The Funnies

Back in the late 80's and through the 90's I was still reading paper newspapers.  I would clip comics that spoke to me and save the clippings, to what end I don't remember.  These funnies touched me in some way at that time. 

I haven't had a paper delivered in decades and as a result haven't read comic strips much in that time either. Instead, I scroll through Facebook or Instagram or the news.  None of them offer the succinct bites of wisdom I used to find in the funnies.

I still enjoy the biting humor of political cartoons that sometime appear in my feeds.  But I miss the gentle reflections these clippings represent.  

Time passes and children grow up

Many years ago when our grand kids were tiny I found a dollhouse at an Estate sale.  It was a bit beat up, obviously well loved by the grandchildren of the lady of the house.  I rolled it to my car and cleaned it up at home. There were some furnishings; a couple of beds, a cast iron stove, kitchen table and chairs, living room set and a claw foot tub!  It was something the kids would play with whenever they came over and I added pieces whenever I saw something of the right scale.  I got a picture for over the fireplace and at Christmas I had a tree and lights. 

One summer I used a cross cut slice of the pine tree we removed as an outdoor "patio" for the house and added Adirondack chairs, a picnic table, green grass and a fire pit.  There was a stuffed RV with tiny people driving it too!

 The house has been sitting for awhile, the grand kids on to more grown up entertainment so this week I called the family across the street and asked if they would like it.  Her three are all under 9 years old and it was a great hit!  So the happiness is passed on to another family.

Made for Travel

In my 40's I travelled a lot for work and spent many hours on airplanes at a time when the last few rows were for the smoking section and you could run through the airport at the last minute and when you arrived home someone could be waiting for you at the gate.

Another offering of those days were gifts in flight, particularly on international flights where you could shop duty free.  I bought this clever makeup kit on one of those flights.  It had everything needed to look presentable when you landed; blush, powder, eye shadow, lipstick, eyebrow pencil, brushes and a mirror.  It all slid together into a compact case with a gold-toned clasp. 

It was well used and probably earned several thousand airline miles of its own in those years.  These days, I rarely use any makeup and carry more tools for aches and pains than for beauty. Au revoir glamour kit!

Last load

Today, the Maytag washer my ex-in-laws got me for college was pronounced DOA at age 44.  The drum pads wore out and the base is flexing and that base part is no longer available, so I’ll be buying a new washer.  The repairman was younger than the washer.  He suggested I put it out on eBay as a vintage item!  I can't recall ever having it repaired before.  Good bye to an old reliable machine.

Post script:  I nursed this great machine through March of 2020 when being cooped up at home I just ordered a replacement (another Maytag) online and had it delivered.  This one was hauled away.

Stitching memories

I learned how to sew in Colorado in 6th grade Home Economics.  We traced concentric circles and square mazes with a treadle sewing machine.  I think I made an apron.  From then on, I began sewing my own clothing and I still have the machine I received as a high school graduation present.  Throughout my 20's I made most of my own clothing for school and work and when my son was born, I made many sets of overalls and shorts with deep pockets for him.  I made matching warm up suits for the whole family (big fail!) and Halloween costumes. 

My career took me travelling and I spent many, many hours on airplanes.  Cross-stitch was sewing I could do while flying and I collected patterns over the years. 

This group of booklets reminds me of the baby clothes I embroidered with the "Alphabet Children" and the store-bought sweater I embellished with embroidery. 

The Cactus design I used to embroider some squares for a quilt that one of my aunts put together for my Grandmother Mary Emery Schwab. 

My eyesight isn't great anymore for counting the tiny squares involved in cross-stitch.  You'll find me coloring digital paint by number pictures now on my Google Chromebook.  Time marches on.

China Doll

A beautiful gold and white porcelain tea pot, it's spout tipped up like a lady's left hand with the handle her other hand on her hip, her gown scattered with golden leaves.  I got this as a gift from either my mother-in-law or her mother-in-law to go with the teacup collection they gave me over the years. 

