More White on White

Early this morning.....just a crack in the sky showing a pale blue sky with barely-there-pink cloud edge.

Oh I told you that I was NOT going to be fooled by the come-on with which Mother Nature was trying to draw us in the other day. Yes, the daffies have begun to break ground , but that ground is again covered in white ( known as "poor man's fertilizer" in these parts ).

Funny day. Snow , sun, snow, wet big-flake snow, sun , snow.......and on it went today. It covered the ground and the street and it melted and it covered and it melted. Some split personality on Mother Nature's part. AND more white rain to come.

Spring will be much welcomed this year !!!!


Off tomorrow to view the litter of puppies . One little bundle will be ours , but not tomorrow. We've still got a bit of a wait until she comes home with us.

Have a wonderful week-end, Cyth

White on White

Dirty snow. Not a pretty sight. But it can be a hopeful one. It , of course, means that we haven't had sufficient new snow to cover it and perhaps Spring is almost within our grasp. Not that you could particularly tell today for it is cold and raining; raw to the bone. But with the cold rain we get a glimpse of "things to come". By that I mean "Mud Season'. That's what we call the next seasonal phase up here in NH.

Harbinger of Mud Season

But I know not to quite believe that it is upon us yet , though it might be beginning to look that way. We'll surely get more white stuff to have to shovel and and bemoan before the onslaught of the mud. So as I continue to prepare furniture pieces and themes for the Shop I'm again, and still, enamored of White on White.

Here I have a few piece of milk glass that I've been collecting ( because they are still affordable ; unlike some of the other collectibles that I used to acquire). And how crisp and cool they look against the snow.

I'm always inspired by white on white during mid-winter when snow piles on top of snow. It's clean. It reflects lots of light. It's expansive. Come Spring my palette changes in a way that reflects the burgeoning growth of new life. Summer suggests deeper , lusher color , and my furniture reflects that too.

But I'm toying again with doing a "white on white corner" in the shop this year. I thought that last year I'd do that , but nixed the idea after painting 2 pieces of furniture white. This time 'round I think I'll stick with the scheme and see how it works out. Afterall who wouldn't appreciate a little cool crisp corner in the heat of summer?

If you are interested in milk glass you might want to check out Eddie Ross' etsy site. I've seen some lovely pieces there; some with cutwork effects , some more unusual pieces. I'm sure ebay offers lots of choices as well. Then you too can enjoy some cool white in the heat of summer.

Wishing you a white and wonderful day , Cyth

Sky Blue Pink

My Mom called it Sky Blue Pink. And I would laugh. I always thought that she was so funny calling it that, especially as I got to be teen age. You know how that goes; you need to have everything be "real" -like when you were drawing---it had to look like what it was , and most often your skills were woefully lacking. And you needed to have your mother know what was real too. And what was real was always dependent on your definition. So to have mom say that the sky was Sky Blue Pink was as ridiculous as saying the sky was falling.


But this afternoon late , when I looked up into the sky, my first thought was that the sky was -yes- Sky Blue Pink. It's that quickly melting sunset sky when at first the sky is as blue as it can be , and the sun having dipped just low enough casts a warm glow under the clouds. The clouds shift and dissipate and the colors seem to melt into each other. Watching it makes you want to hold your breath and hold the day in stasis just as it is. Then so imperceptibly you make a small groan as the colors meld and fade to night. And the realization hits again that Mom couldn't have said it better ; Sky Blue Pink.


That kind of celestial inspiration , I imagine, motivates artists , and poets & musicians to create all manner of wondrous and creative canvases, poems and songs. The desire to capture such small and seemingly perfect moments gives rise to some acts of beauty and creativity. But what of the population not so creatively endowed? How does one express that kind of beauty and hold on to it? Some devise descriptive little ditties for their kids ,like Mom did. Then others try to hold on to it by injecting their translation into their environment. Witness:

This, my friends, is the legacy that the Mister & I have been given . I'm slightly embarrassed to show you , so I tried to find discrete corners of our narrow little bathroom to share with you. I'm afraid that the colors of the photo are slightly off , but not too much so. But there it is......someone's interpretation of Sky Blue Pink.

You can see just a wee bit of the dusty pink sink to the lower left corner, set into brownish pink laminate against sky blue tiles. Oh my ! And the tiles wrap ALL around the dusty pink tub and beyond. Oh my. I wonder , whatever were they thinking ?

This is original to the house , which we've guessed to be about 50 years old. ( I was just a wee small lass back then and don't rightly recall what was considered fashionable back then . But could it really have been this sky blue pink?) Now the Mister and I have slowly , ever so slowly, been working on upgrading bits and pieces and parts on and around the house. We've a bit more to do. This will probably be our last project and I'm simultaneously dying to do it and dreading doing it.

In an effort just to make the room a bit more comfortable to live with in the interim ( a l-o-n-g interim it is ) we have painted most of the wall space white -as white as we could get it ( The sweet little room is also north facing. brrrrrr ). And out of my stash , I pulled a few vintage hankies of , what else, pink and blue and white, to use as a window valance.

What can I tell you. They are almost the only things , aside from my milk glass which I have everywhere in the bathroom ( the more white , the better ) that give me reason to smile while I'm in there.

Oh I DO yearn for the day that we can haul those tiles and that tub and sink out of there. Until then I will "grace" ( ha ) the room with my little hankies , and gaze out the window to watch that Sky Blue Pink sky melt into night.

Wishing you all tender, melting moments of your own.

