Spring Has Sprung in VA: Birds and Blooms—and RBF!

Here’s a the current state of affairs at Casa Pearl.

A little bird is building her nest in a fake flowering plant that we have hanging on our little side porch by the patio.  Real bird. Fake plant.  It all seems to be working out beautifully.

Bigfoot is thrilled to see the first real blooms in our perennial garden along the side of the house.  Trust me, he’s thrilled. That’s just his usual expression: RBF (Resting Bigfoot Face).

And the cherry blossoms are in full bloom on my favorite tree out front.  It's just SO lovely.

I love living here.  (We have a white picket fence, no less!  What's not to love?)  Where my husband and I come from in upstate NY, a recent storm dumped 8-12 inches of snow.  I prefer springtime in VA!

There is so much beauty all around us in this world, isn’t there?  The wonder of God’s creation, it takes my breath away sometimes.  (The sun is about to rise as I write this, with the sound of birds singing outside the window; and I imagine them flying in and out of the branches of my favorite tree.)

Little glimpses of what Heaven must be like: I see them all the time.  

Today, VA feels like Heaven.

Garden Decorations (and Special Visitors!)

Seeing as how June is traditionally dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (and why it is, of course, such a special month for us Catholics), we just got a new little flag to hang in the garden on the side of our house, near the patio.  Isn't it a beauty?

Wait…did I just hear someone say, “But what’s with the Bigfoot statue?”  Do you mean to tell me that during June (or anytime, really) every Catholic doesn’t have one of THOSE in their garden, too?!

(Just kidding.  If that hadn’t been my late father’s nickname, I can assure you that we wouldn’t either! LOL!)

I also put a little garden sign out front this morning, because later today our oldest son, his wife, and their seven children will be arriving to spend the week with us.  (They are traveling all the way from WI in their new-to-them 15-seater van!)

Before their move to the Midwest in 2021, this sweet family lived less than 20 minutes away from us here in VA for over four years.  Our daughter-in-law and the four children they had at the time even lived in our house with us for a few months when they first got here, while our son was away in training for his job and they were looking for a house of their own.  So this will be like a homecoming!  

And then after their week here, reconnecting with family and old friends, ALL of us Pearls will be heading to New York for our annual Oyster Haven vacation week at the lake.

Life is good today.  Life is very good.  And our gardens are decorated to show it.

I will not be blogging the next few weeks, because we will be busy with travels and family.  But I have a few drafts ready to publish (someone's been in a writing mood lately!), and I can post those in the meantime. After the kids all head back home from the lake, I'll be sure to report how it went.   (And there will be pictures, I'm sure.  Lots of pictures!)

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

Right?  Or so I've heard.

I have been wearing a headband to keep my long, straight (fine, limp, scraggly, etc.) hair off my face every day for DECADES now. It’s my signature hair do (or don’t?).

The night my second son was born in 1985, I went from 7 to 10 cm in an instant, much to everyone’s surprise, and had to be hastily rolled down a LONG and crowded hospital hallway on a gurney, from labor to delivery, trying to keep a baby in (“Don’t push yet!  Breathe!” instructed the nurses), and this baby most definitely wanted OUT.  I was frantically doing that "hoo hoo" breathing technique they teach you in Lamaze classes, for when you have the urge to push but aren’t supposed to, but it didn't seem like there was any way I was going to be able to keep that baby from making his appearance in the hallway.  So in the most dramatic moment of any of my five experiences with childbirth, I ripped the headband off my head and flung it, crying, “That’s it, I quit!  I’m not doing this!”  My oh-so-funny husband looked at one of the nurses and calmly asked, “Um, is that an option?”

When we got to the delivery room, my son came bursting into the world after two quick pushes.  (And I never got that headband back.)

So as I said, and as that story illustrates, headbands have been a part of my daily “look” forever.  For goodness sake, I even wore them during childbirth.

Apparently, it has not escaped my grandchildren's notice that headbands and Grammy go together.  A few months ago, my daughter-in-law Preciosa (wife of son #3) texted me a picture of her 2-year-old Hermanita, who had put a headband on her cute little still-practically-hairless noggin and announced, “I Grammy!” 

How hilarious is that?  She’s on to me!

“I GRAMMY!”

If only I could look as good wearing a headband as that adorable little gal!

Telling my newest grandchild, #18,
"Get used to this headband, my wee one.  You're going to see a lot of it."

Other than the gold Miraculous Medal necklace that I wear always, a headband is my only must-have wardrobe accessory.  What about you?  What item will your grandkids see that will automatically make them think of you?  Please share!

Garden Spots

I have the brownest thumb in the world.  Although I love the look of a pretty garden, a gardener I am not. Unfortunately.

That's why I so appreciated the tidy and well-manicured landscaping that came with our house in VA when we moved into it in 2017.  The garden areas in front on either side of the entryway sidewalk are filled with easy-to-trim bushes.  On the left there are several flowering bushes (all the color and beauty with none of the work!), and I think that with our 36" statue of the Blessed Mother in front of them, they make for a nice Mary Garden.  (Does anyone know what these bushes are called?  They have the most lovely blossoms!)

