Another collection. Twenty years ago when I was expecting my third child, I received a matryoshka doll from a very special friend. That doll is the yellow one on the front row far right of the picture. I was thrilled and a new collection was born (along with my third daughter).

Of the matryoshka in this photo several were gifts but many were bought on the trip that included St Petersburg, Russsia. Street vendors sold these for amazing prices and the more you bought the lower the price would go, if you acted like you were going to walk away the price would drop again. Not one of the sets I bought was even $10, most were $5 or less. There is one set here we bought another time in the Czech Republic (the brown one in the back left), one was sent to us by a cousin who lives in Germany when D3 was sick, one was given to me by a sister (she got it from someone who had traveled to Romania). I have a few others that fall into the religious icon category, pictures of those at another time.

One interesting fact about matryoshka is that each town has a style of decoration particular to that town. If you know enough about the art, you can identify where a doll was painted - just by looking at it.

This is the blue and gold teapot from earlier post. In the previous picture you really couldn't see anything beyond the shape. This too is Russian Lomonosov porcelain.



Now, I said I would show you something I did using this bowl as inspiration


So here it is


You see, when we moved into this house I didn't like any of the wall coverings. I hate - HATE, I tell you - wall paper, and it was everywhere. So I have stripped off every bit of it and painted every wall. By now, some of those walls more than once. Anyway, I'd love to someday have quartz counter tops and a beautiful tile back splash - but with two currently in college and one still to go, that just isn't going to happen for a while yet. Can't do anything about the laminate counter tops (though I often threaten to paint them to look like granite) and there is no point in putting in a nice back splash until the counters are replaced so I hand painted a fake tile back splash all the way around my counters. The border "tiles" are painted to look like the bowl. I did the design and every stroke myself.
Here are a few closer photos





If people aren't really paying attention all that closely they are always surprised when I point out that there is no tile on my kitchen walls.

Yes, once upon a time I was all crafty and creative - then I got old and crotchety...

You know what happens when a 40 something woman goes tearing around the house so the corgis can chase her with gleeful abandon? The woman wipes out on the hardwood while running around a turn, landing on her ass, well hip - ouch. Game over


Innocent looking aren't they?

Nope, but in a sort of tangential way we have a few things in common (besides corgis).

I too love beautiful glassware and dishes. Mine tend to be a more relaxed sort of collecting - and my dishes have a somewhat international flare, because - as I have stated elsewhere - we travel and I like color and traditional art. So here are a few shots of my personal collection.



This shot shows a serving dish carefully carried home to me by my hub from a spring break school trip he chaperoned with D2. There are several pieces I will share that they brought me. This particular dish came from the bazaar in Morocco. Also shown here is a deep blue teapot from Russia (eBay purchase)I'll need to get a better picture of somehow, against the back a copper ware plate from Turkey, and a little engraved silver mug with a little silver fork that were mine as a baby. I suppose this means I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth - not sure who gave this gift, but my friends we were poor. The crystal bud vase was brought to me by my husband and son just this summer - they picked it up in Prague.



These two tiny plates are deep blue with gold - the one shows Don Don Quixote and his sidekick, the other a Muslim style geometric design. These also brought to me by the hub from the trip taken several years ago (they went to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco)



This serving bowl we picked up on a visit to Bratislava, Slovakia in 1999 not very many years after the break up of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. I love this bowl - its color and folk art type design. I will show you in a future post something sort of special I have done with this bowl as inspiration.



This teapot is one of my very favorite yard sale finds. For $1 I got this pretty Limoges (Charles Ahrenfeldt - France) teapot (probably from the late 50s-60s), for another 25 cents I got a matching candy plate.



The larger teapot is another from Russia, the smaller teapot is a single serve cup and pot combo and is Tara from Ireland, there is a tassel in the back that D2 brought back from China and a pair of Leprechaun musicians I brought back from Ireland (on one of the four trips I've made there). The plate in back with tiny roses around the edge was a gift from my SIL, her parents had an antique shop in Miami and when they sold off I got a few goodies as gifts.



More of my collection of Russian Lomonosov Porcelain teapots and tea cups. I Love royal blue, and nobody does it better than Lomonosov. I could eat this stuff! A pair of sheep salt and pepper shakers from Ireland, not sure where the larger plate in back is from - another SIL treat - but I do know it is over 100 years old and has a very interesting makers mark engraved into the back, the smaller plate came from Rhodes, Greece. The deer on that plate is the symbol of Rhodes and it is everywhere, even on the man hole covers. The small teacup in the lower corner is from Greece.



