Display What Is Important To You

Architectural elements like columns and posts add textural interest to a room.

 I found these two posts at a resale shop. They were expensive. 

Sometimes Olive falls hard and fast from her frugal ways.

 If I really like something I will buy it though.

The sweetgrass basket was purchased for me by my darling father at the Charleston, S.C. Market.

 It is filled with funny little bits that I like.

I do not over think vignettes. 

The word vignettes is over used by us bloggers these days.

 I put on the coffee table what is important to me and pleases my eye. 

I love the small Sunday School chair. 

It reminds me of an innocent and simpler time.

I bought the chippy bird from a good friend who has been on my mind lately.

Display What Is Important To You

Decorate for yourself and not for what you think "others" might like whoever "they" may be.

Use your favorite items, family mementos, quirky items that only you may "get."

 If you love flowers and nature bring them inside as well.

 I decorate with books because I love to read. 

I have read all the books you see in my home. 

Make your spaces reflect who you are. 

joy and peace

Olive

Living Room Christmas Details

The yellow house living room has gone red and white for Christmas. 

The toile pillow cover and bottle brush tree are perfect together.

A detail of one of a pair of red tasseled pillows I picked up at an estate sale.

Silver ornaments in a favorite glass dish.

Reindeer prancing beside a chippy wood piece. 

All gentle reminders of the blessed season.

Full living room and Christmas tree in next post.

Linking@A Favorite Thing Saturday

Wow Us Wednesday's

Happy Christmas

Olive

Hotel Lamps

I have a fascination with lamps and buy and sell them every week.

Joe and I can just about completely rebuild one too. When we recently stayed in a hotel for a quick weekend trip the lamps in the lobby caught my notice. The entire lobby was done in a mountain lodge look. The hotel was a national chain but was uniquely decorated for it's mountain setting.

Here are a few of the lamps and other features:

This was a dark corner but I like this textured knobby lamp.

A canoe coffee table.

An enormous single piece of pine used as a table top.

\

The bird lamp is charming too.

A pair of these flanked a water feature on the mantel. 

This was a Hampton Inn where I like the beds and Joe likes the breakfasts.

 We are a member of their points club and stayed one night for free.

Linking with:

Tabletop Tuesday 

Wow Us Wednesday's 

joy and peace

Olive 

Funeral Baskets

Happy Friday My Fine Feathered Friends

I have an affinity for vintage funeral baskets (I have six). 

Joe asks are we starting a funeral parlor. 

No, I reply, we do not have enough funeral baskets yet.

I am traveling today to pick up my kiddo at college

 and go garage salen in Athens on Saturday.

What are your weekend plans?

joy and peace

Olive

~foodies and chicken salad~

This is not a food blog and I am not a foodie.

The definition of which is a person who has a refined interest in food.

It is the "refined" part that eliminates me from the foodie category.

That, and the inclination to eat at Chick-Fil-a and have Snickers bars on occasion.

I do have a very inquisitive interest in food, recipes, and especially chicken salad.

I love chicken salad and will try it on most menus.

This is the recipe I make most often of the three I do make.

Curried Chicken Salad

4 cups cooked chopped cubed chicken ♣ 2 cups dark seedless grapes halved ♣ 1 clove garlic finely minced ♣ 1 cup chopped pecans or slivered almonds ♣ the zest of one lime ♣ the juice of one lime ♣ 1or 2 tablespoons very good quality curry powder ♣ 1 cup mayonnaise

Mix  together and chill for at least 4 hours to let the curry and flavors fully get together.

Serve with an assortment of sliced fruit, sliced cucumber, and sliced tomato.

There are many curried salad recipes on the Internets if you wish for one more detailed.

I visited a restaurant in the north Georgia mountains about twenty years ago and I begged a server to give me a list of ingredients for this chicken salad and I have been making it ever since.

People either love it or not. No shades of grey here. Just curry and purple!

The curry is a large amount and frankly I hardly ever measure but I want it to show up and contrast with the grapes.

When it chills the curry gets darker in color...oh yeah!

So tell me are you a FOODIE?

What food or dish are you passionate about?

grace surrounds us

Olive

Cold, Homesick, Glass

It is bitterly cold here for our part of the south and our heat pump is having a difficult time keeping up with the frigid temps. The water stopped flowing this morning after I had been using it for hours. Curious yes? A street pipe had burst and now I am boiling water. It may be contaminated. Woot.

The happy, happy good news is CC will have finished her exams by tomorrow and I am fetching her from college and she will be home for a month! We will snuggle and boil water, no matter she will be HOME.

We have big plans. Baking gingerbread cookies, pound cake, toffee bars, and making fudge just for starters. Most to give away. Plus a tiny bit of shopping for her. She is homesick. She tells me on the phone every day she wants to come home.

I am frankly dizzied by all the blog parties. All of your homes are gorgeous. I am inspired every minute I read a blog. I am trying to catch up or maybe I will give up and just watch all of you and enjoy my kiddo. That sounds wonderful to me.