Along the side of the house and near the driveway, the previous owners had planted perennials (again, all the color and beauty with none of the work!).  I left well enough alone and didn't plant anything new, because I liked the low-maintenance garden just the way it was.  I just adore the profusion of gorgeous irises that bloom each spring.  They thrive on benign neglect, which is my go-to gardening technique!

I say I liked it just the way it was; but something was missing...so recently, we purchased a new statue to stand amongst the irises.  It is considerably less holy and sacred than the one we have out front.  But you see, my dad, who passed away one day shy of his 82nd birthday in 2016, was known by the nickname "Bigfoot."  (Some kids have a Grandpa, some have a Papa; my boys had a Bigfoot.)  So when I saw this 36", solid cement Sasquatch figurine—which was meticulously created by some local Mennonite craftsmen—calling out to me from a downtown garden shop, I just couldn't resist it.

When I texted our boys a photo of my newly acquired garden statue, son #4 replied in his usual amusing fashion:

A garden Bigfoot might not be "essential" for most folks; but I think it was for me.  I'm  always up for whimsical touches, especially when they have personal meaning.  My mom is coming here tomorrow, staying with us for about three weeks; and I think she's going to enjoy this reminder of her beloved husband—gone, but never forgotten!—when she sits on the patio with us during cocktail hour.

I plan to write more about my mother and the ups and downs of her life over the past five years, and also about the younger sister saint and her husband who have taken Mom into their home (a long overdue post, to be sure); but for now I'm going to sign off by saying that I just love springtime in VA.  Especially with garden spots like these!

An Ode to Snail Mail (and Blogging!)

As a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester MA (where I earned my BA in English in 1980), I have a subscription to Holy Cross Magazine that comes quarterly in the mail.  The latest edition, for Winter 2021, included an article that brought back so many poignant memories for me.  It was called “Ode on a P.O. Box,” and I found it as I flipped through the glossy pages and came upon an image that stopped me in my tracks: a picture of the vintage bronze-gilded Holy Cross P.O. boxes—the very same ones that lined a hallway in the Hogan campus center at HC back in my day. 

Sadly, there has been a relatively recent change at the Mount St. James Station Post Office at Holy Cross, and those old-time beauties have been retired after about a century of service.  These days students receive less traditional mail and more packages that don't fit in the slender P.O. boxes that were "once essential," as the article points out, but in these modern days of texts, emails, and Amazon deliveries had "become anachronistic."

Anachronistic!  As in "pertaining to or containing an anachronism [which is something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time]."  Oh my, no wonder I feel so sad hearing that those P.O. boxes known to so many generations of HC alumni are gone now.  (They are gone, the article says, but "remain beloved.")  I, too, have become a bit anachronistic, I fear! The times, they are a-changin', so swiftly that it makes my head spin. And I find myself feeling deeply nostalgic for an earlier time to which I belonged, a simpler time.  A time when people routinely kept in touch via hand-written letters.

I don't remember my P.O. box combination, but I'll never forget my number: 981.  That was my postal address for all four years that I lived on that bucolic college campus in New England, atop what was always called simply "The Hill." I can remember being filled with anticipatory excitement every time I went down that hallway lined with old-fashioned-looking, ornate little bronze boxes, hoping against hope that when I opened mine I would find a letter from my boyfriend (my high school sweetheart who was far, far away during those years, out at Notre Dame in South Bend, IN—now my husband of 40 years).

Nothing beat getting a letter from that guy.  Nothing.  I would be walking on air as I closed and locked P.O. Box 981 and found a quiet place to read it.  Who could blame me, though, when his letters were so sweet?  He was already kicking around the M-word in a joking, roundabout way when we were just freshmen in college, in a letter dated March 15, 1977: "Right now I couldn't think of a better life than one with you.  I wouldn't care if the prettiest, most desired movie star or the most famous girl in the world was dying to marry me, I'd say 'no' before she even finished talking if you wanted to marry me, too."  And here is perhaps my favorite passage from any of the letters he wrote when we were apart at school: on March 22, 1977, after visiting me at Holy Cross on his spring break, he wrote "...you looked over and smiled at me and that look drove me wild.  It was the prettiest and nicest look I've ever seen anywhere.  All I could do is just stare at you.  I'll never forget that look."  (Sigh...I loved what he said so much that I wrote "the look" into Tom and Grace's story in my novel Finding Grace.)

We did talk on the phone, of course (probably more than we should have!); but remember, that was ages before anyone had a cell phone.  We did have land-line telephones in our rooms, with long, coiled cords attached that limited our freedom of movement when using them; but if we wanted to talk for any length of time, we had to wait until the rates went down at night.  There were a lot of late-night phone calls, let me tell you.  But even with the lowered rates, it could get expensive; therefore, we had to rely predominantly on letters to stay connected.  In one of his letters, dated Oct. 6, 1976, my husband tells me that he's sending me some money.  I'd called him the night before, and he says, "I kept the time on my clock and it was exactly 85 minutes.  I figured it out on a calculator and it came to $11.96.  It was worth it though."  My hero!  He was on a Navy ROTC scholarship and had a $100 monthly stipend, and he would often send me checks to help defray the cost of my phone bill.  In a letter from Feb. 22, 1977, he told me that we were going to have to take it easy for a bit, because his most recent phone bill was a whopping $53.67 (more than half of his stipend money for that month!).