Happy Valentine's Day

I wish you all a wonderful Valentine's Day. I'd like to chat a bit today, but the grandkids are here and I've barely time to think. But I 'm so enjoying having the little cherubs here on this day in particular. Since I haven't got much time for thinking & blogging and I just LOVE , love , love Valentine's Day I'll leave you with these wonderful,"heartfelt" photos.

Enjoy and "spread a little Love", Cyth

Feeling Slightly Out There

Okay. This is not what I was going to blog about. It is now. That adorable little picture-one of my granddaughter's masterpieces- pretty much gives a visual of how I'm feeling. Yup- a little other-worldly would be accurate.

Maybe I 'm just feelin' this way 'cuz I just don't understand. But here is my little story.

I finally relented. I signed on to Facebook a couple of days ago. Ah , another maze to navigate. But I managed to get it enough to get myself out there----though I'm still uncomfortable about it and really want to run into a closet and hide. ( I know, I know. But that is fodder for another day ).

I checked my email earlier this afternoon to learn that an old school friend " found" me. On Facebook , that is. Very cool , I think. But I gotta tell ya, she has been on my mind for the past 2+ weeks----- she and her son , who used to be quite close to me. I haven't had a day in that length of time that I didn't find myself wondering about her or him ; how they're doing, what they're doing,etc. We haven't been in touch at all for a number of years, for who knows what reasons---just grew apart , I guess. And there she was, "finding" me on Facebook, as I was in some psychic/cosmic quest to learn about her. ( Do you suppose that it's true , that we find that which we seek ? "The teacher appears when the student is ready" kind of thing ? I'm thinking , yeah 'tis true , very true. )

Now I need to give you a little background before I continue my tale. Many years ago, probably some 34 years ago , I had a tickling little thought one afternoon. I thought that my friend ( at that time we were still close and in touch , though living probably 80 miles away from each other ) was going to go into the hospital in labor ( yes, she was pregnant and I knew that , nothing "witchy" in that ). But I also thought , that long-ago day , that she was going to be sent home. And indeed, she had been. I did not know those facts at that time. That had been over a week-end. The following Monday I was off to the big city, taking classes yet one more time. The day was perfectly ordinary, at least until classes were over. As I started walking back to the subway I began to feel disoriented, kind of in a fog. I suddenly couldn't wait to get home , but knew that it was going to take me at least an hour to get back to my car. The whole while I was traveling I kept feeling worse , not really in a physical way. It was definitely a psychic drain , or pull. At that time I couldn't tell really. And all the while I kept telling myself that as I got closer to home, everything would begin to feel more familiar and this disorientation would dissipate. It did not. It only got worse. From the end of the subway line , I needed to get a bus. Boarding my bus at the next stop, was an impeccably groomed gentlman. But he was odd. I remember today , almost as clearly as if it was that day , that this man's forehead came to a point . He was slightly bald and the point was all too prominent. And it was all too improbable , impossible , that anyone's head could be that pointed. I remember feeling angry , though he did nothing to provoke it. It seemed that his presence only served to make heighten my psychic discomfort. Finally I reached my vehicle and headed off to pick up my son at pre-school. It took a lot of effort to concentrate on that drive. We made it home safely , but rather than feel better , I continued to feel worse. I stalked through the house like a caged animal; I couldn't relax , nor sit still, couldn't prepare dinner. I was BESIDE myself , like some part of me wasn't there. Six o'clock chimed, the news was faintly in the background and the telephone rang. It was my friend's mother who called to tell me that my friend had just delivered a baby boy; that she'd gone into the hospital on the week-end and had been discharged with " false labor". As soon ,and I mean JUST AS SOON , as she told me the news, the restlessness , the disorientation , the caged feeling disappeared - simply went away. And that baby boy was the child who I grew so very found of, who came to visit me even when his mother did not. He was truly a special child who was so very close to my heart.

Now I've never been able to explain most of what I had experienced that day. I can tell you what I think and believe in my heart. I think that though my friend & I had grown up across the street together, graduated high school together, shared so very much more together , I was somehow attuned this child even before his birth ; that we were meant to enjoy some time together and share some deeper bond in this lifetime for however small amount of time. He's grown up ,as kids will. My life has taken me in a new direction , as has my friend's and her son's, and so our communication has stopped. Or maybe ,it hasn't.

Back to now. My friend just "friended me" on Facebook. In the brief greeting she sent to me , she told me that her son JUST had a son born to him. I have for the past two ( maybe a bit longer ) weeks not been able to get them out of my mind. I mentally was searching for some knowledge of them. I now know that he has just received a son into his life. As I had experienced many years ago when he was born, did I "know" or at least want to know that something incredible was to repeat itself ? I'm inclined to think so. Why? I can not answer. Nor can I yet explain the "gentleman" on the bus those many years ago. He was a very prominent feature of that strange afternoon. But explain it , I can not. Nor can I explain the state of mind fog that long afternoon 34 years ago. But for me it all suggests that we DO know more than what is on the surface. There is some law of the universe, I call it Magic, that enriches our lives even when it confounds us.

Addendum : After being "found" by my friend and taken a few moments to think about the " coincidence" of this situation I quickly reviewed her page a wee bit. A few of her "friends" were listed , so out of nosiness more than anything, I read through some of the list. You just try to guess who I might have found. Never mind, I 'll tell ya. My ex-husband , that's who. Man , that was like being hit first on one side of my head, then the other. Any wonder why I'm feeling tonight like the picture above?

May you all be blessed with a little Magic, Cyth