First things first...We are truly blessed to have the means to set a pretty table and invite our friends to join us for good food and fellowship. I am mindful that many are not so fortunate. My daughter has a passion for the work of the Food Bank. As a singer-songwriter, she has written and recorded a song that is the anthem for the world wide Crop Hunger Walk project. Her song, "Raise Your Voice" is featured in their video. I've included a link in the side margin of my blog. I hope that it will encourage you to support projects in your community that contribute to the effort to overcome hunger.
Entertaining Women's first blog post was July 7, 2010. It's hard to conceive that I've been blogging my tablescapes for almost two years. I never dreamed that I would be "published" in any format. It was always my Aunt Ida's dream for me, and I think that she would be happy. I'm having even more fun with my blog today than when my daughter-in-love, Jamiann at THE BLACKBERRY VINE, graciously helped me figure out how to even start a blog. I look forward to my third year. I adore the many new blog buddies that I've come to care about, and I am humbled by your support and unending encouragement. Thank you seems so inadequate. I introduced my blogiversary give-away week before last...a set of 12 Mottahedeh "Sacred Butterfly" dinner plates. To read about it and learn how to be the winner, click HERE.
Father's Day at our house was pretty laid back this year. Although I had prepared to serve a Pork Tenderloin with appropriate trimmings, Sweet Mister requested that we make breakfast for lunch, and that's what we did right after we returned home from church...an old fashioned breakfast of Dirty Scrambled Eggs, Toast and English Muffins, Crisp Bacon, cold milk, and orange juice. We were a small group of five, so I created my table for Sweet Mister at the games table in the living room. I wanted it to be masculine and pay homage to family.
Come on in, I'll give you a tour de la table.
To keep a decidedly masculine flavor, I started with a woven tweed tablecloth that I made. The
Williams-Sonoma "Flax" hemstitched linen napkins picked up the taupe in the cloth's color mix. Soft colors were added by simply placing a hydrangea from our garden on each napkin...just enough without becoming too foo foo.
One of my go-to white patterns, I always enjoy using the Wedgwood "Countryware" dinner plates. The antiqued copper service plates were a great get at an estate sale. They've already been pressed into service a number of times. The everyday Mikasa "French Countryside" goblet was just the right size for a big ole glass of ice cold milk.
Keeping color to a minimum, I chose the L'Argent "Sophia" flatware, bought from Tuesday Morning and Horchow. Horchow still has this pattern listed on their website. It is available in a number of lovely colors.
I had fun creating my centerpiece, with an emphasis on family memories. I used baby shoes to create my mood. These black leather high top button baby boots belonged to my mother-in-love. She wore them in 1919. The anchor of my design was the Wedgwood "Patrician" tureen and under plate, an eBay find. Green garden Hydrangeas perched on a trio of Lenox creamware urns. Tip: These urns are a good example of the importance of waiting and watching items on eBay before deciding to bid. There is currently a pair of these listed with an auction asking price of $125.00. I bought mine for about $25.00 each at estate sales and on eBay. Take Your Time!
The red cowboy boots were...mine! I wore them when I was two years old. I made Sweet Mister a father, after all.
The white leather soft-sole high tops belonged to KC....who will have her first baby and make Sweet Mister a grandfather in September! We're all eagerly waiting for the arrival of Beatrice Emmaline! Little Honey B will be our third grandchild. Our son and daughter-in-love are the parents of our two beloved grandsons, Haden and Jack.
Cards and gifts were placed on the refectory table. I added a framed photo that we have of Sweet Mister's daddy. His daddy was 7 years old in this photo, 1925, and he grew up in Portland, Oregon. I never knew him. He passed away when Sweet Mister was 13 years old. The three silver pieces lying next to the photo belonged to Sweet Mister's father and to my daddy. Left to right: the sterling cigarette case and flask were carried by Hal's father during WWII. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge with Patton. The sterling cigarette case on the right belonged to my daddy, who fought in the Battle at Salerno Beach. He was a combat engineer. It was given to him after WWII by my Aunt Ida. She bought it while stationed in Tokyo, Occupied Japan, as an intelligence officer after the war.
I adore this photograph. Sweet Mister told me that is a salmon.
It was a sweet memorable celebration. We had a ball talking about all the shoes! Do you have old baby shoes stashed away some place in your house?