I don't have all the letters that my husband wrote to me during our four years apart at college (some were lost when my parents cleaned out their attic and moved from my childhood home), but I do have many of them.  I keep them in a treasure box and can’t imagine tossing them out (yet, anyway), even though I have actually re-read them no more than a couple of times over the decades I’ve been married to that extremely handsome young letter-writer—who could be pretty romantic when he wanted to be!

Hand-written cards and letters are nicknamed "snail mail" these days, and people act like you're some kind of dinosaur if you still correspond that way.  But I feel sorry for kids in this modern age...they'll never know the kind of exquisite joy I felt when I opened my P.O. box and pulled out a letter addressed to me in my boyfriend's inimitable bold penmanship and postmarked "South Bend, IN."

When our oldest son began his freshman year at Notre Dame in the fall of 2002, I was determined to print out each and every email he sent home; but before long, I gradually stopped doing so.  It just wasn’t the same as saving letters. By our firstborn's sophomore year in college, the dorms didn't even have land-lines anymore, and most of our contact with our five boys when they were away at college happened via texts, emails, and Sunday calls from their cell phones.  I was absolutely fine with that, because I just wanted as much contact with them as I could get, any way I could get it...but it is a truth universally acknowledged (as Jane Austen might say) that texts and emails are just not the same as letters.

I’ve gotten off social media recently, and I’m determined to use my newfound free time—the time I used to spend scrolling Instagram and Twitter—to get back to my first love, writing here (at what was always called "String of Pearls" until just recently, when I tweaked its name a tiny bit to give it a bit o' Irish flair).  And it just occurred to me that snail mail (which I miss) is to texts and emails what full-length blog posts (which I also miss) are to Instagram mini-blog posts, kind of; so I guess this post can be considered an ode to blogging, too.

Dusting Off the Blog

When I first started blogging in the spring of 2011, I could hardly wait to sit at my laptop every day to write about favorite family memories, or about what was going on in our household at the time, or just to do a bit of mindless navel gazing.  It was a joy to me to exercise my writing muscles on a daily basis.

For a good number of years, those muscles were in pretty good shape.  Now...well, they might not have atrophied completely, but if I don't start using them more often, they will.

If you come here much, you know that the Pearl family has been growing by leaps and bounds in the last few years.  When I started this blog, I had only one married son and his wife was a few months away from giving birth to twin daughters.  Since then, 3 more daughters-in-law have joined the family, and the grandchild count currently stands at 14 (with the addition of a new grandson just last month).

I have had so many great topics to explore here--so, so many--but ever since we moved down to VA so that we could see our kids and grandkids on a regular basis, it seems like I've been too busy living life to write about it.  I mean, here are some of the things I've wanted to write about, from the deep and serious to the frivolous and mundane:

1. My dad's amazing last week on earth and his beautiful passing into eternal life, about which I have not been able to write in full (and the second anniversary of his death is fast approaching)

2. My mother's trials since losing her husband of 60 years, her frightening health decline, and the astounding (practically miraculous) way she has bounced back recently

3. My saintly baby sister and her husband, who lovingly took my mom into their home a year ago and are more responsible for the improvements in her health than any of the medical procedures she's had done 

4. Pearl family birthdays and anniversaries (there have been many which I have not gotten around to documenting)

5. The births of new Pearl grandbabies (we got a new grandson in June, named after my husband's dad, and another one in October, named after my husband!)

6. Family parties (including a fun shower I hosted for my daughter-in-law when she was about to have a boy after 4 girls in a row--and which I thought was practically Pinterest-worthy, but I might have been giving myself too much credit!)

7. Notre Dame football weekends this fall, with our boys

8. More installments of the house tour, wherein I show you some of the rooms of our new house in VA (which I am slowly but surely starting to consider HOME, after leaving a beloved Colonial on a quiet street in NH, where we'd lived for 26 years, about a year-and-a-half ago)

Those are just a few of the things I imagine blogging about...and then before I know it, it's time for a bone-tired Grammy to go to bed and another day has passed without a new blog post.

Sometimes, I really do wonder if the whole blogging phenomenon is about to die off and go the way of VHS tapes (and even DVD's).  I mean really, who needs those anymore, now that there are new-fangled smart TV's that allow you to stream just about anything you want to watch?  And who wants to bother to visit a blog, when so many former bloggers are on Instagram, offering much-easier-to-digest posts that don't take quite as much time out of our busy lives as a full-length blog post does?

For whatever reason, however, I'm not quite ready to leave the blogosphere, a place where I've "met" so many amazing people who seem like friends.  I've been blessed in countless ways since I set up shop here in 2011.  So instead of giving up, I think I'll just dust this blog off and spruce it up a bit, and maybe find the mojo to keep at it.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to give my site a whole new look (even though I've heard that it's best to have a mostly white background...and mine is, as you can see, very GREEN).  But there are a few improvements I can make.  After my most recent book club post, which was all about writing, I got to thinking that perhaps it was time to update my "author photo."  The one I've been using for a long time now--here at the blog, on Goodreads, on my Amazon author's page, etc.--is one that my husband took of me back in 2012, shortly after the publication of my first novel, Finding Grace.  We thought I should be sitting at my laptop, with my trusty cup of coffee at my side, looking very "writerly."  So, this was the pose I assumed.

