The Magic of the Ordinary: Domesticity

do·mes·tic·i·ty

   [doh-me-stis-i-tee]

noun, plural do·mes·tic·i·ties.

1.

the state of being domestic; domestic  or home life.

2.

a domestic  or household act, activity, duty, or chore.

Sometimes I walk by something and it just hits me:  THAT is beautiful!  I have to run and get my camera to keep the light that shined on my sheets, fresh off the line.  This was evening, with sunset shining through the window where the kitchen table sits.

Sometimes the brilliant sunrise shines in on my little buffet...and I run again for that Canon.

Yes, sometimes things just shine:  ordinary things, shine in a magical way because they're beautiful and simple.

I'm busier than a one-armed paper-hanger and I'll have to catch you up soon, but for today, just a beautiful collection (I think so anyway!) of scenery around the house on an ordinary day, all of these scenes held magic for me.

Sometimes, it's the way the light hits a certain object or collection of objects:  autumn light is one of the most beautifully golden things there is.

Sometimes, I want to freeze something to hold onto it, for instance the geranium pair just outside the front window....this scene will soon be replaced by blowing leaves, gray skies and brown, empty crop fields.

I want to pull that geranium shot up this winter, along about February, and just savor it again.

The tomatoes were just brilliant and had me running for my camera, as the morning sun shone on them one Saturday morning as I rolled up my sleeves to get busy on canning a bushel of tomatoes.  

I also want to remember THOSE on a blustery February day.  

And also this...

There's magic in our homes, and we are fortunate to be able to see it, don't you think?

Cozy@Home: Blackberry Jam in Winter

I know, I know, summer is usually jam-making season.


But around here, I make it whenever I take the notion.


Sometimes, I pull berries out of the freezer when we need a batch of a certain kind of jam (strawberry is the most popular around here!).


We also grow raspberries, but never have had blackberries.


Last week, our Kroger had ten for ten on those little packs of fat blackberries.  I got ten.  It was pretty reasonable jam when all I had to add to it was sugar and some pectin--and a few hours of my time. 


After I washed them, I have them a good swirl in the food processor.  I also (mostly) de-seeded it, using my little hand-cranked food mill.  Blackberry is the worst jam with all the seeds, but the birds love the leftover seeds, especially in winter.  


(If I still had my chickens, I'd have run the seeds out to them to eat.  They loved them, too!  I still miss their happy sounds when they knew I had some goodies from the kitchen for them!)

I wish now that I'd bought enough extra to make a big ol' pan o' blackberry cobbler. It's my favorite flavor of cobbler.

What's yours?

PS:  If you really want to make jam, but don't have your own source for the fruit--buy fruit when it's on sale and make that jam!  Or, for jelly, just buy fruit juice and make jelly from that!  It's so good!  

I wanted to tell you that a couple years back I taught a friend from way back how to can.  She has done so well since then and is so proud of her pantry full of canned goods she did herself with her family's help.  The other day I visited her and she sent me home with a jar of pears and a pint of pear preserves.  I was so thrilled!  I can't wait to crack open that chilled jar of pears and enjoy them, and to eat the preserves on my bagel one morning.  I am so proud of you, Robyn!  

Robyn's beautifully done pears and pear preserves, looking as pretty as jewels on my little kitchen shelf...

Cozy@Home: Red Bird Day

The sun is shining on fresh blanket of snow around these here parts.


It's C.O.L.D!
(This after my hardly needing to wear a heavy coat all winter long so far!)

The wind has swept the snow into beautifully carved drifts. 

The snow cheers me up and brightens up my world.


And it also makes the cardinals that come to our bird feeders stand out!


I spotted one this morning so I got the long lens out and did the best I could.  

So, I'm starting my Cozy@Home Saturday with a bright, beautiful Red Bird beginning.

How about you?  

How's your weather?  

Have you seen any redbirds lately?

I see some soup simmering on the stove later and something in the oven to bake.  I better get busy!
I also bought some blackberries on sale yesterday and have a batch of jam to make!

Cozy @ Home: Make A Simple & Sweet Valentine's Gift

Would you like to make a sweet, simple Valentine for a good friend or a family member?  I have a fun little one to show you today.

It involves a little hand-stitching.


All you need is:

quilting thread and needle

felt in two colors

cookie cutter or something that you can trace and cut the shape out

pinking shears

ribbon for hanging

a small amount of  stuffing, I used very little just to barely puff it.

The recipient of this little periwinkle heart with a Scottie dog on it loves the color periwinkle and Scotties, so she'll be pleased, I think.

Cutting with the pinking shears seems to help the thread to have a place to rest when the stitching is done and makes it look a little bit neater, I'm not the best hand-stitcher.


I cut the dog out first.


