On angels

The angel tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has always intrigued me. While I  have not seen it in person (though it is on my bucket list) the photos I have seen are amazing. 
They match the picture I've carried in my mind of an angel guardian children over a bridge that hung over my Great Grandmother Godwin's bed. I always found the photo to be soothing.
Several years ago my husband taught a Sunday School class on the Biblical truth regarding angels, I learned that my long held images were all wrong.By then, enarmoured of Grandma-great's picture and the pictures I'd seen of the Met angel tree, I had developed a fondness for angel ornaments.
When I would pick out an ornament to make or choose as a souvenir I would pick an angel. Later I continued to be drawn to them, even in adulthood. I've  bid on at some charity auction and purchase from school children participating in fund raisers. I've gotten them as gifts and bought them at bazaars.
Over time I amassed quite a collection of angel ornaments. I have different shapes and sizes, many different kinds. My favorites, though,  are the paper mache ones most similar to the Met Angels.
One Christmas, I attempted to replicate the look, even putting our little nativity at the base of the tree. We enjoyed it, though it was a small and pale version of the tree it was modeled after.
On a recent Christmas, I loaned the paper mache angels to friends who work the court clerk's office as they were attempting to win a courthouse Christmas decorating competition.  The Treasurer's office who had great glittered snowflakes suspended from the ceiling and massive bows to embellish them won the contest. Still, the angels got their fair share of compliments.
At home, I hardly missed them among the decorations I used. That is when I decided my collection was more than complete.
 I should not be disappointed then, not to have found an angel ornament that I both liked and could afford when I went with my sisters to Italy earlier this year. But I am.
I just knew that in the place where angels are stuccoed and frescoed everywhere one looks there would be replicas of at least a charming little cherub to be had.
I found a carved one in one of the gift shops near the Vatican in St. Peter's Square but when the shop girl told me the price I gasped aloud, mumbled gracie and walk on.
I priced another in the Trastavere Sunday market that turned out to be part of a creche so far out of my price range that I did not even gasp.
There, in the land of Fontanni and Simonetti, I found not a single angel to bring back with me. I guess that means my collection really is complete.
Though just one more could not have hurt... could it?!

collecting and collections

I have a few other collections, but none so over blown as the blue and white.
There are a few pieces of red and white transferware on a shelf in my office. The handful of silver letter openers I've collected through the years are on my desks at home and at work.

I have collected charms for a bracelet for many years and now it is almost full. I had a hard time finding a place to put an  mosaic button from Italy, recently.
It has charms from high school: a megaphone, two Quill and Scroll charms, my senior medallion key.
An English sorority charm from college. God and me charm my son gave me when he earned that badge in Cub Scouts.
That's about it, except for the angels...

"Collecting"

I am fully expecting some blog comments from various friends and family members about my "collections" (blue and white and otherwise) being a product a tendency toward excess. And that's ok. They are entitled to their opinions. They could even create a blog and write their opinions down. Then I could leave comments with my opinions about their opinions.
Their opinion, I'm afraid, is that I am an eccentric woman who is getting worse with age.
My daughter's beau, recently called me a "hoarder."
 I would have been mad at him except he had spent an afternoon scouring antique and resale shops for vintage buttons with me.. He was a good sport who did not hesitate to accompany me when I asked him to come along. I bought him a nice lunch for his trouble. He reported to his sweetie that we had a "screaming good time" but further informed her that her mom was a hoarder.
(For the record, the buttons were for a very good cause: snowman kits to make and give as Christmas gifts.)
I expect a lot of folks would agree with him. I have readily admitted to being sentimental. My discovery of "Pinterest" has done nothing to help my  tendency to "collect" things. I have "collected" many, many Pins, in fact, and have a growing number of "Pin Boards."

The Blue and White thing, Part 2

My Grandma gave me her Grandma's blue and white plate once I was grown and married. At various times, it sat on  plate stands in various rooms of my house. It was knocked over and broken by a small child( who will remain nameless here.) After that, it hung on the wall in various rooms, high out of reach. Eventually, it came to reside in my china cabinet. Thereafter, other pieces of blue and white china came to live there, too.