Thank you, yet again, to Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for hosting her magical meme, Tablescape Thursday. I'll be linking my post to "TABLESCAPE THURSDAY." Hop on over and check out the myriad of marvelous tablescape designs, after 10:00 AM on Thursdays. You'll be glad that you made the trip...it's a wonderful adventure.
When I think of June, I think of lazy summer days and time to share a meal with friends. How about you? With thankfulness for her dedication and efforts, I'm joining the multi-talented Tablescaper for her fabulous meme SEASONAL SUNDAYS. Hope to see you there!
When I think of June, I think of lazy summer days and time to share a meal with friends. How about you? With thankfulness for her dedication and efforts, I'm joining the multi-talented Tablescaper for her fabulous meme SEASONAL SUNDAYS. Hope to see you there!
Wednesday evening is the fifteenth edition of Cuisine Kathleen's meme, "LET'S DISH". So excited to be a charter member. Pop over (pun intended for the Chef Supreme Kathleen) and join the fun!
It's always a treat to learn something new when I go exploring in blog land. Tonight I'm excited to join Yvonne @ Stone Gable for her new meme, TUTORIALS, TIPS, & TIDBITS. Bring your notebook...there's so much to learn!
It's always a treat to learn something new when I go exploring in blog land. Tonight I'm excited to join Yvonne @ Stone Gable for her new meme, TUTORIALS, TIPS, & TIDBITS. Bring your notebook...there's so much to learn!
You can check out KC's music at www.kcclifford.com, on iTunes, and on YouTube. I hope that you'll take a few minutes and give her a listen. You'll also enjoy reading back through her blog on this site. The girl can really write! KC has just released her 5th studio CD project, "The Tag Hollow Sessions". The sold out CD release concert was this past weekend. "The Tag Hollow Sessions" is available on iTunes or through her website. I hope that you'll give her music a chance. I know that I have zero objectivity where she is concerned, but I think that you'll fall in love with her music and her!
Memorable Father's Day
Guest blogger Deborah Brake, Professor of Law and Distinguished Faculty Scholar, University of Pittsburgh School of Law
This June marks the 40th anniversary of one of our greatest civil rights laws, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which banned sex discrimination in federally-funded education programs, including extracurricular activities at schools and colleges. Title IX's big birthday party falls on an Olympic year, so we can expect that this year, sports commentators will make the connection between America's female Olympic champions and the law that opened up athletic opportunities for them. Few laws prompt such anniversary celebrations, and there is good reason for Title IX's special place in popular culture as a "super statute"-the kind of law that shifts cultural norms and has a transformative impact on society.
Title IX is best-known for its impact on sports, but it covers many kinds of sex discrimination in all aspects of education programs, including sexual harassment, the treatment of pregnant and parenting students, access to opportunities in nontraditional fields like math and science, and sex-separate programming based on gender stereotypes. In fact, when the legislation was enacted in 1972, athletics was the last thing on the minds of the legislators who voted for it.
Much of the congressional testimony centered on opening up academic opportunities to women. At the time, women were commonly expected to structure their lives around marriage and domestic life and so they were often excluded from graduate and professional schools. In 1971, even a public undergraduate institution like the University of Virginia restricted admission to men only. Buoyed by the women's movement, supporters of Title IX sought to help women get the skills and education they needed to participate as equals in economic and professional life.
But Title IX also sparked a revolution in girls' and women's sports by forging an unusually creative measure of equal opportunity, one more concerned about substantive equality than mere formal equality. As a result, we have gone from 1 in 27 high school girls playing varsity school sports in 1971, the year before Title IX's passage, to nearly half of all girls today playing high school varsity sports.
The law also ushered in massive growth in women's sports at the college level, from 30,000 female intercollegiate athletes in 1971 to about 165,000 today. There are several reasons why Title IX has been so successful in expanding participation in women's sports, but the main one is the law's refusal to put a ceiling on women's sports opportunities based on what seems like fixed or "natural" interests in sports. For example, as one court recognized in a landmark Title IX case:
"Interest and ability rarely develop in a vacuum; they evolve as a function of opportunity and experience. … Rather than providing a true measure of women's interest in sports, statistical evidence purporting to reflect women's interest instead provides only a measure of the very discrimination that is and has been the basis for women's lack of opportunity to participate in sports."
Perhaps the biggest cause for celebration on this anniversary is that we have managed to hold onto these gains, at times, against long odds. Since the law's passage, detractors of women's sport have sought to derail the law's application to athletics. Others have tried to vilify Title IX by saying that the law is responsible for cutting opportunities for male athletes. Yet, since Title IX was enacted, male sports participation has increased for the most part, both at the high school and collegiate levels.