That picture was taken 6 years (and at least as many pounds) ago.  I was only 54, and I'm not that young anymore.  (It's amazing how when you turn 60, 54 seems young to you!)

Also, I have a smaller laptop now and bigger glasses.  I have 14 grandchildren and back then I just had 2.  And I no longer live in NH, where the photo was taken, so I no longer have that spacious dining room with the red walls and outdated-but-I-still-love-it wallpaper border.

On Halloween, 11 of our 14 grandkids and their parents came over to go Trick-or-Treating in our new VA neighborhood (which is just about the most perfect neighborhood for that activity I have ever seen: it's flat and well-lit, with hundreds of houses situated very close together, wide sidewalks, and minimal outside traffic).

A cute pair of Trolls: G-Man as Branch and Princesa as Princess Poppy 

(these are the two oldest children of son #3 and his wife Preciosa).

Pumpkin as the Cowardly Lion, Paquita as Dorothy, and Peanut as the Scarecrow, along with 

the parents of those adorable triplets--son #4 as the Tin Man and his wife Braveheart 

as the Wicked Witch.

Before they got here in their killer costumes, I wanted to test out the expensive digital camera my husband gave me as a gift years ago.  I'd lost the battery charger for it, and for ages now I've just been snapping photos using my cell phone.  I'd finally gotten it up and running again, and I wanted to see how pictures turned out using the "smart portrait" mode.  So I took this picture of my favorite guy while he had a "Why are you doing this?" look on his face.

And I took this selfie.

Those are the new (kind of ridiculously large!) glasses.  Those are the stairs of the new VA house.  I like that you can see my Miraculous Medal, and that along with my orange and black Halloween ensemble, you can see part of the white apron I was wearing while I made the mac and cheese for the grandkids who would be arriving soon--and then never got around to taking off.  This is real life, folks; I have an apron tied around my waist about 75% of the time.  One of my boys insists that I even wear it when I sleep, but that's pure exaggeration.

Okay, maybe not.  Here is a photo of my apron collection.

And that doesn't include my newest apron, this buffalo plaid flannel number that I was wearing when I took the picture of the others!

Anyway--

I have gotten so used to the old picture up there at the top, which I associate with anything having to do with my writing activities.  And I really love the Irish-green color of the sweater I'm wearing in it.  But I feel like it's not really "me" anymore.

So what say you?  Should I use the selfie-on-the-stairs pic here at the blog--or perhaps get my husband to take an updated one for me?  Or should I just leave well enough alone and be forever 54?  Should I change my blog's background, get rid of the green?  Your thoughts?  (I realize your thoughts might be something along the lines of, "I don't care!"  But you guys are so nice, you probably won't say that!)

Dust blog: check.  Stretch blogging muscles: check.  Let's see if I can keep this streak going!

It's a Pearl Thing (and a Chocolate Thing)

I haven't changed my hair-do in about five decades.  I've been wearing it long and straight and unstyled since I was a pre-teen.  (I take that back: I experimented with short hair twice--once when I was a junior in high school and again when I was a junior in college; big mistake, times two).

Over the years, there were times when I had bangs; but most of the time, I've gone bang-less and employed barrettes or a headband to keep my hair from falling in my face.

I realize that long hair pulled back with a headband is probably not an age-appropriate hairstyle for a woman who's got seven grandkids and is pushing 60; but I'll tell you, it's a very worry-free, no-hassle affair.  I just shampoo it, brush it out, and let it air dry.  I don't even own a blowdryer.

Here is the shampoo and conditioner I've been using since I've been in Germany.  It's not too expensive and I really like the way it makes my hair feel.   My husband thinks these hair care products smell like chocolate.  (Bonus, right?)

Speaking of chocolate, they do have the best milk chocolate (Alpenmilch Schokolade)  in this country!  Milka is to die for.  My rapidly expanding hips can vouch for how irresistibly delicious I think it is!

Okay, now back to my absolutely riveting hair story...

The other day on my daily journey down the cobblestone walking street of the quaint town where my son lives, I spotted a pearl headband in a CVS-type store, and on a whim, I bought it. (I tend to be attracted to Pearls, if you get my drift.) I thought I'd wear my fancy new headband on Easter Sunday, instead of my usual faux alligator number.

But when I got my new hair accessory home and tried it on, I wondered if it would perhaps look more appropriate on the head of a sweet little girl making her First Holy Communion (with a tulle veil attached).

See what I mean?

Does it look ridiculous on me?  (I can take it; be brutally honest.)

I'm just not sure that this graying head of mine can carry it off.  What say you?  (And while you're at it, tell me what you think of my swell t-shirt.  It says, "IT'S A PEARL THING.  YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND.")

Okay then, that's it for me today.  This was a sort of strange post...however, it did include both pearls and chocolate: two very good things indeed.  (I daresay two of the best things!)


P.S. If you've got a doll-loving daughter or granddaughter, you might want to check out that Dolls from Heaven website!!   Love, love, love it!

A Belated Veteran's Day Post

I never got around to writing a Veteran's Day post back on November 11, but I decided I'd give a nod to our brave men and women in uniform today.  Better late than never!

I thought I'd share with you the faces of some of our best and brightest: some Army ROTC cadets at the University of Notre Dame who recently found out that they will receive active duty commissions upon graduation in May and learned to which branches they will be assigned.  (Among these faces is that of the youngest of my five sons, my baby--whom I love with the ferocity of a mother lion and of whom I am proud beyond words).

