I've finished one more altered skirt. This one is my favorite. Now if only I can muster up the nerve to wear it. Lynn says, "mom, wear what you love"! I love the pink linen with the cut work bottom...
The sewing room makes me happy. Old things make me happy. Once at a yard sale I found a very old cigar box filled with sewing notions. Who could resist buying something like that for a dollar or two?
Quart jars of old buttons make me happy. Do you reckon there could be any buttons here worth anything? Poppy might could quit work and I could buy a donkey... :)
There are some really old buttons here. Take a closer look...
I would never be lucky enough to happen upon something worth a lot of money.
Looking at these buttons sometimes I see one that brings back memories...like remembering seeing the same button on one of Aunt Berlie's simple cotton dresses. She used to order her dresses from the Sears Roebuck catalog. Once when I was spending a few days with her, she ordered a dress for me too. A simple little cotton dress.
Maybe it's the old glass buttons that are worth something and some of these look like glass...
Oh well, enough about becoming rich off old buttons.
Oil lamps make me happy. Once upon a time, back before we invested in a generator, Poppy and I used all these oil lamps. During every storm seems like we lost our electricity. It was fun lighting the oil lamps. I will never understand though how people read or for that matter did anything by the light of an oil lamp. Mama used to say that her daddy read the Bible every night. I'm sure it was by the light of an oil lamp and maybe the flickering light from the fire in the fireplace. That reminds me...Mama had two brothers, Henry and Charlie. Mama said her daddy would get a fire going in the fireplace and Charlie would start messing with the fire. Grandpa would say, Charlie if you'll leave the fire alone it will burn! That was many years ago. Mama was born in 1917 and she was just a girl back when Charlie would play with the fire.
Some of the oil lamps scattered throughout our little house...
The lady in the picture is Lynn, my daughter. This is a copy of a painting done by Jeffrey Mims, an artist in Southern Pines...
Whew! Sometimes I get carried away. Thank you for visiting!
Love,
Henny Penny
I was up at the garden at 9:00 this morning picking anything worth bringing in. There are still enough beans to pick and cook. Lots of okra and peppers still coming, and tomatoes but the tomatoes are not so pretty and they don't keep very well. Seems okra really comes out when everything else is dying down. Okra has a pretty bloom...
This just may be our last colorful pot of garden vegetables. Okra is on the bottom...
I am reading the most interesting book called "More Than a Ticket" by Argie Ella Hoskins. A few weeks back I did a post about my Mother and Daddy flying to New York in the 1950's. Daddy often flew from North Carolina to New York on business. Well for my post I searched on line for a picture of commercial airlines and stewardesses from the 1950's. Fortunately, I happened upon a blog called americanairlinesstewardess.blogspot.com and wasted no time ordering her book. I am loving it. The book is loaded with pictures from the 1950's and her story just touches my heart. Argie Hoskins is adorable in her American Airlines uniform.
Anybody who reads my blog knows how much I love the 1950's. When I was a teenager, becoming an airline stewardess was my dream. Daddy went so far as to ask a stewardess during a flight to please write to me and she did. Wish I had that letter now.
Back to plants...the tiniest sweetest little vine has come up in the yard and wound itself around a lemon balm plant. This is a weed with heart shaped leaves, but just too cute to pull up and toss away...
Thank you for visiting.
Love,
Henny Penny
Something interesting was going on that woke Dumperoo from his nap in the chair. Could it have been a mouse...
Believe me, in no way is this becoming a fashion blog. Me? Fashion? I could probably start a blog on my fashion blunders! There are just a couple, well three skirts I want to show you. Altered skirts. Long skirts are my favorite thing to wear and are hard to find...at least skirts that I like.
Lynn got me interested in "altered couture" but I just never could do it...except for putting skirts together. My altered skirts...
The skirts are a little larger than this shapely mannequin...these skirts fit me. :) Anyhow, that's my altered couture for the day.
I enjoy bluegrass music and had it playing last night while I was in the sewing room. Anyway the station played a really really old song, one that I haven't heard in years called, "Why don't you haul off and love me one more time". It made me laugh and reminded me of when people used to use that phrase. "I'm gonna haul off"...like "I'm gonna haul off and hit you"! Of course, now the song is stuck in my mind and I've been singing it all day.
Need to get busy. My thirty minutes at the computer has just turned into one hour!
Thank you for stopping by.
Love,
Henny
Sometimes I just simply run out of anything worth posting...and still don't have much.
I was in Henderson yesterday picking up a prescription and on the drive home stopped the car in the middle of a back country road to get this picture...
Do you ever wonder why you are drawn to certain things? For me it's these small lonely looking old home places. I just feel a connection somehow.
Leaves are falling from the willow oak trees which makes me think of fall...and those spiders that show up this time of the year! They hang in a web that looks like a clothesline strung from one tree to another. I have horrors of walking into one. During the day the spider hides, but hangs in that web at night. Another sign of fall...Yellowjackets. I never see them until this time of the year. Busy mowing the back yard a couple of days ago, I felt that awful painful stinging on the side of my foot. It was a Yellowjacket. I had mowed over their nest in a hole in the ground.
I can see a little fall in this picture...
I am actually looking forward to raking leaves this fall...imagine that! The very job that stressed me out so last fall
Bun Bun just may be spoiled. Hanging out waiting for me to carry him to the empty dog lot to play...
Thank you for stopping by.
Love,
Henny Penny
Guess who got another brand new ten dollar bone...for being such a good boy...
Nellie stopped by late this afternoon with a container of cooked collards, two cornbread patties and some cake. We watched the new duck swimming on the pond and then looked in on Bun Bun. Remember Bun Bun the little grey rabbit...
