Tip-Sharing Tuesday

Dear Reader,

Our Valentine's decorating activities were postponed yesterday, due to technical difficulty:





But at least AnnaMarie was able to get one done!


I wanted to share this sweet poem with you, from the Mother's Magazine, February 1909, but our scanner wasn't working, so I hope you can read the words (You can click it to enlarge it)~~~


I am very grateful to my husband, who made me a new banner for my blog this morning~~How handy that he graduated in graphic design, even if that is not his current employ!

It seems the drawing bug has been caught by others in the family, as my husband also did this lovely pencil portrait of us (Taken just a few years ago! ;) ) last Saturday;

While I did this rose, which I copied from this painting by Redoute (And during which time, discovered that you just can't make colored pencils look like oil paint!)~

We'd better put our pencils away, though, and get 10 more quilts ready for the hospital (At least little tied quilts work up super fast).

Before we go, we'll leave with you from a few tips from the same Mother's Magazine the above poem came from:

*When cleaning rugs, lay them right side down on the grass, in summer, and on the snow, in winter, and beat vigorously; then turn, and repeat the process on the other side. Finish with a good sweeping, and your rugs will look much fresher than when hung on a line and beaten, besides lasting longer.

*A piece of white soap is quite an adjunct to an embroidery outfit. Rubbed along the line taken by threads that are to be drawn from linen, it will make those same threads draw much more quickly and easily. Rubbed on the under side of the cloth when doing eyelet work, it stiffens the linen and makes it easier to do the work evenly and uniformly.

*If your thread twists and knots, try stretching the cotton before beginning to use it. Take the usual needleful from the spool, hold each end firmly, and stretch the cotton as tightly as possible two or three times. You will find you have no snarls in it.

*In the house where there are children the wall back of the living room couch is generally in a battered condition-the paper soiled by small fingers and torn by active little heels. Nothing offers so much protection with such good effect as a piece of Japanese matting the length of the couch and as high as may be desired. Tack in place, and then edge with a narrow oak or gild moulding screwed securely in place. When it becomes soiled, wipe off with a cloth wrung from salt and water, and it will look as fresh as when new. The effect of such a panel is really artistic, if care is taken to choose colors suited to the other furnishings in the room.

This treatment may also be used in the playroom, the matting run along the wall above the baseboard.


May you have a loving day,

Marqueta

Our Compact

By Aldis Dunbar

At waking time, with voices gay,
There is a little charm we say:
"Good morning, dear, and Happy day!"

Like nestlings and their mother-bird,
Each gives to each the cheery word
Before another sound is heard.

On this--in love--we all agree:
Whatever storms in life may be,
Our days shall open sorrow-free.

Swift as a new dawn is begun,
And bright eyes open to the sun,
I hear its echoes, one by one.

And if the skies are really gray,
We find it chases gloom away.
"Good morning, dear, and a Happy day!"

Happy Candlemas (And Groundhog) Day

Dear Reader,

We hope you had as restful Sabbath, as did Frankie! We had the humbling, special experience of being able to help a dear friend whose daughter was suffering from RSV, and didn't wish to expose her to the cold air to go the doctor. We advised hot baths with sweating herbs and an onion poultice (as per Dr. Christopher's advice), and the little girl was much improved the next morning. Thank the Lord for His simple healing plants! I think the time is coming that we should all have a few preparations like these at hand, for emergencies, for if something were to happen and we could not get to a doctor, we would want to be prepared.

And now we begin a new week, a new day, and a new month. February is our saving grace in our part of the world, for it is the shortest month of winter, and we know (or hope!) that March will bring a change in the weather. We try not to think of the muddy, brown time that precedes spring, however!

"My fellow Americans. . . "

If girls can wear pants, how come boys can't wear dresses?

We have begun our Valentine card-making already (But forgot to take pictures of the proceedings), and will be decorating our parlor and front entry for Valentine's Day today. I used to be a stick in the mud about such things, before I realized that there could be nothing more beautiful than celebrating Love, for a whole season instead of a day. May we all show forth extra love to those whom we love, as well as those who are unlovable, in honor of St. Valentine, who lost his life because he loved the Lord. If you do not already have Tasha Tudor's book "All for Love", it is full of wonderful Valentine's ideas, stories, songs, and poetry.


