Thursday's Tidbits........

I put a dozen or so ornaments on this tree but didn't begin to get really close to being done.  I did sort out my large glass blown ornaments from the smaller ones.  I placed the small ones on a shorter tree as seen below.

The smaller ornaments are not all glass blown but are good replicas.  I though that this small tree just as well be put to use as it has been in storage for a couple of years.  It is about two and half feet tall and works great for sitting on an end table in the living room.  Two trees in the living room and there are no adults around to tell me it is against the rules.

A little hen sits on the branches as the lights reflect from it's shiny glass surface.  This is one of my ornaments from the Ten Days of Christmas set.

We survived a cold grave side service yesterday in Grimes, Iowa and afterward spent a good time with a few first cousins of my wife talking and remembering the past.  Great coffee and cake served in an older Gothic Lutheran Church that has been converted into a Bistro and art gallery.  It actually was the church that my wife's grandfather's generation help build and pay for during the depression years.  We were married in the church and it was nice to see they really haven't changed the building so much.  All of are saying that it could really be turned back into a church someday.

I am an English teacher again today. Drama, Brit. Lit. American Lit. Novels and speech are going to be my subjects of instruction.

Thanks for stopping by my post today.

Teddy Bear Tree

My wife's teddy bear tree has been assembled for display.  It is a collection of bears and other stuffed animals. Some are items of historic importance, others are just for fun collections from different years of gifts.  The boys left some of their soft furries when they grew up and left the house.

Good buddies hanging out on the tree.

I have two trees set up but the ornaments have not been hung on them.  It will happen but life does get in the way a lot of the times when you have think you know what you want to do.

It will be cold today at the graveside services for my wife's Aunt Mildred.  It is warming up now and by then it will be just below freezing when the service starts.  I am doing mundane, boring tech work today that involves placing carrying straps on computer bags.  I have only 115 to go so it will be done by noon.  Jobs like that are great to get done and you never have to return to do it again.

Thanks for stopping by.  I only work a half day today so I will have a different kind of day today.  Take care out there and stay warm where ever you are.

Memory Lane........

While looking around in the old attic of the house on the farm I discovered an old toy barn that was just like mine.  I had a barn as a kid that was made of metal and the outside of it had painting of the scenes of barn boards and window details.  My brother in law who is teight years older than me must have had the same barn.  I found the sections of the sides of it in the attic with no base and no roof.   

This barn that I found  had no redeemable value other than I could see what some of it looked like. I asked the owner about it and he didn't seem to want to talk about it.  I don't know how it got to be in such a bad condition unless he had played war with it and it got torn up.

My barn went to the dump even tough it was in great condition.  My parents made two moves after leaving the farm so decided to ditch it during one of those moves.  These animals are about all I have left in which to remember the farm set.

Do you remember when I had so much trouble with finding this spring for my mower? I finally found it and now the mower a year later is about ready to be thrown away.  I wore it out from mowing two yards for three and a half years.  I put it in my trunk and removed it from my trunk  so many times that I have no fond memories of any of that situation.

Remembering the balloon festival two years ago.  I still enjoy seeing the photos from that event.  We just didn't get to go this summer but maybe next year.  I have a greater appreciation for the way they are inflated and on how they have so little control of where they are going with them.

We received word last week that my wife's aunt passed away.  She was the last surviving sister to my wife's dad.  We will be attending a graveside service on Wednesday.

I also received word yesterday that a distant cousin of mine had lost his wife to cancer.  She was ill last Christmas with the cancer which was far more serious that they originally believed.  We only communicate at Christmas so he shared about his lost in his newsletter.  They were cousin's through my John and Iva  connection for those who have followed me for a while. Carol was a profession singer and sang for church's and in various choirs in the Iowa City area.

My wife and I commented as we were putting up another Christmas tree as to how life can be so sad and happy at the same time.  We both have memories of so many lost this past ten years and losing another just reminds us of all of the other losses.

It is Tuesday already and I hope your day is a good one.  Thanks for stopping by to visit my memory lane blog.  I am a techie guy today and am having a break from the classroom.  I think I am more of a janitor that a techie this morning but the exercise is good for me.

Just another old chair.......

I was watching an old PBS special about the Civil War in the United States.  They covered the shooting of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth at the theater, showing old photos and the present day historic site.  Also they described what happened after the President was shot, saying that they took him across the street from the theater and placed him in a randomly chosen boarding house room on the first floor.  They laid him out on the bed diagonally because he was too tall for the small bed. There he lay being attended to by doctors who had none of today's technology to really give him any hope of survival.

They didn't ask permission of the man who had rented the room and since he was gone at the time,  I am sure he was surprised to find the government officials had taken over his room when he returned to the room. From my memory of things Abraham Lincoln didn't die from his wounds until a day later.

The thing that jumped out at me was the chair that was sitting in the boarding house on the right side of the bed. It had a caned seat.  I own a chair like that one in the photo, at least I thought so.

It is the same style of chair in shape.  This chair did have a cane seat in it originally and it is the same shape.  I looked at other views of the chair in other pictures and it is from the same family of chairs but it is not the exact same kind of chair.

This chair has been stained mahogany and I am sure it was originally a light or medium brown wood.  From other views of the chair the side supports and bracing are all the exact same. The three spindles are the same and the  arches are the same.

