Mothers Day

My grandmother Jeanne is very dear to me. She has influenced my tastes and ideas very much. She is Swedish and has visited my family there, I love to hear stories about the home they have there. She grew up in Santa Cruz, married a man who worked undercover doing secret government business(she was only 17), lived in Germany, and had five children. My mother is the youngest.

She has beautiful ettiquette, likes real mail but knows how to use a computer, and has two great grandchildren. Unfortunately we lost my grandfather suddenly before my little sister was born. I feel very lucky to have memories of him. My grandparents were disaster specialists for the Red Cross and have been all over the world on aid missions. She has been involved in the Red Cross for at least 25 years.

She is Jackie Kennedy to me.

So, on mothers day we always visit her. Here are some shitty iphone pictures of my trip. She showed us all of her china and told us stories about our favorite demitasse cups. Our favorites are from Occupied Japan, from the Wedgewood company, and also the Noritake designs from Japan.

This is part of our family tree, were Viking.


This is a spinning wheel my grandmother brought from our family home in Sweden. As a child it frightened my cousins and I, we saw it as the evil things from Sleeping Beauty.


She has beautiful taste in china. This one is from Occupied Japan. She has many from Japan, England, Finland, Germany, and Sweden.


This is the bottom of a demitasse cup from Japan, this is my favorite.


This is the cup, it's very small and lovely.


This is my grandmother's piano, we love it. My sister and I played it together for a long time.


My grandmother is an avid birdwatcher. This bird feeder has always been there, hummingbirds would come up and drink from it all day long and she would tell us neat facts about them.


She recently found this at her house, the only date inside is written and it says 1916. There was no publishers information, so we called it "emersons zine"


She is a wonderful gardner and her backyard has been a magical place for all her grandkids. Every celebration happens in her gardens. She has a gardenia bush right next to her front door. The smell of gardenias reminds me of saying our hello and goodbyes. I painted this for her.


I also painted this for her. Pears are our mutual favorite fruit.


and this is my sister: