Blue Door Primitives

My parents live in a small village in southern Maine. One of the places I love in this quaint little village is an antiques/primitives place called The Blue Door. It is run by a husband/wife team and they actually make all the primitives themselves. They spend much of the time crafting their inventory and are only open a couple of days a week. I can actually never stop by to browse except for the weeks between Halloween and Christmas when they are open on Sundays.

So, this morning my mother and I went over to see what we could find. What we found was overwhelming...and delightful. I love going into places like this, mostly to look, as I don't have a big enough home to use most of what I see. All the same, I do have several small things (pillows, sachets, etc.) that I've picked up over the few years I've been stopping by. For example, I have one of the big dolls similar to what you see in the last photo sitting in an antique rocker in my living room. She keeps me good company =) No back talk!!!

They are gearing up for their Christmas open house next week right now so it's particularly beautiful... and delicious smelling as well. Every nook has some kind of potpourri or candle or centerpiece thing that has something to do with Christmas spice. Oooh! it was nice!

Every time we go there, we find something odd and/or interesting. Today, we saw a number of items with the words "Simplify" or "Simplicity" embroidered or painted on them. We thought it might be fun to get one and give it to my youngest sister who is having a difficult time right now simplifying her life.

Well, truth be told, so am I. There's no such thing as a simple life when you are involved with kids. There are too many layers. And the harder you try to understand them, the more frustrating...but many times rewarding...it becomes. Both my sister and I are neck-deep in kids, and therefore over our heads with responsibilities connected to the thing we love doing: teaching.