On Display

Fall is my favorite season, and I love fall colors, so it's always really fun for me to make a little table display for the season. I bought some little pumpkins and squash and put them in this pedestal bowl, but they lacked something, so I added some chestnuts and pomegranates and now I think it looks simple and pretty. I'm looking forward to making pomanders (clove oranges), like this, but with different designs like stripes and dots rather than covering the entire orange. They smell so good! I like to make about 5 of them and put a candle in the center. A very pretty display for Thanksgiving. How do you display fall at your house?

Victorian Farm

We had a lot of fun watching TV in London. We always like to watch TV in other countries, especially though when we were in Japan. Now that was different. We had no idea what people were saying, but it didn't matter. Japanese TV provided countless hours of entertainment despite the language barrier. Shows in London weren't too much different from the states, and actually, a lot of the shows were the same. We noticed endless re-runs of Friends and The Simpsons as we'd scroll through the guide. We did really like a few British shows, though, and one favorite was Victorian Farm.

I can't tell you how much I love this show! It's sort of like the PBS show Colonial House only much, much better. Unlike Colonial House where ordinary people are set back in time to live as people lived in 1628, in Victorian Farm we get to see how life was lived through the eyes of historians and archaeologists. It is simply three individuals exploring what it was actually like to live on, or rather create, a Victorian farm. They don't act as a family or interact with other period families. There's none of bickering, whining, or quarrels that inevitably surface on the more reality show like Colonial House. In Victorian Farm they use techniques and tools of the mid-nineteenth century and use The Book of the Farm by Henry Stephens as a guide to daily life on the farm. The Book of the Farm appears to have been the must have book for a Victorian farmer, so I imagine it's a pretty accurate representation of farm life at the time.

(Above is Princess the pig--because of her, I want a pig for Christmas! I love Princess! Oink, oink! A shout out to my girl.)

I love so many things about the show, but especially domestic historian Ruth Goodman and her enthusiasm for and knowledge of everything regarding the tasks of the woman of the house--laundry, cooking, and sewing just to name a few--all so much more effortful than we can imagine these days (laundry alone was a week-long, back breaking task). What I take away after every show is not only how hard it must have been just to survive, but also how rewarding it must have felt to literally build your life. We pick up a pile of clothes at H&M and head to Whole Foods to get our wine and cheese and inevitably often take those modern conveniences (among so many others) for granted. In Victorian Farm we see that if you didn't sew, you probably didn't have many clothes (not that they had many anyway); if you didn't learn how to sow seeds properly, you couldn't feed the animals and wouldn't have food to eat; if you didn't learn basic DIY methods for household materials like hand salve, your hands would just crack and bleed. Ruth Goodman teaches courses in the UK. I wish I had known of them sooner than our last week there.

Unfortunately we can't get Victorian Farm in the states (BBC online won't let you download it unless you're in the UK). And now you're probably thinking, so why have you gone on and on about this?!! Well, it is a book now too, and I'm hoping it will show up on Netflix one day soon, and it's just so darn good that I wanted to tell you. And if you have a trip planned to the UK anytime soon and are interested in history of the domestic sort, you would probably love Ruth Goodman's courses and lectures.

It's back to this farm for me now. Time to make dinner. Glad I don't have to kill any animals to do it.

Cut and Paste

I love mixed media art and collage. Seeing all the crafty things Jessie and Buddug have done with bits and pieces and odds and ends made me want to pull out the scissors and glue and get to placing and pasting. I went through a collage phase a while back and made this little one above, which shows my mom sometime in the mid-fifties in a photo booth with a friend of hers. Remember the Paper Quilt Project? Oh so many great collages! My little gal never made it to the site, which I think was supposed to be in the December section, but it was great to be a part of it. I would have liked to have that quilt myself. I have plenty of paper scraps in my craft box (the tie tie papers, what's left of them anyway, are my favorites), but I can't help but look around to see what other fun scraps are out there. I love looking for vintage paper, postcards, pictures, ads, paper bags and the like at flea markets and thrift stores, but sometimes it's just fun to buy a cute paper pack that's already sorted with a bunch of great bits. I love these paper packs, shown below, from Lovely Sweet William on etsy. Maybe collage Christmas cards are in order this year.

Fall at the Farmer's Market

You know summer has officially turned to fall when you see chestnuts at the farmer's market. Chestnuts, pumpkins, and lots and lots of apples. Today we headed across the bridge to go to the Marin Farmer's Market, which is one of our favorite farmer's markets. It would be nice if it were closer to our neighborhood, but then again it's fun to cross the bridge and see beautiful views in all directions. No blue skies or rainbows today, but the misty fog created its own beauty. The fog sweeps over the hills like smoke and looks really dramatic when it's especially thick. Being from the southeast, it's still so neat to see it. The weather was perfect for fall market shopping--just chilly enough to make you want some hot apple cider.

Chestnuts. The shells are soft and velvety on the inside, rough and prickly on the outside.

Piles and piles of apples today.

Straw flowers, just because they are so pretty. I love how they look slick, as if they've been dipped in olive oil.

Cabbage bouquets.

A very interesting pumpkin. The color was golden orange and the stem was the same as the skin. These pumpkins were so pretty and bright.

Pomegranates.

Brussels sprouts on the stalk. A dad next to us was explaining to his son how they grew on the stalk. The little boy was fascinated.

A misty morning through the golden gate.

One!

Today Lois turned one! We had a great birthday picnic party. Perfect weather, great friends, and lots of fun. I can't believe how big Lois is now. She's growing so fast and starting to look more like a little girl than a baby. She's also on the verge of walking and talking. She's saying momma, dada, hi, and baby but never really at the right times yet. These are just a few words we say all the time that she's starting to repeat. She's also starting to walk around furniture or with a little help from mom and dad or with help from a big toy that she can push around while holding on to it. She loves to play with other babies and kids and thinks our cat, Sophie, is one of them (or just a fun, furry toy to chase around). Lately she also holds the remote up in the air and aims it at the TV. We must be watching too much TV around her! And she loves music. Sometimes when we play music she puckers her lips and throws her head back and forth, just like a little rock star. She's so cute, especially when covered in cupcake. Here are a few pictures from her big day. Happy birthday Lolo!