One of the Best Stores You’ll Ever Find

Halloween is here. They say that fall color will begin to peak, earlier than usual, this week on the roadways leading up to the top of near by Monte Sano.
The leaves looked dreamy in the morning mist while my husband, Eric, and I drove up to the Habitat for Humanity Home center to look around for goods to use in our kitchen. We stepped out of our car while the leaves crunched under our feet. My husband and I breathed in the crisp, perfect for Halloween air, before going inside to shop. Habitat for Humanity stores offer home items that are donated by contractors, organizations and local residents for resale and the prices there are easy on the wallet.

Eric had watched the film Wuthering Heights with me and a bag of popcorn, the other night. I pointed out the rustic, sweet old kitchens in the film. Think my husband liked the rustic aspect of the old English kitchens the best. Today at the Habitat Home store, Eric pointed to a couple of thatched wooden chairs, defiantly on the rustic side.

“I like it!” I said.

But then, we both grimaced when we saw the weave in the chairs was ripped, more than we wanted to deal with anyway.
We walked on in the store “Hmmming” in consideration when we saw a shelf that looked fabulous and sighing in disappointment when we discovered a large nick on the piece.
We’re buyers who look for low maintenance, even in a second hand store. That’s just how we are. Maintenance to us sometimes means just as much money to repair, or at least more work than we want to make time for.
But all our careful browsing often pays off in stores some call junk stores. There is always true treasure found even for we buyers in search of low maintenance. In the corner of the store, for exsamle, I thumbed through a stack of prints and paintings. Pulling out 2 farmed prints nicely done, I gave an “Hmmmm” and then I didn’t sigh in disappointment instead I smiled...widely. The prints showed pewter flasks keeping company with rich purple grapes and bright tomatoes all in simple honest still life from. Simple, honest, rustic sweet - those were all the things I wanted in my Moors style kitchen.
I put the prints under my arm and took with me also another great Renoir print for our home kitchen. The still lives would cost me $2.00 a piece and the money I was going to give for the paintings, would go to a good cause to help build homes for families in need. That's how the Habbitat for Humanity stores work.
At the check out for the Habitat for Humanity store, a large man came in totting 2 remarkable chairs right past my husband who was about to make our sales final with his wallet. Then my eyes went big and I gasped looking at the chairs - “Are those just coming in?!” I asked the man carrying the chairs. I think I practically stepped on the poor mans heals following him. As soon as the Habitat worker set the chairs down I picked them up and inspected them. I could feel the real nails planted into one of the chair's upholstery. There wasn't a staple found on this small sweet chair done in Old English style. I taped the curves on the little chair and my tapping donated it was real wood.

It was the same with the larger more ornate chair - all real wood, no staples. Eric shook his head looking on the larger chair though - “”What will you do with that?” he wondered. Then he eased on a smile – “We’ll take both chairs” he said to the check out lady. With Elre's wondering and my own hesitation, I was ready to put the large chair back, but everything happened so fast. Before I knew it, both chairs were in the back of our vehicle ready to become part of our family.
On the way home, I knew where the little chair belonged, in our kitchen. The large Victorian style chair, for now, sits in our dinning room just off our foyer and will be spied by Trick or Treaters tonight. It does add elegance or as Eric puts it - fru, fru to the house. Somehow, I think, that chair will one day add even more to our dinning room.... in some way. That time will come when over dinning room is worked over more. Right now, we focus on the kitchen.
My husband just went back to Habitat for Humanity, one of the best stores in the world, we think anyway. He is purchasing a window to place in our attic upstairs. The window that once hung in a house the was demolished, will hang over a window box and face our leafy street finding good use....again.

Pumkin Place

Still roadside waterways lead travelers into our town after ramping off of a hurried hwy. In this season along the water ways, a pumpkin stand with glowing pumpkins, Mums and pear shaped squash finds a place on a patch of grass. Drivers, giving long glances at the colourful stand as they drive by, often pull into the pumpkin stand that has also caught my interest. I want to go there soon to replace the lone pumpkin I slid off our porch to carve for a pumpkin carving contest, held during a party recently with my newly made Alabama friends.

