Sunday Morning at Home: Birds, Books, and Blossoms

We are in cleaning mode this week around here, and as I rummaged through the house, shifting stacks of books and rearranging the dust, I suddenly felt like taking photos, something I haven't done very much lately.  So here are a few peeks into our little world.  The roses above are well past their prime, and I finally plucked the blooms from the stems to dry in a saucer, but before I did, I couldn't resist capturing their faded sweetness.

A few of our books.  Up on the top left corner next to A Gentle Madness--which is a wonderful book about bibliophiles--is one of my very favorite books: a first American edition of J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy.  He first wrote the play Peter Pan, and then later wrote the novel Peter and Wendy.  Both are pure magic.  Now that I type this, I'm realizing that A Gentle Madness and Peter and Wendy were both gifts from my mother to Todd.  The woman knows how to shop for books!

Above is the front color plate in an early edition of Frances Hodgson Burnett's sweet volume, My Robin.  She is one of my favorite children's authors, so I was over the moon when Todd found this for me at a book market in London.

The rose petals after I plucked them.

A copy of Bright Wings, a new anthology of poems about birds, edited by Billy Collins.  I just picked this up at the Harvard Bookstore last week for a friend, but it's been sitting on my kitchen table for days.  This morning when I passed by the table, I noticed that Todd had placed my broken necklace on it for safekeeping.  I loved the way the necklace and the bird look side by side.

My first paperwhite bloom of the season!  It's leaning against a bowl of cacti for support, and it seems perfectly happy to be there.

Okay, these are probably angel wings, not bird wings, but they seemed to fit the theme.  I've collected antique keys for many years, and I like to leave bunches of them around the house, as if they could unlock whatever I need: doors, riddles, mysteries.  I often attach other trinkets and baubles to them, like these little vintage wings.  I have them hooked over the knob of my china hutch.

Remember the star of Bethlehem blossoms?  They're still going strong.  Today they found a home under the skylight, along with this sweet bluebird jam jar my friend Paula gave us for Christmas.  I think she found it at Anthropologie.  Does she know me or what?

Okay, so the house isn't looking much neater, but I find that the best part of cleaning days for me is revisiting some of my favorite things, seeing them fresh, and thinking about the people who gave them to me or the cool places where I found them.  I will never win any cleaning awards, or if I do, it will be something like World's Slowest Swiffer-er or Most Nostalgic Duster.  I can get lost in a pile of old cards or a shelf of books for hours.  It wasn't a productive day, but it was one of the best ones I've had in a long time.

Hope your weekend was sweet.  xo