All five of our sons accepted four-year Army ROTC scholarships that they'd been awarded their senior years of high school.  My husband likes to point out that when kids these days make this sacrificial commitment to military service, it's different than it was back in his day.  He himself spent four years as a Navy ROTC midshipmen at Notre Dame; after graduation, he became a commissioned officer and fulfilled his boyhood dream of following in his dad's footsteps and becoming a Naval Aviator.  He flew A-7's and then transitioned to F-18's. Yes, he was a fighter pilot--which as far as the cool factor goes doesn't have any equal, in this woman's opinion.  But at the time he served, the only real threat to our national security was the ongoing "Cold War," and young men and women who entered the armed forces during that era were almost guaranteed that they wouldn't be called upon to participate in any ground wars.  It wasn't until the tail end of my husband's Navy career, when he'd started working for the airlines but was still a flight instructor in the Navy Reserves, that the first Gulf War broke out and there was a chance that he might be sent into battle.  While he was not called up, many of his buddies were, and one even lost his life when he was shot down on the first night of fighting.

The amazing thing is that even though the last thing my husband would have wanted to do was to leave his wife and sons and be sent into harm's way, he said that there was something deep inside him that sort of longed to be with his brothers in arms, fighting alongside them, putting into practice the years and years of training that had prepared him to be a combat pilot.  The feeling actually surprised him, he said.  But it was there, this yearning to use his particular set of skills in defense of his beloved country.  And like any true military man, it wasn't because he was some blood-thirsty, violent "war monger"; instead, it was because he felt that he would do anything--even lose his own life--if it meant keeping those he loved back here at home safe.

These are the kind of men who belong in the military.  Men like my husband.  And men like my sons.

Our oldest son served in the Army for eight years--with year-long deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, where he was a Chinook helicopter pilot.  He missed the birth of his first children, his identical twin daughters, while on his second deployment (although he Skyped with his wife while she was in the delivery room).  Two of our sons are Reservists, although one was activated to active duty for a year, and the other had to deploy to Afghanistan for six months as a civilian.  While having a child deployed to a war zone is one of the most uniquely terrifying things a mother can experience, the sense of pride and gratitude such self-sacrifice and courage engenders is indescribable.

Now we have another son who has made the decision to spend the next eight years of his life in service to his country.  He will take that oath of allegiance to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."  He may be sent to a dangerous part of the world, but he has accepted that as part and parcel of being an Army officer.

God bless my boy and his buddies in the ROTC unit at Notre Dame.  God bless all those other brave souls--past, present, and future--who have taken or will take that same oath.  And God bless America!

Goodwill Hunting

See what I did there?  :)

I'm not going to talk about movies in this post, which may surprise you.  I'm going to talk about hunting through the dusty, jumbled shelves of our local Goodwill store, hoping to stumble upon some hidden treasures--a favorite pastime of mine.

The other day, I went there strictly for the purpose of dropping off stuff that we don't want and don't need.  I've been on a bit of a kick lately, going through every room in the house, weeding through the clutter and getting everything in order--largely inspired by the fact that all of our kids, their spouses, and their little ones are coming here for Christmas, but also partly inspired by the fact that my husband and I are empty-nesters (with our youngest son just starting his senior year of college), and yet you'd hardly know it by the amount of stuff there is in this house.

So when I went to unload my packages, boxes, and bags of junk stuff that someone else might want or need, I was going to leave the store without a backward glance.  I was NOT going to quickly peruse the home goods section, thinking I might happen upon some stray bit of transferware (which is pretty much my Kryptonite).

But then I decided, "Well, as long as I'm here, I should just take a quick look..." So I strolled to the back of the store and was so excited by what I found that I ran back to the front to get myself a shopping cart, pronto!  They had a whole bunch of English Staffordshire transferware dishes, in black on cream, priced at 99 cents apiece.  They were old ones, too--I could tell by the very slight crazing of the finish and the imprint on the back.  I have lots of blue transferware, and some pink; I also have some Christmas-themed pink and green pieces.  But my collection is filled with mostly new pieces, picked up here and there at TJ Maxx or secondhand stores.  And I don't have any black ones yet.  And gee, black accents look great in my newly renovated kitchen...

Well, I proceeded to load up that cart with 2 dinner plates (because they didn't have 4), 4 dessert plates, 4 cups and saucers, and a shallow bowl.  I also thought about getting the matching sugar bowl and creamer, although they were a bit pricier at $2.99 apiece.  But then I stopped in my tracks. 

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

I'm trying to PARE DOWN what we own, I reminded myself, NOT ADD MORE STUFF!  I already have all the dishes I need, and then some!

But the thought of leaving all those treasures behind was so tough...

Well, I made a compromise: I put almost all of the dishes back; but I did buy the little 99-cent bowl, having convinced myself that there are plenty of useful purposes for it.  It would make an excellent dipping bowl, for Italian bread and olive oil, for instance.  Or it could be used as a small vegetable bowl.  Or I could just look at it every now and then, which is pretty inexpensive entertainment when you consider what I paid for it.

So, what do you think?  Does this make you want to get out there and do some Goodwill hunting of your own?  If so, may the odds be ever in your favor! 