The success of Title IX comes from its ability to change cultural norms to build strong public support for girls and women in sports. But this doesn't mean it hasn't faced attacks. During the George W. Bush Administration, Title IX's legal standards were on the chopping block. President Bush and his Secretary of Education set up a "Blue Ribbon" commission to reexamine the law and stacked it with some vocal critics of the law and officials from Division I-A powerhouses. At the time, Dennis Hastert - a former wrestling coach long on a mission to roll back the clock on Title IX - served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Republican-controlled Congress appeared hospitable to trumped-up charges of "reverse discrimination" and "quotas" linked to a civil rights law. Despite this bleak outlook, Title IX advocates, including commissioners Julie Foudy and Donna de Varona, managed to beat back the assault and keep the law substantially intact.
Recently, there has been a spate of OCR complaints and court challenges citing unequal participation opportunities and treatment of girls' sports at the elementary and secondary level. For example, we are still seeing countless complaints of poor coaching for girls and inferior facilities that put girls at risk of sprained ankles from playing on poorly maintained, non-regulation fields, while boys play in brand new state-of-the-art facilities.
In an Indiana case decided earlier this year, the court found that the common practice of always scheduling boys' high school basketball games in the prime-time slots of Friday and Saturday nights, while relegating the girls' games to school nights, reinforced the second class status of the female players. Such discrimination in scheduling remains common, and creates academic conflicts for girls who have to balance homework with games while suppressing their spectatorship. These cases show the continuing relevance of Title IX and the need for stepped-up enforcement efforts, even as we celebrate and remember the law's gains.
Much work remains to be done to reach full equality. But even so, Title IX has shifted cultural norms and changed societal expectations about gender. The strong, powerful, hard-hitting, competitive female athlete has gone from being a "tomboy" to an iconic ideal. Athletic success is now a path to popularity and leadership for girls as well as boys. This is important stuff that can later affect a woman's later job success and her health in adulthood. Most importantly, through sports, women learn important lessons about competition, teamwork and leadership- lessons that are as important for girls as they are for boys.
For a comprehensive look at Title IX's successes, limitations and disappointments, see Deborah Brake's new book, Getting in the Game: Title IX and the Women's Sports Revolution (NYU Press 2010), which was just released in paperback (and is available at amazon.com).
Title IX Turns 40
First things first...We are truly blessed to have the means to set a pretty table and invite our friends to join us for good food and fellowship. I am mindful that many are not so fortunate. My daughter has a passion for the work of the Food Bank. As a singer-songwriter, she has written and recorded a song that is the anthem for the world wide Crop Hunger Walk project. Her song, "Raise Your Voice" is featured in their video. I've included a link in the side margin of my blog. I hope that it will encourage you to support projects in your community that contribute to the effort to overcome hunger.
Entertaining Women's first blog post was July 7, 2010. It's hard to conceive that I've been blogging my tablescapes for almost two years. I never dreamed that I would be "published" in any format. It was always my Aunt Ida's dream for me, and I think that she would be happy. I'm having even more fun with my blog today than when my daughter-in-love, Jamiann at THE BLACKBERRY VINE, graciously helped me figure out how to even start a blog. I look forward to my third year. I adore the many new blog buddies that I've come to care about, and I am humbled by your support and unending encouragement. Thank you seems so inadequate. I introduced my blogiversary give-away last week. To read about it and learn how to be the winner, click HERE.
CUISINE KATHLEEN issued an "At the Beach Challenge" for this week's meme, "Let's Dish." It didn't take this prairie lady long to realize that I didn't have a single shell, lighthouse, beach ball, beach towel, etc. in my stash of supplies for tablescaping. "Adrift in a China Sea" (pun intended) is probably a stretch, but I had a good time digging through drawers to create my entry for Kathleen's blog party.
The color story would be paramount for my tablescape today. I needed to establish a vision of water and sand...
After using one of the flip-top tabletops to extend the 48" games table to 60", I chose a light teal/aqua matelasse quilt to use as my tablecloth...the color of sea and sky... ✓. Tip: If you check the dimensions of quilts, coverlets, even duvets, you can often find a king size piece that is almost a square shape. They are generous enough to be used as a floor length cloth. I use duvets frequently, and they are often reversible with a different pattern on the other side...double duty. Give it a try!
