Whispering Horn: Thrift shopping - Baking Bread and some Irish history

Hi everyone!

Hope your week gone by was a good one!

Mine was pretty good.

The weather here in Virginia was terrific! Sunshine. Temperatures in the fifties and sixties.

Right now, as I write this, we've got some wind and much colder temperatures.

On Saturday, we hung out the bird pies we had made for the birds last weekend. I kept them in the fridge all week waiting for my little granddaughter to come back over.

With the wind blowing as hard as it was on Sunday, I really didn't expect any birds. But looking out the window there were chickadees and other small birds eating. They would perch on the little pie tins and eat away. A lot visited the standing feeder too. These are right outside my living room window so it was great to sit on the couch and watch them.

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On Saturday, I had to take the trash to the dump and I wanted to go to the Rescue Mission thrift store in Roanoke. I love thrifting.

For Lent this year, one of the things I'm doing for me personally is removing 10 items per day from my space on each day of Lent. At the end, that will be 400 items. Of course, some days it will be papers and magazines and stuff like that. But still!

The spiritual side of Lent is private for me, but I am doing a lighting of white candles daily. The removal of the items. And continuing with my evening journaling.

So with what I am doing with Lent, I had to be very careful while out thrifting. I decided I would only purchase something and bring it into the house if I truly loved it.

I did look in their Christmas decor for next years piece to my Christmas village. I build it yearly with a "new" piece I've found at a thrift store. Didn't find anything today.

I saw a wall hanging I did love, but I didn't buy it because I simply had no where to hang it.....

isn't it great????

I did decide to purchase the prettiest candle holder, a painting I adored and a wicker pink basket which will be the one I use to keep my daughters letters to me in when she sends them next month. (Pink is her favorite color so it was simply perfect)

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On Sunday, I took a shower and put clean pajamas on! My favorite thing to do on the weekend. Did not leave home at all.

Started my morning with some beautiful deer hanging out in the backyard.

Spent some time puttering around the house. Watched some YouTube channels I love, took a nap, did some laundry, read for a long time.

And then I decided it was time to make some bread.

I decided on two loaves of yeast bread and 2 mini loaves of rosemary bread.

The kneading and the ritual of making bread is very relaxing to me, makes me think of times gone by when people just did not have a local grocery store to buy bread when they needed it.

The way the house smells as they are baking is truly divine!

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I finally started a sourdough starter.

I have never successfully made one and used it to make sourdough bread.

When I've tried it before, I used a glass mason jar.

This time, I decided to use a crystal biscuit jar that had belonged to my grandmother many years ago. When she passed, I brought it home and it has sat on a shelf near my dining room table ever since.

I think it's going to be perfect!!

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While the bread was rising today, I watered all the plants and then decided I wanted to repot one and plant some rosemary seeds.

Plant story...

More than twenty years ago, I had a huge Christmas cactus. It was in a large floor stand and stood by the sliding glass door I had at the time.

We had two black labs that did not get along. So we had to be very watchful and keep them separate.

Every now and then they would cross paths and a wrestling and growling match would begin. As you can imagine, the dogs were big so the furniture would be in jeopardy.

This particular time, the dogs began to fight in earnest. It was terrible. My son grabbed the closest thing to him to toss to make a big noise to try to startle them apart. Well, he grabbed this entire plant and plantstand. It landed on the opposite side of the room that the dogs were in but it did startle them long enough for us to get them to different areas of the house.

Meanwhile, my poor, beautiful cactus was in pieces around the living room.

I was able to save part of the plant. But for twenty years, even tho its healthy, it had never bloomed again.

I have half of the plant at work on my desk...

And the other half sits on the large tub edge in my bathroom...

And guess what?

First time in more than twenty years, it bloomed.

Only one but how beautiful I found it to be!

♥♥♥

With St Patrick's Day approaching, I thought I'd share a bit of Irish family history that I do know.

My maternal grandfather, who raised me until I was 8 years old (he passed away that year) was born in Canada.

His parents, my great-grandparents had immigrated there and then later, they immigrated to the United States.

My great grandfather was Cyril Grace Pettitt and he was born in Windsor England.

His wife, my great grandmother was Theresa Sullivan.

I found out many years later that was not her birthname.

She was born in Ireland. In the late 1800's

Her family was extremely poverty stricken and they had a lot of children.

They had to make a heartbreaking decision to save their family from starvation and they gave up some of their children for adoption. It was the only way they could survive.

I cannot even imagine the choice this was for them.

Grandmother was five when she was given up for adoption, along with a number of her other siblings.

My mother had her original birth certificate and her name was

Nellie O'Connel.

She married her husband, they immigrated to Canada. Her two children were born there and then later, they immigrated to the US. They settled in Rochester, New York.

Her husband passed when my mother was two years old.

But she was still here when I was a child and preteen.

In this photo, these are both of my maternal great grandmothers and that's me in front.

The one on the right was Grandmother Pettitt as I called her.

Known as Theresa Sullivan before marriage but known as Nellie O'Connel at birth. Fully Irish.

Theresa Sullivan was raised by British parents and she never spoke of her Irish heritage, but being five years old at her adoption, she most likely had memories from what happened.