We were just reading in the February 2007 issue of "Romantic Homes" about creating a Valentine's tree and decorating it with love notes, adding one a day for each family member until Valentine's Day, when all the notes are opened and read. We'll have to give that one a try, it sounds so lovely.

Now, off to pull out all the February issues of Victoria Magazine, and put away the Januaries!

May the Lord pour out His beautiful love upon you and your loved ones today,

~Marqueta

from "A Shepherd's Garland"

Love is my life,
life is my love,
love is my whole felicity,
Love is my sweet,
sweet is my love,
I am in love, and love in me.
~Michael Drayton

Joyful Hours

"The silent influence of books, is a mighty power in the world; and there is a joy in reading them known only to those who read them with desire and enthusiasm. Silent, passive, and noiseless though they be, they yet set in action countless multitudes, and change the order of nations." ~Giles


Dear Reader,

A joyful Monday morning to you! We decided to take some time to dust and rearrange our parlor bookcases today, and Audrey was the lucky one whose turn it was for dusting, so the task fell on her capable (though a tad unenthusiastic) shoulders~~




Unlike Fanny Dashwood, we love the smell of books! Old books that are musty, new books that are inky; ahh, perfume as sweet as the earth in spring.



We have quite a library of moldering, unwanted books that we've collected through the years (Thank you, eBay), and have wonderful plans of re-binding them someday! There are old histories, texts of articulation and elocution, tomes on women's health (very intriguing), with a few classics (Such as a tiny "Lady of the Lake") sprinkled on for good measure. For now they rest on the very tippy-top bookshelf, so as to keep them safe from the ravages of little book worms, but we dream of having a beautiful display case (with locking glass doors) to house them in.

And then there's the bookcase (or two or three) full of Mother's books which are housed in her bedroom (We're still trying to find a way to suspend a few cases from the ceiling :) )~~~~Full of lovely, inspiring, feminine books and magazines, to help encourage and uplift, and give refreshment to her weary soul~~

Another project-covering these utilitarian slipcases with something rosey.

And let's not forget the family room's more family-friendly board books, nature magazines, school books, etc. etc. (We hesitate sharing a picture of THAT collection with the whole world, however!)

And hopefully we will have time in the next few months to gift the world with our first book, "Little Folks Companion, a Treasury of Tools for Buildling a Happy Home", which is a compedium of lovely homey advice which we've gleaned from Victorian and vintage magazines and books over the last several years, with a few of our own poems, songs, etc.

Not sure why these are side-ways~~ I think I've finally gotten down drawing people-Hooray!
This is one of my favorite pictures of Frankie and me.

(Note to self: No more attempting detailed portraits on a 4"x6" sketch book!)

May you be inspired to share a favorite book with your family, or to pick up a new old treasure at an antique or thrift store, and be lost in the wonders of the written word.

Love,

Marqueta

"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counsellor, a multitude of counsellors." ~H.W. Beecher

Mother Culture and Air Castles

Dear Reader,

Just when we thought it was spring, we were gifted with four inches of snow in the night!


The poor chickens are back to sadly wandering around their house, wondering what to do with themselves.


I told them to be grateful that at least they had a few weeks to be out, but I'm not sure they listened.



While reading Mother's Magazine, May 1909, I came across this interesting article, which I found amusing, as I thought I had invented reading while nursing a baby!

"No one gets less time to read than the mother of little children, yet no one needs more to read. She needs to be informed about the special duties before her; she needs recreation; she needs uplift. Necessarily tied at home as her body is, her mind needs the more to roam abroad. Most young mothers feel this so intensely that the hunger of their minds torments them like an actual physical craving.

How funny that Audrey took this picture of what I was reading the other day!

To one such woman I suggested that she should read to herself while she was nursing the baby. But she told me that she had several times tried it, and found that the book or magazine so attracted the attention of the baby that he stopped nursing and tried to catch at the leaves and to put the innutritious book-cover in his mouth.

