Know in your heart you are loved. DT page for CSI 146

Hello there and welcome back to my blog.  

Today I’m sharing CSI challenge 146

I have always been a big fan of magenta with grey,

so I loved playing with these colours.

My Mother made all the dresses and she told me my dress was pale pink.

Any way, down to business.

Here is the image

Feel free to hop across to
CSI

to see what the DT have created for your inspiration

Would you like join in the challenge?

Then grab your forensic kits and let’s get sleuthing.

I added stamping and ink splats of sparkling H2O's 

The background is from 13@rts

The pale pink papers are by Maja

The metal title is from Tim Holtz.

The little circles of guipure lace were left over from my wedding veil.

The decorative scissors are from Scrapmatts

EVIDENCE

Stripes, (very faint, on the smallest mat)

Metal, the title and the brad

Fibres (the lace circles),

Something transparent

Decorative scissors

TESTIMONY

I went to the Journal Jar Prompt and chose to write about my most vivid memories of my childhood kitchen.  The journalling is on the back of the page and it reads:-

The kitchen in my childhood home was a huge room, perhaps 24 feet by 14 feet; big enough for a table to seat 12 or 14 people. It had a meat safe, a Koolgardie safe and a blackwood kitchen cupboard along one wall.  There was a cedar miner’s couch and floor bins to hold flour and sugar along another wall.   The wood stove burned all day, summer and winter and another small cupboard held a bucket of drinking water, which we carried in from the outside rainwater tank. 

It sounds rudimentary by today’s standards, yet it was a happy, welcoming place; a place where I felt safe and secure. 

Mum was always home when we walked in from school.  She cooked biscuits or scones for afternoon tea and there was a delicious smell of baking as we walked through the door.   She listened to our stories of the school day, never judging or chastising, just advising us to do our best.  She often said, “School days are the best days of your life”.  I never understood that, but then I was not forced, as she was,

to leave school after Grade Seven, in order to look after eight smaller siblings.  

My Mother cooked all our food from scratch, mostly lamb, vegetables and fruit we had grown ourselves, or bartered from the neighbours.  In summer we bottled peaches, apricots, plums and quinces.  Jams were made from these fruits too; dozens of jars of them, enough to last until next summer. Tomatoes were made into sauce and cucumbers into pickles and chutney. There was no air-conditioning, not even a fan and I remember hanging up wet towels at the front and back doors, to try to create a bit of a draught. 

After our evening meal and the washing up was done, the table was cleared so we could do our homework.  Mum sometimes sat with her hand sewing at one end.  Dad read the paper in his usual spot, whilst smoking his pipe filled with Dr. Pat’s tobacco.  Sometimes we played cards, with our favourite games being Canasta and Euchre. Often the floor standing, valve radio was switched on so we could listen to radio plays.  

In winter, we grouped around the wood stove, with the oven door open and toasted our toes, whilst Mum taught us to knit, crochet, darn socks and do fancy work, aka, embroider.   I was an absolute dill at fancy work - it didn’t take my fancy at all!  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the stitches neat and I spent more time unpicking than embroidering.

In winter, day old chickens were put to bed in the residue of the oven’s warmth, safely tucked up in a cardboard box. They had travelled 50 miles by train from Adelaide and were collected at the railway station.  They quickly grew and provided eggs.  Only at Christmas time, were one or two cooked and eaten; a rare and delicious treat.

Thinking about my childhood kitchen, has evoked a flood of smells and memories, of saying Grace, of minding my manners, of keeping my elbows tucked in, of waiting for everyone to finish eating before asking to leave the table, of thanking Mum for the meal, of petty squabbles with the sibling seated next to me and of a "clip around the ears" from Dad, if we argued about who's turn it was to do the dishes.

I’m left with a feeling of awe about the amount of hard work my Mother did, the lack of labour saving devices, the acceptance of her daily grind without complaint and woven through it all, the the blessed assurance, of my Mother’s unconditional love for me.  Journalling October 2014