Being creatures of habit and repetition in our family, one piece of china/pottery/procelain led to another until, eventually, there was a lot of it.  Most birthdays, Christmases,  Mother's Days, I got at least one blue and white thing. I began to collect blue and white plate souvenirs when we traveled. Ultimately, only my angel Christmas ornament collection could compete with the blue and white.
Most of the items are inexpensive. The value of them largely sentimental.
I would add here that much of it is utilitarian.  The dishes that we use everyday are blue willow. My "good" dishes are Lochs of Scotland. We use those only on special occasions, as the pieces are hard to fine should they need to be replaced. Still both were purchased originally with trading stamps from grocery stores. Other pieces: vases and plates and platters, I use constantly.
At one point, my long time friend, Mossy, and I were discussing our transition from a colonial style home to a money pit we called "the lodge."
I have someone helping me arrange things so that there is a good fit, I told her.
Came  then her reply, but "but does your person understand the blue and white thing?"
"I believe she does," I assured her. When we met over a table full of paint and carpet samples, my person told me she planned to "group" all of my blue and white things into one room.
I called Mossy with the news. My person does not understand the blue and white thing!
And actually, I am not sure I understand the blue and white thing, either. I just know I like blue and white. A lot. Probably for the reason I referenced in my previous blog post. At least that's the best explanation I can come up with.

The Blue and White thing, part 1

I am prety sure I know when my love of blue and white china began. I recall, many years ago,  standing on my tiptoes to peer into my Grandmother's "whatnot" cabinet. 

What drew my attention among the things placed on the shelves inside was a square plate of blue and white.  The plate had belonged to my Grandmother's Grandmother, or so I was told when I had asked about the plate.

 told its history.

The story I was told about its history intrigued me:

 It was part of a set my great-great-grandmother Gage "set up housekeeping with." Grandpa Gage was a preacher in rural Arkansas, and as such, host to a constant stream of guest for meals. Over time, pieces were broken and chipped. Grandma's oldest brother, whose name was Herman, caused the loss of some of the pieces of the set when he climbed up and onto Grandma Gage's china cabinet in pursuit of the sugar bowl.  Uncle Herman died in a hunting accident long before my birth but I loved to imagine him as a young child, "sitting just like a little monkey" on a shelf he had cleared on his climb, eating sugar out of the sugar bowl.

I have a picture of Uncle Herman as a baby that Grandma gave me because I loved stories about her older brother so much, especially the china cabinet one. He would have been older when the he broke Grandma Gage's dishes still I think I can see in even his infant face, the twinklings of mischief that seems to run in the family.

And perhaps it's from the story  hat I associate that blue and white plate, and all blue and white, with family and family lore.

favorite pix of Venice

My sisters, silhouetted via an underbridge
 alleyway in Venice as we explored therein.
 

Talking about the weather, again.

Here I am, talking about the weather again. But I can't help myself. It is too perfect today for me not to comment. A cool, gentle breeze greeted me this morning as I walked out the door on my way to work.
It is almost mid June and I can count the really hot days thus far this year on one hand. Last summer baked the yard, the trees, us.
Yesterday was one of them. It was hot and humid. So much so, that if I had smelled gumbo cooking I would have thought I was in New Orleans.
I am not sure what to attribute the fine weather to and instead of trying to figure it out, I am just enjoying it. The politicians and scientists can spend today making predictions and pontificating.
I am thinking about a nice bike ride this evening. Or maybe I will do some yard work. Or maybe I will do both. Or maybe, I will just sit outside and enjoy this weather!

Texting

I don't much like texting. I am unapologetically old school. I only learned to text because some of the people I love most love to text. For some of them texting is the best way to communicate. For others, it seems the only way.
I like the convenience, problem is, I am terrible at it. The buttons are small. I hit the wrong ones. Predictive text gets me every time. Just this week, I have both sent and received texts that made no sense.
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