I do have two cloches photographed for Marty's cloche party and some snow globes.

The dining table vignette is kind of growing. No room for actual china. Who needs to sit down and eat? We have baking to do!

I have snow globes in the window seat. They have objects under glass. Not a cloche but I am overly fond of them.

Most of the snow globes play music. Did you you see Jack from "A Nightmare Before Christmas?" We love that movie and all of Tim Burton's movies.

Do visit Marty at A Stroll Thru Life  for far more beautiful cloches than mine. I am posting one day early because tomorrow is sheer craziness that should last until about Saturday.

grace surrounds us

Olive

Decking the Blue and White

My blue and white thrifted collection meets Santa and the snowmen. Call it decking the blue and white shall we?

At this point I never see the blue and white ever leaving this three drawer chest. Christmas decor just gets crammed in! Maybe it is the Southern way. More is better. More butter, more bread, more blue and white, more Christmas decor. You get it. What do you want more of in decor?

The snowmen were purchased from a Lenox outlet. What chubby monkeys they are...love em. One is shy and is hiding in the shadows and got cropped.

This Santa appears one eyed...Ha! Maybe his beard needs a trim. The Santa ornaments came from an estate sale months ago.

I am joining the following parties (buttons below).

grace surrounds us

Olive

Photo Challenge: Architectural Element

It should not be a secret to anyone reading this blog that I adore arched windows.

I visit little Southern towns and look for churches with great windows.

This grey stone church is in Edgefield, South Carolina.

It is a small Catholic Church facing a much used state highway.

The arched windows have no stained glass but have a lovely shape.

I like the somewhat severe look of this grey stone structure and the shape of the building.

We do not build buildings like this any more.

You can see other churches with arches I have taken photos of  here and here.

I will be visiting this town again as it is noteworthy for many things but one of them is turkeys.

I am linking with the multi-talented Chania from Razmataz.

grace surrounds us

Olive

Scary Reads

Two books I read last year are my favorite scary reads.

One disclaimer, I do not care for gore, blood and guts.

None of that is contained much in these two novels.

Been there done that at the hospital as a nurse in real life.

I have witnessed the aftermath of stabbings and it is not pretty.

~~♣~♣~♠~~

Joe Hill’s Heart Shaped Box ,his debut horror novel form 2007, is a gripping ghost story.

A  ghost for sale on the internet is the premise of this novel. It arrives contained in a suit in a box.

An aging rocker, Jude who is flawed but likeable, buys the ghost and mayhem and terror ensues with the revengeful ghost.

Joe Hill weaves a tale of redemption and horror that is fast paced and difficult to put down.

This spine-tingler is my favorite ghost story ever. You will not be disappointed in Heart Shaped Box.

~~♣~♣~♣~~

Then there is Vlad the Impaler in Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historion.

I read this while we were sleeping on an air mattress at the yellow house last year and I was convinced Vlad was alive and coming down the hall to get me!

 The Historian  is 720 pages and has three story lines in three different time frames that intersect.

Kostova spent ten years in the Eastern bloc doing research for this novel.

It has wonderful historical scope and is beautifully written.

Historians, who learn the truth about Dracula, began to vanish but I do not want to give away the complex plot.

It is enough to say that for a few nights in 2009 Vlad the Impaler was very much alive again to Olive.

Kostova achieved a perfect thriller in The Historian and I was glad I was not a historian!

Just thought I would share some not so quick reads to disturb your sleep.

What is your favorite scary book?

grace surrounds us

Olive

White Pumpkins and Baseballs

I found gorgeous real white pumpkins at Publix.

I have a bowl of baseballs (used) on our recently installed round coffee table in the living room at our yellow house.

Everyone who visits us always comments on the baseballs.

Whimsy, I tell them. It is all about whimsy.

So I added the white pumpkins to the baseballs!

The autumnal bowl is from Williams Sonoma. It was 75% off . It is wonderful for casseroles as well as baseballs!

I am linking with Kathleen at Faded Charm for White Wednesday.

grace surrounds us

Olive

Blue and White and My Drapes Need Help

I have re-arranged the three drawer chest in our living room at the yellow house again.

Because I found another blue and white jar (the one on the right) for almost nothing on Saturday.

On one side of the pineapple lamp, which is not going any where, is my blue side.

The other side, the white side, is filled with our milk glass which I have shown before.

I have added a Madonna and a tree trunk with bird vintage piece.

This last image is of our window seat. I have pulled the drapes back.

I like being able to see all three of the windows.

However, I am not sure of these very stiff drapes. They just do not drape softly.

I bought them for five dollars at a thrift store and they match the cornice board so well I thought why not?

What do you think?

Drapes down or pulled back like shown?

I am linking with the darling one, Marty from A Stroll Thru Life for Table Top Tuesday.

Please visit the other table tops for some Fine inspiration.

grace surrounds us

Olive