And then several years ago in the Spring of 2008, my friend participated in a fundraiser for a theatre group.  The group was hosting a fashion show of theatre costumes by local smart set ladies during a elegant luncheon with the teapots filled with flower arrangements as centerpieces.  I donated it for the occasion and it was auctioned off with the other ones to a lovely home I hope.  My dear friend cared for the donated teapots before the event, arranging them in on the shelves in her garden room window, like these on display at the Juliette Gordon Low museum in Savannah, Georgia that I visited in June of 2009.

teapots on display at Juliette Gordon Low museum

A memory of holidays past, where tea was served after dinner with dessert in delicate china tea cups to guests full from dinner, settling their digestion with a bit of sweets and hot sips. 

Lacy underthings

slips, teddies, lacy underthings

Coming to terms with what I *really* look like vs what my mind tells me--what no longer fits, both physically and in my imagination.  These lacy things I' been gifted or bought as a gift for someone else to enjoy seeing me in.  They made me feel pretty, the silky full slip creating visions of Stella in "Streetcar Named Desire", the teddy's either Victoria's Secret model or Rocky Horror Picture show, take your pick. 

Desktop Detris

Desktop Detris

I've been lax on posting about items I've gotten rid of over the past.  I have several pictures to catch up on.

This group of items were in my home office and have now gone on to better adventures.  The saying about work was a picture given me by an employee I supervised in the 80's.  She was quiet spoken and recognized I was living at work.  Unfortunately, I struggled to get my priorities straight and lived at work until I was laid off.

The Creative Whack Pack was a clever deck of cards to inspire innovative thinking and problem solving.  I think I might have used it to inspire writing but more importantly it helped expand my thinking about what I could do and how to do it.  The Maxine button was a little giggle that always made me smile!  The aqua mermaid was a gift from a work friend that was given one Christmas to honor the feminine side and the little hands clip a way of lightening up those stacks of papers everywhere. 

The picture of sandhill cranes I picked up on my first visit to the fields in Wilcox, Arizona with my girlfriend and my nieces. A special memory of a trip we took before I met my future husband.  It still confounds me how little pieces of my past persist into the present.

Sears Box

I'd had this old Sears gift box for years.  It held cards and notices and pictures from long ago.  I'd brought it with me from my mother's house when I left for college and shortly thereafter when I got married.  I'd been organizing pictures and this was at the bottom of a cedar chest.  I don't remember all that was in it...probably letters and cards from those early years; some of my school papers from high school I think.  I kept those and tossed the box.

Memories from Spain

Back in the 90's I attended a meeting of the International Standards Organization in Madrid, Spain.  I was the editor of the ISO 8583 standard that defines how to exchange credit card messages for authorizing and settling transactions.  The meetings lasted a week and as was my practice, I would fly in the weekend before to do some touristing.  This trip I traveled to Toledo (Toe-Lay-Doe) where I wandered narrow cobbled side streets of tiny shops.   

I bought a set of steak knives that I still have, as Toledo was supposedly known for its cutlery; I would never have been able to bring those home on the plane today.  I paid a pretty penny for some saffron spice too. There's a frilly fan on my bookcase and the usual bookmark and thimble I would collect when I traveled.  We toured the Prado Museum in Madrid where I saw original El Greco and Picasso paintings in brilliant colors and have the book to remember them by.  

I picked up the sunny blue and white sundial tile in the picture because I liked the message, Carpe Diem, and the colors and the multi-purpose use as a decoration and a sundial. I put it in my courtyard out front and it eventually ended up by the backyard fountain.  It was trampled a couple of times and is rusted and cracked and is being trashed.  Goodbye good memory.

Run, Run, Run

5K race bibs

A few years ago I ran in several 5ks.  The passage of time and lack of activity had packed on the pounds and I had to do something to chase them away.

