My Favorite Things

While some people sing along with Julie Andrews and declare that their favorite things are raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, my favorite things run more along the lines of learning new things, sharing that information with other people, organizing events and making memories. At a Civil War Reenactment, I get to do all of these things. Last weekend, family and friends met up at the Moorpark Reenactment to share food, fellowship and our love of history with others who attended the event. My husband and his fellow musicians who are in the Liberty Hill Band (yes, those same wonderful guys who play for our Civil War Balls) played their music near the battle field while the ladies of the Civilian Camp had a lovely tea party. The Saturday evening dance is one of the highlights of the event for the re-enactors. I always learn a new dance or two to bring home and share with my Civil War Ball group at home. Friends, music, history and dance… these are a few of my favorite things.

Curtains!

I remember watching the Sound of Music when I was a child. I loved the music, the story… the marionettes! But I was especially intrigued by the thought of Maria making play clothes for the children out of curtains. I thought about that as I took scraps of cloth to make clothes for my dolls. Later on, I saw the old classic, Gone with the Wind, and watched another resourceful lady make a velvet dress from curtains.

So when it came time for me and my daughters to move out of our bridesmaid and thrift store dresses into Civil War Ball gowns of our own, it was probably no surprise that, as we began to look for material, I thought of – curtains! The fabric is already trimmed, and as an added bonus, it was already hemmed too. My youngest daughter finished her dress this summer, and my girls and I wore our dresses to the Civil War Ball last weekend. So when it comes time for you to think about making your own ball gown, you might want to consider – curtains!

Who knows… maybe you’ll even get to meet Abraham Lincoln!

Old-Fashioned Fun

One of the books that I read this summer was entitled The Great Reset by Richard Florida, and in it, the author reviews the history of past economic declines and shares what he thinks the current economic situation will bring. He quotes a Gallup survey that said overall spending in the U.S. was down twenty percent in 2009. Florida says, “Although spending on tangible goods, especially luxury goods, is demonstrably down, consumers haven’t stopped spending completely. Some of the consumer power has been redirected toward more experiential purchases: travel, wellness and fitness, entertainment, self-expression and self-improvement. The creative class… will continue to seek out restaurants and cultural events, they will take their families kayaking and skydiving or on “volunteer vacations,” they will brew beer and start vegetable gardens and build furniture…”

This summer, our family looked to travel as a vehicle for making memories, and most of the things we did were plain, inexpensive, old-fashioned-fun activities. My daughters and I visited my mother in Missouri, and in my mother’s small town, there is a roller skating rink. So we gathered up cousins and other relatives and went skating! That evening, my sister barbequed chicken, and we watched as all the cousins caught fireflies. We ate my mother’s famous homemade cheesecake, and to finish up the evening, we gathered around the grand piano, and while my mother played, we all sang. I would rather have that day in my memory than anything that could be purchased in a store.