LITTLE MEMORIES

Hello everyone,

I hope your days are going well.  Down here in New Zealand our autumn seems to be just going on and on.  The weather is warm mostly, though crisp mornings and I wake up to clear blue skies in my little part of paradise.

After the shock of two sudden deaths in the family lately the  thing I want to do most at the moment is keep the home fires burning.  But the blow life has dealt just recently has kinda sucked my insides out.  Chaos reigns in the home a tad, and I stand in the center just looking at it all.

I know it takes baby steps and with each task I do, whether it’s finished, only just touched, and definitely not perfect, will revive that joy that I am actually doing something – anything - going forward and creating an enveloping home of love for my family.

Today I wanted to focus on me.  I wanted to make my bedroom a reviving sanctuary for this moment in my life. 

While the room isn’t finished – is anything ever ‘done’? – there are no curtains, no headboard, no meaningful art up on the newly painted walls – okay so the walls were painted about 2 months ago, but all good things take time don’t they.  

Today I’ve freshened up the bed linens, and polished the furniture.  In fact the bedroom looks pretty good.  Okay, so I didn’t clean the windows, but that is on my list.  Baby steps, remember.

Even better with these dahlias left over from a bouquet the room is just so peaceful. 

  

I was blessed to receive four lots of beautiful flowers from darling friends and workmates when my mother passed away.  Some are fading a bit now, so I’ve trimmed the stems and sorted through them.  Now they are blessing my bedroom, giving me joy as I think of my mother.

I wanted to tell you a little about the items on my dressing table. They’re not expensive, or flash, but each has a special memory. Firstly there's this beautiful silver-backed baby's hairbrush.  This used to belong to my father who was born in 1912, so it's over 100 years old.

Next up is a jewelry box that 'santa' brought me.  I remember getting up that Christmas Eve at about midnight and seeing 'santa' aka mum walking down the hallway with my Santa Sack.  In it was this lovely china jewelry box with a relief picture of Venice on it.  As you can see it's been through the wars. A mirror fell on it once, but it has been lovingly glued back together.

There's a silver frame with photos of my daughters which the eldest brought to me when I was in hospital for a long stay years ago, there's a tiny glass swan she also gave me not too long ago.  And there are the beautiful bud vases holding the flowers.  The vases remind me of the family holiday we had about 10 years ago when we traveled around the South Island of New Zealand in a vintage car.

Lastly, there is the remnants of the silk bouquet I carried at my wedding nearly 31 years ago.  It sits atop a jewerly box that used to belong to my grandmother. 

So these precious things are old and tatty, but much loved and bring special memories.

What are the little things you have kept and bring such memories.

Happy days.

Jane.