Celebrating Monday With a Clean Den!! Letters From the Past and Other News.....

Buying that one new secretary for the den has had us playing 'Fruit Basket Turnover' around here!!

I bought it last Tuesday. It came into the house on Friday and I have spent Saturday, Sunday and today getting the den all clean and back together!

It was real work!!!

I love a clean room!

This is THE only clean room in my house as I write!!!

I took out the small secretary where I do my writing. It is now in the sewing room and we will be moving out the big bulky desk that's in there and I will put the secretary there.

See what I mean? Things are all a jumble around here and I won't even get started on what all is going on with the guest room!!!

While I work in some of the other rooms, I can always come back in here and sit with a glass of tea and rest.

The bookcase on the left was unloaded, moved, cleaned, waxed, put back, reloaded with all the drawers cleaned out and organized.

This was all actually done by Sunday night.

This is what it looked like 'in progress!'

Can you see the closet door between the bookcase and the new secretary?

It's the door with all the paintings and puzzles on it.

You have to look hard to find it. 

That is Fibber McGee's Closet!!

I pulled everything out, sorted and organized it all and have a load for Goodwill tomorrow and a load for the Ranch.

It's all neat and tidy now.

There's lots of storage space in there and it holds all the blankets, quilts, spreads, comforters and throws.

It feels really good to finally get this DONE!!!

Sunday was a low key day for us but I think Louis Dean turned the corner and really started to feel more like himself. We didn't do much. I worked in the den for awhile and then would rest.

Saturday when Amber and Logan were here, I rented my first movie 'on demand.'

We watched it together but Louis Dean was in bed most of that day.

Sunday afternoon I turned it on and I watched it once again - this time with him!

He loved it!

Scott Eastwood was very good in it and we got to talking about how much he looks like his father, Clint Eastwood. So..............

I made us a simple salad supper and put on another movie I just so happened to have recorded!

The Outlaw Josey Wales. Yes, his son certainly does look like a younger version of his father!

We enjoyed both films and went to bed early!

This morning is when I really hit the den hard and finished it up.

Louis Dean is BACK!!!

He had been helping me all day - rolling the comforters and blankets to store away neatly in the closet and moving a small dresser out of the guest room.

While I cooked supper, HE repaired the kitchen door that had come loose from its hinges.

I rewarded him with a good meal of comfort foods!

Pinto beans served over homemade cornbread with sliced onions and fried potatoes.

YUM! yum!

I am enjoying my new secretary and going through some of the antique letters I have collected over the years.

I have a set of 15 letters between a beloved niece and her Aunt Polly which spans 12 years - from 1931 to 1943. 

I wanted to show the writing so I made a collage but printed the letter out below the photos so you could actually read it.

This is the first letter of the group, dated March 2, 1931 and post stamped at 5 PM from Houston, Texas. It is addressed to Miss Kathryn Krueger, 326 S.R.D. Austin, Texas.

                                                                                                                              Sunday

Dear little Honeybunch:

                  I'm on my way to Palestine and it is simply pouring sheets of water. Hope it stops before we get there - and is so dark outside you can scarcely see.

                  Never have written to thank you for my Valentine and it was such a pretty one. I loved the little house. Some day let's have us a house. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could teach in Houston. Maybe you can someday.

                  Your last letter was very clever. I read it to George A. and Miss Carter. He merely smiled but Miss Carter said she believed you should write, for your letters are so clever and yet so easy. However, several nights ago, after Miss Brown had bored us, I said to George A. that I told you I'd choke you if you turned out to be one of the boresome kind and he said "Oh, she wouldn't, for she has too much sense." I wish he were so thoughtful as George T. for I like him better. G.T. never fails to ask about you and said tell you hello.

                   Miss Carter's aunt sent us a coconut cake last week and we ate the last of it last night. We called George A. down and he helped us finish it.

March 1st

                 Well, I was really wound up to write all the way to Palestine and the ink gave out in Miss Carter's fountain pen which I had borrowed on purpose because the filler on mine is broken. Isn't that the limit when it's so seldom I have the time and get wound up at the same time?

                 I did have such a nice visit in Palestine even though it rained all the time I was there. Leila gave us the most delicious coconut cake to bring back with me. It has lasted all week and we have thoroughly enjoyed it. Eva gave me all sorts of plants to bring back and plant in my flower bed and they are all growing.

                 I haven't been to the office since Saturday Thursday. I stayed in bed Friday and Saturday and most of today but feel better today so will go tomorrow.

              Miss Robbins came over this afternoon and took us for a drive and then came home for tea. Miss Carter was not home so we decided to just order sandwiches and make tea. Nobody was here except her, George A. and me. When we started to wash dishes George told us he washed dishes at a soda fountain while he was going to the university and kept on telling us he had washed more dishes than we had, so when he finally dropped one of my hand painted plates and broke it, we laughed at him after his bragging.

                The Ralls came over one night the first of the week and played bridge with us. They would move back if there were a vacancy.

              Precious, I wish you wouldn't worry over things so, I could have told you you would get by with the practice teaching all right and there you just worried yourself unnecessarily over it for I know you are doing splendidly with it. I wish I could take every worry of yours and carry it for you. I think I at last realize and understand something Cabbie wrote to me once. I had written her of something that had hurt and worried me and she wrote back, "If I could only take and bear every sorrow and worry that comes to you, for I've had so many that extra ones make no more impressions on me, while to you they seem so large." "_  And that is the way I feel about you, little sweet thing, that the things that worry you now I could carry so easily.

            Do you realize that you have only three more months? I wish that you would write to that Mr. Lackey at Goose Creek and apply for you might not get on at Palestine and I'd love to have you down here.

              Must stop,

Bushels and bushels of love, 

                                                 Polly

PS And Lindsey might help you at Humble.

       

You will find these letters tell a story and I am enjoying reading them once again as I share them.

I am looking forward to reading them - one a day - for the next 15 days.

I hope you will come to love these ladies as much as I do.

I haven't read these in years so every night will be a special treat for me as I read and write.

It's not quite midnight so I am getting in under the wire.

The house is a wreck but I am going to bed tonight still basking in the glow of my one CLEAN room!!!