Misunderstood Bloggers

Bloggers come in many different categories, some blog for a living, some blog for a little living, some blog for technically nothing, and some blog for nothing. 

Do we realize that the general public believes that bloggers are in it for the money?  I have had several questions through the past year wondering what I make!  When I say I make nothing,  they ask why there are advertisements on my blog.  Sometimes, I don't know what to say since I have only racked up $10.00 for a year and you only get paid in merchandise when you have accumulated $100.00.  Well, I calculate this to be ten years until I get paid.

I have been told more than once, we would love you to take pictures of our artwork, home, etc., only to be notified after you have spent a great deal of time, NO, we do not wish to be on a blog!

Blogs are everywhere, but have they really come into mainstream America?  I don't think so, they are not in the neighborhoods, they are not down the block yet.

I guess if we exist in our own little blog world there is not a problem, but when we advertise ourselves with our friends or the groups that we belong to we realize that we are not yet understood!

I have learned so much this year about blogging, communicating, photography, computer skills, gardening, plants, plant zones, countries, people and most of all about myself!  Thank you blogging friends, I look forward to an even more productive year!

Eileen

The Smaller Christmas

I am having the smaller Christmas this year as every other year my brother and his family go to my sister-in-law's relatives.  I say smaller because there are less people, but we all know that the preparation is the same, the same baking, decorating, table setting and decor, less food but the same recipes.  Since I have a small family, I will miss that other part of my childhood.  He is my only sibling and my sister-in-law is a good friend,  we have so much in common.  I get over it each year and look forward to the next when we are all together.

The table is set each year with the china I have had since I was first married.  It is Franciscan Rondelay, extinct (only to be found at replacements.com), overlayed with a depression glass salad plate called Dogwood.  I have Waterford crystal from Ireland (actually ordered from Ireland many years ago) but this year I will use my aunt's depression glass water and wine goblets.  I have brought them to the depression glass shows and no one can name them, close to many others but not the same.  They were one of her wedding gifts in the late 1920's.

Rondelay Franciscan Fine China (small pink flowers with gray leaves) no longer available

Overlayed with MacBeth Evans Depression glassware in the pink Dogwood pattern

An interesting story about her glasses, she had painted her pantry shelves and put the glasses back top down only to realize they had all stuck and pulled off some of the glass rims.  I had them all restored by the crystal grinder (expensive) and have used them with many memories ever since.

Depression glassware, made during the depression years, some sold in dime stores and some made in specialty glass factories.  These were of a finer manufacturing process with flutes, jewels and intentional ripples in the pink tinted portion. 

The Christmas Amaryllis are in their full glory, probably won't be for Christmas.

The tablecloth is vintage overlayed on an older Irish linen tablecloth called Adams.  Both were purchased at antique shops with the Irish linen still being in the box yellowed with age and the Christmas one having several age marks.  I had bought some concoction a few years ago for soaking vintage linens and it worked, both coming out as good as new.  I wish I knew what to tell you it was but I have not been able to find it since.

I bought some LED candles a couple of years ago that are wax coated and I have used them for just about everything including power outages.

They do flicker like real candles when lit (I know it doesn't show in the photo) are safe and will last a very long time on batteries.

I intersperse them with real candles that I do light, but it is nice to leave the LED candles lit even when you leave the dinner table.  I have some pretty glittered ones also that I will put on the living room coffee table.

Birds are a good luck symbol at the dinner table.  I purchased these a few years ago at an after-holiday sale at a local florist shop.  I have them on the table for every holiday meal in some form or other, i.e., next to the Easter display, pumpkins, etc.

I am so lucky because my children are with us for Christmas as we share them with other relatives for Thanksgiving every other year.

I am beginning the non-stop baking that I have done each year for I would guess about thirty-five years, breads, cookies, candies, etc.  When working full time, I baked each year for all of the moms who used to help out in my classroom, giving their time without pay each week throughout the year.  I would enclose a little scented candle with their special bread and some years sugared pecans and white chocolate peppermint.

I am not a fan of faux, but I am beginning to become a fan of the more realistic greens now on the market.  I do not bring any real greens into my home anymore until the last minute.  So, I will mix real greens with the faux greens above and also work in fresh flowers throughout the tablescape.

A work in progress!

A Winter Wonderland

What an appropriate name for a presentation by Dr. David Stark of the Art Institute of Chicago.  This time the Art Institute came to us in a suburb of Chicago to a wonderful century old golf club on picturesque snowy grounds.

Dr. Stark presented each area of art by its style and century the piece was excuted.  We were first introduced to Bruegel, Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap, 1565

Friedrich, Graveyard Under Snow, 1827

Renaissance to Rococo Fifteenth to Eighteenth Century

Limbourg Brothers, Tres riches heures du Duc de Berry (February) 1413-1416

Goya, Winter Scene, 1786 (Sometimes these scenes were painted for weavers who wove them into tapestries to be hung on wall).  A simplier version of this painting was first done for a tapestry.

Boucher, Winter, (Four Seasons Series) 1765 - All of them of loving couples.  Don't you love this sleigh?

