Coffee Chat: Winter Returns in the South

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home. ~ Edith Sitwell

So let us have a cup of hot cocoa or hot tea and spend a few hours enjoying the beauty of winter and the bliss of home.   We'll take our cups to the living room. You can choose a sunny spot near the window or pull your chair a little closer to the propane heater if the chill air got to you as you came through the door.



What shall we discuss today?  I've had a happy morning puttering around my house, setting things to rights, washing slipcovers and towels and an afghan to drape over the arm of the new chair...The chairs.  Have I shown you my new to me living room chairs?

Katie had them for a couple of years and I brought them home about ten days ago.  It necessitated a bit of a fruit basket turnover and we had chairs moved from one space to another but I really like these here.  I used some spray Resolve upholstery cleaner on them and think they look as good as new.  I'm stunned at how well my handmade pillow covers go with these.

And where did the other chairs go?  Why to the kitchen and bedroom.  I've shown the little ivory rocker back in it's spot in the kitchen area where I love to sit in the mornings.  This wing back chair went to live in the bedroom.  I'm on the lookout for a table and lamp to put here.  I think it will be a nice place to retreat when I'm overwhelmed.

And then I had to move a chair from the entry way to the living room room, because my lady chair, as we call it, was the wrong scale for the rest of the chairs in the room. So the library chair came to live in the main living area.   And it fits so very nicely!

 I'd been wanting a new look for the gallery wall once Christmas was past.  I went off in one direction and realized that it was wrong, wrong, wrong! for my own style.  I lucked up at an estate sale and brought home two new to me pieces that went well with items I already had.  Then I had to tweak the wall a bit.  I spent this morning moving some things up and some down and some over.  I'm very pleased with how it came out.

I bought new sheets for the guest room bed so I put those on this morning.  I came very close to ordering plain white.  You know what I say, it's easiest to replace a plain white sheet (or pillowcase) and the white almost always matches the other whites.  BUT... I decided upon a soft blue green set.  One of my reasons for choosing colors and not white: it's easier to tell the full size sheet sets from our queen sized sets.  I don't know why sheet sets aren't clearly marked as to size anymore.  It used to be that they were, but these days you're really lucky if you can find a tag on any sheet, let alone on the fitted sheet to let you know which side is shortest.  Here's a hint: if the tag is sewn into a fitted corner it can go on the mattress with the tag on the top left or the bottom right.  The ones from Target have a nice big tag in the middle of one end and it plainly says "TOP OR BOTTOM" which is very helpful and much appreciated!  Still, they might have added "FULL" somewhere on there as well, but they did not.

With an older sheet set, I just mark on the bottom hem with an ink pen if it's a full sheet.  I don't bother to mark the queen sized because if it's unmarked I know it's queen sized.  

We don't have a linen closet.  I use a bedside table in the guest room and the master bedrooms to hold the sheets for each room.   But I do remember the little thrill I felt in one of the houses I lived in where there was a linen closet and the shelves had the sheet sizes written on the front  of each shelf so you knew where the various sizes ought to go.  Lovely!

I'm a little particular about how my sheets are folded.  I've tried the method of folding and putting all in one of the pillowcases but I disliked that they mussed easily.

I can fold the fitted sheet in a reasonably neat way.  Not just the way it came from the package mind you, but neatly enough that I can make a  rectangle shape.  Then I fold my pillow cases in quarters lengthwise, and in quarters width wise and stack them nearly atop the fitted sheet.  Lastly the flat top sheet is folded into a long thin column.  I place my pillowcases and fitted sheet atop one end and roll it to the other end.   What I have in the end, is a neat rectangular bundle that is nice and tight and essentially presses the sheets and pillow case so they look as thought they might have been ironed.  You could finish off with a ribbon tied about it, or just before rolling tuck in a few sprigs of lavender (oh if only John didn't dislike the aroma!).   But I do not tie mine with ribbon...yet.  I must get enough ribbon to do so though because suddenly it seems a most lovely thing!