Here is the major difference, the only difference to the chair.  The back of the boarding house chair was not as fancy as this.  It had a plan top, rectangular and straight across the top.  The carving was too fancy probably for a boarding house. I have seen chairs like that at antique stores.  They were used as everyday dining or kitchen chairs.  The wood isn't a really fancy hardwood but it is a sturdy everyday chair.

I bought my chair at an auction in Sidney, Iowa. The woman who had passed away had an antique business in Omaha and a lot of things she kept at her house were antique.  I doubt this was a family piece but I suppose it could have been. The cross stitch piece really does look great on this chair even though it is covering up the cane seat opening.

I paid six dollars for it which was a high price for my teacher salary at the time in 1974.  I also bought some Wedgewood pieces at that sale for three or four dollars a piece.  The auctioneer was not much with selling all the small items so he let me bid the per item bid and then said I could take as many as I wanted.  There was an ashtray that I didn't take at the time but someone else certain grabbed it.

Just for fun I am showing you an artist rendition of what he thought it might have looked like while Mr. Lincoln lay dying.  The artist has taken artistic license on the looks of the chair in the illustration.  I assume the artist would not think that people could someday get on the internet and view that actual chair.

I did a double use for this blog this day as I needed one for my Sepia Saturday site so I used this on there also. I am a social studies teacher today with high school and one middle school class.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Swan Sighting.........

As people in the north share their sightings of swans I am limited in finding any to see. I guess I could go to the pond at ISU and see their floating pair.  I could also go to the zoo in Des Moines to see the many that they have on their koi pond. 

At any rate I do have a guaranteed chance of seeing these swans at Christmas.  My wife made these as Christmas gifts many seasons back.  She had quite a few of them in the house until they were given out to friends and family members.  They really were special gifts.  The front swan who seems to be sniffing his decoration has an injury, probably because of my mom's cat.  We couldn't figure out why it was crooked and then realized that the material at the neck has been shredded by maybe a cat's claws.  Tiger was a neat cat and I hope he is doing well with his new owner's.  He was playful but not really destructive.  Well maybe the lazy boy  lounger did have a few shredded areas on it when we gave it away.

So it was a busy day yesterday and I didn't accomplish as much as planned.  I did get a frame job done that had been looming over my head for a while.

I am sure the grandma that hired me to do this will really enjoy remembering the wedding of her granddaughter.  I will remember how difficult that it was to pull it off. 

The background is shadow boxed behind that front mat so the booklet could have enough space to fit in there.  I have met those kinds of challenges of putting things in frames and I really am tired of problem solving them to get it to work.

I had a limited amount of the green mat board also and I was not allowed to make a mistake as there was never going to be any more of it to be purchased. I can not buy that color locally and I would be required to buy 10 sheets of mat board to receive any in a catalog.

I have three cowboy posters yet to frame and a horse painting of my wife's for a purchase.  I also have a lady waiting to bring in two crochet doilies to be done for Christmas.  It will be done by the dead line but I must not be sleeping on the job on getting them done.

A light snow today, as we missed them most of the white stuff.  We did receive a lot of rain the last two days so our moisture in the ground is better now.

Thanks for stopping by today and have a good Sunday.

Sparkle Plenty......

I was reading in a magazine an article from the editor of Midwest Living.  He was sharing how they buy very sturdy real evergreen trees so that it can withstand the weight of all that they hang on their Christmas tree.  In a way we have that same thing going on each year.  I load on far more lights that I need then we place three boxes of ornaments on it, sometimes blocking the lights with the ornaments.

It is raining and cool today but we won't have snow.  I plan to frame pictures all day for people's Christmas presents and also to bring up the last two trees to be decorated.  Bringing the items up from the basement is most of the battle but once we have the materials around we will get them decorated.  I really would like to get out and decorate one of my small balsam pine trees with lights this year but I don't know if it will happen today.  It is on my to do list or even wish I had more time list.

This is one of my late night blurry photos.  It is the color and light that is my dominate thieme I guess as you can see having the photo in focus was not accomplished.

I will finish with a photo that is in great focus to reprieve myself from a bad photo.  We are rainy and cool today but no snow.  It is a good day to get work done inside and also take lots of coffee breaks and watch the birds feeding at the feeders.

Thanks for stopping by my post.

Friday's Findings.....

Yellow Kitty is old, but she has a fat belly and she is doing well.  She spends her days in our upstairs bathroom.  She sits in the window and watches the world go by or she curls up in a ball on her towel and just sleeps.  It is a good life and she is ready to return to her basement territory in the evening finding a good place to sleep through the night.

The above picture was taken in spring and she is inspecting the soil and the bulbs that are starting to sprout. I think all cats have this indifference look or attitude most of the time but she can get real interested when it comes to food being put into a bowl for her.

It will be time to be bringing out the old train to place around the tree.  I have a choice of two different trains and will decide once the tree is in place.  The photo was a reference photo to help me draw and paint the wheels on our trolley mural.

It is December and I am wondering what happened to the year.  I did mark it off one month at a time but it seemed to go very fast.  Now that I am back in school working it seems to go faster, some weeks faster and slower other weeks.  Christmas break starts on the 22nd with an early out day.  I am going to enjoy and savor every free day of the break and rest.

Thanks for stopping by my blog and enjoy the weekend that is about to be upon us.