Some of you with sharp eyes and a curious mind noticed my tray I was using while gobbling up those great meals my friends brought me while I felt puny a few weeks ago. Well, let me just fill you in. This wonderful tray was created one day several years ago when I was in a mood to decoupage everything in sight. Don’t you have days like that?
It’s covered with old letters my mother wrote to her mother when I was just a little girl living in Florala, Alabama and Slidell, Louisiana. Above: “She (me) wore her pink dress and her pink coat (that grandmother sewed for me) . . . . she carried her purse like she’d been carrying one all her life.” – oh, yes. What else did you expect?
The letters are so funny and of course are adorable and charming only to me and my mother.
This excerpt above says, “Leslie Anne is about to drive me crazy. You have to repeat whatever she says and comment on it. I can’t sit down for a minute without her being in my lap saying, “book, book, book” — she thought I wanted her to read to me, but I was trying to tell the woman I was going to grow up and write a book! No one ever listens to me. “Right now, she’s balanced on the arm of this chair saying, ooh-wee at all this pretty writing.” Early art appreciation.
“Leslie Anne is talking up a storm. She has to name everything she sees on TV or in the car, etc . . .”
I think this woman was out to get me — making up things like that to tell my grandmother! I never talked that much. Quiet as a mouse from what I remember. Anyway, isn’t a language-rich environment a sign of a little genius? (say yes).
And just a little note: I was too chicken to actually stick the real letters down, so I used copies and the originals are still in a safe treasure box.
In the background, behind the tray on my coffee table/trunk, is my great-grandmother’s (from Daddy’s side of the family) dough bowl and flowers from the yard. My mother just passed the bowl down to me this year, and I’ve filled it with Christmas ornaments, Mardi Gras beads, Easter eggs and now, just a collection of doo-dads and little guidebooks I love. The spooky dolls’ head is there, just to freak out my son, and . . . do you have Prince Albert in a can? This bowl is always a conversation point with everyone who comes to visit. I’ll probably fill it with seashells in a few weeks for summertime fun.
How will my children ever decoupage my text messages to anything?
Do you have any old letters? Where do you keep them?