meadow brook dairy

Months ago...June, I think...I got an email from Michelle at Between Cottage and Cabin. Michelle had found a vintage Meadowbrook Dairy milk bottle and wanted to know if she could send it my way.

Um, yes please, Michelle!


Isn't it just the cutest thing?

The fact that our little farm used to be a dairy back in the day makes this gift even more special.

It has had a prominent place in my kitchen since the day it arrived and has the privilege of being the second item in my Meadowbrook collection.

Thank you, Michelle for thinking of me! I love my Meadowbrook milk bottle.

Love it!

savannah

Before the details leave my brain forever, I want to share a few last photos of our visit to the South.


The last two days of our trip were spent in Savannah.


Beautiful Savannah.


Even the name is beautiful.


When I think of Savannah, two things immediately come to mind.

Paula Deen - her face was everywhere - and squares.

Savannah is designed with a beautiful park, or square, every few blocks. I believe there are twenty some squares in all. What a brilliant way to design a city.


Some have statues or fountains in the middle. Some are fancy, some simple.

All of them had people on park benches, pet owners taking a stroll, and tourists snapping pictures.

In between the squares were block after block of beautiful homes and Spanish moss draped trees.


I don't have nearly as many pictures of Savannah as I would like. By the time we got to day five of our trip, my forty pound camera bag had taught me a valuable life lesson and had basically killed my photo taking buzz.


While the azaleas were almost done in Savannah, we saw beautiful wisteria and this fun little shrub.


If this isn't called Bottle Brush Tree, it should be.

Savannah is also home to one of the most beautiful parks I have ever seen, Forsyth Park.


My niece and I spent hours on a park bench there one afternoon, just visiting the day away.


We also enjoyed the beautiful drive to Tybee Island, and climbed the steps of the Tybee Lighthouse. It was hard to imagine the solitary life of the lighthouse keeper and his family. I thought these pictures, displayed in the house, were adorable.



For me, Savannah was very different from Charleston, but just as beautiful.

Dear South,

I want to be Southern.

Love,
Teresa

charleston, how do i love thee?

Let me count the ways.

This city has been on my go-to list for quite a while, and it did not disappoint.

I honestly don't even know where to begin or how to group the photos.

Should I group by color?


By street?


I wonder what my hubby will say when I tell him I think we should replace our paved driveway with cobbles.

Actually, I don't wonder at all. I'm pretty sure I know.


Should I group my photos by paths, drives and alleys that run perpendicular to the sidewalk where I am standing?


Or perhaps by really cool stuff growing up, out of, or all over even cooler stuff.


Speaking of growing things, more than a few houses had this lovely feature.


I wonder what my hubby will say when I tell him I want our wooden steps replaced with brick steps so I can grow perfectly manicured greenery along the risers.

Pretty sure I know the answer to that one, too.

Should I group by houses with an extra splash of personality?


Or by houses with owners who don't like tourists?


How about by amazingly gorgeous and grand houses.


Or perhaps by houses that are not quite so grand, but still beautiful in their own right.


Then, of course, we have the gardens.


When we visited the plantation, we were told we were there on the peak azalea weekend. We certainly couldn't have planned that if we'd tried.


Charleston was beautiful. Every single house and garden was a treat to see. I would have thought there would be a clunker or two, here and there, but not so.

My very favorite part of Charleston, and what I will remember most, has to be the windowboxes.


In fact, one day I may go back and photograph a book entitled, "The Windowboxes of Charleston".

Would you buy a book like that?

Yeah, me neither.


They were all quite different, yet equally appealing.


Usually, I'm drawn to colorful flower displays, but for some reason, this was one of my very favorites. The creamy white brick, combined with the black shutters, different shades of green and chartreuse, (I am not normally a fan of chartreuse in the garden), just made for a striking combination.


Whew! Is anyone still with me?

We spent at least a part of three different days walking miles through the streets of Charleston.

We also spent at least a part of three different days trying out various and assorted ice cream flavors. My favorite by far was the Coconut from Kilwin's. It was amazing. Apparently, Kilwin's is a chain, but alas, not one is to be found in my neck of the woods.

So sad.

All I can say to wrap up this photo tour is, if architecture, history, gardens, churches, quaintness, grandness, and beautiful agedness is up your alley, then Charleston is the place for you.

Charleston.....I will be back!

southern living

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the South. Southern movies, Southern food, Southern towns, cities and countrysides. It has always appealed to me.

(Out of my deep respect for the South, and perhaps more importantly, my weakness in the area of capitalization rules, I am making the executive decision to capitalize South and Southern. After Googling the rules, I am further entrenched in my capitalization confusion, and decided to err on the side of over capitalization. If I stew over it any more, this post will never see the light of day. Please send capitalization help.)


While I've been to Mississippi to help out after Hurricane Katrina, and Fort Jackson, SC for my son's boot camp graduation, this was my first true Southern vacation.


It lived up to all my expectations.


Beautiful scenery.


Gorgeous weather just perfect for strolls down flower lined walkways.


Tree lined avenues.


Live oaks.


Spanish moss.


The South dressed in all its finery. What could be better.

In a week, I only saw one drawback.

One potential downside to Southern living.

Do you see it?

Or should I say do you see him? (Could be a her, but it seems like it should be a him.)


How about here?




That's right.

