The pantry

For such a little house, I have a great deal of storage. 

From what I can figure out, Margaret, the first owner of my home, must have grown her own things on the property, because in the plans, she included a root cellar and a large pantry downstairs. She had plenty of room then because she owned most of the land surrounding the house, before it was sold off by future owners to other home builders, as the years went on.

Growing her own food makes sense, because from the information I've gathered about my town, there wasn't a full fledged grocery store in the area until after the house was built in 1930 or right about the same time. I'm sure there was a general store for supplies, but nothing like the Piggly Wiggly that came into town later on, but has since left.

She must have been a very busy bee as one of the first female lawyers in Arizona, much less the only woman lawyer in this town, and also taking care of the growing and canning of food, even if she did have help in the form of a maid and then later, her widowed sister.

She is what I would call a tough broad ;)

Did I mention she was 41 and single when this house was built?

The same age and status I was, when I bought it.

Anyway, in the post about my tiny mudroom, I showed you this picture of the stairs that lead down to the laundry room and my bedroom. Off of my bedroom is the root cellar, which is odd, but I guess since (I think) my room was the maids quarters, she wanted her to have access to it?

More questions I'll never have the answers to.

Anyway, there's also a good sized pantry right when you round the corner of these stairs.

I'm not going to show you the hallway down there just yet, because it's another project that I've yet to finish, but here's the door:

Before I show you the inside, let me just tell you that before I spent an entire day organizing it, it was a disaster.

No, I didn't take a before photo, but just picture an area that had extra stuff, like boxes of pictures, cans of food, candles, extra dishes, and miscellanies thrown into it for 5 years, because I was lazy didn't know what else to do with it and you'll have an idea.

Scary stuff!

Anywho, it's not one of those fancy pantries that you see on pinterest or other blogs, because really... it's a working area and don't need to make cleaning anymore difficult for myself. I just want to see what's available, "shop" from it, put away things with ease and get out.

Kinda like my own little store ;)

So here it is...

I have my stored food on one side, with vases lining the entire top and my holiday warming supplies below. 

On the other side is my ridiculous supply of candles, paper goods, extra plastic baggies, pop for Annie (I don't drink the stuff), a step stool and power cords.

Straight ahead, I have my extra set of dishes, wine and champagne glasses, serving platers and dishes, extra booze, and paper sacks.

You have no idea how fabulous it is to finally have all my holiday servers together, instead of the garage and upstairs in my other pantry, not to mention how nice it is to finally be able to see everything.

Yay me! ;)

Oh and totally off subject, but I want to leave you with a dose of pretty and then the reality, instead of just a boring pantry.

So here's the pretty:

And here's the reality:

Bubba wants to know when dinner will be ready ;)

xo
rue

A new day

I've been getting up earlier these days, but it hasn't always been that way.

After my last baby graduated high school, I slipped into getting up later.

 After raising both of them for the last 26 years, it seemed like a luxury.

And it was :)

But, in the last year or so, the little alarm clock in my head started ringing before the sun rose.

Especially in the winter.

We don't have daylight savings time here in Arizona, so the sun rises around 7:30 am in the winter and sometime around 5 am in the summer.

The benefit to waking up early is obvious...

A glorious sunrise I spotted the other day out my window.

Of course, I'm crazy and ran outside to take pictures of it in my pjs, while it was around 25 degrees.

The lady walking her dog was kind enough not to say anything ;)

I wasn't crazy enough to stay out there long, so I caught the rest of it from inside my warm little kitchen, while enjoying a cup of coffee, fresh from my percolator.

Soon the birds were chirping and I was outside once again pouring warm water in the birdbath to unfreeze it.

But in that moment before, with the blood red sky and no sound at all, it was glorious.

A new day.

With all the possibilities ahead of me.

Isn't it wonderful?

:)

xo

rue

Random wrap-up

  

So now that I'm almost, halfway, kind of done catching up with all of you and halfway through my New Year organization frenzy that I do every year, I thought I should post something.

