Iced Coffee Chat: Playing House

 

I know it is not Autumn.  I know that, even should we have an earlier autumn, that date is likely beyond September 21, but this past week with chilly mornings and breezy, sunny days that were comfortably cool, I got bitten by the Autumn bug.  I'm so ready for it.

I've spent the past few days cleaning and playing in my house.  I've hung pictures, and decorated the mantle in the living room with a fresh look and am constantly looking for some item I can move into a fresh spot where it will once again garner notice.  

Case in point is the mantle.  

I think the mantel looks dark and moody.  I'd love to have plates I could change out for the ones I have on the wall at present, but I haven't been out to the shed to look.  I don't think I do.  I do have a darker print that I'll use to replace one of those on my wall as well as a bird picture that I'll replace the hummingbird print with.  You can't see either of those pictures in this photo, but it's all part of my fall decor plan.  I'll show that at a later date.

Everything I used on the mantle was already in the room in different places, including the Imari plate I found in the buffet.  For years, I used the plate as a Seder plate during Passover because it had seven distinct sections, but we haven't done a Passover Seder in a few years.  I pulled the plate from the buffet last week and was contemplating if it was time to let it go when I suddenly 'saw' it u on the mantle, with the Turkish patterned pillow covers* on the chairs.  Amazon Associate Affiliate Link* If you place any order using my link, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.  Thank you!

All lovely rusty red, navy, gold and creams will work well as Autumn colors.

I'm in a house floofing sort of mood.  I love creating little vignettes and making things look nice, even it is just organizing and rearranging books on the bookshelves.   I do a little something then leave it and think about it and look at it and eventually I'll come back and add or remove something, bring something in from storage or another room until I feel things are just as I want them.  

I think that one of the issues with summer is that it's hot and I don't care what the house looks like, I just want to get the housework done and sit down to cool off once more.   In summer, I tend to un-decorate, removing layers and decorations in favor of a cleaner, sparser look that I somehow think ought to signal that the house is cooler than it is.  Honestly it just looks bare and boring.  

But in other seasons, I truly love to 'play house', cleaning, organizing and decorating to my heart's content. I dream of new things and occasionally might buy something new, but mostly I go dig in the shed and go through the trunks and see what I might have stowed away.   Then I'll start to play.  And it does feel like play to me.  I love nothing better than to putter around, talking to myself about what I'm doing.  It's my happy time in my home.

I wish I could get that same feeling when just cleaning it!  Well sometimes, I do, when I've got uninterrupted time to tackle big heavy-duty tasks, but mostly, it's a discipline thing.  I discipline myself to do the things I don't want to do, so I can do something I do want to do.

I took time to sort out one of my bookshelves on Monday.  I organized books by subject on the shelves, putting all of the books by one author (or about that author, or related to that author's work in some way) put together.  I found several books I've yet to read.  I acknowledged that I am NOT going to read the book on Monticello that I've had for years.  I let go of a few others that I know I'm not going to read again.  I didn't get rid of many books, about six perhaps.  And letting them go wasn't as painful as it was once in the past.  I tackled one bookshelf on Monday and the other two on Tuesday.   Then I went through the two cabinets in the living room which I'd apparently cleared in the past.  There was nothing to remove from either of those.

One of those cabinets is a source of frustration and guilt.  It contains all the DVD's I own and never get to watch because John has the TV occupied pretty much all the waking hours of the day.  That's the frustration part.  I try not to let it bother me, but it does rankle now and then.  He offers to get a TV for me and set it up in the bedroom, but I won't agree to it.  If that sounds like I'm responsible for my own frustrations, it's not that at all.  I'm preserving my sanity.  If there is a TV in our bedroom that TV will be on until all hours.  I know full well it will become a source of ire because I want to sleep without more noise and light than we already have due to his need to have fans and noise machine and nightlights on.

I think I'll make sure John has connected my DVD player so I can at least watch a movie on the one night a month he's gone to Men's meeting.   In the meantime, rather than buy more hard copy DVD's, I've started buying them on Amazon and have them in my library.

I said the cabinet was also a source of guilt.  It's the pictures. Lots and lots of family pictures.  Pictures that we don't look at.  I long ago sorted through them and gave each child photos of themselves with siblings, photos of family events we all attended, etc.   I also tossed all the headless, blurry and partially blacked out photos.  Still, I have two or three boxes of family photos, and I don't know what to do with them.  

You see, growing up photos in my family were guarded.  Mama insisted that every time anyone looked at the photos, she ended up missing some of her favorites.  So, she refused to let anyone ever look at them.  Now when she moved out of the town house, she left all the photos behind.  But her absolute ownership of them made me feel I couldn't touch them.  And in the end, they were ultimately left in the house for the new owners to throw away because I knew if I removed any of them, it would become a source of contention with Mama.  So, all my childhood photos, as well as my brothers, are gone.  

Now I've never denied my children looking at them or taking any they wanted for themselves.  So, I hold onto these in case, just in case, they ever want to look at them.   Most of my photos of the grandchildren are online.  I have few copies of any except of Josie that Mama took and gave me the extra copy of.   But mostly I don't take pictures anymore.  I don't even think to take them. Usually, I'm busy fixing someone's plate or cleaning up or holding a grandchild, etc.  The truth is that photos, while nice, just aren't a source of emotional attachment.  And that's what makes me feel guilty, because to others, I know they are important, but I just don't feel it.  

The other cabinet is full of Grace Livingston Hill books that I keep working my way through slowly and reading.  John bought me lots of editions with original dustjackets as gifts.  As with most authors, I like some of her novels more than I like others.  I've been going through them and determining which I'll keep.  

But there's also John's family albums in that cabinet, and two shoeboxes of old sepia and black and white photos that were apparently my great grandmothers'.  A few have faint pencil written names on the back but weren't family names I recognized.  Since I've been working on genealogy more, I now recognize a few of those names as siblings of Grandma Annie's.  Those photos I'd like to scan and post on genealogy sites for those who may not have a photo of that family member.

I'm down to cleaning out the toy box and then I'll be done with this bout of decluttering in my home.  I want to 'warm up' the guest room and I'm looking forward to getting the cold weather spread and pillow shams on the bed for our room, but I'll hold off on our room as its far too warm for that spread at the moment.

Then I want to look into some autumn planting.  It's true I've left it a little bit late, but most of my seeds will allow a harvest before frost hits us.  I can plant carrots, radishes, beets, green beans, zucchini, yellow squash, parsley and cilantro now.  I think there are a few more things like Swiss Chard and I know I can plant lettuce as well.  Will I get to do all that?  I don't know.  I'm going to try to do something.    

But right now, I'm going to start looking toward September which is looming near.

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