My Yard of Shame

Really, it’s not as bad as all that. But there was a lot I didn’t get done before the snow fell. Here’s a rundown:

In the summer and fall this trashcan looks really nice with petunias spilling over the sides - now it just looks, well, seedy.

And my cast iron chairs look kind of sad. They're frozen tight to the ground, so barring a thaw they're there till April.

And under this mound of snow was a mess of planters. I say was because after I took the picture I cleared the snow and pried them up. Better than picking up planter shards in the spring.

This lone plastic chair somehow missed being put away with all it's friends. Now it's under cover, so I guess I'm lucky I found it before it was completely entombed.

And my poor, sad dahlia bed. Yep, every one of those stems is, sorry was, a dahlia. I feel really bad, because they're surely dead now after the cold we've had (dahlia-killer!), but the winter just snuck up on me. The end of October it was 70 and gorgeous, the second week of November it was in the twenties. So, if any of them survive they'll be my little dahlia-miracles - but I'm not too optimistic.

Since I took these pics we've had another foot or so of snow, so the petunia-can and dahlias are pretty-much lost under there. Next year (and, yes, I say this every year) I will be more on top of it all. I will rake up all the leaves (no pictures to show, but trust me, the ground is still covered), I will put away all the outdoor paraphernalia (again, trust me - the small stuff is still out there, somewhere), and I will dig up my poor dahlias. Or I really will be guilty of dahliacide.

I Don't Dig Christmas

I don’t. I don’t know why, I just don’t. I like anticipating Christmas, I like remembering Christmas, but I don’t like living Christmas so much. It’s partly the pressure, the countdown, the empty chocolate boxes in the two dollar Advent calendar. And it doesn’t help that everywhere is an image of Christmas perfection when perfect and I are almost never even in the same room. Sounds like some seasonal depression, right? Really, it’s not - I like the tree, my kids’ off-key carol-mangles make me happy - I’ll just be happier when it’s over.

This little guy makes me happy, that’s for sure.

I call him my cheeky Santa. I got him years ago at a yard sale. I think he’s some kind of decoupaged paper, but he’s gotten a nice patina over the years (maybe he lived with a smoker before he moved in here!) and his expression is great.

This is my other Santa-dude.

I do remember where I got him - a thrift store in Montpelier, VT, nine years ago. He’s a tin of some kind; he’s hollow, and looking at the picture he’s lined up wrong right now, but he’s great for tucking little candies in for Christmas Eve.
So.... Enough about my kinda-sorta-S.A.D. for now. I'll just go look at Cheeky Santa and imagine it's January already.

A few weeks ago we went to one of our favorite yearly Church sales in Bangor. I picked up a box of old patterns and books for $3 and in it were these old McCall’s Needlework magazines. They range from the mid-fifties to the mid-seventies, so there’s every style from Suzy Homemaker to full-on Mod to Flower Child going on.




Some of the tips are dated: using one of those old, removable pop-tops to hang a picture (weren’t those things deadly-sharp?!?), using the round portion of those same pop-tops for a kitchen towel ring (again, deadly-sharp!). There are also a lot of bizarrely-intricate, time-intensive crafts made from household discards. I like to recycle, but golf-tee jewelry, macaroni-shell earrings (red nail polish and a rhinestone make ’em super fancy!), and “coffee-can grillwork” (think metal coffee cans, tin snips, and quilling - my god, how did anybody keep all their fingers back then?) are a little too, well…yeah. But the patterns for clothes are awesome! Not just the hats, scarves, and sweaters of today, but knit and crochet dresses, full-length coats, even three-piece suits. Someone tell me, why don’t we see more of this nowadays? I recognize the time factor, but is there another good reason? Cause I see three or four great dresses that I’d love to make, but if it turns out that they’ll end up all loose and ill-fitting, I’d like to know. Wouldn’t want to look like a bag lady in fabulous yarn! So I guess I'll start some - after the holidays, of course! - and see how they go.
Oh, yeah - here's a great usable tip from one of them:
Use a pair of old nylons as a sweater dryer - cut off legs, then pin the top of each one to a clothesline a few inches apart. Cross legs and run each one through a sleeve of sweater, pin toes to clothesline.
I'll have to try this one when the weather gets above freezing again - say, April.