All Hearts Come Home For Easter

 For Easter we hosted 24 adults and three children between the ages of 1 and 2. And it could not have been a better day. I worked hard to have the house be ready for the guests as well as having plenty of food. In all that, I did not take very many pictures before. You are seeing the afters!  I do have a few food pictures I will post in a day or two though. 

 Among our guests was one of my best friends from my childhood. She brought her two beautiful daughters and her beautiful niece and great-niece who were visiting from Arizona. The niece is actually the daughter of one of my very best friends from childhood. (I wish she could have come from Arizona too! But it was fun hosting her two beauties.) Are you confused now? Well what is important is that the crew not only came, but also gifted me with the beautiful roses for inviting them. Not a bad deal! 

 The bunny parade is from the Meri Meri line. They can be found on Amazon if a shop near you doesn't carry them. The entire line is adorable. 

 Although you can't tell, this table was set with green plates and pastel bunny salad plates. I set three tables, all with different dishes, but all in the Easter theme. Another table had cobalt blue plates and the orange carrots plates. The third table had white ironstone with blue and orange carrot plates (salad plates). You will see them in the last picture. Lots of fun tables.....OH, and I can't forget the kiddie table I set as well. I will try better next time to remember to take pics! 

 This is also my end-of-the-school-year-state-testing-to-the-maximum-stress-season. Because of that, I kept things simple at home. When I come home from school during this testing period I am mentally wiped out. I figured the focus would be on the three cute babies we would have over and not on my decor. And I was right! In fact it is so simple, it is hard to really see what was on the mantle. I'll take you through it. 

 At one end is my all-time-favorite Easter picture. It is of my own five children. They were ages (almost) 1 through 8. I don't think I will ever take a picture I have loved more. 

 This is from 1990, when we still used negatives. Of course I never kept track of something like that. I wish I did. I would love to have this picture in a big canvas. 

 Simple urns that march down the mantle, holding a few eggs. 

 At the other end are a couple of antique Peter Rabbit books I have from the 1920's. The little plush rabbit was one of my daughters. He looks old though. (Possibly well loved!) 

 The simple burlap garland I bought at Target this year for $5.

 You can't beat a bargain like that. 

 This is EB (short for Easter Bunny). He has been hanging out at our family Easter's for 32 years. No lie. He was my oldest son Fielding's on his very first Easter. He has sported the same ribbon around his neck for that long too. If you will notice, he is as big as the wingback chair. I know, I know. Dorky. But after 32 years, we can't leave him in the basement come Easter now! 

 I love this green bunny plate. I have the green cabbage leaf plates to match too. AND...I got them all at Ross. 

 One more dorkism...This little bunny is "only" about 26.  He plugs in and lights up, although we have not done that in years. This big plastic guy has NOT got to come out in the last 10 years or so. But this year I brought it out and put him on our front porch. All three babies hugged that bunny to death. They talked to him, they pet him, they put their arms around him, they kissed him. Apparently he is not a dorky giant plastic bunny in a child's world! 

 Those Meri Meri bunnies come about eight (or more???) to a box. Well worth the investment. This guy was sitting on the entry table. 

 And finally, there was an urn just sitting in my dining room, so I plopped the fake grass into it with a couple of those oh-so-famous-Pier 1 bunnies. There were also several Easter eggs hiding in the grass, but those got "found" very quickly by the toddlers. 

 It took three dishwasher loads for me to get everything washed! I guess I could have washed by hand as well, but I didn't. You can see the green and blue dishes I used as well as the green goblets. I promise the table were pretty. 

I actually got TWO bouquets for hostess gifts! I hit the jackpot. You can see some of the salad plates under these flowers. Lots of fun stuff. But the day wasn't about the simple decor or the cute tables. It wasn't about the painters tape still on the trim in the dining room where I never finished!!  Or the helium balloons still on the ceiling from a birthday party several weeks ago!! It was about family and good friends getting together to celebrate the fact that we are all believers and we know He Lives! It was a wonderful day. 

tcerroC sI sdrawkcaB gnitirW nehW

 ˙pǝʇɐʌɐɹbbɐ ǝq oʇ puǝʇǝɹd oʇ ǝʞıן ʎǝɥʇ ɥbnoɥʇןɐ 'ʇı ǝʌoן ʎǝɥʇ ˙ʇxǝʇ dıןɟ buısn sʇuǝpnʇs ʎɯ oʇ buıɥʇǝɯos ʇuǝsǝɹd ı ɹɐǝʎ ʎɹǝʌǝ ˙ʎɐp sןooɟ ןıɹdɐ ʎddɐɥ

Don't worry. I won''t write the entire post that way. But there are fun things you can do on this April Fool's Day with text! When I was writing the questions for my students, it occurred to me that a post about my letterpress table would be a good one for today. After all, the words on it are all written backwards. 

