SepiaSaturday...My Grandmother's Fur Coat

It's been awhile for Sepia Saturday to make a Saturday post here on CollectInTexas Gal.  However, in this coming New Year with a renewed interest in my Family History Blogs, it's back. 


For this first Saturday in January the 'Photo Prompt' features a model wearing the latest style of winter wear from coat, to gloves, to heels.  Notice, as well, the two boys. 


They appear to be not quite so well fitted in their perhaps hand-me-down over coats, baggy short pants and sagging socks.  Just guessing, but I'd bet this photo shoot picture did not make the cut for the models coat advertisement.


But, look, it made it's way to Flickr and now to CollectInTexas Gal and my Grandmother's Fur Coat.

In 1952 my Grandmother Estella from Anchorage, Alaska, came to Texas primarily to visit her Texas children and grandchildren...and probably to get away from the Alaska winter.  It had been close to thirty years since she had been to Texas in January, so it was only natural that she arrived in her accustomed Alaska attire including a 'Fur Coat' the likes of which we had never seen.

Everyone took turns modeling the 'Fur Coat', including my Dad.  In the high style of Texas, he donned his Stetson, tucked grandmothers clutch purse under his arm and stepped up on a platform in his Tony Lama Boots for the 'Fur Coat' photo shoot.  Then it was my Mother's turn.  As an Iowa born and raised girl, wearing the 'Fur Coat' was second nature, and posing as a model quite natural...even though it was probably closer to Texas' 65 to 70 degrees than Alaska's whatever below.

As for the style in Texas' January winter wear...you can see it didn't take long for the 'Fur Coat' to be stored in the trunk...of my Dad's Nash Rambler.  Pictured here in our winter wear are:  myself (5yrs), brother (4yrs), our Mom, Great Aunt Mary Ella, Grandmother Stella and Aunt Betty. 

I wish I'd gotten to model Grandmother's Fur Coat!

Clutter Dance and Being A Pirouette Purger

I dance around the subject of 'Clutter' about this time every year.  I guess it's a New Year thingy...out with the old and in with the new.


Somehow, that doesn't work with a 'Clutter-A-Holic' who really likes the stuff collected over the past year which has been added to stuff from...let's just say...several years before that didn't make the New Year 'De-Cluttering Dance'.


In my defense, I did quite a nice pirouette in a collection of beads and junk jewelry which I bragged about in this post the day before the New Year.  I have to say, "It was Bead-A-Rama liberating." 


That was in my Home Studio, and I'm sure there are several other areas that need a pirouette purging.

It's much harder to pirouette purge at my Shop Studio.  You see, much of the clutter there was originally Clutter Danced out of my Home Studio.  It absolutely cannot go back!  So, when it came to rearranging to make space for a new loom and all it's necessary clutter, I did what any trained Pirouette Purger would do....raised The Bar.  That'd be called a ladder plie', and yes, I have one that allows me to reach my 10 ft. ceiling without doing a Swan Lake Dive off the top rung.

The good thing about being a Pirouette Purger...comfortable shoes!