Today I took a look at another blog I was going to keep going but got to be honest with myself this is not going to happen I am still way too busy to do more than I am. I read some of the posts again and really do not want to lose them so decided to cut and past before I delete the other blog. I did not get to do much on that one anyway so this is a cut and paste job which I should have put in the beginning of this blog! Oh begin at the beginning a few months down the track!
Back in November 2008 almost a year ago, these were my thoughts!
Over the last months I have had so many thoughts of changing my life to enable me to focus on those things that are more precious and more important than all else. I want to have more time to enjoy my home and family and more time to spend on my creative urges and remove as much stress out of my life as I can. This is not going to be easy and it is going to take some months, perhaps as much as a year to arrive at the place that is in my mind now! I do have another blog where I record my day as a travel agent and you can read about it here so this one is for the future, for my new life I am going to build. It will always be a bit of travel as I cannot take this out of me but it is going to have more art and craft, more home life, more about my family and me and more about the good fortune I have had in my life from the influence of two amazing women, my Grandmothers. Let me describe them.
Edna
Edna Annie was the eldest child, born in 1905 in a small country town not far from Ballarat, to parents who were chasing music careers. My Great Grandparents I am sure were dreamers who had been brought up with privilege and were often not that practical in the early days, which I am sure helped to shape my Grandmother into the strong and practical matriarch she became. Nana lived for over 80 years; her life came to a tragic end when she was killed by a hit and run accident. She was still a tall strong woman and a very capable one who was still helping her family and community and still self sufficient. Her influence on my life has been profound and not a day goes by for me when her memory is not alive so successfully did she train me!
Today we have brought back the 'vintage' into vogue and I am sure I can here her chuckle. Every craft magazine, every craft blog and every Martha Stewart show with recycle, vintage and retro segments and articles I read and view seem to be a rewind of Edna! (with a touch of Vera May but more of her later) Make you own soap! Edna was doing it most of her life. Make your own gift wrap well Edna was famous for recycling gift wrap and ties. Turn an old pair of jeans into a skirt well Edna had mastered the art of revamping clothing before she was out of her teens! I remember as a teenager in the sixties wanting to have the latest swinging Carnaby Street or Bonnie and Clyde 'Sharpie' fashions and Nana would be able to find a piece she had put away that could be adapted to help me out. She was real twenties girl and rising hemlines did not upset her in the way it upset my parents.
Writing about Nana is going to be hard because I have so much on her and there is so much of here around my home. I have her hand-written recipe book started more than 80 years ago and her mother's treadle sewing machine that she also used with drawers stuffed with her notions, the club chairs she had are in the family room much loved, I use one of her glass mixing bowls and some of her baking trays and there are some special pieces of clothing in my wardrobe. I guess you could say I am a hoarder but there is no way I could discard these things as all are used and are practical items. The best way I have decided to record her memory will be to take a day as it comes and post in my blog her recipes as I use them or read them and post the things she taught me as I find myself recalling them. Edna was my paternal Grandmother and if I was not staying with her during school holidays I would almost always be with my maternal grandmother Vera.
Vera
Vera Ethel was born in 1906 and as one of 14 children had no option but to grow up being frugal and with a strong need to hand it down and pass it on recycle and reuse and find a good use in what ever it was she had around. Waste not want not is such a good way to describe her but as a family we would often comment when she could not be found that Mumma 'was out digging up rabbits' (and she could have been doing just that!) Mumma had strong words to say on what she thought was right and what was wrong and I do not recall ever discussing Carnaby Street with her! In fact her influence on me came about before I turned 11. Once I became a teenager it was not a passage of life that she could grasp and it was my Grandfather that then stepped in. Vera died suddenly in 1980 when she collapsed under the clothes line as she would still working flat out (though most in the family were not sure what she was doing much of the time) She was practical, yes she was but at times her timing was not! One could find Mumma cutting up fruit picked up after a windfall from where ever she had been (over the fence quite often) for jam when she should have been dressing to go out and that included times of great importance such as one of my Auntie's weddings. Mumma left you very much to your own devices and expected you to bring yourself up as fast as one could because once you were out of nappies that was it as far as she was concerned apart from two things close to her heart. After evening meals and before going to bed she would organise a lesson in needlework. the kitchen table would be cleared and my Grandfather would be reading lessons or marking books or taking notes as he did of his day's work as a teacher and school inspector and I would be sat on the stool with cushions next to Vera while she instructed me in stitching. I did not really see her use this skill on articles around the house though I do remember she made some flash peg bags. These lessons were the same she gave to the primary school students she taught needlework to. The other thing was her commitment to the Women's Christian Temperance Union which meant she would pack each grandchild off to camp to learn the evils of alcohol for our twelfth birthdays only to find much to her horror that we would shortly after have our Confirmation and take altar wine and so she would refuse to attend! More of that story in another post.
Although this blog is about Edna's and it is true here influence was greater on me than any other woman, Vera my maternal Grandmother has a lot to answer for! I would like to record some of that in this blog it makes a lot of sense and the two women knew each other though I do not think they did more than tolerate each other for the sake of family! It was not a friendship as I recall!
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