If you have read my blog before, perhaps you have seen this table. It started out a little forlorn. I had been looking for a good table with a lip around the edge. I knew that I wanted to make a letterpress table and the lip would help keep the blocks in order. 

These are the letterpress blocks. They come in all shapes and sizes and fonts. Just like our many fonts today, there are also many sizes and fonts for letterpress blocks. The different colors on the block are from the ink that has been rolled over them. A lot of times, the red is there to stay (which is fine with me!). To clean these blocks, the printers (back in the day) had a little jug filled with gasoline. It had a mesh circle on top that would press down and a small amount of gasoline would come up through the mesh. The printer would soak his rag with the gasoline and use it on the blocks to keep them clean and gunk free. 

 My family has been in the newspaper and publishing business for almost a hundred years. (There IS a difference between newspapers and publishing by the way.) As a young girl I would see these letterpress blocks used all the time. I began collecting them at antique shows, long before Ebay. Then I collected them off Ebay. I used them for decorating fun, but I was just waiting on the perfect table. Finally, I had it and I poured out my bag(s) of letters one night and had fun. If you will notice, the letters are backwards. They are supposed to be. The word is laid out, the ink rolled on, the paper (or other) set on top and the weight rolled over the paper. Then when you pick up the print, your words are correct. Get it?  

You know the old idiom, "Mind your p's and q's"? Well now you understand what they meant. When building your words or lines, it is easy to naturally put the letter down as we know and see it. (I am the WORST at that!) Therefore the p's and q's could not be mixed!

 As you can see in the pictures, I set up names, places and things that are special to our family. I also put in special numbers. I laid them out and sat them on the table then gathered the extra letterpress blocks around them. There is TAYLOR3 (her birthday day) above. 

 Tim & Lori (above). Yes, I interchanged the fonts frequently. I had to because of the blocks I had. Plus it just makes it more fun. 

 Kelly.

 The SON from Ferguson. Sooners and Wucas. (Well I did Wucas for two reasons: 1. I was out of L's. 2. When my youngest son was little, he said his L's and W's. Therefore that made him Wuke Wucas. :)  Since I had the other letters for Lucas, I figured why not make it Wucas? 

 Yes, I even included our beloved pets. Howie. (We've got them ALL on the table!) 

I flipped the picture, so the words/letters were facing the camera. The arrows are just a sampling of the words and dates that are on there. I did not "arrow" them all. See what you can pick out! (Don't forget...dog is really God!!)

The same picture without the arrows. See how seamlessly the words and dates all blend together?  It's a great puzzle and conversation piece! 

 Notice the really big blocks, like the L and 1?  Aren't the fractions fun? 

 I also have every single type of punctuation in the big size. An ode to the English teacher in me! This could be a comma or an apostrophe, depending on how it was used. Notice I did not put all the filler letters and numbers in the same direction either. I just filled to fill! 

In this picture (in the lower left corner) and the big block in the middle, are advertising blocks. I have lots of old advertising blocks as well. Many of the advertising blocks are brass and can be shined up beautifully.

Believe it or not, I need to start another table. Since I did this one, we had two grandbabies, Leightyn and Behr. One of my sons is engaged as well, so we need to add Tiffani. I thought it would be fun to begin another table, instead of trying to redo the original. I have already begun to store up more letters, numbers and advertising. If you plan on collecting them, be aware, the letterpress blocks are on wood. There are some metal pieces as well, but those were used in linotype machines. I have a few of those as well, but they are the tiny filler pieces.  

Now you know everything you ever (or never!!) wanted to know about letterpress blocks and why the letters are always backwards. Don't you agree it was a great April Fools Day lesson? 

Here is the ugly little table that I got for $10 (along with another one).  

Here it is after I cleaned it up, painted it and made a cute little chalkboard table out of it. It would have been great to keep it just like that. 

But I had all these blocks that needed a permanent home.....

I added some very small casters. Mainly for the effect! 

And I ended up with the table where all the words are backwards! Now you know why! Have a great April Fools Day.  Or as I told my students.....¡ʎɐp sןooɟ ןıɹdɐ ʇɐǝɹb ɐ ǝʌɐɥ

Linking with:
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Furniture Feature Friday

Window Peeping

 Clear back in September, I had traveled back to Hiawatha, Kansas, for the wedding of some friends. We only get back to Kansas (it is over 360 miles from where we now live)twice a year...at the most. Literally, on our drive back home after being there for two days, I saw on Facebook where one of my former students (now grown) was getting rid of all the old wooden windows from his house. 

