Good Books and New Blogs

Because Mother Nature put the kibosh on thrifting this weekend by tossing down more of that tiresome white stuff, I'm afraid there's nothing spiffy to showcase in the Treasure Box this Wednesday. But that doesn't mean I've forgotten about you all! Nope-- instead, I have something completely different...

TWO somethings, really. The first is a happy little announcement:

I've just launched a brand new blog...


It's called, "Of Cabbages and Kings" and while it's 100% thrift-free (and hypo-allergenic!) it's designed to tickle your funny bone. This last year while writing The Thrift Shop Romantic, I've had ideas for posts that wouldn't quite fit here. And rather than MAKE them fit-- like the way my grandpa used to try to put puzzles together (THAT was always interesting... Many a puzzle bit the dust that way, let me tell you)-- I decided to branch it off into a blog of its own. If you have a moment, I'd love it if you'd check it out:

http://cabbages-n-kings.blogspot.com

Okay, NEXT! I have a Tag to fulfill from my "invisible friend" Ms. A. over at Livingwithoutmoney.blogspot. Actually, this is a pretty fun tag, too, because it's the first one I've participated in that's dealt with books. Also, I'm never not reading SOMETHING. This tag asks for the tagged blogger to share the book she's currently reading, and then enter a few paragraphs from it. Mine happens to be the Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes.


For those unfamiliar with her, Martha Grimes is a mystery novelist with a knack for wit and an unexpectedly poetic turn-of-phrase. Though she's an American living in Maryland, one of her best-known detecting duos is British-- Detective Superintendent Richard Jury and his friend, the eccentric Melrose Plant.

This particular book, however, is not a part of that series, (though lovers of mystery, you might really enjoy it). Instead, in The Hotel Paradise, Grimes turns to small town America in the 60s and transports us to a time where gentility was still something people valued, and where the present is haunted by the mysteries of the past. The story follows pre-teen Emma, a precocious girl with a Nancy Drew streak, as she examines questionable events in town history which others have long forgotten or set aside.

The tone and atmosphere of the book is reminiscent of Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird," painting pictures of the small town folk and adult-sized problems from Emma's smart, sassy perspective.

Much of the book has the feel of the elegant or eccentric deep South-- and as a result, the descriptions are something I think any romantic decorator could easily get behind. Those are a couple of the passages I'll share with you today.

We join Emma as she visits Miss Flagler and Miss Flyte, two elderly ladies who run quaint adjoining shops within the town.

With her cat named Albertine and her comfortable kitchen with its smell of cinnamon and ginger, I imagine there are worse lives than Miss Flagler's... I am sometimes invited to share their morning coffee or afternoon tea (oh, those fresh cinnamon buns!) and could think of them as just putting up with me, but I don't. For some reason I feel at home with old ladies, as if I wear, in my ancient twelve-year-old soul, pince-nez and cardigans...

We sit on turquoise and buttercup-yellow painted wooden chairs (that have me revising my notion of a lack of gaiety in Miss Flagler's life) pulled up to the white kitchen table. In winter we are warmed in front of the black cast-iron stove into which Miss Flagler shovels fresh coals...

Soon, as an introduction to pumping her adult friends for information, Emma gets the older ladies to begin reminiscing about their youth and a particular social event of the time...

Miss Flagler's dress had been ice-green organdy, with a silk lining. She had worn it to a garden party, which she described to me as "all white": white dresses, white suits, white pumps, white roses, white-iced cakes.

I was momentarily carried away, or carried back, to this fairy world of garden parties and organdy dresses. I have personal experience of neither. I try to picture Miss Flagler moving airily around in her ice-green organdy, a punch cup in one hand and a plate of tiny sandwiches in the other. The color sounded both cool and delicious. I decided it must be the color of Albertine's eyes.

Those pretty bits of purple prose enchanted me while I was sitting at the car dealership recently, reading and waiting for my car to finish inspection. (Of course, most things seem romantic compared to emissions testing.)

Anyway, I guess I need to tag five people in turn. So here goes:

• Rose Mary at Life in a Cordwood Cabin (because I know she's always reading, too!)
• Rosemary at Rose's Petite Maison (because I play no favorites between my friends named Rose :) )
• Lidian at Kitchen Retro (because she's funny and I think would have something witty to share
• Vallen of Queenly Things (because this woman really knows how to write)
• and Lynn over at the Vintage Nest (because she's always up to something fun)
  

That said, for those who might have missed Sunday's post regarding some questionable serving tips courtesy of Amy Vanderbilt, click here. And for the rest of my online friends, may this week bring you a spring in your step, and some Spring in your weather, too.

Tag: Seven Obscure Things You Didn't Know About Me

I did one of these tags in May (click here if you’d like to read that one), but when my friend Debbie of the CozyCottage and TwiceUponATime blogs sent the tag my way this week I thought, what the heck. Let’s see if I can come up with seven more weird facts from my eccentric little existence.

