Grandma Clara's Tea Cups

When my grandmother passed away a few years ago, my dad and his sisters decided that even though they didn't want to do it, they had to sell my grandma's house. This was the house she spent 86 of her 89 years in. She lived there as a child, moved out for three years when she and my grandpa got married, then returned to help take care of her father after her mom passed away. When my great-grandpa died a year or two later, Grandma and Grandpa stayed in that house and raised their own family there.

Needless to say, there was a LOT of stuff in that house. Stuff I had no idea Grandma even had or liked. One of the biggest surprises for me was her tea cups. Apparently Grandma collected them. Who knew? Well, maybe my cousins knew. I'm part of a HUGE family, and ever since my parent's divorce when I was in the third grade, I have spent relatively little time with that part of my family. I'm a pretty shy person, and in my giant family, I tend to try to blend in. I'm one of the youngest of 21 grandkids. Most of my cousins have kids...the oldest is just 6 or 7 years younger than I am.

Back to Grandma's tea cups. When my dad and the aunts and uncles were going through Grandma's stuff, they made sure that all of the 21 grandkids each got something from her house. I'm not sure what my sisters got at first, but my dad gave me a pretty copper tea kettle that was still in the box. I don't think he understood my mom when she told him to make sure he got each of us something from her house to remember her by. What she meant was that we should get an item that screams "I belonged to your Grandma Clara for a million years! Every time you use me or look at me, you will think of her fondly!"

Items like her ugly picture frames that sat on the console in the living room for fifty years. The afghan that rested on the back of the couch for as long as anyone can remember. The sentimental stuff. Not the stuff that was so new it was still in the box and she hardly had a chance to use it before she passed.

Once he understood that, Dad was really good about finding my sisters and I special items. So good, in fact, that I have a LOT of my Grandma's stuff now. A super cool, retro funky orange and green opalescent tea set. Six tacky juice glasses with gold leaf on them. Six pretty soup bowls that I use on practically a daily basis. The coolest lamp on the face of the planet (I'll post pictures at some point. That lamp is worthy of a post of its own. If Antiques Roadshow is ever in the Pacific Northwest, my sister-in-law and I are taking it and a Majolica box she got from her grandma.) A few tea cups. And, of course, the copper tea kettle.

Because Dad gave me the green and orange tea set, I told my sisters they could split up the 13 tea cups and saucers. They said that I could pick one, and then they would split the others. Because I am the only one with storage space right now (T lives with our mom, and L lives in Vegas for the time being), we labeled them all, and packed them into a box for me to bring home. Normally I am not a tea cup sort of girl. My MIL and both SIL are, though, so one time when Mom and Dad H were visiting, I had J pull down the box from the shelf in the garage so I could show them to Mom. She liked them so much, she wanted to take pictures of them so she could paint them for one of her upcoming art shows.

I was so touched. At first I thought she was just being nice, but a few months later, when we went to visit them, she had a present for me. She had framed prints of the three tea cups she painted for me. It was one of the coolest gifts I've ever received. (Oh!! The cookbook I got from her when J and I got married is another one of the coolest gifts! I'll have to do a post about that soon, too.) She told me I could do whatever I wanted with the prints, and that if I didn't want them, she wouldn't be offended. She doesn't like to force her artwork on anyone. You've got to be kidding me. If I had a fourth of the talent she has, I'd be showing my artwork to everyone I could! I'm considering giving my sisters each one of the prints, but I don't know if I want to part with them! Perhaps I'll ask Mom H. for two more sets of the prints, and I'll frame them for gifts for my sisters.


Here are the pictures of the tea cups.

Here are scans of the prints she gave me. They are amazing. They are almost better than the photographs. Her artwork is photo-realistic. And it's so good, it's hard to believe it's oil pastel and not a photograph.

Writer's Block

I have had writer's block for nearly a month now. I have ideas...I have topics...I have no words. I keep sitting down to work on my blog, and I keep getting distracted by other blogs that are so much fun to read, and so much better than mine. Who really wants to know about what's going on in my life? And, really, there's not much going on. There's never much going on. Nothing that's interesting, anyway.

I feel like such a hypocrite. I am an English teacher. I make kids write all the time. And I find myself sitting here whining the same things they do.

Life is funny that way.

They DO exist!!

I am SO ECSTATIC!! When we were at my in-laws' this Thanksgiving, we were making plans for the 2nd Annual Hocking Gingerbread House Build-off. My mom-in-law said we should make sure to take pictures during our building this year, so we have a record of the event. I mentioned that I was very sad that we didn't take them last year. We didn't have any record of our first, yet fabulous, attempts.



My mom-in-law said, "Oh, I took photos after y'all left!" (She's from Louisiana and has a cute little bit of a Southern accent still left! Well, it may be stronger than I think...I'm just used to it and don't even really hear it anymore. I don't hear my husband's accent at all, and he spent the first 20 years of his life in Texas. People tell me he has one, but I just can't hear it, much to his chagrin.)


