Did I mention I'm tired of sweating? I was standing out on the driveway in the shade yesterday mid-morning for about 10 minutes talking to Rocky and I was wiping sweat off my forehead, wasn't quite dripping off me, but it was close. When I finally came in my whole body had a sheen of sweat. Wet from head to toe. It's only supposed to get down to 80˚ tonight. But I looked ahead and starting on the 9th they are predicting nights in the mid to high 60˚s, days in the 80˚s! If only it's true!
I'm back to moving the sprinkler around, it is so dry and the wind feels as if it's coming from a blast furnace. I have to check the bird baths every day they dry out so quickly.
Now that Rocky is through with the buildout of the room in the shop, and I'm thrilled to have a toilet over there again since it never fails while I'm over there I have to pee and now I don't have to scurry around to the back of the building and squat hoping that none of my neighbors are out, I've started boxing up the glass working stuff and moving it over there. So far I've emptied one of the two shelving units and got that moved. I need to get some empty boxes from my sister to empty the other one and get it moved and the baker's rack as well. There's a low 6 drawer dresser that Pam isn't keeping so I'm getting it for the new work room too. The challenge will be getting my butt over there once it is all set up to do some actual work. It's so easy to have my studio space here in the house where my computer is so I can dick around on the internet while I think about what I'm doing. There's no internet connection over there. But, I really don't want to spoil the floor in here with wax that gets ground in and frit that also can get ground in. Not to mention that we have that big shop sitting there and if I'm not going to work in it, what's the point? Over there I don't have to worry about cleaning up after myself at the end of whatever work I'm doing.
My daughter came and got the cedar chest that had been my mother's. My mother gave me one in my late teens maybe 18 which is the age she gave my sister one but it was not to my taste and after I grew up I eventually traded with my mother...mine for hers. She didn't like her old fashioned cedar chest that she got from her mother (? we're not sure who gave it to her as a teen but she had it for as long as we can remember) and I did. She liked the more modern one she had picked out for me so it was a win win. I never kept anything in it though except for some baby clothes and early kiddo 'art' work, an antique shawl and a huge antique piano shawl, our costumes from when the kids were babies and we were doing the Renaissance Festival, weird useless stuff like that. It was in one of the rooms that got flooded and so everything inside got ruined and tossed out, all the veneer on the outside except for the very top part peeled off exposing the cedar wood it's made of.
I cleaned it inside and out and oiled it up and have just had a couple of blankets in it since. I didn't think I would have room for it once I got my bookcase and the art nouveau/deco buffet from Pam's house but now that I'm moving stuff over to the shop room I'm thinking maybe I gave it away a little too soon. Oh well. It's still in the family.
Back when I was growing up, it was traditional for young women to get a cedar chest, a hope chest, between the ages of 16 – 18 because that was the time when young women were supposed to start preparing for marriage and the hope chest was to hold your trousseau, the blankets and quilts and linens and clothes and other items you would make or acquire to prepare for your new life in your new home. I'm pretty sure I was at the tail end of that particular tradition. It never occurred to me to get my daughter one or her to get her girls one. Life and expectations for women changed dramatically from the 60s onward. And praise be to the powers that be for that.
Is this the hope chest we read about? I never heard of that tradition until I came to the US in the early sixties. By then I think it was in fiction more than in life any more. I used to wonder how a girl might feel if she didn't marry. Hope chest all ready, no groom.Sad stuff.
ReplyDeleteyes, hope chest. I've edited to include.
DeleteYes, my sister and I both were hope chested. Mine was my grandmother's, my sister's was our mother's. I was not ready to part with mine until my second downsizing here. The chest was my grandmother! I tried to give it to my daughters. No. My granddaughters. No. Eventually it went to the park's assistant handyman, along with my grandmother's bed, for his baby son's use. And I suppose that was how it should be.
ReplyDeleteHope chest – yes I have my mother’s cedar chest as a coffee table in every living room (and there have been many) I have lived in. I have dragged that thing all over the country. It was not given to me as a hope chest although it was hers. It was just something that I liked and absorbed into my life. I have done a lot of repairs on it over the years but it has history and I guess that it will be one of the last things that I part with.
ReplyDeleteI have my children what I called "treasure chests". I don't remember what I put in them. My husband's grandmother, who was quite poor, somehow managed to give each of her children- two boys and a girl- hope chests filled with homemade quilts, full-sized and for babies, sets of china, baby clothes that she'd made...all kinds of things. She is a family legend.
ReplyDeleteSame here with the sweating. I come in from doing anything and I'm drenched. I just looked at our long-term forecast and I see no breaks in the temp for us. Some rain though, by the end of the week. Maybe. Who knows?
I forget- have you got AC in your shop? A bathroom is certainly a nice addition.
I had a hope chest! And I actually had household stuff in it before I got married. I subscribed to a silverware of the month club in college - got cheapish Oneida place settings that we still use now. Even tiny little cocktail forks - ha! It was really pretty - well, still is.
ReplyDeleteEveryone should have a cedar chest, great for storing wool! The chest in your photo is wonderful. Sorry it got damaged - cedar does hold up well, doesn't it. Nice to have for keeping treasure.
ReplyDeleteI have Mom's cedar chest, I never had one. When opened, memories of being stuffed into itchy woolens as a small child is what comes to mind. I automatically reach up to scratch my neck just thinking about them. As Linda Sue says, they are a great place to store your wool yarns or fabrics. Too bad about the veneer on yours, but at least it still has great lines and the cedar goes well with the top part.
ReplyDeleteI remember hearing about "hope chests" when I was a kid and I never quite knew what they were. No one I knew had one! That IS a cool old cedar chest.
ReplyDeleteNow that the Monsoons have finally arrived it's humid AND hot now too in the Desert. We're still having record breaking temperatures and it's still in high triple digits clear into September, which is odd even for Phoenix. My Mom had a Cedar Hope Chest, I don't know what ever happened to it, lost in transit during our Nomadic Lifestyle in the Military I suppose? She came from a Culture and Era where Women still had Dowery. I remember loving the Smell of the Cedar when she opened that lovely Black Laquered Chest.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you going to do with all your free time once all this moving and trading, etc. is done?
ReplyDeletehopefully I'll get back in the studio and start making art again.
DeleteI have my mother's cedar chest, too. I keep sweaters and such in it, along with a few family 'treasures.' It's interesting that some high-end boats have cedar closets built in for the same purpose: keeping the varmits out. If you add a low-wattage bulb to a cedar closet, you can keep nice clothes mildew and insect free while sailing.
ReplyDeleteDid you ever see the miniature cedar chests that were given out by retailers? I have one that was my grandmother's. It's 10x6x4. I keep the charging cables for my various devices in it!
I love the concept of a hope chest. It used to be a tradition here and both my grandmothers had one. By the time my generation grew up, this had dwindled down from sheets and blankets to table linen, silver cutlery and Sunday best china tea sets. I have all of that and hardly ever use it. ebay here is flooded with that stuff.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to do something slightly different for my daughter and over the years collected her favourite clothing items as she outgrew them. No real plan, maybe the idea of a quilt but now I have a box full of t-shirts from far-away places and worn out shorts and hand knitted sweaters that I am doling out to my grandchild and my daughter is over the moon with delight.
A beautiful chest. For us it was a trunk. I still have mine in storage. I can no longer remember what is inside.
ReplyDelete