HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

"A WOMAN WHO DOESN'T WEAR PERFUME HAS NO FUTURE." Coco Chanel

Well,I don't know how much that can be proven, but it is an interesting quote.

I was recently searching for a certain perfume called Magnolia or Eau de Val sold by L'Occitane.  They no longer sell it, but once in awhile you can find it on ebay.  I first found it in Paris when my daughter and I made that very special trip there a few years ago.  All I have to do is smell it and I am transported there. While searching online  I came across a very interesting blog for those people who love all things vintage and especially perfume.   Amelia at The Vintage Perfume Vault  has a blog wholly devoted to vintage scents.  It is fascinating.  After reading some of the posts, I began to reminisce about the first scents I remember.

The very first time I can recall being impressed by a perfume was when I was about five years old.  I was visiting my Aunt Esther in New Jersey for a few weeks.  I don't recall the reason for the visit, but I do know that my parents were not with me and neither was my younger sister who would have been a baby at the time.  There were several things memorable about this visit:  the wringer washing machine, my uncle cleaning fish he had caught in the lake on a picnic table behind the house, my aunt cutting off my long hair and giving me a perm, and my teenage cousin Joanie preparing to go out on a date with her future husband.  Those four things stick in my memory like glue.  My memory of Joanie was that she had a pink bedroom and she sat on a bench in front of a vanity and was putting on some cologne from a small bottle.  I almost remember the scent and I think it may have been an apple blossom scent.  It may have come from the local 5and 10 store. Oh, how I admired her.

My second memory of perfume was the black bottle of "Nuit de Noel" by Caron that was enclosed in a dark green box and sat on my mother's dresser for years and years.  It had been given to her by one her brothers when he returned from World War II.  I can vaguely still remember the scent.

Another vivid and favorite memory is that of the round handpainted bottle of violet cologne that sat on a shelf in my grandmother's bathroom.  I dearly loved that bottle and the smell of violet.  To this day, violets are my favorite flower and I now display that same bottle on my vanity and I have added more recent bottles of violet cologne to my collection.

Of course, there is the unforgettable "Evening in Paris" which was bought at the local 5 and 10 in Willow Grove and given to my mother at Christmas.  You can still find it at the Vermont Country Store.  I have added a few vintage bottles to my collection.

The scent of "Tweed" perfume that my mother wore when I was young is another memorable one.  I wore it out on my first date.  Recently I found it in my favorite catalog from The Vermont Country Store and ordered it.  After all these years it still smelled the same, but my taste had changed and I returned it.

Isn't it amazing that certain smells will evoke memories just as sure as if they tapped you on the shoulder?

Thank you for joining me on my little trip down memory lane!

CHRISTMAS...FINALLY!!

The preparation seems to take months, well certainly it takes weeks.  And in a flash it is over.  I hope you all had a beautiful Christmas.  Mine was wonderful.  I had my daughter and son-in-law and my two grandsons here for a few days before Christmas until they left Christmas morning to fly to Texas to visit the other grandparents and cousins.  My youngest grandson believes in Santa and it was great to see him Christmas morning when he saw what Santa brought.  The anticipation had been building for two days for both boys to open gifts.  They started trying to awaken my daughter at 3 a.m. on Christmas morning.

I burned bayberry candles from sundown until the candles burned out on Christmas Eve.  This is a tradition that I have honored since I was young and my parents did it.  "A bayberry candle burned to the socket will bring joy to the heart and gold to the pocket."  

I am wondering how many of you follow this same tradition?

Have a wonderful New Years everyone!  As my friend and fellow blogger, Lynne says, are we saying twenty-ten or two thousand and ten??

(ha, ha  - I just noticed that if you click on the picture of the candles to enlarge it, you will see my husband watching TV in the background.  I thought it was my globe that is sitting on the end table!)

WHITE CHRISTMAS????????

I am sitting here looking out the window at ........... no snow.  At least hardly any.  The entire mid-Atlantic and northeastern area of the country is seeing blizzard conditions, but here along the coast in southeastern Delaware, nothing.  It did start out with some snow during the night, high winds, then rain.  There is a dusting of snow out there, but that is it.  A few miles north and a few miles west of my house -- plenty of snow.  It will ice up tonight which should make driving treacherous.

Christmas is around the corner.  Decorating: done.  Shopping: done.  Wrapping: not done.  Baking:  not done and may not be done.  I hate to bake even though I love to cook.  I will have to make a pie for Christmas and I may make a batch of Tollhouse cookies (no chocolate chips for my husband --- yes, really).

My daughter and her husband and my grandsons will be arriving from Massachusetts on Tuesday and can stay until Christmas Day at which time they will fly out to Texas to be with his family.  Meanwhile, I will be babysitting my granddog.

Update:  We got a little more snow at dinnertime, but nothing to compare with other areas.  I found this photo in my saved photos from a few years ago.  I see I had long hair and Beau looked younger so it was probably three years ago.  Obviously, we had a decent snowfall then!

NOTE:  I have unfortunately had to utilize Comment Moderation on my blog.  I have had several weird messages left and want to edit them before they appear.  I see now that the comment moderation is not working.  Always something.

CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK

Yesterday I went with the local Realtors' group on our annual bus trip to New York City to see a play.  We saw "Jersey Boys" which was fantastic.  There was never a dull moment in the show and if you grew up with the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, this show will have you rockin' and reminiscing in your seat.  We had two bus loads of mostly women and traveled up there in the pouring rain from Delaware.  By the time we got to NY the rain was stopping and it turned out to be a mild day -- perfect for walking around the city.  A few of my friends and I almost always have the same routine when we get there (we have about two hours before the show starts):  we go to see the tree in Rockefeller Center, we go to St. Patrick's Cathedral, and we go to Saks to use the ladies room.  Saks is beautifully decorated and it always reminds me of "Sex and The City" with all the sophisticated salesgirls (and salesmen) dressed in black and offering to spray you with something lovely.  My friend pointed out a lovely sheath dress that would look stunning on someone who was a size 2 -- price no object? -- a mere $980.00!

We always eat lunch at Stage Deli, but this time we tried Carnegie Deli -- two of the few Jewish delis left in the city, I have read.  Authographed photographs of famous people covered the walls and the waiter told us Woody Allen's movie "Broadway Danny Rose" shot a scene there and he comes in there once in awhile.  I had my usual corned beef on rye which arrives, four inches high, piled with enough meat for three or four sandwiches.  The deli was small, noisy and smelled delicious.  I wish I had room for the only-in-New York cheesecake.  There is something different about it -- it is drier and higher than other cheesecakes.  I should have brought a cooler with me to bring one home!

Note:  For some reason all of the pictures I took with my cell phone turned out in black and white.  I just checked the settings and somehow they were set that way.  Don't know how that happened!  So these pictures are ones I found online.  Thank you to those people, whoever they are.   Blogger also wouldn't let me move the pictures around.  I have had that problem before -- don't know why it does that.