In My Own Little Corner…

If you’re over a certain age you may remember the annual television airing of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella with Lesley Ann Warren in the title role and General Hospital’s Stuart Damon (Alan Quartermaine) as The Prince. I looked forward to watching it every year snuggled up in my mother’s big bed. I knew all the songs by heart, even just seeing it once a year – no streaming movies or dvr’s or dvd’s back then. If you didn’t catch it the one time a year it was on, you were out of luck til the following year. A tiny bit of personal trivia about the show, my cousin Robin was on it as “second young maiden” and had the line, “I wish I was an older girl!”

One of my favorite songs was In My Own Little Corner. I’ve been clearing out The Christmas Tree Corner (I’m really good at ignoring things left out of place for a really long time, so yes, those are the Christmas decorations in that plastic tub in the before picture).

I’ve decided this is going to be my jungalow meditation corner 🙂 I’m putting a handmade wooden bench there, with plants and candles and maybe a buddha if I find one I like. But first I needed to clean it out. And what better time to unpack boxes and move a dirty old door than while wearing white jeans??

No, I am still not entirely unpacked from my move here last August.

How have I managed without these things all this time??

One of my mother’s silver trays I kept and some flower cards from the hospital last year… a picture of me and Kate and a wind-up chick. This was quite the random box.

Forgive poor focus. Tripod selfies, am I right??

This picture is from about 1980. Me on my first horse, Elmer J. Fudd, out in the woods. A man walking on the trail approached us and asked if he could take our picture. I said yes, and he took my address to mail it to me. I forgot all about it and about a year later this mounted print arrived in the mail and I have cherished it ever since. Random stranger man gave me such a great gift. Thank you, Random Stranger Man. Isn’t it amazing how someone you don’t even know, or that’s in your life for just an instant, can make such a long-lasting impact?

People have asked about the door. This is it. When I was living in my last home, there was an 1850’s house on the corner at the end of the block. The elderly woman who owned it was unable to care for herself any longer and she was put in a home. The person who was handling her estate heard that “the lady down the street” (me) sold stuff on ebay, so she knocked on my door one day and asked me to come down and look at some vintage dresses and accessories she had. In her youth the woman had been a professional ballroom dancer and she still had all the amazing swooshy dresses and accessories. Unfortunately, they didn’t want me to sell for them on a commission basis, they wanted me to buy the collection outright, thinking I would then re-sell, but I couldn’t afford what they were asking for everything. SIGH. Anyway, while I was in the house I noticed the front door played music when it opened. There’s a little music box on the back of the door and I’m not really sure how it worked, but I found it SO charming and loved the beauty of the door as well. The executrix told me they were going to be tearing the house down (gasp) because the owner needed the money for her new accommodations and she didn’t ever want anyone else to live there (?). I told her I would love to buy the door when the time came that the house was going to be leveled. Nothing happened for awhile and I forgot about it. One day, some time later, my neighbor called me at work to say they were tearing the house down, and somehow she’d heard I wanted the door. She said she’d walk down there and talk to the workers and I said I’d pay up to $200 for it and I’d come by later to pay and pick it up, if that was alright. When I got home from work that evening, the door was on my front porch. She’d told them my offer, but they wouldn’t take any money for it and they even delivered it to my house (and it’s a heavy door!). And I have lugged it from house to house to house for the past 15 years (5 moves). It’s a charming backdrop for the Christmas tree and to hang the stockings on, and the rest of the year it’s in my bedroom. Whenever I have moved with a moving company (everytime except the last time), the movers are always like, “what is THAT? what are you doing with THAT?”

Finally, the bench is in its new spot. Now I just need the plants! And to get down on my hands and knees and wrangle those cords into submission and out of sight.

I’m loving my white jeans way more than I even thought I would. They make every top look instantly more summery.

Taking a little ice tea break with Janey. It got really hot really fast once I started lugging boxes and that heavy door around!

What I Wore:

• Ruby Rd. Women’s Plus Size Button-Front Striped Dobby Top, size 3x. Bought from Amazon via their Amazon Prime Wardrobe program.
• White Gloria Vanderbilt Amanda tapered jeans, size 22W, short.
• New Balance Arishi Lightweight Running Shoe, from DSW

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