I remembered that I had ordered these wonderful textural cloths, made in the Philippines, from Christine at CHRISTINE'S HOME & TRAVEL ADVENTURES. She had used them in one of her
tablescapes, and I was pleased to learn that she had some extras available in her shop. When I placed them on my table, I was thinking about sand, sand dunes, and sea grasses...and strolling for miles down the beach searching for treasures tucked here and there...
...like sand dollars. Remember that I told you that I didn't have any shells...well, I didn't. I did, however stumble across an unopened box of soaps in one of the guest baths that looked like sand dollars. Shells...✓. ...
...or a box of pirate's treasure! The malachite box belonged to our precious Nana. I looked for my roll of pearls from Michael's, but I couldn't find it, so I used my strand of pearls that once belonged to mama. I did finally remember the Nell Hill's mother of pearl spoon with a shell handle. Found treasures... ✓.
Now, it's important to stay hydrated when exploring the beach....right? I've had this Japanese brass teapot for many years. It belonged to my beloved Aunt Ida. It normally lives in the kitchen.
The large antique bronze bowl was found at the same estate sale that produced the 12 Mottahedeh "Sacred Butterfly" dinner plates that will go to the winner of my give-away. The bowl is one of my new/old favorite things. I filled it with hydrangeas from our garden for my centerpiece.
My place setting continues the color story of the sea. The blue and white rice bowl and under plate were estate sale finds.
The antique Imari chargers belonged to my Aunt Ida. She was an intelligence officer stationed in Tokyo after World War II. She bought a number of antiques during the years that she lived there. I am blessed to care for them.
I used the Mottahedeh "Sacred Butterfly" because it reminded me of deep sea coral, and because I wanted to remind you to 1. follow me, and 2. leave comments on this post as well as archived posts between now and July 7. The more comments, the better your chance to win a set of 12 of these beautiful plates! The antique carved ivory flatware reminded me of the orient. The napkins were an eBay purchase, and the Waverly napkin rings were a give away prize from our "Let's Dish" hostess, Cuisine Kathleen.
I admire the simple, clean lines of the two goblets chosen for today's table. I paired the Rosenthal "Iris" clear crystal stem with the Vietri Smoke optical goblet. The Vietri is currently available on the market. I've really enjoyed using them in a number of different designs. Check them out at a store in your area. For nice crystal, they are not too expensive at about $20.00 per stem. I've collected them one or two at a time.
I would love to have you join me. We can sit at my table and dream of sea, sand, and sky...far away places and found treasures. Sounds like the perfect way to spend a summer day.
Thank you, yet again, to Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for hosting her magical meme, Tablescape Thursday. I'll be linking my post to "TABLESCAPE THURSDAY." Hop on over and check out the myriad of marvelous tablescape designs, after 10:00 AM on Thursdays. You'll be glad that you made the trip...it's a wonderful adventure.
When I think of June, I think of lazy summer days and time to share a meal with friends. How about you? With thankfulness for her dedication and efforts, I'm joining the multi-talented Tablescaper for her fabulous meme SEASONAL SUNDAYS. Hope to see you there!
When I think of June, I think of lazy summer days and time to share a meal with friends. How about you? With thankfulness for her dedication and efforts, I'm joining the multi-talented Tablescaper for her fabulous meme SEASONAL SUNDAYS. Hope to see you there!
Wednesday evening is the fourteenth edition of Cuisine Kathleen's meme, "LET'S DISH". So excited to be a charter member. Pop over (pun intended for the Chef Supreme Kathleen) and join the fun!
It's always a treat to learn something new when I go exploring in blog land. Tonight I'm excited to join Yvonne @ Stone Gable for her new meme, TUTORIALS, TIPS, AND TIDBITS. Bring your notebook...there's so much to learn!
It's always a treat to learn something new when I go exploring in blog land. Tonight I'm excited to join Yvonne @ Stone Gable for her new meme, TUTORIALS, TIPS, AND TIDBITS. Bring your notebook...there's so much to learn!
You can check out KC's music at www.kcclifford.com, on iTunes, and on YouTube. I hope that you'll take a few minutes and give her a listen. You'll also enjoy reading back through her blog on this site. The girl can really write! KC has just released her 5th studio CD project, "The Tag Hollow Sessions". The sold out CD release concert was this past weekend. "The Tag Hollow Sessions" is available on iTunes or through her website. I hope that you'll give her music a chance. I know that I have zero objectivity where she is concerned, but I think that you'll fall in love with her music and her!
Adrift On a China Sea
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