This was Bun Bun back in May. Well today I let him play inside one of our empty dog lots. Of course I forgot the camera. It was totally entertaining to watch him. He hopped all around that dog lot kicking up his heels and acting silly. He is back in his cage for the night. Hopefully tomorrow I will get pictures.
I have finished cleaning up that second dirty baby doll. Here are the dolls again as they looked when Nellie brought them to me...
and now...
This was a fun job!
There's no telling what I've written here as I am blogging in my sleep. Hope to visit with you all tomorrow. Right now the bed looks mighty good.
Love,
Henny
Most nights when supper is finished and Poppy settles into his favorite chair in front of the TV, Eli brings his teddy bear so he and Poppy can fight. Last night however, Poppy didn't feel so well. He was not in the mood to rough-house with Eli. With a sad pitiful look Eli dragged his bear across the floor and got up in his favorite chair...
He is such a big sweetie-pie!
You should have seen him light up when I said come on Eli, we'll go for a walk. While we were out I tried getting some better pictures of the new duck...
Those feathers on her left side are not supposed to stand out quite the way they do. Those were probably hurt when she was put in the cage. Lots of folks are not as careful and gentle as I like to be when handling animals. Wish I could gather up and bring home all the animals that belong to folks around here.
Back when I was having yard sales at the flea market every Friday and Saturday, a man brought a small wire cage and crowded inside that cage was two roosters, one guinea, four or five hens, and a duck. Hot summertime, no food, no water...I was so thankful when one by one he sold out. This guy deserved to be shut up in a small cage and left sitting in the sun for a day and I would love to be the one to latch the door of that cage.
I tell Poppy, most of the critters we bring home probably think they have died and gone to heaven.
I am a very patient person. Sometimes however I just can't wait, not even for one more day. I'm talking about those dirty grungy dolls of Nellie's. Can't wait to show you. Remember the one with the dirtiest face and wearing the little dress?
The doll's outfit is made from two perfectly good pairs of my winter socks. I started working with the doll and could not go to bed until I had finished.
Gosh! I need to be finished here! Still lots to do today. Thank you for stopping by.
Love,
Henny
Nellie stopped by again, she said, to show me two old baby dolls. Two grungy old baby dolls. One she said had been thrown away. She found it at the trash dump. Not sure about the other. We looked at the dolls, talked for a few minutes and Nellie said, smiling, I brought you something you've been wanting. Oh my gosh! What? She walked around to the back of her old two tone grey and burgundy pick-up truck, let the raggedy old tailgate down, reached in and pulled out a cage holding a beautiful white duck. A large graceful white duck with black markings. The duck looks a lot like this female "Magpie" duck borrowed from Wikipedia...
Where was my camera while all this was happening? In the house! Why didn't I get a picture of Nellie and her truck? Maybe next time.
Like Piper our little black duck, this new duck has lived in a pen...never been on the water before. These ducks are so enjoying the pond. I got a few pictures early this morning of the three ducks on the pond, but not a close up...
No duck in this next picture. I just like the picture...
Nellie would not let me pay her for the duck so I talked her into taking half the green beans I had snapped and washed...all ready to put on to cook. There were enough to make each of us a big potful.
Back to those dolls. I am warning you...these boy baby dolls from the 1970's need some work bad...
This should be a fun job!
I hope to be back soon with better pictures of the ducks and the dolls. Better get busy...got beans on the stove in the pressure canner. Thank you for visiting.
Love,
Henny
How fortunate I am to have two beautiful and special granddaughters...Madison and Michaela. Both granddaughters were born in 1998, three months apart. Madison, Andee's daughter was born in April. Michaela, Lynn's daughter was born in July.
Last month I posted my favorite picture of Madison wearing her prom dress. So, now I have a new favorite picture of Michaela to show off...
It's pretty hard to imagine looking at this picture that Michaela was such a tom boy growing up. Having three older brothers to compete with, well...Daniel, Joseph, and John...
See what I mean. Joseph, on the left, looks like he had been in a fight. I think he fell from every piece of furniture in the house at one time or another. Actually the white spot on his little mouth is a scratch on the picture. I love these boys! Of course, now they are big strong handsome men.
Moving on...It was my daughter Lynn back in February of 2013 who said...mama, I think that you would enjoy having a blog. She was right about that! This has been such fun. It feels like I have traveled around the world meeting people! Not just people, but real friends.
Recently, Lynn said...mama, I think you would enjoy doing Pilaties. Doing what? Pilaties, Pilaties. It's exercise. Now in my thirties and forties I exercised faithfully. Every night some time after supper but before bed time I exercised. I had my routine worked out...bending and stretching, touching my toes, sit-ups, leg kicks. There were about six different exercises and I did forty repetitions each. Lately, I have noticed my waistline disappearing...in fact the last time I checked, it was completely gone. How did this happen! Disgusted with myself, last Saturday morning I got on the computer and searched for Pilaties for beginners. Sure enough there on "You Tube", a 30 minute Pilaties workout for beginners. I slid a chair or two out of my way and tried sitting down on the bedroom floor. Actually I had to drop myself down on the bedroom floor. I got half way down and remembered that my knees don't work so well any more. Well folks today will be my forth day of "trying" to do Pilaties. Hey, my plan is to get good at this. Pilaties is pushing your belly button inwards toward your spine...I've got a long ways to go to get my belly button anywhere close to my spine. :)
Thank you so much for visiting.
Love,
Henny Penny
 |
| Michaela |
.JPG)
.JPG)
