Houses of a few Grandmothers

I stopped by Kate's yesterday morning for the arrival of the presents. When the postman walked up to Kate's porch with two packages, she said, "Here comes Santa Clause!"

We were  like two little kids on Christmas morning opening the boxes and pulling out shower curtains for her beautiful claw-foot antique tub, a party-pink chandelier for her newly remodeled bathroom, and a multicolored one that will hang over the large dining table.

Here she is modeling one of the components of her sparkling gypsy-colored chandelier--as if they are giant earrings.

We've reached an age, we said, where anything goes!

Then I went to Cindy's house to talk about her writing and the upcoming Saturday retreat in Boerne.
Cindy's house, like Kate's, is cozy and colorful--a house of textures, photographs, and antiques collected over the years.  "Nothing matches," she says, "So everything does."

I remember when Mimi was about my age and she changed all her furniture.  I wondered how she could change the things she had had "all my entire life" of ten years.  Now I understand.  As Mike said, as we are changing we like to change our spaces.  It gives us a lift to create a new canvas that matches who we are now--like shiny gypsy-styled chandeliers, quilts for our beds and throws for old chairs, and whatever reflects the whimsy we want to live inside.

Gone are the old rules about what goes together, what matches what, or what works according to anyone else's plan. We're playing house now for our own pleasure.