Harrington House

New Old Silverware & a Few Other Things

Next month, my sister (Kelly, or Aunt Kiki to Amelia) is hosting a baby shower.  And since I love to do that kind of stuff, I'm helping her out...well, as best I can from four hours away...  Today, I went to a little shop on the square in Marietta to get a mish-mash of old silverware to send her to use at the shower.  We haven't decided on the final menu yet, but at least we know they will have something pretty to eat with!

I bought myself two new spoons while I was at it.   I love all those little details!  I have a couple forks that are the same pattern as the spoon on the left. 

I am also going to make some bunting for the shower that is similar to what I did for Amelia's birthday party...

...except that I am going to use some apple greens instead.  I'll show pictures of it when it's done. 

While I was at the fabric shop, they had an amazing sale on just about everything, including fabric remnants and samples.  I found a whole stack for about 60 cents a piece.  Remember when the Nester did this ?  Well, that's the plan.  I'm pretty sure these blues will work in Kelly's bedroom.

And while I was out today, I found myself a new basket...of course.  ;o)

Oh, Baby!

Yea!  A friend of our's just had a baby boy a couple of weeks ago!  Our church coordinates two weeks of meals for the family, and so today I packed up a meal for them.  I made Chicken and Dumplins (one of my all-time favorite meals).  I also put in some rolls, mashed potatoes, sweet tea (decaf, of course, for nursing mamas!), and some Ghiradelli brownies.  (The Ghiradelli boxed brownies are sooo yummy...I think I get the Double Chocolate ones.  They are still gooey long after they cool!  Perfection!)

I tucked in some paper cups and plates.

And a Whoozit!

Welcome, Baby Cooper, and God bless you!

I Need Help...Please

I'm gonna need somebody to drive down here to Georgia and take these pecan rolls away from me.  I bought a bag full of them on my way home from Kentucky last month.  I have darn near polished off the whole bag.  They are entirely too delicious.

On second thought, I'm gonna need you to just stop by the Old Kentucky Candies Co. and pick me up some more.

Playin' Catch-Up!

Phew!  We've been busy the past couple of weeks!  But it's been the good kind of busy.  So, I am going to try to catch up.... (Warning!  Long, random, and rambling post ahead...)

Last Monday was my birthday...I'm 28!  Twenty-eight, y'all!!  It's so funny how I still feel like I am college-age.  (Sigh...)  Do you want to see what I got?

A clothesline!!  YEA!  I have had this on my wish-list for about three years.  I love it!  There is nothing like line-dried sheets.  I have been using indoor drying racks to hang-dry a lot of our clothes and everything of Amelia's.  I am so excited about my new outdoor line.  Mike had to dig through the rock-hard Georgia red clay for the posts.  I refrained from re-enacting a scene from my favorite movie (Gone With the Wind) with this handful of Georgia clay...."That's all of Tara you'll ever get!"

Amelia was daddy's little helper...

Thank you, Mike and Amelia, for my birthday present!

I hung some of my brown transferware dishes in the dining room...(The top dish was a gift from Momma for my birthday.)

I've been scrubbin' in the house.  Can you see the difference in my windows?  I know...not the most exciting of news, but I love having sparkly clean windows!  So I have to show them off.  "...I can see clearly now..."

Ta-Da!  I don't keep the screens in my windows because I certainly am not opening them...not in this 90-plus heat!  Even though, I do love to sleep with the windows open... 

Just for fun...a silly sleeping picture of Amelia...hehe!...

Now, for the best part...  We got to go to church this past Sunday. 

Let me give a little background, so that you'll know how truly exciting this is for us.  Several years ago, I had signed a contract to work every weekend, save four a year...night shift, that is, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.  At first, I thought I would be able to stay awake in order to go to church on Sunday.  Then, we moved even further away from our church, making our drive an hour each way.  I just couldn't stay awake.  When I was pregnant with Amelia, I would get migrains if I tried.  And after having her, phewwww, I was too tired to even think about it.  We knew we wanted to go back, we just didn't know how we could at that time.  We tried churches that were closer, but there was just something missing.  And without family close by, I needed to be home during the week to take care of Amelia, and Mike could watch her on the weekends while I was at the hospital working.  After a lot of thinking and praying (and financial figuring), we decided that I would come home, and just work a couple nights a month.  This past week was the first weekend I didn't have to work.  We spent all day Saturday together as a family, instead of me having to sleep to go back into work that night (we felt so normal!!!), and we got to go to church on Sunday morning.  I am beyond thankful for this, more than I can say.

We ate lunch on Saturday at Bugaboo Creek.  Have y'all ever been there?  The animals talk.  And there was a giant buffalo directly over our table.  Amelia was completely enthrawled...

For the remainder of the meal, she kept an eye on him, waiting for him to come back to life and ask for a cookie...

After lunch, we went to the fabric store where Amelia made the rounds, with Daddy trailing closely behind...   (I might add, these ladies are strangers to Amelia, but ladies at the fabric store are always the good kind of strangers, right?)

Note to self:  Now that Amelia is walking, shoes are a must!

But, c'mon, it's summer!  And grungy toes aren't nearly as cute when your older.

Then, it was church on Sunday morning!  :o)

This little sailor dress was mine as a baby.  I know I've said it before, but I am so happy Momma saved so many of my baby clothes and dresses.  Isn't it sweet?

Oh, mercy!

Such a big, big day for a tiny girl...

Oh...and this is a lizard that was on our front porch the other day.  I asked Mike why he was taking a picture of it, and he said he figured I'd want to put it on my blog.  Sooo, here he is.  At any given moment, I can go outside and find no less than ten of these little guys. 