I've never been able to do something without a purpose; there had to be a goal in mind and it had to contribute to something more than just the activity itself.  Thus, 5ks, an activity that would contribute to weight loss and provided measurable benchmarks of improvement.

The best I did in any of the races was 41 minutes.  Since a 5K is 3.1 miles, I managed to do about a 13 minute mile.  Not stellar by any means, but an achievement for me, someone that spent my required time in P.E. classes volunteering to keep score to avoid any exertion.

In June of  2012 I took a trip to Aravaipa Canyon to a B and B with my BFF.  We hiked the canyon and I remember feeling strong and confident as a result of those races.  I'd been wearing a step tracker for a long time and tracking my food intake.  On that trip I was unable to connect to the tracker and broke a streak of consecutive days of tracking. Funny, it was incredibly frustrating and demoralizing. I ran a couple more races the next year and then gave up, adding back some pounds and losing flexibility in my back.

In 2014 I tossed all my bibs, thinking I'd still remember those accomplishments but in reality I think I was getting rid of the evidence of having given up.  See, running in races is not like taking a college course or completing a project.  It's a continuing test of your abilities and it can be a celebration of just living, without a goal, without judgment, without an end.  It might be time to revisit the outdoors on foot.

World Travels

When I worked during the 80's, 90's and up until 2001, I got to travel internationally - a lot.  It started when my company wanted to install ATM machines in airports all over the world and later wanted to have banks sell their product.  I was lucky enough to be the person that explained how it was done to the bank's business and technical personnel.  Then, the financial industry wanted a standard way of talking to the ATMs and sending transactions so I met with international banking organizations and we hammered out standards.  Of course, this worked best face to face so I racked up thousands of airline miles, meeting up in a different host county once or twice a year.

So here I am years later digging through memorabilia and I find my foreign currency change purse. Back before the Euro, each country in Europe issued its own currency.  When I travelled, I would buy some of the local currency when I arrived in a new country and try to spend it all before I left.  What didn't get spent ended up in my stash at home. I spent a couple of hours sorting out the coins by country of origin, including a little surfing to identify some of the tricky ones.  Here's the list of countries:

coins from my travels

• Austria
• Belgium
• British Caribbean
• Canada
• Costa Rica
• Denmark
• England
• France
• Germany
• Hong Kong
• Japan
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• Portugal
• Singapore
• Spain
• Taiwan
• Thailand

Okay, some of those were vacations (British Caribbean, Costa Rica, Mexico) and there's some missing (Australia, why don't I have any from there?)

My son has a coin collection so these will go to him with the countries identified.  Time for this traveler to make new trips!

Letting go of dreams

Many, many years ago I designed a sewing room in my house.  I worked with a carpenter and specified all sorts of nooks and features for my sewing.  Back then, I made most of my own clothes and outfits for my toddler.  When it was installed I bought this wallpaper to put up around the room. I loved this pattern.  I imagined it in the room, complimenting the paint of the cabinets.  I dreamed of making curtain tiebacks in the pale green and accent pillows in the peach colors.  I didn't get the wallpaper up in that house, but I stubbornly removed the built-ins and had them re-installed in my present home.  And the wallpaper came with me.

These rolls have sat on various shelves or been stashed in closets now for over 25 years.  I still love this wallpaper.  It wouldn't go anywhere now, even in my office/sewing room where it would clash with my closet shades.  It's a lot of work as I recall, to put up wallpaper and like any decorating project, it spawns a cascading wave of other changes.  And yet, I have a very hard time letting them go.  See, they represent a life I once had, a life I wanted at the time.  Keeping them around gave me the feeling I could still have that life if I would just put up the wallpaper.  And keeping the rolls said that some day I'd have the time to put it up, to realize the dream.  Getting rid of it is admitting to what feels like failure, a lack of will to finish something I started.  It says to me that I can still do what I said I would do and I would experience the pleasure of accomplishment and be able to enjoy something I thought was beautiful and reflected who I was.  I was someone who surrounded herself with delicate prints in muted colors that reflected a calm demeanor and feminine sensibilities.

