So, How Does YOUR Mind Work?

This is the antique pottery version of a Rohrschach test. 

Think of this piece of old china as an ink blot.  Quick!  Read the word.

Don't think about it -- what springs to your mind?

If you are like me, you read "Zucker" and think, "Sugar."   I took 5 years of German in school.
If you are like my Mother, you see "Zucker," but you think something else entirely. 

Something that doesn't begin with a "Z" or an "S."

My mother didn't study German and, more importantly, she loved a good naughty laugh.

That's all I'm saying.

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Full disclosure: it says Zucker, in Old German type.  I took German so long ago,

that some of our material was printed in the old style, and we had to learn it.  It means Sugar.

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I fell in love with antiques when I was very young,

and bought this old canister at a Long Island antiques shop while I was still in my teens.

It must have been very cheap for me to afford it!

When my Mom saw it, she burst out laughing and said,

"You aren't really going to put that out in public, are you?"

I didn't understand why she was so amused.  Being my Mom, she explained.

I held my ground; it was Zucker, and that was that.

It's lived in my kitchens, all 7 of them.

That's the Grandma Cake I made for my Dad on Sunday.  A big hit.

 When my kids got old enough to read, I tucked the Zucker side to the back.

What if they took after my mother -- who had never stopped teasing me about it?

It sits on the hutch in my kitchen now, Zucker proudly facing outward for all the world to see.

I took it down today to take pictures in the sunroom, where the light is good even on a rainy day like today,

and every little blemish and dirt pimple shows on the canister.  Real life.

I am not sure where it is from, although it's probably from Germany, maybe Austria.

Underneath, the mark is pressed into the pottery.  There are numbers and a beehive.  Any clues?

Oops. Wait. That may be upside down.  That beehive may be a shield.  :-P

Hey! That works better.  Looks like 3854 and a shield.

I have absolutely no idea what that means.

That's my Mom's old mortar and pestle.  It has been well used and smells faintly of cardamom.

I still like this old bit of kitchenware, and it makes me think of my mother whenever I look at it.

I miss her teasing me about it.

It's a rainy, rainy Monday in New Jersey.  But the linky parties brighten up the day!  -- Cass

At Smiling Sally, it's Blue Monday.  Click here!

 At Little Red House, it's Mosaic Monday.  Click here!

 At The House In The Roses, it's Show Off Your Cottage Monday.  Click here!

 And at Southern Hospitality, Today's Thrifty Treasues are featured on Mondays.  Click here!

An Autumn Re-Run, With Run-A-Muck Pumpkins

Yes, it galls me, but I have to bow to the calendar.  It really is Fall now.  

I'm waving the white flag of Summer Surrender,

and celebrating the good in this Season.  

Blast.

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I'm recycling a post from September 2009 . . . because it's Sunday and I'm plum lazy.
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And the headline reads . . .
(New Jersey) - Pumpkin Garland Runs Amuck - Tries to Strangle Dime Store Scarecrow!

In Monday's post, I asked your opinion about draping a garland of teeny pumpkins and squash over our fireplace mantel as part of the new Fall decorations.  (Click here.)

The little punkin chain lost the informal poll.

I agree; they just didn't look quite right dangling in front of the mantelpiece.

I tried swagging them up in the middle, but no. . . still not quite right.

So today we'll see if they can fit in anywhere else.

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The pie safe in the conservatory began life probably in the mid 19th century,
homemade by someone with more need than time; it is not finely done.

But I'm sure it saw good use in someone's kitchen, keeping varmints out of the food.

It was my Mom's, a gift to her from my cousin Billy.
I brought it here from the beach house two weeks ago.  (Click here.)

My husband believes it will be filled with pies; he has a rich fantasy life.

To celebrate this brand new season, I began with early apples

from a New Jersey orchard, on a white platter I got at a thrift shop this summer.

Added a plum-and-pewter candleholder, a gift from my friend Betsy.

I love the reds and golds and oranges of autumn,

but I like to also bring in that rich plum of fallen leaves and ripe fruit.

An old vanity jar full of sedum blossoms, plucked from the border.

And a little old pitcher, an Ebay score.

