Lone Star Antique Mall, Christmas 2015

 

Some of my favorite booths all decked out for Christmas at Lone Star Antique Mall, Haltom City, Texas.

Texas Countryside

Global Warming in North Texas

North Texas, February 11, 2010

We’ve lived here almost 30 years and we’ve never seen this much snow.

Looking down the driveway toward our gate.

Joe took the photo above around noon. It has snowed several more inches since then.

Updates, January 2010

Things have been pretty quiet around my blog for a few days, but not quiet around our lives. My sister came down from the way below freezing temperatures of Oklahoma to the way below freezing temperatures of north Texas so we could go to the rubber stamp convention in Grapevine. Ouch. We moved here 27 years ago and I don’t ever remember it being this cold. Out here in the country it’s been down to 10 degrees F, maybe lower. NE Oklahoma still has a lot of snow from before Christmas.

We had reservations for a couple of classes on Friday, one on Belts and Buckles in card making and the other was making fossil type objects from a crafting compound. There was also going to be an ATC (artist trading cards) contest and swap. So on Thursday night we worked on ATCs, and again on Friday morning before we left for the classes.

The classes were fun. Fran graciously paid for both of us. She’s taken lots of different paper crafting classes over the years. I’m the cheap sister and I’ve only gone to one other, so it was nice.

When our phone rang early on Saturday morning and Joe saw on the caller i.d. that it was my brother, I knew it wouldn’t be good news. Our mother had fallen a couple of hours earlier and broken her right hip and had been taken to the hospital from the nursing home. In March 2008, she had fallen and broken her left hip and collar-bone and had healed amazing well for a woman over 90 years old.

So Frances packed up earlier than planned and went back to Oklahoma to be with our mother (they live in the same small town). She asked me to take her ATC cards and submit them to the contest and swap. We did but not one single other person showed up for the swap. I gave a couple of cards to some women who were interested, and bought some stuff for Frances (she had given me an envelope of money to buy “interesting stuff” for her).

Joe helped me shop for her, which was fun. Maybe I can post photos of the items later.

Fran made it back to Oklahoma okay (it was snowing there again).

My brother told me that Mama came through the surgery just fine, but that the break was worse than the previous one.

When it rains, it pours. One thing I forgot to mention was that 3rd and 4th gears had gone out of the transmission on our second car and it was in the shop, so I’ve been afoot. And Isuzu has a really bad design key design on their ’91 pickups, a very narrow place which tends to break off in the ignition; our older son was using the truck and it broke off on him this week. This is the second time in 4 years.

Our son got the key out of the ignition without damaging it (Hallelujah – last time it ended up costing a bundle to replace the tumbler).

Today we’ll pick up the car and then go get a couple of loads of wood. Our wood stove has been consuming mass quantities of oak and whatever else we’ve had available.

But first Joe needs to sharpen the chain saw and put the chain back on.

And we’re having computer woes again, so this afternoon I’ll have to try to upload photos onto the laptop until the pc is up and running again. I took pictures of all the ATCs we made. **Update on the update: I posted them above.

I’m ready for a quiet Monday.

Thanks be to our Father in heaven who sustains us!

Hats, Old and New

On New Year’s Eve, Joe and I shopped for a bit in Lone Star Antique Mall and I decided to focus my picture taking on hats.

After writing the post at the end of December about Hats and Tea Parties, I was still in a hat mood.

Isn’t it charming? This little number reminds me of one that Lucy might’ve worn; maybe with that navy blue dotted suit of hers.

Didn’t care for the sign this one was sitting on, because I thought it was pretty, and not silly at all. However, since the booth owner didn’t ask me to redecorate, I left it alone.

With little organza flowers covering it, this one reminds me of ones that ladies wore to Sheridan Road Baptist Church in Tulsa in the early 1960’s.

Although most of them were vintage, one booth featured new hats.

Some of them were quite lovely.

How perfect for a wedding or a Sunday morning church service in the spring. It needs a white linen suit and a turquoise rhinestone brooch on the shoulder.

Candlelight Home Tour

We don’t live in a Victorian mansion, a Craftsman cottage, a Prairie house or a 1920’s bungalow.

But I can dream.

Rose Cottage Garden B & B, Weatherford, Texas

And that’s what I do this time of year when we go on one of the Candlelight Home Tours in the towns around North Texas. In the past, we’ve attended ones in Fort Worth, Decatur, Cleburne, Waxahachie, Granbury, Keller, and most frequently of all – the one in Weatherford, which is sponsored by the Parker County Heritage Society. We try to make it to theirs every year but have missed a couple of times.

