Small things

I visit antique stores pretty frequently and, 80% of the time, find nothing at all that I want to take home. My standards are pretty strict, I guess. I have no interest in rusty old farm implements or kitchen items from the 1970's. Nor do I want musty old suitcases or Depression Glass. I usually go away feeling a little bit unfulfilled. Once in a while, though, I find things like this. This little ceramic planter was just crying out to come home with me and live on my kitchen windowsill. It's only about 4 1/2" high and so adorable! I wish I was able to take a better picture of it, but my photography skills leave a lot to be desired. You can't tell, for instance, that this little planter is painted a very light green or that the colors of the little flowers contrast perfectly. I saw it and said, "There! That's what I want. It's something I need." Four dollars for a little soul-satisfaction. Not bad!




















I have a penchant for all things small. I have since I was a child. I started collecting tiny things and that's what I look for when I go into antique stores. A lot of people collect tiny things, so there's not usually much for me to find. Occasionally though I find a treasure and it goes into my printer's box hanging on my bathroom wall. See that tiny teddy bear on the top left there? I got that in Silverton, Colorado when Val and I were coming back from Aspen in 1996. We went into a cute little Victorian gift shop and there it was. It's all of two inches high and it's entirely handmade. I paid $25 for it and it's one of my favorite things. A couple of years ago, when I found out about my dad's family, I discovered that my great grandmother lived in Silverton for a short time in the 1880's. She married a man who owned a boarding house and she ran it until he started hitting her. She left him and went back to Boulder. I love that I went to this tiny little mountain town, totally by accident (we were traveling and needed a place to stop for lunch) and it turns out I actually have ancestral ties there. I would never have remembered going there if I hadn't bought the little bear.

Riley and I put this terrarium together a couple of weeks ago. I have always wanted one but for some reason never set one up. I used to be obsessed with houseplants, especially ferns and begonias. When I got pregnant with Travis I was so nauseated and sick all the time that everything that didn't have to do with growing a baby went by the wayside. All of my houseplants died or were given away because I couldn't muster the strength to take care of them. I have two that simply refuse to die no matter how much I abuse them and I admired their tenacity and let them stay. A few weeks ago, Val built a top for our aquarium and mentioned how much he liked it when we had a forest of plants surrounding our aquariums. It occurred to me that, hello-- I now have time to water plants! I've been buying and potting and am starting it up again. It makes it feel a bit more like spring around here, and we could all use that.