Now this may be a normal sight for you Southern girls, but to me, it's kind of a big deal. I'm used to being on the lookout for bears/moose/wolves/mountain lions when I'm in the woods, but these slithery ankle biters quickly topped my list of animals I don't want participating in my demise. Being eaten by a wild animal is one of my biggest fears. Just going on a hike in the Montana mountains is an act of courage and bravery for me. My hubby once pointed out bear grass on a hike, saying "Oh look, bear grass", and in the time between the word BEAR and the word grass, I managed to scream and jump and my heart rate sky-rocketed. We now have a list of words that are banned while hiking. He promises if he spies a real bear or other threat to my existence, he will get between us, be my protector, and if need be, sacrifice himself and take one for the team. That scenario doesn't really appeal to me a whole lot either. Besides, what if he's walking in front of me, and the wild beast sneaks up behind me? What then? Or, what if..... Needless to say, he hikes by himself a lot.

Wow, I really didn't mean to go down the wild animal carnage rabbit trail.

Back to the trip.

It was amazing, truly perfect. Many more photos to come, but in the mean time, I will be watching Fried Green Tomatoes, Steel Magnolias, and Gone With the Wind.

(Pictures taken in the Charleston, South Carolina area. For specifics, click the highlighted links throughout the post.)

Have a great weekend, y'all!

p.s. For those who asked questions on the last post, I answered in the comments there.

the purge - an update

Last week, I had a reader ask how the purge is going, so I thought I'd give a quick update on my progress.

Back in January, I began the process of sorting through my closets, cupboards and drawers with the goal of getting rid of anything that didn't have a place in my house. Part way into my closet cleaning venture, the devastating earthquake hit Haiti, and I made the decision to give any money I made to disaster relief. If you're new around these parts, you can read the first part of the story here, and part two, here.

Having a cause and the opportunity to do something for people in dire life or death need really helped my resolve. Knowing I could either keep something I would probably never use, or sell it and perhaps make a difference in a hurting persons life, kept me motivated.

I actually made pretty short work of things, and have been, for the most part, done for about six weeks now. I couldn't be happier with the results. Between my local flea market, which took all of my nice but not vintage/antique items, a back alley vintage tablecloth deal, and an antique store in town that took the rest, I was able to make a $2400 donation to Compassion International's Disaster Relief Fund. Yes, you read that right. Two thousand four hundred dollars. I told you I had a lot of good stuff!

I still have a handful of things, some of my nicest things, that I'm not quite sure what to do with. I've been tossing around the Ebay idea, or maybe trying to sell them here on the blog, but so far, I haven't come up with a plan. I'll keep you posted and let you know when the perfect solution presents itself.

Now, because I can't do a post without pictures, here are some I came across while cleaning off my hard drive.

I have always had a love for miniature donkey's. We had one living down the road years ago, and much to my children's dismay, we had to stop and talk to him every single time we passed by. As in roll down the window, stop the car, and ask him about his day. He was the cutest thing ever, and one day I will have one for my very own. His name will be Donkey, and he will be kept company by my pot belly pig, Petunia. I very well may need a miniature goat or two as well. We'll see.

Anyway, while visiting my sister a few years ago, she took us to visit a newly born baby miniature donkey....can you even imagine the cuteness? Amazingly enough, the baby donkey quickly took a back seat to a very friendly llama (or alpaca, I can't remember which,) (those of you who know, please set me straight,) named Olivia.

Olivia made a bee-line for my youngest and was very, very determined to give him a smooch.


He fought it for a while, but after a serious stare down....


.....he gave in.


Best friends forever.

pillow pals

I always love getting packages in the mail. Last week it was my seed order. The week before, shoes from Piperlime. This week brought a package that's a little different though, because there's a fun story to go with the newly arrived loot.

A while back, I shared how I discovered the Etsy shop Vintage Home, and consequently started collecting vintage tablecloths with the misguided plan to make my own version of the beautiful pillows found there. You can read more about it here.
Shortly after writing that post, Amy, the shop owner, happened upon my blog. It's a small cyber world we live in. Surprised to see her very own self on a perfect strangers blog, she left me a comment, and we started an email friendship.

A few weeks later, as I was sorting through things I wanted to get rid of during the purge, I thought I'd see if Amy was by chance interested in some of my tablecloths. I had long since decided I was not a pillow maker in the making, so some of my linens needed to find a new home. Amy was interested, and a deal was struck. Awesome writer that she is, Amy tells the story from her perspective on her blog, Into Vintage.


Part of that deal involved Amy making a set of pillows I can finally, a couple years after first discovering her shop, call my very own. It's the circle of life, vintage linen edition.

Right in the midst of our emailing design ideas back and forth, Amy posted this collage on her blog, showing some of her previous projects.


I love every single thing in this photo, so it was extremely easy to give Amy a few (okay, maybe more than a few - quit laughing, Amy) suggestions of what I was looking for. All that was left was to just sit back and wait for my dream pillows to make an appearance on my doorstep.

Yesterday was the day.

Each pillow cover arrived with it's own sachet in a bow tied package. Always a good sign of what's to come.


Each has it's own adorable Vintage Home tag.


And each, as requested, coordinates color wise, but is not matchy-matchy.


Amy even used some of my favorite blue chenille to make the cute pillow backs.


As luck would have it, Amy is having a giveaway for one of her wonderful vintage tablecloth table runners. It's a beauty, so if you're in a colorful, vintagey state of mind, hop on over to her blog and take a peek.

Thank you Amy, for helping me realize my vintage tablecloth pillow dreams. Thank you also, for not being offended by my extremely lame and very short-lived plans to shamelessly copy your one of a kind, beautiful and original work. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right? I love my pillows, and can't wait for that first warm porch swing day, when they will take up their rightful place at last.