Avercamp, Scene on Ice, 1625

Romanticism

Friedrich, Winter Landscape, 1811 - If you enlarge this painting you will see a man sitting by the large evergreen with his crutches thrown in the snow looking at a religious cross.  It is debatable if he has been cured or if he has come to die.

Turner, Snowstorm, 1837

Realism

Courbet, Fox in the Snow, 1860

Impressionism and Post Impressionism

Monet, Sandvika, Norway, 1895

Pissarro, Rabbit Warren at Pontoise, Snow 1879

Monet, Ice Floes, 1880 (painted after his wife Camille (32) died of cancer), symbolizes the breaking apart of his life.

Ashcan School, early twentieth century, realism, depicting people the way they lived

Henri, Snow in New York, 1902

Bellows, Morning Snow - Hudson River, 1910

Twentieth Century

Burchfield, Orion in Winter, 1962

Richter, Ice, 1989

I think I have changed my mind about winter, it is certainly art!  I still do not like the shoveling and the driving in the snow, but it is a fascinating happening each year in many parts of the world and to the artist has very life cyclical meaning.  If you would like to see Dr. Stark's complete visual presentation you can access it at

http://mdid.artic.edu/ , log in is public, password is public. left menu bar select Slide show, under Slide show select author Stark, David, select Slide show Winter Wonderland.



Why Is Gardening Getting To Me?

The answer is SNOW!  My garden is covered up, the snow blower and the shovel are my new garden tools!  I just love those grasses peeking out of the snow and my alley garden has been plowed but not totally covered up yet.

What happened to the color?  It looks like everything is in shades of gray and white.

The Rhodies have curled their leaves under the snow.

As you can see I did not cut down the Miscanthus Udine yet, I will be sorry!  Pennisetum always looks good in the snow and Panicum Northwind is the stalwart of the winter grasses.  Oops, my cabbages have had it and just about all of the holiday containers have been buried in snow.

Miscanthus Udine

Do you recognize the container in the header?

Rainbow Knockout

Too much of this already!  When I move inside, it is all about color, the poinsettias, the cyclamens, the tree, paperwhites and amaryllis.



Happy Indoor Gardening!

Gardening Inside Your Holiday Home

I love the fragrance of paperwhites around the holidays and each year I order some along with my amaryllis.  One year I went a little overboard and ordered fifty bulbs thinking I would pot some up for friends and portion out the rest so that I would have paperwhites blooming for many weeks. This was a great deal of work and certainly took away from the easy bulb it is to grow.

I am planting Paperwhite "Ziva", a very floriforus fragrant variety, in soil because I just want to see some leaves and flowers and not the bulb.  However, paperwhites can also be planted in stones, just like the amaryllis I planted previously.  They bloom quickly, about three weeks, so try to time it so you have blooms for the holidays.

They should be planted shallow, more soil can be added as the leaves sprout.  Moss can be added before they bloom.  Decorative branches can be inserted to hold the leaves and flowers.

I put three bulbs in each of the tin and copper pots.  They are packed tightly but that is okay since these are one time use bulbs in my area.


I am starting mine now and will hold them in the attached garage for a week if I have to, just want to make sure they are in bloom.  They cannot freeze, but if you have a cool place you can keep them from breaking into full flower too soon.

I have also planted eleven bulbs in this large container. 

They are set down a few inches in the container because they become quite tall.  Their leaves do flop and lean towards the light so this is another plant that will benefit from some type of support.  Again, I will use the branches, maybe gold this time.  There is a formula of grain alcohol and water that supposedly stunts the growth so that they do not flop, check it out on http://www.ehow.com/  I tried it once and honestly I cannot remember if it worked!

This is the new holiday green and it really looks better with my vintage furniture than the darker green we have used for years.

My amaryllis grew very quickly and may not last through the holidays.  I could have held it in the garage at a certain stage but I was so anxious to see the flowers.  It is a Christmas amaryllis and I knew it would be faster and shorter than the other types.  I may not even need the branches to prop it up as the large leaves have not developed yet.

Christmas Amaryllis Cocktail

Cyclamen has always been a favorite plant to have around the holidays but I have never been able to keep it going.  It requires a cooler environment and not too much water.  I think I have finally found a place that it thrives.

Last winter I bought three small cyclamen at Home Depot and put them in a decorative container in an upstairs bath on a tiled window seat.  They did beautifully all year until recently when they outgrew their pots and began to look challenged.  I decided to replace them with larger cyclamen and potted them into my matching McCoy urns.  They look great and seem to be rewarding me with oodles of flowers.

The poinsettia is a favorite holiday plant, however, be careful where you place them.  Keep them away from drafts both hot and cold and away from children and pets (although not as toxic as once thought).  Water sparingly (moist, cannot sit in water) but do not let them dry out or the leaves will curl and fall.  The flowers of the poinsettia are almost unnoticeable, it is the leaves that turn those beautiful colors.

This is a variegated poinsettia that I purchased at Costco.  I bought the same poinsettia last year and it held up throughout the holiday season.  It is low growing and very full.