Throwback Thursday

Another "Blast from the Past" to deconstruct.

I think there are 10 or 11 candles on the store bought (yum) birthday cake (the pic is kind of grainy...it was taken in 1971 or 1972 after all, making it a bit difficult to pin down...love digital cameras). I seem to recall having those eyeglasses (what in the world was I thinking?) in sixth grade, so I was probably having my 11th birthday that day. I also have the straight (although you can see a corona of frizzy curls), parted-in-the-middle, long hair that nearly every girl in the 1970's sported (Marcia!, Marcia!, Marcia!).

As you can see by my dazzling white t-shirt, I was active in 4-H at the time and until I was in high school. I enrolled in the usual activities for a young girl: Baking (I was awarded decent ribbons...I do not care to bake much now as an adult), Sewing (I made a drawstring bag...did not get a stellar ribbon and still not a fan of sewing but wish I had paid better attention and had more discipline back then), Home Furnishings (I refurbished an antique frame and trunk...lots of time and elbow grease involved) and my favorite, Fine Arts (one of my drawings made it to the State Fair where it won a Reserve Grand Champion ribbon).

You can see my younger sister's arm in the picture. She would have her own birthday seventeen days later and between our birthdays would be another sister's birthday...can you say September Sugar Overload?

On the other side of the photograph, opposite my sister's arm, is the hindquarters of my birthday present. It is a Breyer Hereford Bull statue. That was the first of many Breyer cow/bull/calf statues I collected as a youngster. I believe I still have the bull somewhere but all other statues were given away through the years, post marriage...military moves do not lend themselves to the hoarding of collectibles (although Yam's Breyer Horse collection replaced my bovine one).

As you know, I like to look at the background of photographs. In this photograph, the wall behind me is minimally decorated. My mom always had a clock on the wall (you can barely see the bottom of it above me). It was a kit she purchased. The face of the clock was a cross stitch she had to sew before she assembled the clock. If I recall correctly, it was a battery powered clock. I wonder whatever happened to that clock? There is a round, ceramic plate on the wall that looks like it is a basket full of flowers. I do not know where my mom got that. Finally, on the wall you can see a small framed picture. I think it is a Currier and Ives winter scene containing a cabin of some sort. I can see why my mom would have liked that on the wall, she lived in a cabin in for a while as a girl in southern Indiana. She and my dad were married in a little log church also in southern Indiana.

I think it is interesting to see what people choose as "hang-worthy" on their walls. They are important enough to them that they hold special places within their homes.

This "deconstruction" has made me look again at what I have on my walls. I am currently happy with what is displayed upon my walls. I would not mind if they showed up in a photograph that may one day be scrutinized by someone like me and hopefully they would not give them cause to say, "What the heck was she thinking, hanging that on her wall?"

Now, what is piled upon my dining room and coffee tables at any given time is another issue altogether...