The houses are usually old (although Decatur had almost all new houses in 2001) and grand; some a little too grand for me. I’m not a grand person – probably more Jane Darwell than Joan Crawford.

The owners decorate for Christmas, some lavishly, some just a few accents.

Opulent decorating (like Traditional Home magazine) is not my cup of tea, although it’s beautiful. What draws me is the cottage look, very vintagey; country style kitchens, old family photos, rocking chairs on the porch and as few changes from the original as possible. I don’t know why, but more often than not, there’s just one house each year that stands out among the rest.

Here was my favorite this year. It had been a full day by the time we even started the tour. We had driven over to Mesquite to have lunch with a really lovely Christian couple, then drove back home, went to the radio play production “It’s a Wonderful Life” by the Off 380 Players in Bridgeport then on to Weatherford. (That’s almost 200 miles of driving by the time we started the home tour.) My joints were protesting and I was fairly fatigued. Joe asked me if I wanted to skip the last house and go on home, but I said why didn’t we first drive by and see how it looked.

Wow.

We were greeted at the door by a gentlemen in an 1800’s striped suit and top hat. He was the father of the husband and very cordial. The owners were a fairly young couple who had kept the house as original as they could, but it looked like a real family lived there. They said their goal was to show that a normal family could live in an old house without it being museum-like.

The wife had wonderful taste and a very good decorating eye. Joe struck up a conversation about the antique piano with the docent in the parlor, and played Silent Night for them.

Ceilings were the original height and soaring. Over the tops of the kitchen cabinets, the lady of the house had displayed her collection of old children’s domestic toys (like stoves and cooking equipment); on a narrow wall, a bookcase held a large collection of cookbooks. The window overlooking the back yard was curtained with a vintage tablecloth.

Upstairs the younger girl’s bedroom was like something out of a story book; there was a very low closet that had been outfitted kind of like a hidden playhouse. My guess is that it was originally a suitcase storage.

The wife’s sister was the docent in that room and she pointed out the cloud ceiling and the small hand painted mural of the Parker County Courthouse. What a fun room for a little girl.

And out in the hallway, were framed pages from the oversized Dick and Jane readers that teachers used.

A lovely home and gracious people.

I’m already looking forward to next year.

To see more photos of another beautiful, old restored Texas home , click here to go to Hill Country House. This link is for that particular post, but her whole blog is interesting.

Vintage Christmas Cards

These are probably from the 1940’s, all made in the U.S.A.

This one is outlined in shiny silver (not glittery).

Nice embossing.

The green background is crinkled foil, the gold is shiny and the ribbon is embossed.

All these cards came from Dealer 033 at the Lone Star Antiques, Haltom City, Texas. As I’ve said before, this is one of my favorite places in North Texas. The booths are beautifully decorated, there’s a wide variety of antiques, the staff is very pleasant and the tea room is nice. It’s not as lacy and frilly as some others, but that’s good because my husband is willing to take me there. He’s not so happy about going to the really feminine ones.

My sister was surprised the first time I took her there. She said it just looks like this large metal building (it was built as a Sutherland’s Lumber Store). But when you walk in, it’s completely different. A real delight. I guess you can’t judge an antique store by its metal cover.

Just walking through the store is a real treat for me, especially when they decorate for the next season or Holiday.

This booth is the first one seen as you enter the front door, and it’s one of my favorites. The dealer is a friendly man. He gave me a discount for buying several of the cards. Also available are lovely handmade cards by his wife.

White Christmas Season

Possible snow flurries? That’s what the radio said at 5:00 this morning.

Well, I’m telling you, this may not count for much in Montana or New England, but in north Texas, this counts as a White Christmas.

Lovely and free. A gift from God on this day when I needed it.

Southern Gospel Singing Convention

The only time I had ever heard of a singing convention was when Joe talked about his grandmother going to them. Then 2 years ago our friend, Patti invited us to the one which is held every October in Decatur.

What an experience!

Unlike my husband’s family, I’m not very musical. I wish I could sing, but I can’t really. My voice is too low to sing soprano and alto is a little difficult to learn. But I enjoy listening.

Singing conventions are centered around shaped notes music, 4 part harmony, Southern Gospel and incredible pianists. A brief overview of shaped notes: each of the 7 shapes tell which tone of the scale it’s on. People who are familiar with it can sing parts (bass, tenor, alto, soprano) music they’ve never seen before and change keys without a problem. Heavenly Highway Hymns is a shaped notes book.

