth of the price of buying the same size at retail.  Because we have no soil around our house, I grow tomatoes in pots, and I plant plenty so that I can take some to our mothers who both really enjoy a homegrown tomato.  Four tomato plants will be trained up this frame. My tomatoes taste nothing like the ones we ate during summers that I spent with my grandmother in Maryland.  I remember those tomatoes as being a little taste of heaven.  There must be something in the soil on the east coast that is lacking in potting soil.

Photo by Lane McNab

If you are interested in topiary frames, here are some terrific ones  I found on Lane McNab's Urban Orchard Interiors.  Although these are from a shop in Berkeley, California, you can find other styles at Hobby Lobby, Pottery Barn, and many of our local garden shops. Thanks, Lane for sharing wonderful photos of the area in which you live.


And thanks to my three daughters, I now have a beautifully handwoven, brightly colored case for my frequently misplaced cell phone, a lovely journal to take on my next trip, and a darling pair of handcrafted earrings.

Confessions of a Bookworm-Pat Conroy

There are a lot of "favorites" on my list of authors.  Some of these authors write one flaming meteor of a book and are never able to duplicate this glory and you wonder where their muse is hiding.   Others manage to write many wonderful stories.  Years ago, a dear friend from my college days, Tim, introduced me to the author, Pat Conroy.

 He had just finished "The Lords of Discipline,"

and encouraged my husband and I to read this incredible work based on Mr. Conroy's experiences at the Citadel,  established as the Military College of South Carolina in 1842. The novel exposed the school's harsh military discipline, racism, and sexism during a time when segregation was coming under attack from many quarters as this nation moved away from its shameful past of accepting slavery as a way of life.  "Pat Conroy sweeps us into the turbulent world of four young men—friends, cadets, and blood brothers—and their days of hazing, heartbreak, pride, betrayal, and, ultimately, humanity." 
 
Since we both could not read the book at the same time, another friend lent me her copy of "Prince of Tides"

"I grew up slowly beside the tides and marshes of Colleton; my arms were tawny and strong from working long days on the shrimp boat in the blazing South Carolina heat...I was born and raised on a Carolina sea island and I carried the sunshine of the low country, inked in dark gold, on my back and shoulders. As a boy I was happy above the channels, navigating a small boat between the sandbars with their quiet nation of oysters exposed on the brown flats at the low watermark. I knew every shrimper by name, and they knew me and sounded their horns when they passed me fishing in the river."  From the book.  In this best-selling novel, Pat Conroy tells the story of Tom Wingo, his twin sister, Savannah, and the dark and violent past of the family into which they were born.

Both of these books introduced me to a South that I had never experienced.  Although my parents moved to Atlanta in my senior year of high school, I only spent one summer there.  I was unhappy away from both my beloved New Mexico and my friends, and I resisted all the charms of this lovely Southern city.  Pat Conroy changed those feelings and I hope to return to visit this strange and foreign land sometime again.  I fell in love with the south and its troubled, complicated social expectations through Mr. Conroy's descriptions and his deft creation of characters that you both love and hate.

Recently, I picked up another of his novels, "South of Broad"

which revisits some of the themes that Conroy explored in previous books.  Suicide, this time, the suicide of the main character, Leo's thirteen year old brother, is the framework in which Leo struggles to recover and begin again to led his life.  Enter another set of twins to engage our sympathies.  Reader's prejudices are challenged as we witness the transformation of a loutish high school bully into a football team mate and life-long friend.  Leo's friends challenge the norms of the day. He forms an alliance with the first black coach.  The coach's son learns to trust Leo and as co-captains, they lead their team to statewide victories.  Surprisingly, the father in this novel is a warm, supportive and wise man.  In previous novels, Conroy had explored his ambivalent love of his own abusive and dangerous father in his portrayals of fathers.   As always, his characters are complex with both flaws and gifts with whom the reader can identify.  Lush descriptions make you feel the humidity and smell the marches.  The reader is invited to struggle with the great issue of one's faith as Leo plumb's the depths of despair and disbelief and returns to the church from which he ultimately draws comfort and strength.

At the end, you are left wanting to know what will happen next, especially with the main character's relationship with his mother, a former Roman Catholic nun who leaves the convent to marry and returns there many years later after her husband's death.

While not garnering the critical acclaim that some of his earlier novels did, this book kept me totally engaged, wanting more, and Conroy stays on my favorite author's list.

Wildflowers near the Piedra Lisa Trail Head

Here by the Piedra Lisa Trail Head, the terrain can be inhospitable. Our house sinks its foundation walls into solid granite and what soil there is made up primarily of decomposed granite with some pinon, juniper, and cedar cones, bark, needles and decomposing branches. In spite of this, ever ebullient nature is putting on quite a show for what passes for springtime in the desert along the trails and mountain roads.  Here are a few photos.  If I know the names of the plants I will label them, but I am still learning about the landscape and flora of this place so perhaps my readers can identify them in the comment section below?  My friend, Celia, is a wildflower guru, so I am hoping she will help.

Apache Plume

Claret cup cactus

Very fragrant small bush with white flowers with four petals.

Fleabane

Wild Verbena?

Primrose

Iris

Some kind of pea?

Perky Sue

Indian Paintbrush

Statice or maybe Scorpion Flower-although the stems are not as fuzzy as the scorpion flower was described (Not sure if this is a native or not)

Left - Cholla  Right- Yucca

Penstemon spreading by seed throughout our property.  The iris was transplanted from the arroyo bed that run through our land to the south.  Don't think this is a wild variety, but one planted by the ranchers who originally owned this land.

Yucca

Penstemon or Lupin?