(And no, I won’t blame you if you nod off. :)

1. I often drive to and from work listening to audio-books. My recent favorites are PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves series and also his “Uncle Dynamite” CD set. His sense of humor has me giggling out loud in the car. I can only imagine what my fellow-commuters must think.
2. When I was 11, I was so inspired by my Nancy Drews, I wrote a mystery novel of my own. It was called Key to the Blue Moon. And while looking back on it, though it’s hardly a publisher’s dream, it was great writing experience trying to develop a full-length story line.
3. I am learning to paint, and have taken two classes at the Carnegie Museum of Art. I’ve enjoyed the classes, but one of the most interesting aspects of the experience, I’ve felt, is getting to be in the museum at night, after hours. It’s surreal to venture to the classroom and pass by things like parts of animal skeletons, or taxidermy animals along the way. We had the entire art gallery to ourselves one night. I spent a few peaceful hours getting to copy one of Monet’s Waterlilies paintings.
4. I’m an only child. I often think, particularly at holidays, how nice it would be to have some brothers and sisters. But then again, if I had had siblings, I doubt I’d have spent so much time growing up writing stories. Things do balance out, don’t they?
5. I love black olives. I just don’t know what it is. In fact, you know how at Christmas sometimes you’d get an apple or orange in the ol’ stocking? Me, I’d get a can of pitted gigantic Black Pearl olives. Talk about obscure, right?
6. I really like the color fuschia-- it seems to have so much zing-- but I just can’t wear it because it looks glaringly bright with my red hair. I don’t want to scare the locals.
7. Spring is my absolute favorite time of year. There’s just something so marvelous to me about the longer days, the slant of the sun, the renewed chirping of birds and the atmosphere of possibility as the plants begin to bud. Spring feels like my reward for persevering through winter.
   

Well, that’s it! More minutia than you’d ever care to know, I’m sure.

If you haven’t stopped by this week’s feature blog post, “Dish and Dish-honesty” you might wish to pop over there... Click here.

Otherwise, I hope you’ll have yourself a rewarding week!

What a Wonderful World

The world around us is full of little wonders-- like the pretty monarch chrysalis pictured above, being protected and observed by my housemate’s “gentle giant” brother.

But recently the bigger Wonders of the World were named, and as a result, some sort of related tag has begun to sweep the blogging sphere. I know, because this week I was tagged by frugal friend Ms. A over at LivingWithoutMoney.

In it, seven fellow bloggers are named, with their screen names superimposed over a chosen world Wonder. Ms. A. chose Niagra Falls. And while I appreciate Ms. A’s kind connection, I’m certain any similarity of the Falls to myself, would just go over in a barrel.

Another wonder, I think, would be if any of my other blogging pals will speak to me if I tag them one more time for one of these things.

So that said, I thought I would fulfill the tag solo by sharing with you which Wonder of the World I did once get to visit.

When I was about nine years old, my parents decided to take a trip to Mexico, to see the Mayan ruins. And that is where I got the remarkable opportunity to view the city of Chichen-Itza.

It was about the same time “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was in the theaters. So going to visit ancient pyramids prompted all sorts of adventures in my imagination.

With visions of dashing Harrison Fords and ingenious native booby-traps, the idea of feeling lousy due to local bacteria had not really been a part of my imagined adventures.

But I recall spending some quality time at another archeological site, Uxmal, sitting in the shade of a tree and staring at the Temple of the Sorcerers-- grateful to have the chance to recoup-- to be very still and quiet-- and thinking how Indiana Jones must have had a tougher constitution than I.

Or his film would have taken a distinctly different turn.

Most of the days of our trip were fascinating, even to my pre-teen mind. I know I must have asked my dad more than once were the Mayan carvings in stone-- some still colored in the original reds and blues-- REALLY thousands of years old? He said they were.

When you’re only nine, how can you possible comprehend millennia?

Rockin' Girl Blogger Award

Lizzie of Rippin-Kitten.com is a thoroughly modern girl. She blogs regularly about life on the road on her motorcycle-- and she also appreciates Victorian decorating and a good bargain.

How cool is that?

So I feel particularly honored to have been named among the five recipients of her “Rockin’ Girl Blogger” awards.

Then, to add to all the goodness of it, I was giving the very same award by Susie of Blog.Jollygreengirl.com, hostess of a popular eco-friendly blog. My gosh, I feel so appreciated!-- and to think I used to be one of the last folks picked for teams in gym class!

But don’t worry. I don’t have a long tedious acceptance speech written.

What I do have planned, however, is a little award distribution of my own. Here are the five creative ladies I’d like to pass the award along to:

Astrid over at Trashcollector.blogspot.com. Astrid’s had the guts to step forward and be the first to blog about turning trash into treasure in the Netherlands. She’s still feeling her way through it because her blog is fairly new, but has a lot of good ideas to share. If any of you t-to-t folks care to pop by her blog and offer her some comments of encouragement-- and show her she’s far from alone out there-- I’d really appreciate it. Not only is she blogging in uncharted area in her country, she’s writing it all beautifully in English-- which isn’t her native language. If that doesn’t qualify for a rockin’ girl blogger, I don’t know what does.

Now let’s zip over to Australia, to award Gauri of the That Dress is Divine! blog. Visit here for tips of smart, savvy shopping-- which is good advice in Sidney, as well as St. Louis-- in Sacks Fifth Avenue or the Salvation Army Thrift Store.

Next? Sindhu of the Flower Girl Recipe blog. I’m nominating her because this girl manages to work while maintaining several very different blogs related to Southern India. It’s a lot of content and a lot of effort. And also every time I visit her recipe blog I get hungry.

And I’d also like to give the award to two ladies slightly closer to home.

Rosemary of Rose’s Petite Maison refreshes her content often with beautiful pictures of flea market finds, and decorating ideas. Also, she NAMED her dressmaker’s dummy, and gave her a homemade tiara and taffeta skirt. How can you not appreciate someone with that sense of humor?

Last but certainly not least, Rhoda of Southern Hospitality, for interior decorating that looks breathlessly easy and yet you just know it couldn’t possibly have been.

Keep up the good work, and continued happy blogging to you all!

Click here to read today’s other blog spot, “Swinging in Thrifted Threads.