This is my MIL's china. I caught her after she had boxed it all up and was going to sell it to Replacements, Inc. Just in time I saved it, convinced her it was worth keeping in the family - so sometime, many years from now :) I will pass pieces to my daughters. It is labeled American Limoge, Bramble with 22-K gold trim (tell me anything about it Suzette?) It is a nearly complete set and in moderately good condition and as they have been married about 55 years - about that old. Another tassel from China.



One more Russian teapot with teacup, saucer, and desert plate, as well as a cream pitcher of a different pattern, a random thrift shop find rose teacup, a pair of Limoge teacups I picked up in Paris, an Old Country Roses Royal Albert teacup and saucer given me by a very very dear friend, and the hand painted rooster plate from Portugal and hand painted folk art platter from Puente, Spain more prizes bought to me by D2 and the hub.

So there you have a sampling of some of my own clutter.

I'm in the midst of a project I've needed to do for years. It is recommended that we all keep photos of pretty much all our "stuff" for insurance purposes. I'm finally doing it - going through the house room by room trying to document at least to some extent. This is giving me tons of pics that give me ideas for short blog posts - well, short on words, long on pictures. Today I want to share the view into my front yard from the door. Maybe in a few months it will snow and I can post a snowy version. But I'm in no hurry for that one!



You can't even tell that I am behind mowing by about two weeks.

Guardians of the outside of the door.


And the guardians of the inside of the door.

Number two on my endorsement list - Jim DeMint (R) Senator, South Carolina.

There was a day, some years ago now, when I was excited about congressman Lindsay Graham. I find myself ashamed of that support now. What a twid. Now that he is a Senator, you know as well as I, that Lindsay has become a butt kisser. Jim DeMint not so much. Mr DeMint was openly saying he is a conservative first and a Republican second before it became the issue it is today - before it was cool. He was something of a thorn in Bush's side toward the end of Bush's term when TARP was being debated and passed. DeMint did his darndest to cry foul.

Conservative first - that gets him a spot on my endorsement list - and with Graham and Sandford, SC needs a Republican with a spine. I think he is worth keeping, his first term ends 2010 lets hope he gets a second but with those other two SC Republican stones around his neck - I don't know.

List now:
1) Michele Bachman
2) Jim DeMint

Update : here is a website that lists DeMint's voting record by issue - looks pretty good to me, maybe not 100% - but only I would vote the way I want 100% of the time.

Some parents who home school set up a designated school room. We do not. Home schooling is part of our life style and it is pretty much on going. Not the same hours five days a week, pretty much round the clock - across the calendar. Therefore home school takes place all over the house, but mostly in the "breakfast room"/family room area. Not a totally open space, but almost so. The two areas have a wall between but that wall is for the most part two super large doorway type openings.

Here are a few pictures of "home school central", the nerve center of the operation.
The open notebook you can see on the table is "THE BOOK", this is where I record the schedule for life in general - not just school - without this book we'd be sunk. Now, since both D2 and D3 are away in school, there is not nearly as much recorded here as in years past. But it is still central planning. The two stacks of books are some of what we use - only a small representation of what he uses on a daily basis and not a drop in the bucket of the over all library we draw from here in the home. When I took this picture he had his vocab, history, and literature books over with him at the fireplace (reading, not burning - heehee)



Just through the door way into the family room is the computer desk. This is where I spend a great deal of my day, often with a Fiona curled under my chair. Notice the 2 liter Diet Dr Pepper to the left of the computer - my drug of choice.



And a needle felted possum hanging from the cork board - everyone needs a possum hanging nearby...



This shot is taken standing in front of the fireplace. It shows how close everything is. We as a family pretty much live in this area. It is cozy, comfy, home.



Here are a few more shelves of our home school library. If you are interested in what books we are using, you can probably see from embiggening. These are some of the books on the shelves on the wall directly opposite the computer. Of course you can find many many more books throughout the house - but these are the ones we use often enough to need on hand and close by. You might notice both here, and on the computer desk, that many of our books are two rows deep. We love books. Can you tell?





Hope I'm not boring the snot out of you, but a few have expressed interest.

The boy is messing with color tiles, he likes playing with patterns and color. Fiona is making suggestions.

I have mentioned in my "about me" that I like to make things. Used to make stuff much more, before the boy was born. Something about having four kids takes all the time and focus needed to be productively creative - or maybe it's age. Anyway, last winter I taught myself to needle felt. This is a collection of some of the critters I made.