Agave neomexicana getting ready to bloom-which means it will die and in the foreground are California poppies

Wild verbena, Rudbeckia, and chocolate flower

Prickly Pear Cactus

Cholla reaching for the moon

Chocolate Flowers (yellow), Globe Mallow (orange), Prairie Flea Bane (white)

Penstemon digitalis 'Precious Gem' in the foreground? (only one stem...maybe imported by a bird)

 

 

Vintage Shopping in Albuquerque

Along Lomas Blvd. between Washington Ave. and San Mateo Blvd. are a number of buildings that over the years have become more and more derelict and sad.  Traveling along here several times a week, I am always happy when I see signs of someone fixing up one of them.  Imagine my delight when the latest renovation turned out to be a new shop, Vintage Market & Design.  They opened on April 1, but I did not stop by until mid-month.  Still a wee bit shabby on the outside, entering is like stepping into another world.


Edward Martin (co-owner with Huy Nguyen) was there and graciously let me poke around in the new annex that was not yet open to the public. (This annex will be open at the time of publication of this post)  Everything in the whole place is beautifully displayed.

Beautiful linens (and don't you love the tags?)

Hobnail glass and quilts.

Lots of lovely green.

A few rabbits for the Easter season.

No time to dip into these books with the intriguing titles, "Great Men and Famous Women"

My favorite piece in the shop.  This girl reading reminds me of the books I read as a child when visiting my grandparents in Hobbs, NM.  My grandmother had purchased them as a lot at an auction with many other books. 
Annie Fellows Johnston wrote the Little Colonel Stories, based on real stories in her hometown and surrounding the surrounding area of Kentucky. They were highly sentimental, and when reading them, it was always a good thing to have a handkerchief at hand. Only slightly embarrassed now to admit I devoured them like candy.  Shirley Temple starred in a movie based on this novel. with the famous staircase dance with Bill (Bojangles) Robinson

The prices were very reasonable and the proprietors were friendly.  Good place to shop for a "one of a kind" gift.  4609 Lomas Blvd NE.  Hours: Monday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.,  Sundays-Noon to 6:00 p.m.  One or two "hard to park in spaces" in the front, go around to the back!

Dancing with a Robot

Generally reluctant to embrace new technology,  I was forced into a new experience today when my husband "surprised" me with a robot.  Not exactly R2D2....

More like a little round disk without R2D2's attitude, although it does gently warn "Error, Error" if you pick it up.  

Dancing did I say?  The dancing was both the robot trying to "avoid my feet" and me trying to "direct" it to a particular place.  You may have guessed what it is, or maybe not.  All on its own it scurries around all the legs of the furniture busily vacuuming up the endless dust that our winds in New Mexico deposit daily.  

More time to paint.  More time to blog.  More time to take photos of the wildflowers just starting to bloom here on the mountainside.  

That is if I can get over watching it do its thing!  Honestly, you would think I had a new toddler in the house who might get into endless trouble.  The best part is that it avoids the staircase all on its own and puts itself to bed when tired to recharge on its docking station.  While not exactly methodical, and missing a few spots, the floor is definitely much cleaner.  If we program it to run everyday while we are out of the house, it might get everything over a couple of days.  And to be perfectly honest, I never get everything with my old fashioned vacuum.  

This little iRobot "Rhomba" gets to live outside a closet, unlike its big brother, "Hoover" who is hidden away when not in use.  That is because it is not tall enough to open the closet door on its own to start working!  When they get that bug worked out, my techie husband will probably upgrade.  Would you consider getting a robotic vacuum?

Mother's Day & Mother Blessing

I remember when I was pregnant for the first time and how worried I was that I would not know how to be a mother.  The years have flown away since I was a brand new mama.  Of course I had a wonderful role model in my own mother, and the love and encouragement of a fantastic mother-in-law, so although making many mistakes, I found being a mother a joyful experience.  As Mother's Day approaches, I am celebrating the era of a new generation of young mothers. And what glorious mothers they are indeed!  Each of them brings their own style, fears, and gifts to the job of mothering.  

My niece, Shan, was the first of her generation to become a Mom and she has two beautiful boys who grow ever more entertaining and interesting due to the nurture and encouragement they receive from her. Trained as a teacher, she only rarely wants to strangle them and she uses all of her tricks to keep them from murdering each other in their ever so typical boyish rough housing.

My oldest daughter Camille brings new meaning to the word endurance as she negotiates the turbulent waters of motherhood in a craft with twins aboard.   These twin girls benefit from a stay-at-home Mom who is loving and fun, patient and creative, and celebrates their differences.

My niece, Tish, wanted to be a mother so badly that she chose to have a baby on her own, an extremely costly proposition, when it looked as though Mr. Right was going to arrive too late in her life to help her.  Her daughter is so clearly one of us with her enormous dark eyes and black hair.  She looks almost exactly like I did at that age and has stolen all of our hearts. 

 Another niece, Andrea, tried for years to have a baby and has delivered a wonderfully healthy daughter just in time to celebrate her first Mother's Day.  Andrea is also a teacher and will use her talents enrich the life of this much wanted little girl.

And finely, my precious daughter, Alethea was home this last weekend for a shower and a Mother Blessing.  The shower was held at my daughter Brittany's house and co-hosted by Alethea's high school friend, Charlotte.  Many of my friends who had been a part of Alethea's life and Alethea's high school crowd showered Alethea with some fantastic and thoughtful gifts for her first child.  

The next day, I rushed out of Sunday school early (thanks Sarah for covering for me). Off to my "first time ever Mother Blessing" hosted by Alethea's friend Rhonda who is a nurse/midwife.  Alethea asked me if I would be willing to paint a henna design on her pregnant belly.  With no experience and just a little practice the day before, I managed not to embarrass her. 

Papa Tree, Mama Tree, and Baby Tree with a Trinity symbol

So, ladies, for all of you, Happy Mother's Day and thanks for letting me be a part of your lives.