Martha's Attic

I was reminiscing this morning about when the boys were younger.  We have been living on this property for 21 years now.  The first ten years seemed to go by much slower than these last ten have.  My youngest will be 21 next month, time is flying by.  But, I was thinking about when they played sports, my oldest played baseball, the youngest soccer.  When Tom was playing baseball, during a game, he just would not swing at the ball.  I knew he could hit good, because we practiced at home.  He would get up to bat and look at the coach.  I finally asked him, why do you keep looking at the coach?  He said, to see if he gives me a signal.  I asked, does he ever give you a signal, no, was the reply.  So... I took matters into my own hands, I offered him $10.00 for every ball he would hit during a game.  Of course, his first time up, he hit the ball -Tom liked money.  (He was willing to wash dishes every night for $5.00 a week....

Thanks to the wonder of the internet, after looking at many pages of poppies, I discovered my pitcher and biscuit jar are Royal Bayreuth.  They have made many beautiful items with the poppy design, dishes, cups and more.  At the same sale I found this great top hat, unfortunately I couldn't find anyone to model it for me  -men!  It is available here .

I love the look of this enlarged envelope for art, found on the Southern Living site , and using an envelope from a relative adds to it.. “This is one of my favorite things,” says George of the framed envelope in the dining room. It was addressed by George’s great-grandmother to her uncle, George’s namesake, in 1917. He found it tucked away in his grandfather’s dresser. A local printer scanned and enlarged the envelope.  

I found this beautiful pitcher and container this weekend.  I had to think for awhile what the container might be -maybe it's a biscuit jar. The only marks on the bottoms are numbers stamped in.  No matter, I think they are both wonderful, they do have some chips, but I don't think that detracts from either one.  I plan to do some more research before I list them on my website.  I have found these are Royal Bayreuth, you can find them here . I also found this wonderful metal container, I'm guessing it might have been used in a store.  Inside the lid is stamped Brunhoff Manufacturing Co.   I love the color and have decided to keep this piece for now.  It looks great on top of my kitchen cabinets.  It's very large, nine inches tall and twelve inches across.  I wonder if there was a replaceable label on the lid at some time. If you know anything about these pieces, please let me know!

I was at an estate sale recently, a large old house in the downtown area.  A large basement plus three floors, I would love to see who lived there.  Animal print fabrics, a lot of Chinese themed items, and some nice art work.  I fell in love with this etching by Jack R. Miller, I purchased three smaller etchings as well.  I would love to keep it, but my business would never get anywhere that way.  So I have it listed, and I am working on listing the others -Faces, Biloxi Tugger, and Shrimp Boat.  You can find this here . Lucky Dog Man

I'm running behind as usual, but I did go back to the doctor after two weeks, he checked the new x-ray and was surprised, he said my foot was healing and doing very well.  He wasn't going to take a new x-ray, I think he thought it was too soon, (he's the one who told me to come back in 2 or 3 weeks).  I did use Comfrey to try and encourage healing, mostly I just used the leaves, but several times I did include some root.  I do think this helped.  I used my mortar and pestle on 5-6 leaves, poured steaming water on these, let them set for a few minutes, (and sometimes I would even drink the tea from the leaves).  After draining the liquid I placed cheese cloth on a long strip of plastic wrap.  Then I managed to wrap this around my foot, placing the leaves on top, and putting my brace back on.  I would usually sleep with the wrap on so it had plenty of time to sink in.  I did this every other night or so, as it did sometimes make my foot itch a ...

Several years ago, I sprained my right ankle.  It hurt, bad.  Never having sprained it before, I went to the doctor, just to be sure.  It was just a sprain, take it easy.  So, three weeks ago, I spained my left ankle.  I was taking the dog for a walk, going down the front steps, looking at the moon.  The last step is not very high, not paying attention I thought I was stepping to the sidewalk, not -I stepped on the edge of the step, and turned my ankle, and went down -it hurt so bad I thought I was going to pass out.  Luckily Jack did not try to drag me out in the yard.  I managed to get myself inside the house and put ice on it.  I have been living with this ankle, still swollen and sore, couldn't flex my foot, for three weeks.  Of course, during this time I have been walking the dog every morning (except for the first four mornings), raking, weed eating, and general house work.  It really started to worry me that it wasn't getting...

We've had this young squirrel visiting for a couple of weeks, he's a sweet little thing.  I couldn't figure out how he was the size he is and spring just started.  I found out that squirrels can have babies in January through April and another litter later in the year. I overwinter some of my plants in a small room on the back of the house, a Preying Mantis case must have come in on one of my plants.  I started finding baby Mantises on my plants last week.  I got a great picture of one on my tomato seedling.

I love finding personnal information about people, from long ago.  I recently found this book -The Girl Graduate Her Own Book.  It's basically a scrapbook, given to a student, in this case a college female, in 1907.  Her name is Elizabeth Taylor and she is attending Miss Spence's School For Girls.   Founded by Clara B. Spence in 1892, Miss Spence's School For Girls is now named The Spence School, and is still in operation. There are many children from famous parents who have attended this school. There are invitations, photos, school information, and much more in this very nice old scrapbook. This book is available here.

I don't know anything about this dish yet, but I think it's a sweet little compote.  You can find it here .