The heart shape (cut two) I first cut with a piece of paper--free handed--then cut the felt with the paper heart pattern, AFTER making sure the shape would fit nicely inside the heart.


First, stitch the shape onto the front of one heart.


(Tiny buttons could be added at this point for accent if you'd like.)


I secured the ribbon to the back heart on the inside before starting to stitch the hearts together.


Start stitching the hearts together.


Sew almost all the way around, stopping on a flat side on bottom to gently push just a little stuffing in before finishing your stitching.  


Words could be stitched on, but I thought the simpler, the sweeter.


They're almost as fun to decorate as a Valentine's cookie!  And I don't think you'll be able to stop with just one...so have fun!

Simple + Sweet = LOVE!

Sunday Dinner...From Close to Home

 

Eatin' food grown close to home.  It's the way I was raised, and I'm sure it's the same for many of you, too.

The ham is from a side of pork we bought from a neighbor's hog.

The corn is from my friend's garden (ours didn't do well last year.)  I taught her to can, she sent me home with a few grocery sacks full of corn.

The potatoes we grew in our back yard.  I was amazed at how long they lasted through this winter and last, we are still using them.  We will grow them every year, as well as onions.

The rolls are hidden in the basket.  We didn't grow the wheat or produce the milk ourselves.  I wish we had a milk source.

The strawberries for dessert were grown in our back garden. 

The pride I feel when a meal is mostly grown close to home is immeasurable.  I wish more Americans could know what this could mean to them.  More independence and pride is something we could all use.  

Those who are "less fortunate" and those in government making a fuss about "food deserts" should learn to grow their own food and not count on someone else to get it to their table for them.  

Sorry, but that's how generations of Americans have survived and the government didn't have to do everything for them.  Even the city dwellers had garden plots in their back yards.  

This spirit of dependence instead of independence, well, it's just plain pitiful to watch.  This is not American, to have the government thinking of and doing everything for our families.

The way the coming "food shortages" are becoming bigger and bigger news, I think we'd all do well to grow more of our own food this coming year.  (The above link will take you to a news story recently that talks about everything that's coming together that is creating this problem.)

Have you heard these news reports about the military being ordered to prepare for "food riots" because the food supplies are LOW, and the price of food is going to skyrocket?  I know you've already noticed prices of groceries going up, up, up.  

There are stories all over the news about this.  I'm starting to notice them picking up.  I am shocked at that.  The dollar is becoming more and more worthless and that means commodities will be more and more expensive, including food especially.

I am thinking I'll order my garden seeds early this year and stock up on more canning supplies.  I have some cuts from our side of beef that need to be used and am considering canning a lot of vegetable and chicken soup with it as well as some of the veggies we still have left from our garden that we stored in the freezer.

These days are sure full of fear and uncertainty.  

Are you worried?  Are you planning on a bigger garden and preserving more of your own food?

 

Cozy @ Home: A Treat Waits on the Counter

Sometimes, I get a little melancholy...when I think about how fast time is going, like a train.


My youngest is fifteen.


Soon, he won't look for goodies on the counter when he gets home from school.  

And so, I get to work...
So that when he walks in the house, it smells good.

"What did you bake?"  says he.

"CUPCAKES!"  


"They're for you!"

It's not much, didn't take too long, but hopefully, it's remembered.


This boy doesn't get all excited about the raspberry gumdrops on top, shoot, he doesn't even care if they're frosted (whose kid is he?!), he just gobbles some up.


I like to make him treats every now and then....

After all, in my math, FOOD = LOVE.

Cozy @ Home: Nap Time

So inviting...

A chilly fall afternoon, but it's warm inside...

A cozy quilt, some soft pillows,

I just sink right in...

And when I wake up fifteen or twenty minutes later,

Everything feels so much better!

So, on the weekends, do YOU like a nap?

(My favorite time to nap is Sunday afternoon, after dinner is cleaned up!)

Vintage Toy Guest Room

A couple weeks back, we got a chance to get up to this room that my oldest son moved out of earlier this year.

We (meaning my husband) got the room painted after I cleaned it out and got it ready to go. I was so happy I could finally begin to move some of the kids old toys into it and get the bed set up.

I went "attic shopping" for almost everything in the room. I only had to buy paint, everything else we already had stashed except for the mattress and the headboard/footboard.

click on any photo to enlarge

It's a tiny little room, tucked under the eaves of this old house, just at the top of the stairs.

It faces south, so it's a nice bright room when the sun shines. It's cozy.

The metal bed is a lucky, unintended find from our local antique mall and was $35 plus three cans of spray paint in pistachio by Krylon. It's plain Jane but I kind of like it.

The chenille bedspread is one I already had...queen size goes over the top and sides of an extra deep twin and hangs to the floor just like I like it!