Now, the trouble in her case was that she did not begin soon enough. In the very early days, when the baby is only a few weeks old, he will not notice the book at all, and by the time he is ready to notice it will have become so much a fixed accompaniment to the nursing-hour that he will pay no attention to it. By reading at such times the mother gains two or three hours a day in which to enrich her mind, and refresh herself."

I suppose that the only reason they did not mention reading in the bathtub until you were water-logged and lukewarm was due to the lack of heated bathrooms in those days! The article continues:

"Once a young mother wrote to me that she was given to what she called the pernicious habit of 'building air castles.' Now, I don't think that a pernicious habit at all; I think it a most valuable one. Not only does it make the builder happy, and keep him out of mischief, but the right air castles tend to come true.

~LDS temple, Rexburg Idaho (Not an air castle!)~

Remember this when you are building them, and be careful that they are really the right air castles. I have known wives to build air castles about their own death, and the effect it would have upon their cross husbands; or to calculate the power of invalidism to bring forth a kinder response and more consideration. I have even known angry mothers to smack imaginary lips over imaginary punishments which should befall unmanageable children. Sentimental women sometimes think to add to the poignancy of their love for their children by imagining how they would feel those same children were taken away ; or conceiving an old age without them; or life as was before they came.

Such air castles, like happier ones, also tend to come true if they are held too steadily in mind. They lower the mental tone, and so weaken and pervert the will as to make a happier state of things every day more unlikely.

~The castle that my sister made for her garden~

Build good air castles, then, as you go about your daily work. Build them high and spacious, and equip them with every beautiful thing. Imagine them as intensely as you can. The clearer you think them, the surer they are to be realized."


Last night, as I was swooning my way through the Thompson and Morgan seed catalog (while freezing in the bathtub), AnnaMarie gave up on my coming in for dinner (Really, I was almost done!) and brought mine in to me. On my plate was half a baked onion, with the skin partly removed. Lo and behold, it turned into an oriental poppy! Maybe that's an omen that this year my gardening air castles will come true!


Speaking of AnnaMarie, she is becoming the maven of braidin', with the help of a doohickey called the "Easy Braid" that holds your hair in place while French braiding. Soon she'll have to hang out a shingle!

Tasha's 'doo (Excuse the airing Elvis jumpsuit and rumpled towels!)

And of course we wouldn't leave dear Frankie out of the hair-styling fun!

Have yourself a beautiful day!

Love,

Marqueta

Unheeded Joy

Could we but think to put away
Life's little troubles and annoys,
How much of welcome, day by day,
Our hearts might spare to passing joys!

~Eugene C. Dolson

Of Birthdays and Things

Dear Reader,

We're so glad you've come by today-It's beautiful outside, and we'll be headed out soon to air dry our laundry (At least some of the way, it's still cold!), but we thought we'd drop a line here first.

We had a fun pre-birthday party for Evangeline on Saturday, who will be a big four-year-old tomorrow. Her Grandma Graham made her an adorable Amish dress and apron, and matching doll, which she will not part with for love or money!
Her sisters made her a lovely cake, made from berries, bananas, coconut, cashews, and dates. Yummy but oh, so rich!

Her other grandma came out and gave her a purse full of goodies, and her uncle gave her some fun books. We've been so blessed to have her sweet little spirit in our home and lives these past few years.

Happy birthday, Rosebud Dolly Doodles!

Cowboy Frank received some new duds for an early birthday present.

It's a rug, it's a mop, it's a poodle!

Now that we've had our party, it's back to fun and learning (And cleaning~Audrey found this heart in her mop water)~~~~


And learning how to work marionettes (Like all Tasha Tudor afecionados, we harbor marionette show fantasies!)

And practicing our drawing, so we can illustrate that book we've been working on for the last three years!

And taking time to enjoy a good read (With a built-in homeschool lesson on bees!)~~

And just being ourselves (in various incarnations)!


Well, "Hang clothes while the sun shines", as they say~~~Thanks again for visiting, and we pray that you and yours will be blessed in whatever your day holds for you.

Love,

Marqueta

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