Y'all have a great week!   

Twenty Things I Will Never Do

I will never...

1.  ...be good at math.  Remember how you learned to count on your fingers?  I still do that.  Every time I count.  Every time.

2.  ...stop antiquing, junking, and thrifting. 

3.  ...have a gorgeous, glowing tan.

4.  ...give up on having said tan.  (I am the Queen of Mystic Tan.  And I have never objected to slathering on baby oil and iodine and frying soaking (who am I kidding?) frying in the sun.

5.  ...stop drinking sweet tea, a.k.a. Champagne of the South.

6.  ...drive a mini-van.  Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. Never.

7.  ...like olives.  They taste like formaldehyde.  Not that I've tasted formaldehyde, mind you.

8.  ...forget the first moment I saw my baby.  I will relinquish every memory I have, but not this one...ever.  It would be impossible.

9.  ...live in the north.

10.  ...again put Amelia down for a nap wearing only a diaper.  There's a story there.  I'll leave it to your imagination.

11.  ...stop loving carbs. 

12.  ...tap dance like a professional.  But that doesn't stop me from donning my real tap shoes and busting out in Rockette chorus-line fashion to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" like I, in fact, know what I am doing. 

13.  ...outgrow my desire for a pair of majorette boots. 

14.  ...stop wanting to have kids.  At least, I don't think I will.  I want a whole litter.  How many do I have now?  One.  You just told me to wait and see, didn't you?

15.  ...wear skinny pants. 

16.  ...say "No, thank you" to gravy.  Or chips.

17.  ...forget where I came from.   

18.  ...find the "K" ring I lost in Greenbo Lake on a fishing trip with my Papaw.

19.  ...golf.

20.  ...stop loving God.

I swiped this idea from my new blog friend Lindsey.  What about y'all's "I'll Never..." list? 

Thank you, Shannon!

I am so flattered!  The other day, I received my very first award...an Arte y Pico award from Shannon. 

I am all the more excited that she was the one to give it to me.  I found her blog, Bless Our Nest, about a month ago and just love her!

We love so many of the same things...God, our families, antiquing, decorating our homes, and um, Nature's Own Honey Wheat bread (yeah, I saw it in your pantry.  Haha!).  She has a beautiful home and very inspiring ideas.  I am so happy and thankful to have found a new friend and sister in Christ!  Thank you, again, Shannon!   

Dinner at the Old Mill

This evening, we went to one of our favorite local restaurants...The Old Mill Restaurant for a "bit of the old South" as the menu says.  So, of course, we love it.  It is so good!  It was built from the remnants of an old mill that burned.  The brick is amazing...can you tell?  Inside, you see the exposed original brick and the charred wood beams.  We always get the shrimp and grits starter, and I have to hold myself back from licking the plate.  Mike had ribs with the most perfect sauce I have ever, EVER tasted, and I had the Miss'ssippi catfish (fried, of course).  This was Amelia's first taste of fish.  She loved it!  I wanted to take a picture of our food, especially the piece of Mile-High Peanut Butter Pie, but it didn't last that long!

The weather was incredibly and surprisingly nice tonight!

   

Just Junkin'

Just after the new year, Momma came down for ten days!  We enjoyed many things, but, of course, our favorite was when we girls (me, Momma, and Amelia) took off for some junkin'!  Our first day was spent over in Chamblee at their Antique Row.   The highlight of the day was Rust-N-Dust Antiques (aka my new favorite spot).  With a name like that, how can you go wrong?  You know, I don't buy hardly anything unless it's got a little bit of dirt on it...

                                        

Our lunch that day was the other highlight.  The place was called the Old Chamblee Bistro.  Momma had the Tuna & Artichoke sandwich dressed with black olive mayonnaise, and I had the Crab Salad with red cabbage slaw on a kaiser roll.  They were both delicious.  As an added bonus, we got to meet the owner of the bistro and creator of our food.  He used to cook for the Carters when they had parties....I can surely see why.

We also ventured over to Braselton and Hoschton a couple days later.

We found lots of good stuff and had a ball, like always!  Some of our finds included...

...some more vintage wooden hangers from hotels, fur shops, and cleaners for the guest closet...

...a collection of tiny matches in their boxes that Momma found for a song...

 

(they are perfect to sit alongside a candle)

...a locker crate (that is actually a gift for someone else, but in the meantime, I can still use it...right?)...

...a small Ironstone platter that had that beautiful brown staining on it that I love so...

...a small bowl with that same brown staining, holding some of my dried oranges and limes...

...of course, some black and white photos...

   

(an especially good one of a class picture that I am putting in a glass urn filled with our special occasion wine corks)

...and a beautiful wooden tray to organize my silverware.

Now, Momma had actually bought this tray for herself, but then snuck it in my drawer like this without me knowing, until she was already gone.  (How sweet!)  But, I had picked up a tiny little blue and white enamel funnel (only a few inches high) that we were loving at Rust-N-Dust...and I had snuck it in her suitcase without her knowing (probably while she was arranging my silverware in her wooden tray!)   Aaahhh....like mother like daughter, I suppose... 

Oh Happy Day!

When I got home this afternoon from running some errands, I found a box on the porch with a familiar label.  It was a package from Tom's Mom's Cookies!  This is a little cookie shoppe in my husband's hometown of Harbor Springs, Michigan.  So, I sat myself down and enjoyed one...um, or two.  :o)   

The box says it contains cookies that are "extraordinarily delicious."  Too right you are, Tom's Mom...