Hopeful Homemaker

Addicted.

July 23, 2011 jennifer Happy Finds

After a trip to the Balboa Candy store in early June, my mom placed a package of C. Howard’s Violet mints in my hand. My brother had told me his wife really likes them and my mom thought I might, too.

The first one I tasted reminded me a little bit of… soap. I tried a second one and this time the taste was more flowery, like tasting a piece of lavender. I noticed that they really cleansed my palate, like ginger. By the end of the package (which came far to soon) I was hooked.

A little research taught me that these mints were first marketed in the 1930’s and the recipe is still the same. I love the silver and violet colored wrappers, the shape of them, everything. When we visited Balboa Island ourselves a week later I took my kids to the Balboa Candy store.

Don’t you love that sign?

All the children chose a treat and I got mints. C. Howard’s also makes violet gum, which we tried. The wrapper made me smile. The advertisement that it “refreshes after eating, smoking or drinking” is certainly reminiscent of times now gone. I’m really not a gum person so I prefer the mints but my husband liked the gum a lot. We also got a pack of the lemon mints but my children ate them so fast I have no pictures.

Now I’m all stocked up on my favorite mints. Yum.

Hopeful Homemaker

Because the sky was on fire

July 22, 2011 jennifer Musings on Life and Beauty

because I love sunsets, because they remind me of my Grandpa, and because it was breathtaking.

The end.

Jennifer

The Carrot Seed and Old Windows

July 21, 2011 jennifer Children's picture books, Decorating

One of my all-time favorite childrens books is a little one written in the 1950’s. The carrot seed by Ruth Krauss is an absolute treasure. It tells the simple story of a boy who plants a carrot seed, then waters it diligently and carefully weeds around it while his entire family looks on telling him “it won’t come up.”

But he doesn’t quit. He continues to tend his seed patiently until one day…

I love this story. I love reading it to my children. It speaks of acting in faith, believing in yourself when others don’t, of the law of the harvest. I have also dreamed for years of somehow hanging this book in my home as a reminder to us all. I hesitated, however, worried about the number of picture frames it would take.

Last year a friend gave us a beautiful set of two old windows. Painted a beautiful butter yellow, they each have six panes. One day the light went on in my head and I rushed to my copies of The Carrot Seed to count pages. Sure enough, I could do it. It took two copies of the book (purchased years ago from Scholastic for 99 cents each).

I cut the binding off the books and carefully taped the pages to the backs of the windows. And now, on two old windows, we have the entire story hanging in the toy room. It makes me smile to peek in and see the children reading it while they play. Exactly what I hoped for.

A simple way to hang an entire book, and the windows add character and interest to the room. Most importantly, we’re reminded daily to keep working on those good seeds we’ve planted in life. Eventually they will come up.

Jennifer