(Okay, now I better go, before I resort to using anymore movie references...)

My Awesome Etsy Necklace

I haven't done a whole lot of Etsy shopping--until recently.  My daughter-in-law, Regina (wife of son #1), has been finding interesting gifts at Etsy for years now.  And then son #3 got married last December to Preciosa, who has given us some absolutely wonderful, very unique and personalized gifts found on the site. So I finally realized it was time to get on board that Etsy train, and last fall I went on there to find some Pearl Beer-inspired Christmas gifts for a few of my boys (copying Regina, who'd gotten one of them as a gift for her hubby a while back).  I just typed in "Pearl Beer bottle openers" and easily found a seller's site, where I was able to order a few of these beauties:

So anyway, I've been getting my latest mother-of-the-groom ensemble together, for son #2's wedding in November, and I was looking for a special necklace to wear with it--but not the kind of thing you would normally find at the mall.  I wanted it to incorporate pearls (because I always like to wear my favorite gems to celebrate special occasions in the Pearl family) and a Miraculous Medal (because I wear mine 24/7, and if I remove it to wear a string of pearls, then I will usually pin an inexpensive version of the medal inside my clothing, because I hate to go without my favorite devotional).  So I had a "Eureka!" moment and decided to try Etsy.  I typed in "pearl necklaces with Miraculous Medals," and one site that came up was ABABeadsKC, which offered this lovely piece:

"This is almost perfect!" I thought, because it just so happens that the suit I'm wearing is pale green, and those peridot gems would look lovely with it.  But I really wanted cream-colored pearls, because I'm traditional; and although this Our Lady of Guadalupe medal is spectacular, I wanted a Miraculous Medal instead.

There is a place on Etsy sellers' sites where you can contact them directly, so I sent the woman behind ABABeadsKC, Beth Ann, a personal message asking if she could design a necklace similar to this one, but with just a few changes. And I'll tell you, she was wonderful!  We emailed back and forth, and she showed me different pearls--both round and baroque-shaped, in several different sizes--and different styles of Miraculous Medals.  She told me she could make my necklace whatever length I wanted, in either silver or gold.

After a few online "conferences," we had a winner!  The final product is 18" long, made with 10 mm baroque Swarovski crystal pearls, oval peridot crystals, and an antiqued-gold Miraculous Medal.  Before she shipped it to me, Beth Ann sent me these three pictures, to make sure the necklace met with my approval and to see if I wanted to make any last-minute changes.

I didn't--because I LOVE it!  And for $35, I think it was a great deal--especially because it was made exactly to my specifications.

(The Danny and Nicole jacquard suit I'm going to wear with my necklace was a 2010 JC Penney find--regularly priced at $90 and marked down to $17.99!  I snapped it up, shortly after our oldest son's wedding in late 2009, thinking it would make a good mother-of-the-groom dress for a future son's wedding.  Well, the future is now.)

This has not been a sponsored post, BTW--I just thought I'd give this Esty shop a little plug because I was so happy with my beautiful necklace.  If you're looking for religious jewelry (or perhaps a new set of Rosary beads), you might want to check out ABABeadsKC.

Keep Calm and Blog On

Sometimes I feel like I've run out of things to blog about; and then in my reading travels I learn something new and think, "I wonder if everyone knows about this?!  Just in case they don't, I simply must share it!"  And then I get excited to keep on blogging on.

I recently read the most interesting little article in Victoria, which is absolutely my most favorite magazine of all time.  My original subscription was a gift from my beloved late mother-in-law many, many years ago, and I've been renewing it, year after year. When it comes in the mail, I'm always anxious to sit down and flip through its lovely pages.  Every issue is a feast for the eyes.  I mean look at the cover of the most current (September 2014) issue:

If I had a Pinterest board, chances are that pretty much every pin would come from the pages of this magazine.  I look at the beautiful vignette on this cover--an artfully arranged display of fruits, flowers, linens, and vintage English transferware dishes--and think, "Now THAT is what I'd like my life to look like."  It's oozing with simple elegance, down-to-earth beauty, and old-world charm--all auras that I would love to have in my home.

I knew I would devour this issue when it came, because any magazine cover that looks this pretty and says things like "Our Beloved England" or "Special British Issue" is sure to be a home run hit with me.  I suppose it's time to admit that I'm a closet Anglophile, and I blame my father and his almost 100% British blood for this.  (The only country whose culture intrigues and inspires me more is England's western neighbor, Ireland.)

Victoria is always fun to thumb through: it takes you on trips inside the most beautifully-appointed homes (sometimes the castles of the British Isles), where you can drool over Victorian-inspired décor, and on strolls through the quaintest little villages; it features fashion spreads quite different than the ones in Vogue, filled with fresh-faced models sporting feminine laces and the woolen tweeds and plaids of a country gentlewoman (boots are often involved); it features uncommon recipes (where else are you going to get directions for making English delicacies like, say, Welsh Rarebit or beef pasties?); vintage-y artwork and knickknacks are often on display; and there is always a short and insightful musing by the magazine's current "Writer-in-Residence."  This issue's offering was extremely interesting, because it explained the whole story behind this iconic image that you will find literally EVERYWHERE these days:

Like a lot of people, I wondered where this now-viral meme had originated, and why in the world there was a crown on it.

