Monday, June 30, 2014

Hot Hydrangeas Coming Right Up!


It's absolutely summer time!  I brought us some hydrangeas  today for the table setting.  They may start boiling in the water it's sooo hot.  Do you like the summer time?  I love how it looks.  There is so much color everywhere and you feel better because of the sunlight.  I have to admit I like my sunlight through an air conditioned window though.




This table is parked beside a hydrangea bush.  They are all looking so different.  Each flower is doing its own thing.


I have had these plates forever.  They have a pretty design and are great for everyday.  Let's sneak inside, it's hot and I am melting. 



Blue blue blue!  I do love you.  This shade of blue always woos me.




Well could you blame me?  I brought big blue in with me.  The small pillows on the sofa match the table outside with hydrangeas on them.  I need some sweet tea and for goodness sake I've got to turn the ac cooler!


Jan





 
 
 
 
 

A Stroll Thru Life
Savvy Southern Style

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Water Or Not?


Hello!  I think we will stay in for a bit today.  I tried to take a few photos outside but my glasses kept steaming up and so did the lens on my camera.  It feels very humid to me.  I won’t talk about my hair today. However I did get it cut and now I have to blonde it up a bit more since the gray ~ no ~ I mean brown hair is peeping through, in case you wanted to know. Ha!  I cut some hydrangeas today and brought them in.





The coke glass looks pretty with them too.  It’s short but the green of the glass with the green in the flowers are very pretty.  My daughter took all the mason jars and I like to try different looks.






 
Now that hydrangeas are starting to turn I have to decide how I will dry them.   From what I have read you are supposed to wait until fall to cut your hydrangea blooms or wait until they are turning fallish colors.  Fallish colors on this bush is the green and pink.  Also you are supposed to put some water in the container and let it evaporate for them to retain their colors better.  Or you can put them in a container with no water for them to dry.   How do you do yours?
 
 
 
 
 
Shells from many trips to the beach.
 
 
 
I decided to let them dry on my mantel.  Last year I had them scattered about and they can take up a lot of room.  They are already pretty and why hide them when they are drying?  These were my mother’s glasses.
 
 
 

Flour canister part of a set my mother bought my grandmother many many years ago.  I use it a lot.  It shows how smart I am, Flour and I put flowers in it, see!!



Turning green and pink.
 
 
 
 

Jan
 
 

 
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Thursday, June 26, 2014

Hot With Burnt Bangs!


I hope you all are doing well.  I have been putting this table together on my back porch today.  It is so steamy I have sweat dripping off my head straight down to the crack of my toes. HA! You thought I was going to say something else, didn’t you?!  So glad I am in a cotton gown doing this.  The joy of the south!  Heat and humidity.


On to the table setting…

Their are many southerners that do like to entertain outside in the summer.  I wonder how they can stand it.  They even have weddings outside!  In the summer!




Today we will grab a plate and go inside straight to the kitchen.




I thought about putting candles in the candlesticks.  But you see I once burned my bangs off!  Yes, I did!  Didn’t know it till the next day when I was fixing my hair.  I do use a lot of hair spray and I had lit candles around the house and poof went the bangs…it was very obvious too.  Not all of the bangs but a big slice of them.  I don’t know why I didn’t smell burnt hair.  I guess they were really singed.  You know it has a distinctive smell.  Not a good smell.  But my nose doesn’t work like it used to.  I use to be able to smell everything.   My mama was like that and so was my grandmother.  But the older you get it seems it doesn’t work as well as it used to.  So with me busy putting something together on this table and being as hot as I can barely stand it, I figured there was a good chance of burning my bangs off again.




I probably use more hair spray than any woman around.  I really go through a lot of it.  In the summer I have to use more because it’s like cooking a soufflé. You want a souffle to rise and not fall flat.  My hair  has to rise and be sprayed and then set.  It has to set inside where it is cool.  After a few hours inside I can go out because it will stay poofier longer.  It won’t fall flat as quick.  I know a lot of women don’t mind if they have flat hair.  I CANNOT have flat hair.






I realize I am supposed to be talking about the plates.  But I really didn’t want to today.  I thought talking about my hair would be more entertaining.




I did try a different look with this yellow floral fabric.  It’s pretty but the yellow reminded me of the sun and I am already so hot.




So I took a couple more photos and put the yellow up.  The white at least looks cool.




I know what you’re thinking ~ and I haven’t had a drop!

Jan
P.S.  The 'tablecloth'  is a quilt turned backwards.  The plates I bought at a consignment store for almost nothing.  The white pitcher and "silver" candlesticks were bought recently and was super budget friendly!



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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

She Was Only Two



How do I use a passage from a book or words from a song as if I didn’t know you?  Coke floats on summer Sunday afternoons.  A chocolate sheet cake for every birthday.  Watermelon outside under the dogwood tree.  You delighted in our childhood.


Strong to have survived so much.  You walked alone to tell others of your mother’s death.  Your father passed when you were two.  Motherless, you were still a child at fifteen.  You were sent to boarding school.  Then you completed your education and became a teacher.




But goodness came into your life.  Much joy!  You married well, he was so kind and humble, a man of God.  But you were forced to give up your profession.  Society’s rules back then dictated no married women could teach.   You had your own children of three.   I well remember watching you two holding hands well after your hair had turned grey.



And later your daughter married.  At last you would see the first set of children coming to be.  Later your older son gave you two more.





You were a sister.

 
 

You lost your younger son.



 
 
 
 
 
 


And later a grandmother to your daughter’s children of four.

Jan


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Sunday, June 22, 2014

Cool White

My red sofas were looking too hot with the red color this summer.  I decided to cover them with some white quilts to lighten up and look cooler.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dried rose petals in the candleholders with a bit of dried hydrangea from last summer. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Here  looking warm in red.
 
 
 
 
I love the cool look to this.  It cools the whole room down by 10 degrees! 
 
 
 
 
 
Again a different view with the red. 
 
 
 
 
Jan
 
 
 
 
 
 
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