Ready to roll

                                                              a neat little package


My sheets smelled so good today when I brought them in from the cold wind and bright sun.

Have you ever heard of drying lawns?  It was common at one point for most homes to have a lawn dedicated to the drying of clothes, most especially white clothes.  If there were shrubs surrounding the area (and there usually were) clothes would be draped on the shrubs, but they were also spread over the grass itself.  It was believed that the chlorophyll had a whitening effect that combined with the sun was a natural bleach for whites.  Now, being a practical minded person, I wonder about dogs and cats who it does seem to me are most prone to walking in places you'd not have them walk and we won't discuss children...  But I also think about the aroma that must have come from that drying yard.  I do believe I'd have pulled up a chair and  had a cup of tea right there while the aroma scented the air. I  can't imagine a lovelier thing, can you?  I do wonder they never showed a drying green on Downton Abbey.   I expect there were quite a lot of things we missed about daily life in viewing that program though.

I was reminded this morning, as I hung my laundry on the line, of those days when I had no dryer to my name and a baby who were cloth diapers, and how those diapers had to be hung on the line.  On a bitter cold winter's day, even here in Georgia, the diapers would freeze on the line.  My hands would be so chapped and raw from cold by the time I'd hung out my load of wet diapers that I could barely stand to have them touched.  And often at the end of the day those stiff diapers would be hauled indoors where they'd have to thaw before I could fold them for use.

I grew up in a family that line dried clothes.  Mama had a dryer for years before Granny or Grandmother had one but she still hung clothes to dry in the sunshine until we moved to town for that one year.

Granny never had a proper clothes line.  She hung her clothes upon a wire fence that ran along the west side of her back yard.  And if the load was especially large she hung clothes on the fence  that surrounded the old chicken house, the spot where the cows came to water in the evenings.  I recall her groans because the birds had soiled Granddaddy's white work shirts...and in she'd go to treat the stains and wash them and hang them out all over again.  Admittedly, this business of doing laundry twice was most likely to occur when the black berries were ripe.  She never looked back once she had a clothes dryer...and who can blame her?

Grandmother was still hanging clothes to dry well into her 80's though she also had a dryer.  She kept wooden clothespins for years.  She removed them from the line after each washing was removed, putting them in a bag and brought them indoors to hang by the back door, handy to take out again when she had another load to wash.  After she died, I gathered up her clothespins and used them myself for many years.  They were lovely hard wood, worn smooth by use, not shoddily made as the new cheap wood clothespins are.

Have you seen the variety of clothespins these days.  We found some at Lowes that are broader and has a padded end grip that we like rather well.  But take a look at Amazon: stainless steel, wood, plastic...There's all sorts of clothespins one might buy these days, including the old fashioned peg type which seem to be used mostly for crafts these days.

I have been on such a journey of late.  Pre-Algebra is going well but no kidding it's a little bit of a stretch for me.  I have to fight daily the self talk that tries to tell me that I am no.good.at.math.   But I am not bad at math.  I stumbled a little bit at first, but then I had a lovely note from Chris who is a retired special education teacher and she helped me better understand why my mind might work the way it does and what helps I might try to improve my skills overall.  Gracious but that was an enlightening and welcome note!   And something in me truly did open up after reading her words because I find now that instead of sitting at the desk looking at my answer compared to the one in the book and giving up because I just don't get it,   I start the problem over at the beginning and work until I do get the correct answer and understand where I went wrong.

I say I feel proud of myself, but  it's not being boastful.  Algebra, even pre-algebra was one more thing I truly believed was beyond me, that somehow I was too stupid to get, which is sad because besides math?  I was an A student.   But no not being boastful because this is pre-Algebra and I've two courses to complete but right now I understand what I'm learning.