He and his wife had bought one of the beautiful old homes in town, and they had updated all the old windows. His wife, bless her, knew better than to just dump all the windows and put a call out on FB for someone to come and get them. And there I was, headed AWAY from where those windows were! Just my luck. 

 But luck actually was on my side. Another friend lived just two doors away from my former student and I sent him up to his neighbor to retrieve a window. I told him exactly which window type I wanted (they had posted several kinds on FB). I specifically  wanted one that was 8 big panes, white on one side and brown on the other. I have such good friends. They gave me the exact window I wanted and my other friend stored it in his garage until Christmas when one of my sons went to Kansas for a visit and brought it back. 

 This window is huge and heavy. I plan to use it with the white facing out at times and of course change it around some and have the brown side facing out sometimes. For the time being, I have it propped on a chest in the living room, layered with an antique framed map. 

 When I originally staked claim to a window, I imagined it replacing the gold frame over the mantel on the gianormous mirror. But the window is so tall, that it actually extended about 3/4 of a pane beyond the giant mirror. So when looking at the mirror and window, it looked kind of weird when the mirror suddenly stopped at the top. Too bad it didn't work out though, because the mirror was creating a great reflection on the brown side of the window. Who knows, I might try it again sometime. 

 In the meantime, I love where it is and how it looks. I had the 1930's map framed about six years ago. Then about three years ago I hung the PEACE banner on it for Christmas. I started to take down the banner after Christmas that year, then decided that I liked it up there. After all, we truly do need PEACE all the time, not just Christmas. 

The window represents what I love about my home. It makes me think of that sweet student (now grown) that was one of my all-time favorites. It makes me think of his wise wife that knew the windows didn't belong in the landfill. It makes me think of one of my other favorite friends that walked up and got the window for me and stored it for four months. It makes me think of our wonderful years in Kansas. It makes me think of my son who hauled it all the way back for me and another son who moved it around for me every time I was trying it somewhere new. You can't get those memories from department store merchandise. ....Now I just need to get the giant wardrobe back down to Oklahoma that I bought (online) at a Hiawatha auction...in October!! (Yep, you guessed it...another friend is storing that for me!) 
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Mexican Cheesecake-Super Bowl Food

My friend Kim made this Mexican Cheesecake for my nephew's shower. Not only was it visually wonderful, it was absolutely great in the taste department as well. She got the recipe off of Pinterest.  The cheesecake is not a sweet cheesecake, but more in the dip/appetizer variety. It makes a huge cheesecake and would be perfect for a Super Bowl party. Enjoy.

Mexican Cheesecake

1 cup crushed tortilla chips
2 Tbsp. melted butter
3 (8-oz.) packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup ricotta cheese
4 eggs
10 oz. grated Cheddar cheese
1 (4.5-oz.) can chopped green chiles
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
Salt and pepper
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup salsa or picante sauce

1. Combine tortilla chips and butter, and press into bottom of a lightly greased  9 inch springform pan. Bake at 350° for 15 minutes.
2. Beat cream cheese and ricotta with a mixer. Gradually add in eggs, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Add in Cheddar cheese, green chiles, and, if desired, cilantro. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour cream cheese mixture into prepared crust.
3. Bake at 350° for 45 to 1 hour or until set. Remove from oven, and let cool 30 minutes before removing ring. Cool completely. Combine sour cream and salsa; spread over top of cooled cheesecake. Refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.

Kim also topped hers with olives, peppers, tomatoes,  and cheeses. It is versatile enough that you can add anything you want to the top. 

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Mr. Tom

 I have this large concrete vintage turkey that I put out on my front sidewalk in the Fall. Yes, the entire Fall. Not just for Thanksgiving. To begin with, it takes two of my huge sons to haul it from the garage to the front sidewalk. It is one of the tasks that they least enjoy doing. It is about knee high (at the high-feather point), and weighs over 300 pounds. I found two of them in my hometown and fell in love with them. I thought they would be perfect for the middle of the Thanksgiving table. Ha! Joke was on me. I had thought they were some kind of plastic....not solid concrete!  Oh my, they would collapse a Thanksgiving table. My mom has one and I have the other. So, Mr. Tom is relegated to my front sidewalk a couple of months of the year. 

 But when you have something this "cute", it is nice to share it with others. (I realize that the term "cute" is completely relative!) So, using one of my photo-editing programs, I cropped down the pic of Mr. Tom. I then added a quote and the time of Thanksgiving dinner that we will be hosting. 

I had them printed off as a photo and used them for my Thanksgiving Dinner invitations. Because I did them this way, I could use it for an e-vite or snail mail them. I did both ways. Simple. Easy. Inexpensive. And best of all, everyone gets to see how "cute" Mr. Tom is! 

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