My husband is the expert painter in the family and he did the honors on this beauty and I swear, you'd think it was done in a body shop! (Buy the trigger made just for spray paint cans, they're totally worth it and they last and last!)

And, I can't show you quite yet, but I happened to have a doll bed I bought for a few dollars at a garage sale that he painted the same color that I am currently making a bedding set for, it's a miniature of this bed!

It's so much fun to see things you never realized were just meant for each other!

Now this room isn't anything to write home about, no doubt some of ya'll have closets bigger than this room. Luckily, this room does have its own tiny little walk-in closet.

And I have plans for that, too.

That's where I am going to try to cram all of my sewing supplies so I can get them out of sight. Where they currently reside in my craft room, they're out there for the whole world to see and any of you that sew know how that can be....you look like a hoarder when you just collect just a little fabric here and there. (Ahem!)

Really, when people looking at my sewing and craft supplies, it is just red-face embarrassing for me.

It makes me s.w.e.a.t. So, I am going to do something about it!

The feeling I get when a guest looks at my stacks of "creative supplies" is similar to the feeling one would get if she found out her dress were tucked into her underwear and pantyhose while she walked up the main aisle of church during service, with all of the ushers lined up across the back of the auditorium, watching, along with the rest of the congregants in the back rows! (DON'T ask me who did this...hehe =)

It's been kind of fun to dig out the vintage items from the totes they were stored in and put them into the room.

Of course, this old vintage paint by number doggie painting had to make the cut, it's just darling and tiny, like this little room, plus it makes me smile.

There's a tiered bookshelf with glass doors that holds a bunch of my vintage children's books and I haven't got them all moved in yet. But this shelf happens to hold vintage Little Golden Books. I can't wait until my grandson chooses one with his chubby little hands and brings it to me with a smile, asking me to read to him!

This character in the tiny chair below belongs to my husband, but it has to be put away when someone sleeps in the room, I put him in the closet. And I turn his grinning face to the wall.

He'd give you the heebie jeebies if you looked over at him while trying to fall asleep. YIKES!

(I should tell you that anytime we SKYPE with my daughter and her husband and Levi, Mr. Howdy Doody sneaks out of his hiding place and always places his spooky self within range of the camera and he always startles my daughter, but good, each and every time! HA!)

(Why did anyone think this was a cool toy?!)

Most of the toys I saved were Fisher Price, there are a few Playskool in the mix. (Did you know that Amazon.com carries a line of new retro Fisher-Price toys? They're all classics and there's probably fifteen that they're replicating. Now our kids can have the good stuff we remember. Pretty smart of the manufacturer to go this route!0

I just love this old Fisher Price circus train...and of course the classic "Rock-a-Stack" baby toy.

Popcorn popper anyone?

This little red doll high chair was bought at a garage sale last summer for $2. Yes, really. Isn't it too cute? In the bag under the chair are doll clothes for the doll that sits in the high chair. I'm just beggin' kids to stay and play awhile!

Oh, look, it's a vintage ME! Circa 1960's.

I have a couple little girl's dresses from my own childhood era hanging in the room, they're too cute to hide, and I love this--I mean little ducks and the other tiny and sweet details? Too cute for words.

On the shelf above the bed I have a little section set aside for Raggedy Ann and some books that go with her. I spelled out RAGGEDY with vintage letter blocks. I couldn't find an "A" so the bunny is standing in for it.

I just picked some rick rack out of the basket and tacked it to the edge of the shelf, one clear tack at each end! It's perfect but temporary and can be changed if I want to change the "color scheme" of the room.

Once the bed was set up, I went diggin' in my stash of oh so cool to the touch, cotton vintage sheets and lookie, I found a whole matching set in yellow...so on they went!

I have a question.

Why is making a bed up with vintage sheets way more fun than making a bed up with new ones?

I also have a set of vintage Sesame Street sheets you can request, if you want to come spend the night...

The dresser in this room was in pieces in our first little house we bought and fixed up before we got married. My husband secretly put it back together and refinished it for a wedding gift for me! He surprised me with it on our wedding day! He had chosen heart-shaped drawer pulls to finish it off... how sweet is that?

It's been mine for almost thirty years now, and so has he!

I've tried to never change it for sentimental reasons. (If it weren't sentimental, I would paint it for this space.)

That's my youngest son's Tickle Me Elmo on the bed. It's the newest toy in the room and is about thirteen years old.

Remember when Tickle Me Elmo was the HAVE TO HAVE gift for Christmas? Ahh...the memories. Well, the tickling and giggling/singing got old after about two days and that was the end. So Elmo is really almost like new. (Battery toys, blah!)

I kind of want to curl up in the bed and read...or...

...sleep!

Nap time for me!

There's nothing like a midday nap...