scuffed and worn....

i am sooooooooo in love with vintage anything! at least once or twice a week i do the thrift store crawl (such as it is in my small town) looking for treasures. i bought this top suitcase for a whopping five dollars and the other two..........i rescued them from the garbage pile! SCORE! i snatched these up like they were gold.... from the salvation army.....with a look of pity from the girl behind the counter..... a suitcase without wheels........OMG!

i can't help but wonder where they've been....with who....by car....train....plane....what hopes were packed along with the necessities....what treasures rode home in them.....

i've got a trip to edisto beach planned this fall with a few of my friends. i'm thinking these vintage girls should accompany us vintage girls to the shore.....they'll be in good company....we're all a little scuffed and worn ourselves....but still hanging in there......and still enjoying life......

invisible to the eye...

"the greatest treasures are those invisible to the eye

but found by the heart...."

~ anonymous

of poetry and frogs....

“if we can discover the meaning

in the trilling of a frog…

perhaps we may understand

why it is for us not merely noise

but a song of poetry and emotion…”

~ Adrian forsyth

this little guy makes his home in the small pond beside my screened porch

and on these hot...sultry...summer nights...

he serenades me...

with the sound of his poetry...

whew.........

whew!.......i seriously need an inside kind of job.........

...a bowl of summertime

"steep thyself in a bowl of summertime...."
~virgil

nothing quite says summertime here in the south like a good tomato sandwich

....with tomatoes fresh from the garden.

on this first day of summer i had my first BLT with a

tomato still warm from the garden.....

i always eat pepperidge farm 15 grain whole wheat bread

....except for tomato sandwiches

brings back memories of my childhood

when EVERYONE ate white bread....plenty of mayonnaise....salt & pepper.....

yum!

i will dare...

"i will dare to just do what i do...

be just what i am...

and dance whenever i want to..."

~ beverly williams

on becoming real....

"it doesn't happen all at once…

it takes a long time….

by the time you are Real…

most of your hair has been loved off…

and your eyes drop out…

and you get loose in your joints…

and very shabby….

but these things don't matter at all…

because once you are Real…

you can't be ugly…

except to people who don't understand."

~ the velveteen rabbit

the older i get....the more i find comfort in becoming

.......REAL

my newest edition........

meet the swinger

polaroid swinger

meet the swinger

polaroid swinger

it’s not just a camera

it’s almost alive

it’s only nineteen dollars

and ninety five

swing it up (yeah yeah)

it says “yes”

take the shot (yeah yeah)

count it down

tear it off

this is the newest edition to my collection...

i had one of these in the sixties...it started my love of photography

i couldn't get the you tube link to work....check out the commercials here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7k2uwJmwxo

simple pleasures...

queen anne's lace... actually a member of the carrot family....wild carrot...

one of my favorite wild flowers...i love the 'bird nest' look before it fully opens...these lacy flowers are all along the roadsides and fields this time of year.
i collect some each year and dry them on a shelf of chicken wire

to use in arrangements and sometimes on my

christmas tree....

simple pleasures....

the merits of sitting quietly...

"happiness is a butterfly...which when pursued...

is always just beyond your grasp...

but which..if you will sit down quietly...

may alight upon you."

~ nathaniel hawthorne

...the less he spoke the more he heard

"a wise old owl sat on an oak...

the more he saw the less he spoke...

the less he spoke the more he heard...

why aren't we like that wise old bird?"

does the soul remember?

bloodroot: a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power to both heal and poison.

bloodroot: a book by amy greene....set in the appalachian mountains...family curses...granny women...love-hate relationships...and the fierceness of a mothers love..this book reminds us that "you can't run away from who you are or where you come from".

i do love reading anything about the appalachian way of life...maybe it's because my family roots can be traced back to those hills...does the soul remember?...i think it does...whatever the reason...this was a delicious read!

"some creatures are just meant to be left alone.

they can't be held on to...

even if we love them

more than anything"

~ douglas cotter - bloodroot

comes the dawn.....

"after a while you learn

the subtle difference between

holding a hand and chaining a soul

and you learn

that love doesn’t mean leaning

and company doesn’t always mean security.

and you begin to learn

that kisses aren’t contracts

and presents aren’t promises

and you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child

and you learn

to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow’s ground is

too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down

in mid-flight.

after a while you learn

that even sunshine burns

if you get too much

so you plant your own garden

and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone

to bring you flowers.

and you learn that you really can endure

you really are strong

you really do have worth

and you learn

and you learn

with every goodbye, you learn…”

veronica a. shoffstall

ron mueck

australian hyperrealist sculptor....ron mueck.....AMAZING!