There.  I like it.

Let's add a goofy scarecrow

and a bittersweet wreath balanced on the windowsill.

That window is at the foot of our back stairs and gives light from the sunroom onto the landing.

For Halloween, a little stack of Jack'O'Lanterns would be nice.

Oh my.
Look who showed up.
The scarecrow doesn't look pleased.
He clearly thinks the pumpkin chain is out of its gourd!

Sorry, fellas. You don't belong here either. . .

Nor here.

Nor here.

Nor here.

This could get old.

OK.  You can stay on the cupboard until your father gets home
and we decide what to do with you.

I wanted to use that pumpkin tureen on the pie safe, but it's way up there on top of the kitchen cupboard.

It's one of my favorite things, but it's too much trouble to wrestle it down and I'm afraid of dropping it on the tile floor.  I'll wait till Howard gets home.  He won't need to stand on a chair.  I hate to stand on chairs.  I figure if the good Lord had meant for me to reach things 'way up high on top of cupboards, he'd have made me tall enough to do so. 

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And that's it, my re-run post for Sunday!

Thanks to Chari of Happy To Design for hosting Sunday Favorites.  Click here!

And thanks to The Tablescaper for Seasonal Sundays.  Click here!

Have a lovely Sunday.  I am heading to the kitchen to make my Grandmother's cake.   My Dad is coming for dinner and it's a family favorite.  See you tomorrow!  -- Cass

Lostings and Findings

Remember what it is like to get lost? 
In this age of Mapquest directions and GPS devices in our cars
(our GPS is nicknamed Merlin), we may have lost
the fine art of getting lost.

On Thursday, I headed northwest from That Old House, to the Sussex County seat of Newton. 

I was on the trail of a Craigslist bargain -- two old twin headboards for $5.00.

They looked decent in the Craigslist pictures, and they spoke to me.  As in:  "Hey, crazy lady!

Add us to your growing pile of Things Cass Has To Paint One Of These Days!"

The Craigslist picture of the headboards.  Would you have bought them?  I think they have great lines, and I see them painted in antique gray or white, or ... this is what I'd really like to do ... paint the frame and then pad and upholster the center.  Linen?  Toile?  Ticking?  Decoupaged plastic Wonder Bread bags or Twinkies wrappers?  The possibilities are endless.

Normally I don't go alone on Craigslist pickups; I take Howard as my muscle.  But he's a busy boy this coming weekend, and also he'd probably tell me that I really didn't need to add to the pile of Things Cass Has To Paint One Of These Days.  I'm not saying he wouldn't be right in this, but I'm also not saying I'd have listened to him.

Ah, Howard.  Now that he's got a regular paycheck again, I'm getting flowers on weekends.  Sweet!

Reality check:  there's a supermarket paper label on one of the lemons.  :-P

 

But back to my Craigslist trip . . . .

On the telephone, the lady selling the headboards seemed pretty much sane and not homicidally inclined,

so off I went, all by my lonesome, tolerably sure I would not end the day stuffed in a chest freezer.

I decided I didn't need to check the seller's sketchy directions against Mapquest,

and didn't need to use Merlin the GPS.  This decision proved . . . interesting.

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Yes, I got lost.

Well, maybe not lost per se.  I found myself in places unknown, places I'd never heard of,

places perilously close to a state other than New Jersey . . . well, okay, I was lost.

But by dint of putting several thousand miles on the minivan and filling the tank at an

overpriced country gas station (15-cents more per gallon than I normally pay) I found the right road,

and even eventually the right narrow, hidden, overgrown oh-no-don't-go-there teen horror movie driveway.

Which went straight up a mountain.

When I got up there, no one was home.

Except the headboards.

They were leaning against a garage door, with a note:

I had to go out.

If you like them take them

and leave the money under the squirrel.

Under the squirrel?  Wow, I thought, what helpful and well-behaved squirrels they have

out in the country.  And then I saw it.  A big chipped ceramic squirrel squatting on the driveway.  Oh.  Duh.

