It’s been a quiet and leisurely Mother’s Day weekend so far. Gray and cool, always looking like its about to rain. That didn’t stop my girl and I from heading to the antique mall first thing, though! She is very pleased with her purchase of a large doll-sized horse and I found lots of interesting odds and ends, like this old embroidered cloth. So far, from the shape of it, I’m really not sure how the piece was used. The bottom is scalloped and embroidered, and the top isn’t as wide and is flat across, sort of shaped like an apron might be. How would this piece have been used? I just loved the embroidered girl though, she is cute! I’m thinking she’s perhaps from the early 1930s? Any guesses?


   I also received an English translation of Agnes Cecelia in the mail, it comes highly recommended by my Swedish friends! I think this gray and misty day will be perfect for a spooky tale! Can’t wait to start, especially since I just finished up The House at Riverton last night and am feeling a little reflective and a tinge melancholy, as her books are wont to do. But they’re so, so good. I honestly wonder if the creator of Downton Abbey didn’t use it for inspiration for season two….there are heavy shades of Downton in this story, although I know the book came first! It was a bit heavy though, so I’m looking forward to something a little lighter, although I still like a spooky element!


   In other outdoorsy news, I am quite happy with the slight jungle effect of my back porch! My husband came home with a hanging basket for me last night, he know’s the way to my heart! The little desert garden on the patio table is doing nicely and has become home to a few stray praying mantis babies that were born on the porch the other day! At some point in the fall, a mother praying mantis made a nest on the side of one of the patio cushions and I had no idea until I went out to straighten things up one morning and found at least 100 tiny baby praying mantises all over the chair! I was relieved to hear that they’re good bugs— people sometimes even purchase their nests so they can let the babies into their gardens. Praying Mantises eat other bugs, so they are sought after for natural pest control. I put the chair and cushions in my veggie bed so they could ‘go be free’ but a few timid little souls decided to stick close to where they were born, and that’s fine by me. 


   Well, that’s about it for the moment. Bugs and old embroidery 🙂 and brownies cooking for a picnic tomorrow….and scheming up new art. 
   Have a good weekend,
~h