She Remembers...

THIS red wall shelf is something that I hadn't been able to find since we moved here.

At our other house it hung on the wall on the back porch.

My dad gave it to me some time in the 1990's. Not as a 'gift' or anything, he just handed it to me and said, "I thought of you when I saw this."

He found it at a garage sale. It appears to have been someone's school shop project, as it has a name hammered on the back like shop projects of yore.

Now, YOU know me as someone who delights in strange things like this. But, in the 1990's? Not so much.

For years I pondered what my dad meant when he said that he thought of me when he saw it. It even came up in conversations between THGGM and me (what do you think he meant, he 'thought of me' when he saw it?). Like on loooong car trips and such.

In the 2000's when we painstakingly wallpapered the kitchen and back porch in a lovely pale red/blue/yellow on white plaid I remembered this and actually found where I had kept it. It was PERFECT! I LOVED it! And there it hung until we moved. That was more than three years ago, and I cannot recall seeing it since then.

This year I found a narrow red shelf that I hung up in this kitchen (the kitchen that will require painstakingly difficult wallpaper removal) and thought how lovely this shelf would look with it.

But I could not find it. Anywhere. I could find all the cobalt blue bottles, tin lunch pails, and baby spoons which where on the porch at that same time. We had unpacked and found everything else that had been missing since we moved. Even the red velvet roses.

Have you been reading here much? (i have no idea who reads my blog. seriously.)

Well, if you have you will understand the significance of 'the rest of the story'.

In the middle of this month Daughter pulled into the driveway for lunch just as a large hawk swooped across my driveway. When I let her in her comment was "Did YOU see the hawk? I think Grandpa's just been here." And we laughed about it.

The top shelf of my hallway linen closet holds a myriad of decor. Earlier in the week I had looked through that closet looking for a white pitcher - which I found waaay in the back. While I was standing on a stool I gave the linen closet a good looking-over to see what else might be there that I could use for Christmas. Later that night I was seriously reprimanded by THGGM for standing on a stool (bad bad things have happened to me when standing on stools). Normally, I cover my tracks better than that.

Anyway.., back to my story..,

What I did notice on the top shelf were five or six candlesticks with dozens of small gold balls where the candles should go. I didn't have need for the candlesticks this year, but I could use a few more gold balls, so I went back to the top shelf of the closet (this time just reaching, not using a stool - i'm growing wiser with time) and as I was reaching up to grab a few of the ornaments what should happen, but the red shelf - pictured above - fell out of the cupboard and landed on my head.

It would be impossible for me to describe the feelings that went along with that. Except to say, it seemed my dad was telling me "I thought of you when I saw this."