Just Full of Good Ideas

A visit to the Bachman's Spring Ideas House, greenhouse, and happily, a surprise on-site antiques sale made for a lovely day in the city.

So many ideas. Here are a few.








































You can visit the ideas house through April 17, but if you miss it, never fear, Bachman's plans to redecorate for each season. The summer ideas house will open May 26 and stay decorated until June 12.

Eat, Eat, Eat, Then Away They Fly

The larva stage is so very brief and oh, so very hungry.

Grandma Power

There is a baby boomlet going on in the neighborhood which has led to a bumper crop of devoted new grannies (and grandpas), many of whom are making superhuman efforts to be there for their kids and grands no matter the distances between them. Here, from our favorite independent bookstore, Redbery Books, is a lump-in-the-throat inducing book about the strength of a grandma's love.




Bibs embellished with a transportation motif seem like good go-with gifts.




Here you can read an interview with illustrator Julie Paschkis at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Then you can check out her colorful website.




It was just yesterday (and don't try to convince us otherwise) that we waved (between contractions) to some of these new, young mothers and fathers as they passed by the house on their very first day of school, on the very day the first baby was born to this family. Oh my! How time flies.

Shut Up and Put Up

Amazing how sewing productivity goes up when blathering away on the blog goes down.




We're making good headway with the fabric stash busting.




Unfortunately trips to the store for the necessities of quilt finishing often take us right by the new fabric aisle.




Two quilts forward, one quilt back. That's just how it is.

Green, Green Grass at Home

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Yes, it's true. Tired of waiting for spring to arrive, we've had to grow our own bit of green turf.




There is still time for you to plant your own Easter basket grass too, and if you do, here is a hint: rye grass is a super fast germinator and speedy grower. One week after seeding, the rye is triple the height of the Kentucky blue grass that you see in the background just takin' its own sweet time.

Calling Sargent Preston

We need a, well, a Mountie - to solve the case of the phantom plate gifter.

Found in the mailbox a few days ago.








Mystery gifts are great. Gifts that fit the week's theme and combine several of our favorite things are fantastic.

Will the generous, stealth gifter please speak up?

If not, we may have to call in the R.C.M.P. and as you know - They always get their man.

No Menu Substitutions

Would it be a faux pas to serve Hot Chicken Salad, Cottage Cheese, and Peach Melba on a plate designated for Chicken Timbales, Asparagus, and Orange Chiffon Pie? Somehow it just seems wrong.












A quick google finds that there is a similar, alternate, multicolor set of Nelson Lebo menu plates for every day of the week. The menus shown here are the same as the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday plates from that set. The other days feature: Wednesday, Clam Bisque and Aspic Salad; Thursday, Shirred Eggs and Cloverleaf Rolls; Friday,? ; and Saturday, Cheese Souffle and Grapefruit Salad.

Very fancy.

Cottage Style

These could only be nicer if they held a few oatmeal raisin cookies and had a glass of milk on the side.












They just seem to say, "screen porch, summer day, life is good."

Oh, Great

My parents went on vacation and all I got was this lousy plate.

Nuts for Antiques

We don't know the provenance of most of the curious things we come across. We often have to imagine our own story.




Perhaps Miss Lillian spent hours painting these gorgeous goobers as a gift for her son, James Earl Carter, Jr. upon his inauguration as a remembrance of his humble peanut farming past.

The popularity of and curiosity about the peanut grew significantly during the successful 1976 presidential campaign that put Jimmy Carter in the White House. The image of the peanut in caricature was seen around the world as a symbol of not only a president, but also the towns of Plains. Born in 1924, James Earl Carter, Jr. grew up on his parents’ 360-acre farm. In Carter’s early years, his father began growing peanuts, a crop that made a great impact on his life. His family first raised the small Spanish peanuts, which were used as salted nuts, in candy bars, and some varieties for hog feed. At the age of five, Carter sold boiled peanuts on the streets of Plains. - Jimmy Carter NHS Program


Perhaps it was a Southern belle's prize-winning entry into the Georgia State Fair domestic arts competition that then came North with her when she ran away with her no account Yankee beau.




And the chip? Well now, that's an entirely different story for a future Antiques Roadshow.

Where do You Live?

Every now and then an estate sale or thrift shop find is just too good to be true. On first look this wonderful plate seemed like it must be Pottery Barn imitation vintage decor. But, no, it's real antique wallart for thought.










Research using the plate's backmark has turned up few clues about the history of this design, but we'll keep at it and let you know when we know the rest of the story.

Remember the Time...?

There comes a time in every relationship be it between husband and wife, brother and brother, friend and friend, crazy old uncle and the Thanksgiving day crowd - when all the stories have been told, the jokes delivered, and issues debated and dissected down to the minutest parts.

We all try to keep listening anyway knowing that we will likely be shown the same courtesy when we tell for the umpteenth time about the time we ...


Members of a certain family in our acquaintence, when a certain nonstop talker comes to call, take turns indicating by silently holding up fingers behind his back how many times they have heard the current story in his running monologue. We understand that the next time he visits teamwork will be needed to supply enough hands and digits to continue this smartypants tradition for some of the golden oldies on his playlist.


Stop us if you've heard this one...One of the only jokes we remember and can usually tell correctly is about a joke-telling club whose members had told the same jokes for so long that they all knew all of them by heart. They had decided to save time by assigning a number to each joke.

The teller would simply stand up and say for example, "Number 9."

Laughter from the group would follow as jokes were told all evening long with different numbers receiving a variety of responses from giggles to knee-slapping guffaws.

A visitor to the club observed for quite awhile and then asked to give this brilliant system a try. "How hard could it be?" he thought.

"Number 18," he called out with a big grin and an eager look of anticipation.

Only silence followed.

"Why is no one laughing?" he asked.

"Well," said an old member, "some people just don't know how to tell a joke."



So, everyone around you has heard all you have to say, over and over and over again. Now what?

Time to find a new audience. To save our marriage from becoming a daily conversation that goes something like this...

"Did I ever tell you about...?"

"Yes."

"Remember when...?"

"Uh huh."

"It is just like the time I..."

"Saw Ed McMahon in the giant redwoods scolding his children. Yeah, I know."

We started blogging and now have encouraged the spouse to also start a blog of tales old, and new.

Allow us to introduce Detritus of Empire - Unearthing odds and ends from the past and the present.




It's your turn to listen and politely nod (without nodding off) for awhile.

Thanks. Really. Thanks.