Hanging In the Kitchen

So I've been awfully busy & distracted lately (see the last few posts), but I finally wanted to share some of the stuff we've hung up in the kitchen recently. And by "we" I mean my husband, except for the calendar.

First up is our groovy old cocktail clock.  This is as close as we get to family heirlooms around here, as this clock used to hang in the home of my husband's maternal grandparents, who lived in a retirement mobile home park in Cathedral City (a desert community next-door to Palm Springs).  According to my husband, his grandparents did it up right and lived the desert lifestyle to the hilt when they were active: golfing, tennis, themed dances, and highballs full of ice and amber liquor everyday around 5. 

The husband says that when he visited as a child, his grandparents made everyone in the family go for a "constitutional" around the gated community after dinner.  I've visited that mobile home park, back when his grandparents were still alive. It had lush green lawns and a golf course and clubhouse and well-maintained, tidy mobile homes with grapefruit and lemon trees and golf carts parked under their metal awnings.

One could do worse with one's retirement years. We had the clock hanging in our garage for a few years, but I decided it was time to come indoors. The husband fixed it up with a new mechanism and new hands, which look pretty exact to the originals.

Next up is the calendar. A calendar isn't a big deal, except that I really loved this one when I saw it in the Paper Source catalog at the end of last year.  I put it on my wish list...but with shipping, it would've cost about $40.  I dunno. That seems a lot to spend on a calendar. (What would our grandparents' generation have thought of such? My own grandparents always had free calendars from the insurance company hanging inside the door of the broom closet.)

Then in February, the new catalog had all calendars at 50% off. Sold!  I missed January, and it was still a bit over $20 (really, WHY was shipping $7?), but I do love the bright, bold seasonal graphics. Form over function, that's my middle name.

Over by the window is a print from Pocono Modern of vintage Pyrex bowls.  I was all stoked with myself for buying this, even before it got splashed all over lots of design blogs.

But I am not so stoked with myself for not buying the shop's Fiesta Ware print at the same time. Now the shop doesn't offer them, and I really need another print to share this wall.

My grandma owned a set of blue Pyrex bowls in a Dutch pattern. They got boxed up and, I presume, given away when she went into a nursing home a few years ago.  I would've claimed them, but I wasn't present at the time.  So I have this print of old Pyrex to remind me, and an old kitschy clock, but really I'd rather not have these things at all, and be able to reminisce and talk with those old folks again.  (My grandma is still alive, but in her own reality these days.)

And what of my own items, I wonder, will be considered retro and groovy to the young people someday? Our plastic Ikea cups, the red Williams Sonoma mixing bowls? It gives me pause, when I'm pondering another set of cute plastic summer stuff at Home Goods.

Linking up with Jules at Pancakes & French Fries for her William Morris series.