Discardia Weekend Go Go Go

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.
                                       
                                                             Jane Austin
Happy weekend dear readers.
Pumpkin Cottage is celebrating Spring Discardia.
This weekend the focus is on tackling the two-car garage
where only one-car can be squeezed in.
The principles of Discardia and ideas from Marie Kondo's
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up will be used to
direct the art of living with less clutter and more organization.

Ms. Kondo recommends organizing in this order: clothes,
then books, documents, then komono (miscellaneous items)
and finally mementos.

One side of the garage houses tools, of every category,
and the other side a mountain of clutter.
Clutter of the making variety, if you are a maker/crafter
you know exactly of what I speak.  There's a fire pit requiring assembly,
too many clear boxes with one item each, the odd book, and cooking
equipment for occasional use.

The dining area, you see here will also be included in the celebration,
It looks much better than it did here, but still has a ways to go.
With Easter coming its current state is unacceptable.
 
Our tasks will be made lighter by having three dedicated
containers near by: Keep, Toss or Donate. 
Keep items will be stored vertically not in piles. Everything
sitting on end. Consider a drawer of clothing instead of
piling your folded jeans stand them vertically in the drawer.

On Monday, a visit to the donation center and  a dump run
will remove a majority of the unnecessary items.

Here's an idea for all those unused frame.  Hmmm.

September: A Door to Favorite Seasons

From September 1 on out through Epiphany
is my most favorite time of the year.

All of it every last bit.
Colors, cool weather, gatherings,
tasty desserts, and hearty meals.
A home full of holiday scents.

Pumpkins, fall colored pansies.
Harvests and feasts.
A road trip or two.  (There are
two planned already.)

School breaks.
Poinsettias.
Crafts.
Cozy family evenings.
Vintage Christmas.

 

Weekend Wrap Up

Do you ever have those weekends when time stands still?

Last weekend started with Doris Day
and Please Don't Eat the Daisies on
Friday evening.  Singing, kids,
and cute interiors.

Book reading, finished Signals by
Joel Rothschild. There are times
when a book must be read in
small bites.  I started this
book months ago but couldn't
get past the second chapter.
I simply was not ready, a
week ago the book started calling
me and I had to read through
to the end.  It's a three hankie
read.

Over the years, I have learned
to be patient, to accept, and
know the proper time will
present itself with books and
in life.

While Mr Lee, demolished our
powder room, I worked in
our urban garden, it had
become a jungle. The perfect
spring day and my awareness
of my mother in the garden
are soul quenching.

In this tiny garden is where I feel closest
to her.  The plants she lovingly planted.
The fig and strawberry guava trees
she started.

The kale Uncle Joe planted with her seeds.
Roses from her collection.
In the garden, I am inspired to push
through the pain to be enveloped
by her embrace.

Watched TV.
At Home with Venetia
Pioneer Woman

Mark, our oldest, is painting while we
visit Prescott, AZ.  Mr. Lee had to cut out
damaged drywall from a leak
under the sink. 

Words of Encouragement

Your word is a lamp for my feet,
a light on my path.
 Psalm 119:105 NIV

He is the reason for the season.

In this fast paced world, the holiday season
affords an opportunity to slow down
and reflect on the what is really important.

Family, friends and HOME. 

The bright colors

Patience Brewster

California Dreaming

Pumpkin Cottage Vintage Home

To be happy at home, is the ultimate result of all ambition,
the end
to which every enterprise
and labour tends.
              
                          Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 68

Pumpkin Cottage is transforming for Autumn. 

That's Boswell on the right, Letty in the middle and the new
comer, Miss Getzy.  Mr. Lee gifted Getzy to me for our anniversary.

Boswell's smile seems a bit more enthusiastic.  Mr. Lee
posed Getzy seductively, just making trouble, Mr. Lee.

Weekend Wrap

It would be such a comfort to have our home situated for the fall.
Clean and tidy with everything in its place.
But first there is homework.
Homemaking.
Cuddling with the kids.
Listening to tall tales from their imaginations.


