Eclectic, quirky, and sometimes edgy…this is how things look from my front porch.




Sunday, February 12, 2012

A Window Box...Finally

I think it must have been over twenty-five years ago when I read a book by Alexandra Stoddard in which she described her first apartment in New York City.  I was charmed to read that she had window boxes on the inside of her first little home.  If I remember correctly, she filled them with red geraniums at one point and also with blue hyacinths.  She had a tight budget at that time, but flowers were more important to her than lunch, which she would do without to buy the flowers.   Ever since then, I've had the idea of a window box hung on the inside of a window in the back of my mind.

You may recognize the window box as my Papa's tool box.  Before that, the tool box belonged to my grandfather, Jimmy Dunn.  Pop was an amazing man who used to dance with us standing on his feet.  He started out life as an orphan who worked in the mines in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania at age 7.  They liked to use young children as labor because their hands were small enough to reach into crevices where adult hands couldn't fit.  He went on to be his high school class valedictorian to college to graduate school to teaching to school administration.  He wrote and edited math textbooks.  He loved his wife dearly, his family, the children he taught, and ice cream.

I'm not too sure whether he got the paint on the tool box or my Papa, either one of them is fine with me. I also have my Pop's Scottie dog tie tack (all the rage during FDR's administration when Fala, his little Scottie, was in the news), a cool key and ring from The Owl Pub where he worked a second job to help put my mother and uncle through college, and his high school year book.

The window box is in my kitchen nook area.  The red glasses were a wedding present to Nana and Pop.  They look like juice glasses, but they were actually for wine. You can see the Art Deco influence on them. 

The wooden heart on the window is an odd thing.  I was walking my dogs on Sandpiper Drive one day and there were some wooden-handled kitchen tools, an amazing red checked apron with black cross stitching, and that heart in the gutter.  I guess they fell out of a garbage can on pick up day. 

When I saw the red tulips in Walmart last night, I had to put them in my new window box.  I must go, my dog's boyfriend is banging at the back door.  He wants to see Lulu and have a cookie, not necessarily in that order.