Good Things: June 2006 Archives

(Summer Project #1 was the photos.) In an ongoing and nearly impossible attempt be better organized I chose for my next Summer Project of 2006 to take better care of my table linens. My table clothes, placemats, napkins and table runners have always been kept in a small chest in my dining room. With ever increasing amounts of people at my table and my habit of purchasing said linens from estate sales they long outgrew the little chest and needed a new home. This week I pulled them all out. Sorted them. Checked for spots and yellowing then starched and steam ironed them all. I had been saving the papertowel cardboard tubes to use for ths project and finally felt I had enough to accomplish my task. The tubes were split then placed over the bottom section of the coat hanger. Then the table clothes neatly hung so as to not sustain permanent creases. Then each hanger was covered with a drycleaners dress bag and knotted at the bottom to keep out dust. This is about half of my table linens. Most often we use placemats and paper napkins at the table especially for dinner. On Sundays I like a properly set table. On special occassions (Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) I pull out all the stops with the extra water glasses, bread plates and dessert spoons. Most common table setting in my house.
Mostly used at supper and sunday breakfast. I did not grow up in a house were fine linens were used on the table. At my grandmother's table I can remember mostly the vinyl type table clothes that could be wiped off with a dishrag several times a day. If the main dining table were to be used I do remember a white table cloth with a white sheet under it to protect the table even more so from spills. My mother used mostly placemats, the plastic ones when we were younger and quilted ones when we were teenagers. I recall she had two white table clothes for the nice dining table. One was on it at all times for looks then other was actually used. I find it much more work for myself to go to the extremes using damask and linens on the table. It is also a very nice treat to sit down at a pristine and well set table and dine like civilized folks. I don't put on airs. I like the pleasantries of dining well. I want my children to experience fine dining in our home. It teaches them proper manners for times when they are out of our home. I don't want them to come across like country hicks and not know which fork to use or which bread plate goes with their place setting. I have also taught my children how to properly set the table. I am always amazed by the number of people who do not know which side the fork goes on or where to place a napkin. My children also take turns asking the blessing and saying the grace. Colby loves books on butlery and etiquette and has a nice collection of books to refer for social occassions and reference. It is a finer thing in life that she also enjoys. One of our favorite books was written by a butler retired from the Queen's service. There are those who might call this 'highfalutin' and wonder what's wrong with a paper plate, a dixie cup and scott napkins. There is nothing at all wrong with paper goods if you are having a cookout or picnic or have a house full of kids who mess up plenty and you have to put their name on a Dixie cup and make them use it over and over all day long so that you are not constantly washing glasses or have a sink piled up with dishes. (This happened to us as kids when there were 6 to 8 of us running around my grandparents house.) I find there are few real pleasures in the world that don't come with a price tag. For us mealtime is and always has been a social occassion. It is the time of the day we all come together. No one is excused from being present at supper (within reason). I take pride in serving Steven a good meal at least once a day which is normally our evening supper. He works so hard and provides for our every need and want. I do try to cater to him and provide him with pleasant respite daily. He deserves it. The only way to teach my girls this is my showing action. How do children learn? By what they see every day. I want my chldren to see that when a man works hard for you and provides for you that you should offer him some comforts at home and go the extra effort to show him in return how much you care by similarly working hard at home. That sounds very 1950's, the man is king of the castle, etc, etc, etc. So be it. I won't ever have to worry about his bread being buttered at some other table because nobody butters his bread the way I do. :-) Anywho ... Your local drycleaner will sell you a full roll of bags if you ask. They run between $28 and $48 a roll depending on the length of the bag. I purchased the longer dress bags. Today I will be working in the closets to bag winter dresses and coats to prevent those dust stains that can happen to the shoulders. Chop. Chop. Let's get busy. We are burning daylight. What little chore have you been putting off? Why not buckle down and get it done? Then you will have the entire summer to play!

629 baby photos of Steve and I alone have been scanned. That is what I have been doing all week. This has been a HUGE undertaking but I am so glad I started and am now near finished. Since marrying Steve his mom has occassionally brought things to me. A baby picture. A shadow box with his hospital photo, silver spoons, cigar and a flower inside. An artistic characature done when he was two years old. Since the baby had been born she has brought even more. His silver piggy bank. His baby shoe planter. 2 hand fulls of baby photos from newborn to early childhood. I am beginning to think she likes me. These are things she would NEVER have even considered giving to his exwife. Not in a million years. There would have been no respect or appreciation for them. The photos have spent their life with us living in a photo box. I really had not had time to sit down and organize them. Plus our old scanner would not talk to our laptops and the whole thing frustrated me and made me angry about it all. Now with a new scanner (and Digital ICE technology) I feel like I am in heaven while tackling this large job. The baby photos of Steve and myself was a huge undertaking alone. All of the photos were sorted by date. Each photo was then scanned as it is. Then scanned again as restored. The photo was then placed in an acid free, pvc free photo album with memo notes or whatever caption might be on the back. Once all of the photos were in the album a cd or dvd was burned (depending on file size), placed in a protective sleeve and put into the photo album. A second cd/dvd was then burned and placed in a masterfile for safe keeping. Then I did Colby's. and J's. and Gracie's is in progress. and Stevens is on the schedule for this afternoon. I did my sister's baby photos too. My mother brought me her baby photos as well. If you haven't already, I urge you, please. Sit down with all of your photos. Assess what needs to be done to preserve them. Get them out of those old photo albums with the sticky gooey pages that eats holes in them and turns them yellow. If your photos are already in archival type albums "Yayyyy!" for you. Scan your photos and save them to digital media. Digital media (cd and/or dvd) will not last forever either and you need to check them every few years to insure they have not sustained damage. This is a very small price to pay to know your memories are safe. Consider yourself your family's historian. Preserve your family history. Sit down together with your children as you sort photos and talk about what was going on at the time or answer questions they have. Make a giant job a fun job. I have had so much joy talking with my kids about their baby pictures. They see how important what I am doing is and they have not interupted the process and have been extremely helpful with Steven during the day. I can't promise you it will not cost you money. Over the past three months I have purchased a VHS to DVD converter, a new scanner and 8 acid free, pvc free, archival photo albums. I have spent the better part of two weeks working on these photos. This week I have devoted most of each day to the process of preserving the photos and burning the cd's and dvd's. It has been worth every $$ and every minute to me. Maybe someone else wouldn't cherish these things as much as I do. Maybe more for others. I don't want to wake up one day and say, "I wish I had ..." and there is nothing to be done. Neither do you. Come on. Spend some time with your memories. Make them available for your grandchild and great children. Write the notes, make the lables, take the time. In Septemeber my Aunt will be coming home from Washington state. I will be going back home then too. We will be spending 4 days at my grandmother's home. Each and every photograph will be scanned. DVD's will be burned and available for each family member who wants a copy. What shape are your photo collections in? Are they in the old style sticky paged books? Are they in boxes? What about your negatives? (Todays new scanners can copy your negatives and slides as well.) What are you going to do to preserve your family photo history?