One young mother who visited years ago said she loved old houses. She said my house had personality. 

A very sweet elderly lady with beginning dementia wondered if she had been here before until she . . . → Read More: Vintage Is As Vintage Does]]> I’ve had people say, immediately upon entering my kitchen, “Wow, this place reminds me of my grandparents’ house.”  I think it’s a compliment. 

One young mother who visited years ago said she loved old houses. She said my house had personality. 

A very sweet elderly lady with beginning dementia wondered if she had been here before until she reached the kitchen where she said, “I know I’ve been here before. I remember this kitchen.”

While people are going wild over ViNtAgE, I’d like to remind everyone that what they are going wild over is pretty vintage.  Vintage that’s in good shape. Vintage that’s been painted or polished up and put in antique stores.    What people don’t like is vintage that is yucky, unsightly and hard to use.  I have got some of both in my 1921 house.

The pictures you are seeing are pictures of my newly-contact-papered kitchen counters.  Yes, contact paper.  Now you people with granite countertops take a deep breath. I know it’s hard to not be jealous.  But try.

Jessamy, if you are seeing this, I know you know the drill all too well.  Do you know how many contact paper designs I’ve been through by now??  In the 80′s and even into the 90s contact paper was in style.  I would go to the store thinking, “Hmmm, wonder what kind of contact paper I’ll choose.”

Folks, I know it’s a shock, but contact paper has recently fallen out of the top 100 decorating designs for the home, and now I have to hunt a little harder for any design.  Now I go to the store thinking, “Hmmm, wonder what kind of contact paper I’ll have to buy.”

The only real choice they had this time was fruit. But it looks vintage, in its own fruity way and it has been a big hit with the fam.  One day maybe I’ll have real countertops.  I can dream.

It’s Monday, a work day for me, but I got into the garden for my requisite few minutes this morning.

I filled up a dry-as-a-bone bird bath.

I searched for creatures and found that in the shadow of a black-eyed Susan, the spider had won.

I continue to study Home Education by Charlotte Mason, in preparation for the upcoming school year.  I am reading aloud to Michaela every evening from Little House on the Prairie. We are slowly moving our way through the Little House books as bedtime read-alouds, along with beautifully illustrated nursery rhymes (do these ever get old — even for adults?), and some nature readers.

Michaela is reading to me from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and practicing narration.  We are doing only a little a night — maybe only a paragraph and I am already seeing an improvement in her ability to remember details.

Today’s Thought on a Charlotte Mason education.  Method versus System:

Teaching with CM is to use a method.  Not just a system.  A method has spirit, and touches every part of our lives.  A system can be just a series of things to check off a list each day.  

Method implies two things–a way to an end, and a step by step progress in that way. Further, the following of a method implies an idea, a mental image, of the end of object to be arrived at. What do you propose the education shall effect in and for your child? …The parent who sees his way–that is, the exact force of method–to educate his child, will make use of every circumstance of the child’s life almost without intention on his own part…”  ~ Charlotte Mason.  Home Education Volume 1.

Happy Monday
Lynn