That’s about all I can grasp. For more in depth information, you can go here for a History of shaped notes in Southern Gospel.

Very talented musicians are still writing this style and publishing new books about every year. Texas Legendary Music lists some of the publishers and also has the 2010 schedule of events all across the U.S.

Several of the attendees were songwriters. And the pianists are incredible. One man, Cecil is 90 years old and it’s a joy to hear him play. When I get permission to post the other songs, I’ll upload them to youtube and do an updated post.

Click here for a youtube video of the Decatur convention. The song is “Vacation Bible School”, a very clever, catchy tune by one of our talented local musicians, Blake Boyd. The chorus incorporates lines from several of the wonderful old songs we learned as children.

Meetings are still conducted very much like the description in the link above. Anyone who desires to sing, play or lead the congregation is given the opportunity. It isn’t dinner on the grounds anymore, but there’s a covered dish lunch on Saturday.

Admission is free, but an offering plate is passed to cover expenses.

I highly recommend it.

Two Gentle Lessons

Let me confess a prejudice: often I jump to conclusions about someone because of their appearance. Probably not in the way that would first come to mind about prejudice; not racially, but affluently. If a person looks … I’m not even sure how to say it … if they look wealthy or glamorous or very professional, I assume they’re unapproachable.

I Samuel 16:7 tells us that “man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”

The Lord taught me the first of 2 gentle lessons about this on the weekend.  Last Friday I had another really wonderful day with friends. It involved my favorite place in the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex – Lone Star Antique Mall – here and here. Map here . My friend, her daughter and I went for lunch at SimpliciTeas. The tea room was full; as we sat on the old church pew waiting for a table, we saw a really beautiful purse hanging from the back of a customer’s chair. All brocade and lace and lovely fabric. My friend’s daughter wanted to ask the lady if she could take a photo of the purse. I recognized the style as a really expensive handmade kind ($400-1200) and told her that people who buy purses like that usually don’t want someone copying it. What I was actually afraid of, was that the girl would be rebuffed by an encounter and get her feelings hurt. The girl was behaving better than me because she wanted to ask for permission; I simply snapped the photo without asking.

After we were seated, I could see the lady clearly. She was beautiful. Model beautiful. Really thin, long blond hair with highlights, a lace blouse, cream colored wool skirt, a knee length crocheted jacket, white boots and lovely jewelry. I’m a fairly friendly person, but I would never approach someone like that. Been burned too many times in the past. A few minutes later, she was passing our table and my friend’s daughter spoke to her. After the initial look of surprise, she was so gracious and friendly and we chatted for a couple of minutes. She mentioned that she was going to Branson, Missouri and I asked her if she read blogs (she does); I asked if she had ever read Warm Pie, Happy Home which is now Sugar Pie Farmhouse because that blogger lives in Branson. She said no, but that one of her favorites is Cherry Hill Cottage.

Now that’s ironic for 2 reasons. First: on Thursday one of my favorite blogs, Sweet Cottage Dreams, featured Cherry Hill Cottage as it’s most recent post. Second, when I went to Cherry Hill Cottage, I saw that she listed Sugar Pie Farmhouse in it’s list of favorites.

Second Lesson:  Friday night and Saturday morning was the annual District Singing convention in Decatur.  I look forward to this all year.  (I plan to post more about it later this week.)  One of the songwriters who attends is another beautiful woman who wears lovely clothes.  Now here’s another ugly thing about my prejudice.  I thought her husband looked like a humorless, cold person.  Now I realize that I based my judgment solely on how serious he looks when he’s singing in the quartet.  This was crazy and wrong on my part!  On Saturday, they sat down next to us at the lunch table and were both very friendly.  He said that they had never even seen those songs before they sang them that day.  No wonder he looked serious – he was concentrating.

How gracious the Lord is to me in the way he showed me this sin. Not with harshness and embarassment, but lovingly, in a beautiful place and eating wonderful Orange Cream Cake. He showed me that it isn’t enough that I don’t condemn a person because they look disheveled or odd. Years ago I learned that lesson from our sons’ friends. Our older son had punk friends. Red mohawks, piercings, awful clothes but they were never rude or disrespectful to me.

How thankful I am that God’s ways are not my ways.  Oh, to be like Jesus!

Here are a few photos from the booths at Lone Star Antique Mall. (I asked for permission.) I hope to take a few more next time I go.