I wrote a short note back to the absent seller, put the money under the squirrel,

wrestled the headboards into the back of the minivan, past the dog crate and the bargain

pumpkins I'd found at a roadside stand (which made up for the overpriced gasoline),

and -- before I headed back down the harum-scarum driveway --

I turned on the GPS.

And took the long way home, blissfully paying absolutely no attention to the

directions Merlin was giving me in his best BBC English, which in turn gave Merlin fits. 

I swear, after the fifth "recalculating" he really does begin to sound distinctly testy.

I love the headboards' curves.  Very . . . curvy.

Manufactured by White Furniture of North Carolina.  I think they are maple, but not sure.

As for Howard, I keep forgetting that he can read.

Meaning, he can read my blog.

I haven't wrestled the headboards out of the minivan yet, but by now he knows they are in there.

But I know he'll like the funky pumpkins.

No stem.  This pumpkin may need a hat.

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The best part of Thursday was . . . getting lost.

Discovering new towns and byways to explore again, when I'm not worried about ending up in a chest freezer, or getting home in time to start dinner.  I found so many wonderful places to go back to, and visit -- hamlets loaded with country stores and vintage shops, roadside stands with flowers, pumpkins, fruits and pies, and hundreds of dear old houses, each sweeter than the next.

I'll be back to the towns of Sussex County.  Me, Howard, and yes, Merlin.  And this time, I'll bring a camera.

Remember those heirloom tomatoes from Wednesday's post?  Mmmm... lunch today.

No special care, no fertilizer, no watering except by rain, just sunshine and heat, benign neglect, and no chipmunks!

 I hope it's a grand weekend you have!  -- Cass

Courtney at French Country Cottage has begun a new linky party:
Feathered Nest Friday. Go visit and join in!

At My Romantic Home, Cindy (who has a milestone birthday today) is hosting Show and Tell Friday.  Click!

And at Tootsie Time, it's time to Flaunt Your Flowers for Fertilizer Friday.  Click here!

And Claudia at Dipity Road blog spends Fridays Finding Beauty.  Join her . . . click here!

Falling For Fall

It's official.

The calendar dictates that Summer is ka-put, 

and that Autumn has arrived in all its technicolor splendor.

I'm buzzing off soon to buy a pair of twin headboards that have such lovely lines -- Craigslist, $5 for both -- so I am borrowing pictures taken a year ago for another Tablescape.  I think the setting blends Fall colors and themes with the last sweet whispers of Summer. At least, that was the plan!

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If I were an art teacher, and I looked at the palette that Mother Nature was planning to use to paint her Autumn scenes, I'd probably tell her to tone it down.  "It's a bit much, dear," I'd say.  "How about fewer brilliant oranges and reds?  Maybe a touch of the neutral here and there, give the eye a rest?"

Thank goodness I am not Mother Nature's art teacher.

She's bold, our Mother Nature, and she ain't afraid of gaudy.
(In fact, I suspect she wears too much jewelry, loves purple, and teases her hair, but that's material for another post.)
Anyway, Mother Nature sure bids Summer goodbye with sizzle.

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  In the dining room at That Old House, the table is set for two, for an early Autumn supper.

The expected oranges and golds and reds and yellows are all there; even some brown to represent the leaves falling outside.

But to give Summer it's due -- after all, it is in the 80s today -- there's the soft blue of that season's water and sky.

There wouldn't be those brilliant hues of Autumn without, first, the clear blues and greens of Summer.

$1 Aqua blue plates from Dollar Tree, $1 painted pottery bowls (they have touches of blue-green in their leaves) from the defunct Cost Cutters drugstore chain, thrift store handblown wineglasses in watery blue, Dollar Tree tea light birds, very vintage plaid linen napkins, my century-old Georgian silverplate flatware, and my Mom's old pewter S&P shakers.

And that's it!

A table that mixes the bright and gaudy colors of Fall with the soft blues of Summer.

Just what I need right now, as I'm not completely ready to let go of those lazy, hazy, special days.

Have a lovely Thursday! -- Cass

Leigh at Tales From Bloggeritaville hosts Thifty Thursday.  Click here!

Susan of Between Naps On The Porch hosts the famous Tablescape Thursday.  Click here!