A second part of this journey is that  of learning what it means to be involved in a narcissistic relationship.  I've continued listening to psychologists on YouTube speak about children of narcissists and the sense of recognition I feel is so validating.  For the first time in 60 years I understand myself and the twists and turns my mind can take in a seemingly innocent situation.

I've found a new set of videos by DoctorRamani who has specialized in narcissism and  I want to just weep as I listen to these videos.   Not weeping for what wasn't.  Weeping with relief at recognizing my own emotions,  for  understanding my own reactions and more importantly, understanding what I've known all along: I can change me...I can't change the other person.  Only that person can change who they are. Change is not impossible.  But it is highly improbable.

I've been very blessed in my life.  I have truly.  My childhood years might have been fraught with anxiety and my early adult hood might have been plagued with depression, but I've come to know the love of a really good man and I have children who tell me I was a good parent to them.  Not to tickle my ear but because they know my greatest fear is that I might have hindered them in some way with my own frailties and misgivings.

I'm determined this year to break out of the malaise that tells me I must only work hard in order to earn any kindness I might show myself.  It's so much harder to say daily, "What can I do to be kind to me today?"  And to believe that I am deserving of that kindness.  And to plan how being kind is also not playing into a self sabotage.  I wanted today to leave home and go shopping, but the warning signals said high danger.  I knew this when my planning went into what and where and how much I'd eat.  Compulsive eating habits might be conquered but the response trigger to soothe oneself with food never dies.  I told John this evening that not many might say it but being diagnosed as a diabetic and being made aware that my good health and long life depended upon my good choices in eating was a huge blessing.  It's helped me to redirect my thinking.

As well with that thought of compulsive eating came the thought of spending impulsively.    No more than I want to eat compulsively to soothe my savage inner beast do I want to spend recklessly.  So I decided the kindest thing I could do for me today was to stay home, fix some small things about my home that have bugged me of late and just enjoy the time alone.  And after my home was straightened and I'd had a reasonably balanced lunch, I allowed myself to do some window shopping online.   I took time to journal.  I had an afternoon hot cup of tea which was very nice indeed on this cold day.   I had an inspiration for a fresh spring time look for the mantel (to be assembled at a much later date as I mean to save the lovely things about winter first).   I looked about me, at the sunshine coming in the window and spreading itself about, at the clean house, at the neatly folded laundry and felt I'd had a very pleasant day indeed.

I've made up my mind that I shall absolutely get new dishes this year and replace the Corelle ones that I have come to dislike so.  I temporarily considered moving all my good china into the cupboard in the kitchen and using those everyday but then the reality  of having to hand wash them and never being able to microwave them reminded me that much as I might want to get more use from my china I'd not like it as daily dinner ware.  I've found a set that I think is just lovely, one that might be dressed up or down...

What do you think?  John would be over the moon if I got cobalt glasses to go with this...But I have perfectly nice clear glasses with a sort of beehive design on them that I like quite well.  I've learned the trick to online shopping.  Save as a bookmark and wait at least three days before ordering.  Well in my case I've bookmarked and am waiting until the end of the week.  Each time I've gone to look at these lovely things I've been pleased all over again at how pretty they are, and practical (dishwasher and microwave safe).   I've been tempted to buy lesser priced dishes but ultimately these were the ones that made me go "ooh!" each time I've looked at them, while the others have only made me say, "Wellll...they are cheaper..."  which is not a good recommendation if you ask me!

I've been wanting to replace the Corelle dishes for six years.  I haven't because I couldn't find dishes John and I both agreed upon.  I've come to the conclusion that we aren't going to agree...but he won't likely fuss about what he's eating off of if it sticks to his own aesthetic which is a sort of traditional/classic.   And yes, he really does take an interest in this sort of thing and likes to have his say.

Well dears, I shall end here.  Not finished with my chatter by a long ways but I do see that the sun has set, the darkness is creeping in and the night is most assuredly turning off colder.  Just hear that heater kick on every ten minutes or so.  Best wrap up tight before you go out into the cold...but do come back and be neighborly once more!