Here's the truth - who I am is someone who dreams and has a hard time letting go of those dreams when they are no longer necessary or applicable.  And the harder truth, holding on to old dreams takes up space in the here and now and none of the dreams are realized, not yesterday's or today's.

I've thought of seeing if someone I knew would want them, giving me a chance to have them put to good purpose and maybe even see the wallpaper installed, thought not in my home.  Passing on the dream, so to speak.  But that doesn't work either.  Everyone has their own dreams waiting.

So, they are going to Goodwill, part of my purging my surroundings of things that no longer serve me.  It will free up some new shelf space that I'll use for genealogy files, my newer passion.  It feels like a weight off of my shoulders though there is a tug in my heart.

Little boxes on the hillside

"Little boxes on the hillside,

 Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
 Little boxes on the hillside,
 Little boxes all the same."

             

Notes: words and music by Malvina Reynolds; copyright 1962 Schroder Music Company, renewed 1990. Song Lyrics to Little Boxes

This song played through my head when I pulled out these recipe index card boxes.

Four index card boxes

For a long time, before I started a blog for it (Rooms with Windows), I would keep a record of the books I read on 3x5 cards in one of these boxes, alphabetized by title.  At the end of each year I would pull out the cards and transcribe the notes to a spreadsheet to create my annual reading list (can you say "anal retentive?).

Even further back, before my beloved Palm Pilot, I kept the business cards I collected in a couple of these boxes.  I still have a much larger (think, Michael Jordan-size shoe) box full of business cards which I've thought about using to create wallpaper in my office (I know, how geeky-nerdy can I get?).

The green plastic one I picked up at an estate sale.  It's full of recipes, mostly from the 60's and 70's which means "oleo" is an ingredient and there are fifty variations of jello desserts.  I can't imagine why anyone would not want to keep their family recipes, even ones evidencing such an obvious sweet tooth, although maybe diabetes was a contributing factor to the loved one's demise and these would be a bitter reminder.

The Christmas design is a box of recipes from my step mother that she no longer wanted.  There's a story here; recipes written on church bulletins during the potlucks or directions for dishes that may have been a family favorite from her first husband's side of the family.  There a lot of sweet desserts with pineapple and coconut featured prominently.  It makes me think I grew up in an age where sugar addiction was a concerted effort put forth by our home bound mothers.

I've picked out a few recipes to try though I don't know if I'll really get around to it.  At this point in my cooking life I'm pretty confident I can create something edible with not much prompting from a recipe.  I think too that the recipes we collect are more about wanting to emulate the cook than the food she'd prepared.  Maybe her happy family, satisfied husband, or well-groomed children could be replicated if we nourished our family with the same foods.  Then again, maybe recipes represent a burst of enthusiasm for creativity in a daily mundane task that now is either completed unconsciously or omitted entirely.  

These little boxes full of dreams of order and happiness, plans for pleasing and memorable meals are going to Goodwill.

A fallow season

Here at the start of September I'm without a contract for work.  In the meantime, I'm looking for things to purge and found these aluminum drinking glasses.

aluminum drinking glasses

I ordered these many years ago to remind me of my Grandmother Schwab.  See, we went to visit her back East only a couple of times when I was a child, maybe when I was 9 and then again about 12, I'm not sure of the dates.  She lived in the same home on Mansion Street in Coxsackie, NY, which her and my grandfather rented until they died.

Her kitchen always smelled of fresh baked goods.  It had high ceilings and linoleum floors.  There was a woven calendar on the wall and one of those 1950's kitchen tables with the matching armless chairs.
I was given a picture recently of her kitchen at Thanksgiving in 1971, with her and my Uncle Tom.  He passed away last year, the last male Schwab.