I know the holidays are over, but I realized that I hadn't posted any pictures since the Christmas decor.

Yikes!

So, please forgive me for the late wrap-up.

First up...

My son, Alex, came for a visit.

He's in Military school to become a pastor, so he's taking advantage of the no hair rules or facial hair rules.

Obviously :p

My children love to ham it up for the camera.

Okay kids.... please just give mom one nice picture.

Never mind lol

We played scrabble that night.

and took the time to make cookies, before Alex had to head back.

For Christmas Eve, I made dinner at home and my tradition is that I always invite any friends that don't have family to eat with. This year it was just my friend Sharon, so there was only four of us. Sometimes it's up to ten people so as much as I love doing that for my friends, it was much more relaxing this year.

Christmas Morning...

Christmas day and evening was at my mom's house, but I didn't take pictures this year.

Oops!

Christmas cleanup...

On New Years Eve, we were going to have a pajama cocktail party, but we had a scare with Mini and we thought she'd have to have surgery, but she didn't, thank God, so it turned into a pajama party for three instead.

There's Sharon eating all the glorious food...

There may have been a few cocktails involved ;)

But Mini partied the most ;)

The next day we watched the rose parade and then everything went back to normal.

Well, except for this new weird thing that Bubba does with his front legs...

Silly boy :)

So that's it for the wrap-up.

Oh and one last thing...

Apparently it's "the thing" to come up with a word for the New Year.

So, even though I'm not a "thing" girl, I came up with one anyway.

My word is...

 restore.

Not just my house this time, but an all around restoration of myself.

I've been neglecting myself for a long time for the sake of my family and my home (I'm sure you ladies know what I mean ;) ) and although I'm glad I sacrificed myself for the better of little lives and my passion of old houses, I believe that it's time to start taking a little care of "me" too.

So I am and I feel better.

A lot better :)

Take care of YOU too, okay?

xo

rue

Every. single. day

If you are looking at blogs, magazines, Pinterest, and/or one of those others social media sites (that I pay no attention to) and it makes you feel bad about your home or somehow inadequate, you need to print this out and put it somewhere where you see it...

 every. 

single. 

day.

While I visited quite a few blogs over the holidays, I noticed the same theme that I've been seeing over and over since I've been back and really, right before I left...

"Well, I know my home isn't like so and so's blog, but I like it."

I'm guilty of it too, in a way.

For example, on my Christmas post I wrote: 

"Nothing exciting, since it's what I do every year in some way or another."

Yes. Yes, I did

Why would I write that?

Because I figured that most people that read these little pieces of our life in Blogland or my fellow bloggers expect...

Something grand.

Something new.

Something exciting.

Well, grand, new, and exciting, I'm not.

I know this about myself and I'm very happy this way.

Extremely happy with my little home, in fact :)

 But, just like a lot of you I looked at all those shiny new blogs that didn't exist before (or maybe did, but I wouldn't recognize them from the old days to save my life) and I thought "Why in the world would anyone want to see the same old thing that I do all the time?"

I posted for Christmas anyway, walked away from the computer, and went on with my holiday.

Happily, when I checked in afterwards, I was thrilled to see your wonderful comments about the fact that I have so many things that mean something to me.

Thank you so much for that :)

What I'm trying to say is that for Christmas or any other holiday, and in fact every single day, your home should be about what you love and you shouldn't have to apologize for it.

Ever.

 And neither should I.

And just like I suggested to all of you, I'm going to print out that little graphic and put it on my wall and look at it 

every.

single.

day.

I hope you do too :)

I'll be back soon with a holiday wrap-up, but for now I'll be answering comments back to all of you sweet friends that don't have blogs, and those sweet friends that do have blogs.

I'm so far behind!

Forgive me please.

Oh and I just have to say...

Hi to all my old RMS (HGTV's rate my space) friends that found me again!!

I missed you too and I'll be answering your emails ASAP :)

Love to all...

xo

rue