Then there is the small matter of creating a collage.
Piecing an image from magazine clippings.

Windows remind me of my favorite
European scenes.  Windows, wallpaper, rose arbors,
faded colors and iron gates to secret gardens.

 


Scrubbed from top to bottom.



A dresser scarf as a valence.  See the little plate...its a
cross stitched basket pattern.  I will be looking for stitchery
type china patterns. 

Jacob irons.

My happy list. Amy Power's workshop.

Holly ironing. 

First Day of Summer

It is the first day of summer break for the kids.
For me there is still homework to be done.

Burlap...or linen..a new best friend

Blogging gets my creative side flowing and
ignites the flames for technical academic writing.
A bit of a yawn. Did I say that aloud?

As a salve to a disappointment this week, I
ordered a Happy Home by Jennifer Paganelli
of Sis Boom Fabrics fame. Happy dripping
from every page. 

This quote was in the inside cover:

The more you strive and search for happiness

the more you overlook the possibility that 

it is already here.

                                                 Robert Holden

This poem from my 4th grade memories.
Some things never change. 




Documenting the every day is a why to be mindful:
each day is a gift not to be squandered. 
Our terribly normal average life is so amazing
I get goosebumps.  Healthy happy kids.
A charming roof over our heads.
Vehicles to get us from point A to B.

Life is good.
May I have an AMEN?

Amen means "I believe," a second grade memory.
I have never forgotten its significant meaning.

All the glory goes to God.    

Homemade

Homemade

For me, cookbooks are like novels.  Reading them is a very satisfying
journey.  Although my cookbooks, unlike the novels I read,  must have photos.
This book with its home sweet home sing song cover image
and pink binding grabbed me right away. 
Demanding not to be ignored. 
Whispering: Look at me.  Look at me. Pick me up.

Books either grab me right away or not at all.
Even the author's name Clodagh McKenna did me in.
I actually thought, "What a lovely Irish name." 
Recipes, stories and photos are a  perfect combination. 

424 Purisima

 

There it is in all its glory...where most of my memories begin...424 Purisima.  The home where, I am discovering, my love of all things vintage started.  This home represents all that I hold dear.

Those two little kids on the porch are Joe and me. Can you even imagine my surprise and good fortune in locating this photo?  This photo has been in my possession since our last road trip.  Joe sent a gargantuan suitcase, I am not kidding, home with me.  As he passed the suitcase off he said, "It's full of things you wanted."  That ominous statement left the suitcase sitting in the kitchen for the past three weeks. It mocked me each morning but I tossed my hair like my mother taught me and walked out the back door only to face it again at the end of each day.

The reality is that going through my mother's things this past year has taken its emotional toll.  There used to be a show called Life Laundry on BBC that reminded me of the whole emotional letting go of things but not people and definitely not memories.   So finally I felt strong enough and unzipped that mocking suitcase.  Who is crying now?  Just like Joe said, "Full of things I wanted."  Real treasures like only a grandmother could gather.  Lord have mercy.  I miss her so much. 

This is Minnie Marsh.  She was our beloved Aunt Minnie.  Her home seen on the right of the photo was directly next door to us and still exists today. Her home is where I ran to after kindergarten.  I realize now that I was seeking the comfort of the grandmothers that were so far away. 

What I can recall about Aunt Minnie is that she taught me how to play card games and that sometimes she would feed us.  It was always a new American treat like Campbell's chicken noodle soup.  She allowed us to drink ice cold milk something we never did at home and made us cold roast beef sandwiches with mayo on bunny bread (Wonder). Aunt Minnie decorated for major holidays and what I really remember was an Easter tree decorated with pastel colored blown out eggs with bobby pins used for hangers.

The lot next to Minnie's house is filled with commercial buildings now.  That big building in the background was my junior high school, Manuel F. Cunha.  I like the sound of junior high school so much better than middle school or intermediate school.

I spent my youth on this one block and it was good.  See the orange calendula that I mentioned in a previous post.  Picket fencing, vintage roses and fuchsias.  A cottage garden was planted in my memory long ago.