It turns out that this was a motivational poster designed by the British Ministry of Information during WWII.  Two other posters--one that said, "Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory" and another that said, "Freedom is in Peril, Defend It with All Your Might"--had already been distributed and posted in shop windows and railway stations all over England.  Two million copies were printed of the third in the series, the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster, but they were held in reserve to be distributed if there was a German invasion of England--which was, of course, a very real threat at the time.  But as that scenario never came to pass, the poster was never officially issued by the crown.

In 2000, a British seller of antiquarian books bought a box of old books at auction; and although the books proved to be rather worthless, he found an original copy of the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster at the bottom of the box.  His wife took a fancy to it and framed it for their secondhand book shop (which is located inside an old railway station and has been called one of the twenty most beautiful bookstores in the world), and people liked it so much that the bookshop owners started selling re-prints to their customers.  In 2005, the poster was mentioned in a newspaper article by a journalist who'd seen it in the shop, and by 2010, you could hardly go anywhere in the world without seeing some version of it.

So, in case you were wondering where in the world this crazy "Keep Calm" trend started, it's actually a little-known piece of England's WWII history.  But spoofs abound these days:

 

Truly, parodies are everywhere, and some of them are rather humorous.  But like the bookseller who unearthed the poster that started this whole craze, I like the original version best.  It really illustrates that admirable British trait of endeavoring to keep a stiff upper lip and carry on, even in the face of something as terrifying as having their country invaded by the Nazis.

 

However, I must admit, I'd be willing to take the advice of this one any day of the week:

So I'll just keep calm and blog on...while eating chocolate.

 

Cheerio, readers!



A Plug for 38 Dollar Glasses

This is not a sponsored post, but it's going to sound like one!

I recently got a random e-mail offering a coupon for $38 off a pair of glasses; and intrigued, I checked out the website that had sent it.  It's called 38 Dollar Glasses, and I can't recommend it enough!  If you go on there, you'll see a promotion code that you can use at check-out to get $38 off your order.

I've been wearing glasses since I was eleven years old, and I've never had more than one new pair at a time.  Whenever I went for my yearly insurance-provided check-up, I picked out new frames, and that one pair of glasses would have to suffice until the next check-up.  (At my age, I think I can only get a new pair of glasses every two years--unless I want to pay the full shot myself.) 

As anyone who wears glasses knows, even with insurance paying part of the cost, they are so expensive.  By the time you pick out the designer frames, choose polycarb lenses, and add a scratch-resistant coating, you're probably paying well over $100 out of pocket--and that's WITH insurance!

So anyway, I thought I'd check out this site.  The coupon deal was amazing--it said I could get $38 off any pair of glasses, even those that only cost $38 to begin with.  Are you thinking, "There is no such thing as a pair of glasses that costs $38"?  I was thinking that, too, until I checked out 38 Dollar Glasses and saw that they really do have some frame choices that are that cheap.

Taking a huge risk (because choosing frames without trying them on first is a real crap shoot), I settled on a style by Adrienne Vittadini (which was more than $38, of course).  For those frames, with high quality single vision lenses and a scratch coat added, the total cost was $44.96 (and that's with $9.98 shipping & handling factored in!).  You just can't get a better deal than that.  And now, for the first time in my life, I have two pairs of glasses with my current prescription in them, and I can go back and forth between the two styles.

Here are my $38 glasses.  What do you think?

I was worried that they were a tad small-ish;
but my husband likes them.

These days, I usually wear progressive lenses (let's call them what they are: "tri-focals"), and 38 Dollar Glasses can make those for you, too.  But it costs more--and besides, my eye doctor said he wouldn't recommend ordering progressives on-line, because the measurements have to be so precise.  However, if you're in the market for a nice pair of single vision eyeglasses (or prescription sunglasses), you should check out this site.

This post sounds like an ad, doesn't it?  I'm not trying to sell you anything, promise.  Just thought you might be interested.  :)

My Daylily Friends

I had the most wonderful morning yesterday, catching up with old and dear friends.  M, a woman I've known since my earliest days in NH (an irrepressible, never-aging spirit like no other!), hosted a lovely brunch at her home.  To give you some background on M, her youngest son, a "change of life baby" who was born many years after his next oldest sibling, was in my oldest son's kindergarten class and went all the way through grade school and high school with him.  Anyway, five other ladies she'd invited, including me, sat around her dining room table drinking coffee, eating quiche and fruit, and reminiscing about old times.  (Okay, full disclosure: there was also cheese Danish.  And I may have partaken of some--you'll never know.)

There would have been more gals there, but during the summertime it's tough to find a day when people aren't on vacation or otherwise busy.  That's why M always hosted a brunch like this right after the kids started each new school year.  It was a given that during August we would all receive a hand-written invitation to her yearly "Back-to-School Get-Together."  There was never a quiet moment at M's table when we all gathered there; we Catholic school moms had so much in common, so many shared experiences.  It was a sad day when M's baby graduated from high school, and the rest of us younger moms realized that this yearly event we all looked forward to was going to end.  How would we start the school year without it?  But M continued the practice for at least a few years afterward, and then the tradition died a proud death...until yesterday.