 She kept a cookie jar on the counter that always seemed to be full of chocolate chip cookies.We'd have those cookies with ice cold milk out of her brightly colored aluminum drinking glasses.  I'd had a set of the red/blue/green ones similar to hers but they weren't quite the same.  These are the same shape.


I loved my Grandma very much, even though I only saw her in person as a child a few times and then as an adult when I traveled to the East Coast on business occasionally.  She was a "blessed are the meek" person, as my Mom would say, because she was a gentle spirit who would always laugh at my Grandfather's teasing.  My love for her was a reflection of my own Mom's deep love for her.

The glasses are going to Goodwill but the memories remain.

2014 in 2014

What better way to start the new year than with a resolution?  I love new beginnings and the start of a new year is one of my favorites.  In the year 2014 I'm going to get rid of 2014 things.  It sounds like a huge number, 169 or so each month, but I suspect there is enough stuff around here that I can achieve it.

Now, I'm being pretty generous with my counting.  I have at least 50 spools of thread that I can cull and over 200 books that haven't been opened in years.  Each colored pencil that has languished in a drawer will count as an item.  It's not so much the things as the process.  Sort of like "moving in place" and seeing what's left.

I plan to post each month about what goes out the door and share some pictures and stories along the way.

Keep me honest please!

Culinary wish lists - purging cookbooks

When I first got married I was not much of a cook.  My mother had said that we'd do enough of that when we got older so she didn't spend much time teaching us to cook and with 5 kids I don't think she enjoyed it except for baking.  The first "dinner party" I had at our one-room apartment was almost cratered when the spaghetti noodles I'd made turned into one huge lump.  And then there was the time I'd thought I'd make coq au vin only I didn't have any wine and used some whiskey leftover from a friend who came to visit.  Smelled good, but another disaster.

As a young wife and student I figured I'd fix the problem by educating myself - but only through books, no classes that would reveal my ineptitude!  We bought a microwave and a crockpot and the cookbooks that came with them are staying in my collection along with my go-to tome, my trusted Betty Crocker Cookbook that was a wedding shower present I think.  We survived as my then spouse "ate to live" and wasn't interested in pitching in except for breakfast pancakes and occasional grilling.  Then came the weight battles.

See all those "low calorie" gems in the picture?  All efforts on my part to find some way of enjoying food without having it stay on my hips.  There were the "good food" (read, healthy and bland) cookbooks, like the seafood and rice ones.  Needless to say, they are in better shape than the Toll House cookbook and Pillsbury crescent rolls ones. The Richard Simmons cookbook (so annoying) and Low Fat Living (an oxymoron in my mind) were more failed efforts.

Sometime in the 90's I won an award at work and got a trip to Aspen, Colorado for a weekend.  We were wined and dined, toured Barbie Benton's Copper Palace and partied late into the night.  The Aspen cookbook was one of the goodies we were given.  Notice the "Lighter" in the title.

Aphrodite is really a story with lots of recipes by one of my favorite authors, Isabel Allende.  I liked how she reminisced about her life through cooking and eating.  Sort of like what I'm doing here.  

Recently I've been looking for recipe books and boxes and files at estate sales.  I found one that was all desserts and drinks from the 50's through the 70's and after scanning a few of the recipes, I'm shipping it off to a historical gastronomy fan.  

The books in the picture are going off to the trade-in store and what they don't take will go to Goodwill.  At least getting rid of the cookbooks is making me feel lighter already!

Matchbooks and Memories

In my ongoing pursuit of purging my home of clutter I came across a basket full of matchbooks, almost 100 of them.  There’s no reason to keep them, I never smoked although someone used several of them in part or completely.  I collected them when I visited a place I wanted to remember, maybe to come back and visit again with the thought of enjoying another meal or another night’s stay.  Truth is, they were meant to be bits of memory, stored away to be re-visited some lazy afternoon when I wanted to reminisce.  Some are over 30 years old.