But, without further ado, the photographic proof of the First Annual Hocking Gingerbread House Build-off!!! (As you are viewing the pictures, please remember that we all started with the SAME house kits and access to identical materials.)




The trophies J and I so lovingly crafted. (**See previous blog, "Pity Points Suck, Parts 1&2 for the story behind these trophies!)





The third place winners, Mom and Dad H.

Notice the color scheme?? It matches the barn they just finished building.

See the precision frosting work? Neat lines, even candy placement...

All sides of this house look fabulous!

See the replicas of Mom and Dad H.? The hat Dad is wearing is made from gum drops. As is the campfire. Sheesh. Mom's collar is made from jelly bean shavings. Seen here with their 3rd place trophy.

The second place winners, H and C (**who REALLY should have won in all honesty)

See the rock chimney? The "boulders"? The colored water? The realistic looking sand made from sugar? The palm trees made from individually cut chunks of dark chocolate painstakingly glued together with royal icing? The moss? The pot of flowers on the front porch??








They modified their house to make a beach bungalow. Holy crap.

With the 2nd place trophy.

And, the first place winners, J and I! (I repeat, PITY POINTS SUCK!)

Here with our first place trophy, proof that our family took pity on our poor, pathetic souls.

Remember when I said we had trouble with our frosting consistency and it looked like a very large and very sick bird had an accident on our roof?? Here's the proof I wasn't exaggerating. We had fun, no matter how crappy (pun intended!) our house turned out.

Here's hoping this year goes better!

Crafty Sunday

My friend's step-daughters are turning 10 and 12 in two weeks (their birthdays are two days apart), and I was invited to help plan their parties this year! How fun is that?

C is turning 12, and is going to host a Murder Mystery Party. It is set in the 1950's, and is going to be a blast! The game is an adult version (it's NOT adult dirty - it's just the regular version of the game, not a teen version), so Laurie and I are editing it for content. J and I are going to wear jeans and white shirts and our letterman jackets. My hair is too short for a ponytail, so I'll tie a scarf around my neck or maybe my hair. I'm trying to convince J that he should put a deck of cards in his shirt sleeve, but I'm not sure he's convinced yet.

I know, I know, I just posted an entire blog about how much I hate Halloween because you have to dress up. This doesn't feel like dressing up, though, because I wear jeans and t-shirts all the time. The only thing that's different is that I haven't worn my letterman jacket since high school. So this doesn't count as dressing up, really.

Anyway, back to the parties.

K is turning 10, and she is a bit of a girly girl. When Laurie asked K what kind of a theme she wanted for her party, she said, "Umm...shopping?" So shopping it is! We are going to take the kids to the mall for a scavenger hunt. The teachers in us, though, are going to make the clues puzzles they have to figure out. Then they'll have to find a store and pose for a picture in a particular way. (*The adult that travels with each team will have a camera...we are NOT going to set kids loose to run in the mall!) The winners will get a small gift card to Claire's or something like that. When we get back to Laurie's house for cake and ice cream, I'll print the pictures off, and we'll put them in these 4x6 brag books we found at Wal-Mart for $1.00 each! For $1 and the cost of some ink and paper, the girls are going to get pretty cool favors for the party!

When I found out that K wanted a shopping themed party, I got excited. One of my favorite cards to make is shaped like a purse! I volunteered to show her how to make them, and suggested we do that for invitations. Laurie loved the idea, and took home some samples to show K. She got really excited, too, so we set a crafting date for this morning.

As the week wore on, I thought about what kind of invitations we could do for C's party. In the shower on Wednesday morning I was struck with brilliance...we could use the template I use for the purse cards, and make it open on the side instead of at the top, and we could do poodle skirts! It was a brilliant idea. Not only is it so easy to make these cards that the girls could do it themselves, but they can be done very cheaply and look awesome.

We met at Craft Warehouse this morning, and the girls picked out their paper. We bought some glue and ribbon, and then headed home.

The girls' cards turned out SUPER cute. I don't have pictures of them, but I do have pictures of my originals that served as inspiration.

I'm looking forward to these parties...I don't mind small talk with kids!

The colors didn't turn out very well on this one. The handle looks almost black, but it's really a dusty blue sort of color. And it's hard to see the flap, but the first two cards open like a purse. The flap at the top opens, then the card opens vertically.

Though I like the first card, I think I like this black and white one better. The colors and the pattern are just really cute. (This card has the same flap and opens like the first one.)

When I thought about using the same template for the poodle skirt, all it took was a little cutting and pasting. I moved the "hinge" to the left side, and the "flap" to the right side. Now it opens like a regular card, but the flap holds it flat.

(Sorry it's not very straight...I couldn't get it to stay in one place in the scanner.)

These are a few of my favorite things...

Movies: I LOVE both Remember the Titans, and Steel Magnolias (If either of these movies are on television, I will stop no matter what part, and finish watching it. I don't own SM, but I do own RT. J gets so annoyed with me. I think if his eyes rolled any further back in his head, he'd go blind!)