If you read yesterday's post, and you know how weepy and sentimental thinking of days gone by makes me, you'll be surprised that I didn't break down in tears at the table.  Especially because one of the ladies, who is also the mom of a boy who was in school from K-12 with my firstborn, is getting ready to move away.  She and her husband are empty-nesters, and their four grown children have migrated west and south.  They just packed up a house that they've lived in since before we ever met them.

I didn't cry, but I felt so blessed and happy getting to see all those women again--women I used to run into all the time when our kids were going through their school days.  We met when most of our oldest children were barely older than my twin granddaughters are now.  We never used to have to exchange pictures when we talked about our kids.  But yesterday, we passed around wedding photos of our offspring, and oohed and aahed over how grown-up they all are.  We filled each other in about their jobs and their current places of residence, and a million other things we never could have dreamed we'd be talking about 25 years ago.  And of course, I also showed off many pictures of my three precious little granddaughters, feeling perhaps a bit too proud that other than M, who has grandchildren in college and even one who's married, I was the only one there who'd become a grandparent (so far).

I do hate to brag, ladies...okay, that's not true.  I love to brag about those little sweetie-pies, and also the wee lad who's going to join them in October.  Grammy for the W!

One thing M asked me about, shortly before we said our good-byes, was my gardening.  My gardening?!?  I sort of laughed and told her I might be many things, but a gardener wasn't one of them.  She reminded me that once upon a time I'd talked about gardening at one of her brunches, and then I remembered that yes, I did try (for one or two summers, anyway) to turn my brown thumb green.  Here's the story on that: it didn't take.  The end.  "I like perennials," I told her.  "They grow like weeds, and weeds are the only types of vegetation I know how to grow."

So I'm going to end this post with some photos of my ever-flourishing perennial gardens.  I know you'll be impressed.

In the aftermath of that get-together, I'm feeling happy that I have roots here in NH that won't ever die, no matter how many years pass (and that God made flowers that don't die, either!).  True friends, the kind you can go five or ten years without seeing and then pick up as if no time has elapsed, are kind of like daylilies.  Friendships like that will always survive, even when they've been benignly neglected because life gets too busy for regular watering.

Mama's Got a Brand New Tooth--and It's a Beauty!

Back on November 16, 2013, I blogged about the trials and tribulations I was undergoing when I had to have both molars on the upper right side of my jaw removed not long before the wedding of one of my five sons.  I was saved from the embarrassment of having a big gap in my mother-of-the-groom smile by a neat little contraption that my dentist made up for me.  (Dentists are sometimes super heroes, did you know that?)

Here's that post, which you might enjoy reading all over again; and if you haven't read it yet, let me tell you: this is a story that you can really sink your teeth into.


Mama's Got a Brand New Tooth

Or at least she will have one, soon.

Since this past summer, I've had to have two problem molars extracted on the right side of my upper jaw.  First the back one was pulled--no biggie, because it didn't even show when I smiled and that still left me with one molar on that side for chewing.  Then the one next to it was pulled--biggie, because the hole where it should be is very noticeable when I smile and now I have to chew exclusively on the left side of my mouth.

I've told you about my tragic tooth saga, my Dickensian tale of two teeth, several times already (do I hear yawning?), most recently in this post (skip down to #3 to get to the scintillating part about teeth, or the lack thereof).  And now here I am at it again!  Mommy bloggers talk about how busy and crazy it is with toddlers in the house, and how much they worry about losing their post-baby weight; grammy bloggers tell you about how much they miss their grown babies, and how much they worry about ending up toothless old ladies.

Anyhoo...

At my latest appointment with the oral surgeon, I found out that the metal "root" he implanted, which will someday have a nice fake molar attached to it, is healing nicely.  In about two months, I'll have the green light to go to my regular dentist and have that new tooth made.  Which is great news--but unfortunately, my middle son is getting married in less than a month and I don't want to feel self-conscious every time I smile on his big day (which I believe will be a lot of times).

So, to tide me over while I wait for my implant, the dentist made me a clear retainer-type device that has a faux molar embedded in it.  I have a slight lisp when I wear it, but the device is almost unnoticeable otherwise (unless you really look closely at it; and if you're that much of a close-talker, I'm going to back away from you anyway).

One of my boys, upon hearing my concerns about the embarrathing lithping, said that no one will notice, because the wine will be flowing, the music will be loud, and I'll fit right in with all the other hard partyers out there on the dance floor.  You know, they'll just assume that I've had too much and that's why I can no longer say an S without slurring my speech.  Thanks, son.  I feel a lot better now.

Okay, readers, I had my husband take pictures of me without the fake tooth retainer

 and then with it.

You really can't tell, can you?  I think I'll be able to fool everyone...as long as I try to speak without using any S or soft-C words.

Thee you thoon.


Here's the epilogue to that story, with a very happy ending indeed.  I finally did get my brand new tooth, a crown made of porcelain that perfectly matches the color of my other teeth.

As you can see, I'm quite pleased with it.

Ain't she a beauty? 

I got this new tooth just in the nick of time for another son's wedding in February--hooray!--and I'll have it when yet ANOTHER son gets married this coming November.  (Three sons getting married in a span of less than twelve months; that must be some kind of record!)

My local dentist did a bang-up job for me.  But if you've got tooth woes of your own and don't know where to turn, you might want to stop by Dr. Ang's Dental Practice.  They'll have you smiling again in no time!