Musing on losing the thrill for a Chippendale highboy.
My neighbor — artist, Etsy entrepreneur and bloggette, Trish Jones and I used to walk in the dead black of morning.
This was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Long before we both had blogs.
Before blogs I think we (women as a group) talked with each other and discussed life one-on-one, not worldwide.
I remember a point one morning when I blurted out,
“By this age, I thought I’d have a nice house, with nice things and now I’m starting to realize if it hadn’t happened by now — it’s not going to happen.”
Insert the strains of violin and a little quiver in my voice.
Trish said something similar, but if you look through her blog, her natural decorating talent has burst forth in the intervening years and she is creating that house.
* * *
As for me, I have in approximately nine years since that comment, come upon metal baskets that sit on my dining room table that I cleverly switch out seasonal decorations.
Here was what I came up with for this summer.
Spectacular, I know.
The other day I was trying to switch out my shells for something more fall.
This happened.
One thing great about cheap thin glass. It will shatter into a billion bits.
A few years ago…this would have made me cry and moan and wring my pre-muscle bound knuckles over how I never can or never will have ANYTHING.
I can’t worry about that stuff anymore.
Enough time has passed that I realize how fast time passes.
I can’t worry that my mother will never understand why I can’t get the house together and can’t throw coffees.
One baby is a senior. My 10-year-old daughter is texting who knows who and my eight year old will be my third child in braces as of tomorrow.
Waterford breaks. It’s nice if it can be passed down to another generation, but really?
Lots you care about coffees and Waterford crystal. Tradition does matter.
This is not a thumbing of my nose to white linens and Windsor chairs.
I just don’t lust after 300-year-old highboys anymore. Not that I can’t admire an aristocratic long-legged fellow leaning against a neighbor’s wall.
I’m just more a gourd and metal basket kind of girl.
Have you ever broken anything that devastated you? (Obliterating a wedding gift does get to me.)
Oh dearest, how alike we are. When i first built my house, I had many dreams of splendor. Dreams which have been lost to a house full of slobs…I mean men. When I go to my Mil’s, everything is just so, and out of a decorating magazine. I have a sectional all split up in my living room so I can work out. It looks weird, but at least I can Turbo Jam, or at least intend to Turbo Jam. The landry basket is the floor in my bathroom…dishes stay piled up in the drain. Dreams out the window, but we actually like in our house. It’s like an old,worn in pair of shoes.
Live in the house..live. I do like it to, though. Should spell check before hitting submit.
I know. I just thought I’d always have the house in the magazine. At some point we just have to live. I can’t pull it all together but I’m going to enjoy the together I have.
Oh, Jamie – I do not remember that conversation. But I CAN remember pouting at some point in the past month about what I don’t have. Tsk, tskk. We are down to four of our original wedgewood dining plates – we use them every day and one has a crack – thankfully I found a few non-name plates at a flea market to get us through (plus a kid went to college, so we need one less plate but have even less money to buy plates!). “Things” don’t matter – or so I can say today- just don’t ask me tomorrow.
I think I have seen a dish like that one at Target – you could find a ‘waterford’ sticker to put on the bottom. (jk)
Thanks for the mention!
-Trish
Trish – I can tell you where we were. In the dark walking up the hill on Jasper toward 2nd. I think it’s Jasper. – just past the new-redo of your house. You’ve done so much with fabrics, etc. Paint color. The effort shows.
I guess it comes down to this. Would you rather live anywhere else? For me, that’s a resounding no.
Well, maybe Alaska, cuz its dark 6 months out of the year and that would so work with my adversion to sunlight, but thats a whole different topic.
Alaska? Good night child. We maybe peas-sharing-a-pod on somethings but we are polar (get it) opposites on that one. Not that it’s not beautiful. Cold and dark and beautiful.
” I can’t pull it all together but I’m going to enjoy the together I have.”–Jamie Miles.
Love this.
Always learning from you. And laughing along the way. 🙂