Music: I like lots of music, but my preference is country. I love a lot of songs by a lot of different people, but when I look at my playlist on my iPod, I have more Tim McGraw and Rascal Flatts than anything else.

Food: My favorite type of food is Mexican. My favorite meal is my dad's homemade sauerkraut and zaia (green beans, potatoes, olive oil and raw garlic). Even though I can't cook much, I can cook these two dishes. Even J will eat them now! At first he was grossed out by the sauerkraut, but I convinced him to try it. I told him that because I eat Cajun food at his mom's house, he needed to at least try the food of my people!

Drink: My favorite soda is Pepsi, hands down. My favorite "hot" beverage is Vanilla Chai Tea or Eggnog Chai Tea. (Hot is in quotes because I don't drink hot beverages...I let them cool down. I joke that I don't drink hot chocolate, I drink lukewarm chocolate!)

Smell: Fresh laundry! There's nothing better than warm, freshly laundered clothes, straight out of the washing machine.

Color: Blue! I love a LOT of colors, though. There are certain color combinations that just speak to me. And there's no rhyme or reason to it. I love autumnal colors, and I love lime green and teal together. I love blue and brown together, but I also love black and white. The only thing that all my favorite colors and color combinations have are intensity. I like rich, saturated colors more than I like pastels. Sometimes pastels speak to me, but it's more of a whisper.

Season: Fall / Winter are my favorite seasons without a doubt. Though I do like summers better now that we have a pool, it gets TOO hot here. When we hit 112 last summer, I was sure I knew what Hell feels like. And if that isn't incentive to lead a good life, I don't know what is!

Craft store: Craft Warehouse is my favorite craft store. It is a little more spendy than Michael's, and they don't have that cool 40% off coupon, but their stuff just speaks to me. And they have a HUGE scrap booking section while our Michael's is a little more wimpy.

Toothpaste: Crest Extra Whitening Extreme Herbal Mint. I don't use anything else if I can help it. I travel with my own toothpaste. My husband and I use different kinds, so we take our own toothpaste, even if we are just going for a weekend somewhere and share a toiletries bag. I'll use his toothbrush, but I won't use his toothpaste unless I have no other options.

Dessert: Creme brulee is the food of the gods. It's a yummy treat that I rarely get to have. I also like cheesecake with fruit topping. I think chocolate ruins cheesecake.

Sport to watch: Though I will go to a professional sports game, or watch it on television, I much prefer to watch high school sports, or even younger. (In fact, I just spent my Saturday watching my friend's daughters play basketball.) My favorites are football, basketball, baseball, and wrestling, in that order. I HATE soccer, golf and tennis. (Little kid soccer is okay...big kid soccer gets boring.) Every once in awhile I enjoy watching a good hockey game or volleyball match.

Book: WAY too many to count. Some that have stayed consistently high on my list are To Kill a Mockingbird and Hamlet.

From the mouths of babes, part 2

1. One of my reading students three years ago was from Mexico. He spoke pretty decent English, but sometimes slang or idioms just confuse non-native speakers. E was a happy sort of fellow, and came in every morning with a big smile on his face. I never saw him mad, sad, upset, etc. He was always happy. One morning, though, he looked pretty stressed.

When I talked to him, he didn't smile. I told him, "My, E, you are in a mood this morning!" and we went about our business.

About ten minutes later, E came up to me and in a low voice said, "Excuse me, Miss? You think I am in the mood?"

I don't know who blushed more...me or E!


2. In reading class last year, one of my kids was singing a song, and one of my adult EAs (Educational Assistants) started to dance in her seat. A boy noticed, and said "Go Miss! Bust a move!! Just don't bust a hip!"


3. My first year of teaching, my juniors were reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I had them working in groups on an assignment when cute blonde C called me over. "Miss P.?? Was it World War 1 or World War 2 that ended slavery?"

I looked at her in shock. D gently patted my shoulder and said, "Don't worry, Miss P., I'll handle it for you." I nodded dumbly and just walked away.


4. One of my freshmen this year is head over heels in love with Zac Effron of High School Musical fame. When she found out that two of the new students in our class were from California, the first words out of her mouth were: "Do you think they know Zac?!?! Do you think they'll introduce me??!!!"


5. Also during my first year of teaching, one of my darling freshman boys raised his hand and asked me, "Can you eat Chapstick?"

I was a little surprised by the question, but told him that though I thought it was disgusting, I didn't think it would do any harm. It's non-toxic after all. About five minutes later, I heard a girl in the back of the room shout, "Eww!!! That's gross! Now you owe me $1.88!!"

I had to try not to laugh as I told J "I thought you were going to eat your own Chapstick! NOT someone else's!"

My step-dad thought this was so funny, that when he was over here visiting and he and J went to the grocery store, he came home with a three-pack for my student. John told me to tell him it was an after school snack.