It's always a treat to go out to the water ways leading into town. When the temps drop, the cold icy air kisses the trees there leaving a streak of red and gold through out the tributary. In time with colder yet November air, the streak will fill in with solid color. The pumpkin stand only highlights the beauty that is already there.

I know there are lots of pumpkin patches advertising hayrides in the valleys below the mountains in North Alabama and Tennessee. But, the water way pumpkin stand just calls out to me the most for Halloween pumpkins. No matter how often I drive through the roadside water ways that lead into our town, I often remember the first time we rode through there with our moving van. The arms of the Tennessee River reached out to me that day welcoming me in.

October Kitchen

On my kitchen stove today, I was tenderly frying red russet potatoes, onions and garlic in Jack Daniel's whiskey from the Tennessee distillery close by. It is October now, and while I was working on a hodgepodge of sweet simmering vegetables some people just call hash, the autumn sun was casting a golden light through the wide kitchen window. The warm house heater roared while I rambled softly - “Whiskey Hodgepodge … no, maybe Autumn Hash…. Hmmm, Red Russet Goulash” Trying to decide what I would call my fried up work of culinary art, I took down some plates from the rickety old kitchen cabinets that I hope to soon replace, and spooned my recipe onto plates for my daughter and I. All the alcohol in my recipe had evaporated with the heat on the stove earlier.
Whiskey isn't just a vice in the Deep South. New mothers slid it on their teething baby’s gums. Grandpas gargle with it to keep ailing bacteria at bay and of course cooks, like me, like to lace deserts and spice up hash with the drink.
Warm, happy fall foods like red russet potatoes, pumpkin anything, cobblers, apple and peach pies are all twice as wonderful with comforting baking scents enhanced by the cool mountain zone air in North Alabama.
My daughter and I watched the movie Vertigo, starring Jimmy Stewart, while we enjoyed our Hodgepodge of vegetables. Jimmy Stewart is one of our favorite actors. Somehow he reminds me of my husband with his quiet, sweet side intermixed with an almost cranky but charming gentleman's air.
I noticed silky red walls in a restaurant that Jimmy Stewart’s Vertigo character, a romantic lead, is meeting beautiful Kim Novak in for dinner. (Mr. Stewart was 50 or so in the film Vertigo playing a romantic lead man most convincingly) “Oh, that restaurant is so… Oh, Wow!” my daughter’s eyes twinkled watching the film. Yes it was, and for a moment I think solid about adding the alluring red restaurant of Vertigo, seen several times in the film, somewhere in my home's decor. But I certainly would not work it into not the room I am working on now - my kitchen. My kitchen is too small for something so glam, though it is endearing.
If all goes as planned, my kitchen will have all the simple, dreamy vibes of a great Jane Eyre classic made into a film that some people state was perhaps one of the most captivating films ever made - that film being the 1972 version of Wuthering Heights. If you don't remember this version of Wurthering Heights, you haven't seen it.

Tomato Pie and Great Views

Aside from the depressing brown tile and behind the times melon and pears wall paper, our historical home kitchen has great stuff in it. For one thing, there is a large kitchen window framing a park like setting of leafy maples and vines hugging our neighbors late 1800s home. The kitchen window view repaints itself with each passing season. The maples turn bright orange and red in Fall. In Spring, the vines wander with buds that look like little wedding bells. Chopping tomatoes now, in summer, for tomato pies was never so beautiful facing a scene of squirrels winding up large trunked trees.
My Mother was overjoyed about my deep as a water well old fashioned kitchen sink. "This will accommodate everything, big pots, whatever, now you have room!" she said smoothing her hands over the sink like it was a Channel gown. But I remember our realtor standing there by that sink trying to sell us this house to us a while back. She was remarking over the sink like my Mother was. I was embarrassed for her. All I could see was the old tile and the unattractive shabbiness of a room in neglect.
Later, in the walk through of our home, I swung open the large kitchen pantry door to spy a little rectangular window inside capturing some more views of the leafy trees out and a patch of blue sky. I closed the door and eased my eyes up to the tall ceilings and wide crown molding above. It was all different somehow that day, while I turned around in the room I'd soon be stirring sweet tea in. I felt like I was standing in a vivid bright country field with the southern sunshine pouring through the wide window over the old fashioned sink.
"I like this kitchen," I told our realtor and she looked at me knowing the look. She had seen it before. I had really fallen in love, it was more than like, and there was no stopping me.