There are matchbooks from all the way back to the early 70’s at Paul Shank’s in Scottsdale where I went on my [first] honeymoon; Los Olivos, Sugar Bowl, local restaurants when I was in my 20’s and chain restaurants like Marie Callender’s, Sesame Inn, The Good Egg and Reata Pass Steak House.  Trips I took after graduating from college and before and after having my son to the Silverton Train in Silverton and the La Quinta in Colorado Springs; the Hotel del Coronado where there was a family vacation and the Westin Bonaventure where we went with some church couples in California.  The Royal Hawaiian in Hawaii to celebrate 10 years and the Fabulous Toots Lagoon, the Adobe Inn and Em Le’s in Carmel by the Sea where my son went to tennis camp in California; Wickenburg Inn, John Gardnier’s Enchantment, Las Campanas de los Catalinas, El Dorado and Poco Diablo Resorts, in Arizona for Charro celebrations. 

And then there were the Las Vegas trips; the Alpine Village Restaurant with the train and the pewter serving dishes; Jai Alai at the MGM Grand, the Riviera, the Golden Nugget with its yummy shrimp cocktails, Caesar’s Palace, Luxor, Fremont, Circus Circus, Gold Coast, and the Stardust.

In my 30’s it was Club Mediterranee and the years of living it up; Mancuso’s, Ruth Chris’, Jewel of the Crown and La Chaumiere.  And the travel for work, how I loved to travel; the Millennium Hotel in New York City at the World Trade Center, Le Bor Bat Restaurant, Essex House, Hotel Nikko, Caravela, B Smith’s, Le Parker Meridien, and the Restaurant Francais all in New York.  International travel to the Top of Toronto and Anderson’s Dining in the Creek in Vancouver, Canada; Hotel L’Horset, Hotel Metropole, L’ Alban Chambon Restaurant and Meridien Hotel in France.

Then life took another turn and I was at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort, Doubletree and Registry Resort putting on seminars for geriatricians.  Meeting dates at Marilyn’s First Mexican Restaurant, Ed Debevic’s, Chevy’s, Z’Tejas, Planet Hollywood and Kowabunga.

And here I am now.  Moving on.

Gifting memories

In addition to donating or selling things after recording their meaning to me in this blog, I've begun to look at my possessions and consider them as potential gifts.  I have too much and a gift with a "story" of the memories surrounding it may be more precious to the recipient.  Besides, the story will be lost if I'm not here to share it.

I recently gave as gifts some books - a child's picture book to a grand nephew, a book on rural living to a niece living on an old dairy farm, a coffee table book on Fractals to a sister who's interested in the topic.  I gave away some watches that I haven't worn since I left the corporate rat race to a niece on the edge of jumping into it.  These items will receive more use in their new homes and new memories will be made.

Purging my library

I have a library, I would guess of over 300 books.  I love them.  They have been my companions all my life, with me at every stage, through every life experience.  Many haven't been opened in years yet remind me of who I was, where I've been and how I got here.  Today I started to purge them so that, when I'm gone, someone else won't have to do it.  My book friends and I have been together a long time, some over 35 years and only we know the times we shared.  Here's some that I'm passing on.

From before the 90's
Beyond Freedom and Dignity - B. F. Skinner
Passages - Gail Sheehy
The Closing Circle - Barry Commoner


There's a couple diet books in there too.  The Before 90's collection has the flavor of the decades of ecology, social issues, feminism.  Sigh.

From the 90's - my second childhood
Approaching Zero - Turning Stones - Managing Your Mind - Darwin's Machines - Collapse of Chaos - Beirut to Jerusalem - Being in Dreaming


The collection here shows someone looking for something, different thinking, self-improvement, what the future may hold.




If any of these titles strike your fancy let me know and I'll hold them aside for a little while, maybe the end of the month.  After that, out they go.  Keep in mind these are some that I'm getting rid of.  What remains on the shelf are still a part of me that I can't or don't want to let go of yet.  If you want to know those titles you'll just have to visit me!