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Friday, August 23, 2013

Grandma's Gold

I've been converted. Not in that way. (I'm sure we're a lost cause. Ha! Kidding.) I'm talking metallics.

See, I've always been a silver-toned girl. What little jewelry I own is silver. My wedding band and ring are white gold. And I still love silver in its own classy way.

However, with the resurgence of gold in decor and fashion, I've found myself wearing some antiqued, brassy gold necklaces (with awesome bright color accents)...brass studs on my favorite sandals...and swooning over blogs featuring furniture "dipped" in gold. See? I'm a convert.

So, when we were divying up the contents of my grandfather and deceased grandmother's house last fall, I was ecstatic to receive their hand-me-down floor lamp. We had been using a wedding gift lamp from Target which we love...


...but with a toddler and an uneven carpeted floor, it wasn't practical. We're keeping it for a future house and more grown-up kids, but when this lamp came along, I fell in love.




She's not perfect, but she's twice my age, so what can I expect?

Besides, to think about all she's seen in the Cunningham house over the years brings so much joy in my heart. It wasn't put into storage or sold off or donated to someone who didn't have an underlying appreciation for its history; it would've been just one more piece of junk that would get thrown to the curb when a better "new" model came along.

There's a tiny amount of bittersweetness to the lamp, considering that Grandma was home 85% of the time. Grandpa's money might have paid for the lamp, but it was hers. It lit her letter-writing, her smoke-filled card games, her lengthy gossipy phone calls. The birthday parties, the Fourth of July's, the Father's Days -- all the special times, and the not-so-special times, that our family matriarch orchestrated.

But, as with most things in life, it's easy to take a little sourness when the rest is so sweet. The fact that it's in line with the direction of current trends makes it even sweeter.

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