Recipe for taking off Wall Paper

My husband comes back from a Denver/Plus business trip and brings us wines from Denver, Montana, Nebraska and even Missouri to fill up our dwindling wine rack in the kitchen. Well, now that the kitchen wine rack is taken care of, I am ready to take down the dancing fruit wall paper. I have just the right recipe for doing that. Here it is:
The Best Way to Get Rid of Dancing Fruit Wall Paper or any Wall Paper -
1. Wet the wall paper with a sponge.
2. Then, with a scrapper, you take off the paper.
3. For paper that just won’t seem to come off, really stuck stuff, use an iron on steam setting to lift up the paper, and then continue scrapping.
4. Bring in a CD player and listen to old CDs and sing or hum along, makes the time go quicker while you're scrapping.

Money for Disney and Decorating

Sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor this morning, I looked up at the dancing fruit wall paper on my kitchen wall. H-m-m, it’s so early 90s at best, dancing fruit just hasn’t made it into this century. But still, it’s not a tragedy in my book. Showing the dancing fruit the door and redecorating my kitchen isn’t one of those - "I just have to do this or worry what the neighbors will think" - kinda thing. I don’t give a care what my next door neighbor thinks about my drab brown kitchen tiles. (Even if she seems like a very nice lady.) I could walk on icky tiles forever if it were a choice between going to the movies with my husband or redecorating my kitchen. I don't want to redo my house for the neighbors and spend my "what's life really all about anyway?" money.
I do, however, want to redo my kitchen so I can grab a cup of coffee in the morning and look down at my feet just under my PJs and think - “Oh, this floor feels nice.... the color is everything I love.... and it was a beautiful bargain.” For me, having money for a trip to Disney, movie nights (so I can get more decorating ideas) and being able to redecorate my home is just smiling completion. So, that’s what I intend to do – decorate with style that allows me and my family to go to Disney and to the movies often.
With that said - I will probably replace my dated wall paper with something perfect for most any room - paint. What color paint? Well, my colors will come from a movie classic with a timeless and sweetly romantic kitchen. More later.

The 1930s started it all

They say, a widow had this house built that we now live in. She had the house built in the MGM glamor days when Americans flocked to the movies to leave their empty cupboards worries behind. For that very reason, I want to honor our Depression era home with something as magical as the movies. Is there anything really more magical? Teenagers of this decade get goosebumps watching the lighted gazebo where Bella and Edward dance in the movie Twilight. What I would do to have a gazebo like that, extending from our home, where we could entertain. Then, there are the classics, Gone With the Wind, what about that memorable carpeted staircase of Scarlet's and Rhett's? There were so many staircases in Gone with the Wind where things, remarkable things happened. At 12 Oaks, Scarlet first laid investigating eyes on Rhett looking down from a winding staircase.
I'm fascinated with movie sets. I love to look at what's going on behind the stars while their walking up the stairs, having a chocolate martini on the couch or visiting a chateau in steamy Paris. Some set designer worked very hard on these backgrounds enticing you into the movie itself.
My husband is a big set buff also. He is always reminding me that a suitcase we use on our vacations, actually was given to him from a Nickelodeon Studio set on a show he worked on, that kind of thing.
So, we came up with this idea, to decorate each neglected room in our 1930s home in some sort of set theme. And, it has to be cheap! Actually, this should be interesting to see just how and if, this all happens. With my schedule, it would be nothing short of a miracle to put into place. I cannot afford to spend as much money as married Rhett and Scarlet splurged on their home. Who can these days? Well, let's begin anyway, give it a good try. And, here's to you MGM and all those movie makers that made the 1930s and 2000s feel a little less imposing.

While there are still Back Roads

Jewel sang Goodbye Alice and Wonder Land on the radio and my daughter dropped her head on my shoulder falling steadily off to sleep in our moving van. I remember this on our move from Florida to the near Tennessee border, 2 Autumns ago. I also remember that I teared up when I heard later on I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You by the King, and believe me he was reinstated to that position once we rode into Alabama. I never really liked Elvis before that, but as the silhouetted mountains began to ease into the sky on a back road filled with Katiedids singing out with the King, I became a fan.

Leaving it all Behind

People in office cubicles dream of leaving their dull paper clips and chipped coffee cups framing work orders, for another more fulfilling life. And then, they brush their dreams away when their Friday paycheck is plopped in front of them. I can’t blame them for that. Dreams can be like a little dog we once had, cute and all cuddly and loved by all the neighbors. But for us the owners of that dog, he would hardly come when we called and gave our carpet a daily potty smell, then taunted our cat. Things aren’t always as rosy as they might seem.
And yet, the world will never stop yielding dreamers, who actually follow their dream for better or worse or South land peanut butter pie as was in our case.
Our cat named Arty meowed and curled under my feet, this morning, trying to persuade me to open the long line of windows that stretch across our roaming dinning room we have Sunday suppers in. It’s too August to even think about opening a window here in the Deep South where we live now, even if we are in a mountain zone. So, the windows stay shut, with the wrm weather outside, while our air conditioner hums. But, summer is rich green in this mountain area, green and swept with soft meadow grass and Dogwoods dressed in wispy bright leaves.
We moved to our North Alabama historical house with a large southern dinning room, 2 autumns ago. We left our home, a Picasso place of artsy contemporary people who worked for a giant mouse, in Orlando, Florida. Some of our Orlando friends were dancers, singers and actors from New York pulling a job that paid the suburb house bills away from Broadway which didn't. They were often refreshingly casual and sipped Margaritas with soft tacos at their kitchen bars. Their dinning rooms were turned into home offices where they worked after hours, from their amusement park job, on some hobby type paying venture. They loved the beach and bathing in Pina Colada scented suntan lotion with a calypso band following the wind. So do we!
In time however, after scarifying up plenty of home improvement shows emitting lingering romantic notions that living in a downtown historical arts and crafts home might be perfectly perfect, I moved from the Florida suburbs. My little girl, and husband came along, as my husband is so endearing with my Lucy/Ricky ideas. The truth though - really, my husband and daughter were just as ready for a change as I was, otherwise I would still be in Orlando wearing my Tankini top with my shorts right now.
Yes, we moved far, far away. from the malls with zen water falls and gadgets like ice cream cake makers. We left behind us, low maintenance stucco on our home and oh, those beautiful palm trees that my mother so poetically says that sound like rain when they rustle.
But, I was born in Key West and I hadn’t any idea of what it might be like to put out a pumpkin around Halloween and it not deflate, like an old basketball, out in the hot sun. I thought hot cocoa was a sauna induced drink even in the middle of winter . My daughter and I were born and brought up where summer just never ended.
We wondered out of our Orlando suburb and moved where autumn leaves of red, gold and even rosy pink rustle in an October breeze and soft snow falls come on a sweet occasions in winter. We wanted to live, not visit, but live where at least a kiss of the seasons came to us.
We live now on a real Maine Street in North Alabama, not an amusements park’s depiction. We live in a town with characters, not giant costumed characters. We live in a house that needs work. But with dormers, cherry wood floors, a butler pantry and an upstairs attic room lost in dull gray paint, personality is a huge possibility in this house that needs work, lots of work!
We live in a 1930s home in a town where Franklin Roosevelt visited during the depression. He named a rose garden park here after his mother and rides through again, on his whistle stop, when the town’s trains blow through and old stories about that day are told.
We live in a place where new neighbors are greeted by giggly sweet children holding chocolate chip cookies that read "Welcome to our street" and horse and carriages ride by during Christmas to tour downtown houses. At Christmas, holiday trees are popped out on front porches, fresh greenery is hung on eves and the clopping of the horses hoofs, and all this, makes this town sparkle not always with snow, this is still the south after all. But, our town sparkles with charm, friendly faces and glittery sugar cookies at church socials.
We live day by day, starting our production business all over in a new town and that is not always so easy. I home school now also, though I said that I never, ever would. But, it just seemed like a good idea, at least through JR High, for us.
If you would rather keep your Friday paycheck, and this day in age you are probably lucky for doing so - just do your day dreaming about selling your house and moving away from everything here - feel free.