RJ Treleaven

Showing posts with label Family Life. Show all posts

Hello, My Lovelies! Welcome to the 44th Tales of the Traveling Tote. I have not been traveling much or even going to the lake recently. I have had family obligations keeping me busy, but my family held an intervention a couple of weeks ago and insisted that I get away for a quick weekend to my favorite city, Chicago. We planned to visit my two motherships: Wrigley Field and The Art Institute of Chicago.

We enjoy staying at the historic Palmer House because it's within walking distance to the Art Institute. Below is the pretty ceiling in the lobby.

On Friday night we ate at a fantastic Mediterranean restaurant called Avec. Everyone loved it, and we particularly enjoyed the family-style presentation.

Saturday morning, we ate breakfast at our favorite bakery and coffee shop, The Goddess and the Baker. They have the best breakfast pastries in Chicago! Then we headed to Wrigleyville. Shanley Belle and I visited a romance-only bookshop called The Last Chapter and had a ball. We like visiting Indie Bookshops while traveling.

After the bookshop, we met up with Christopher and Trip at the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field.

Unfortunately, La Countess de Monet is too large to get into the stadium. Miss Square Peggy and Miss Candy Max are also too large. The dimensions must be no larger than 16" X 16" X 8". So I carried Miss Check You're Out! because she is petite at 16" X 11.5" X 4". She loved the game!

Clark the Cubbies' mascot before the game. We had great seats behind the dugout on the third base side.

The Cubbies beat the Pirates 3-1, so the W flag was flown!

Saturday night after the game we ate dinner at our favorite pizza place in the city, Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinders. They have the best pizza pie in the world! I always order the individual mushroom one.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at The Goddess and the Baker again because we love it so much. Then we walked to the Art Institute for the Gustave Caillebotte: Painting His World exhibit. Since we're members, we were able to visit an hour earlier than the general public, so we saw the exhibit almost by ourselves. For the Sunday before school started on Monday, there were few people at the museum. I think it might have had something to do with the flooding rains on Saturday night.

Gustave Caillebotte was an independently wealthy Impressionist. He was good friends with Renoir, and he painted pretty much what he wanted to paint. During this time, painters usually painted lovely young women, but Caillebotte preferred painting men.

One of the lions in front of the museum.

I wanted to share with you two paintings, one by Renoir and one by Caillebotte.

I chose the mums by Renoir for autumn.

Chrysanthemums

Pierre August Renoir (French, 1841–1919)

1881-1882

Oil on canvas

21 5/8" × 25 7/8 "

I chose the Caillebotte painting (below) because I thought the perspective was neat.

The Boulevard Seen From Above

Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848-1894)

1880

Oil on canvas

25 3/5" × 21 3/10"

We enjoyed the member's lounge and a late lunch of Giordano's Pizza. Before heading to the airport, we went to the world's largest Starbucks, the Starbucks Reserve. The four-story shop is truly something. We had the Chicago blend, and I brought some home with me.

I also purchased a beautiful book of the Van Gogh bedrooms because we saw the exhibit in 2016 at the Art Institute. I was so happy to have a lovely reminder of that trip, too. The Caillebotte brochures were really large, so I didn't buy one of them.

I love how the page folds out to show all three bedroom paintings.

This book is so nice, and it also features other paintings shown at the exhibit.

I hope you enjoyed my post on my whirlwind trip to Chicago. I literally have nothing else to share!

I'm sure the other Traveling Tote Ladies have much more interesting posts than mine, so give them a visit using the links below!

Debbie with Miss Aurora @ Mountain Breaths

Emily with Miss Courtney Childs@ The French Hutch

Linda P with Miss Lola @ Life and Linda

Patti with Miss Kenzie @ Pandora's Box

Rita with Miss Luna C @ Panoply

Sarah with Miss Merri Mac @ Hyacinths for the Soul

Jackie and Miss Madi K @ Purple Chocolat Home

Ricki Jill and Countess De Monet @ The Bookish Dilettante

This TTT giveaway is hosted by Sarah. Please make sure to leave a comment on her post in order to be entered.

Join us for our next adventures in December!

Until next time...

Blessings!
Ricki Jill

Tales of the Traveling Tote: My Motherships

Monday, September 1, 2025

Happy Monday, My Lovelies! I hope you've had a wonderful summer. Mine has been....busy. And not for a good reason.

My mother became ill in March, and she has been in two hospitals, two skilled nursing facilities, and one assisted living facility. It has been difficult because one moment she seems fine, and the next, she isn't.

Because I'm an only child, her care is solely on me. Mr. Bookish, and our daughters, and our son-in-law have been very helpful and supportive. I don't know what I'd do without my family.

We have only been to the lake twice all summer because we've spent a lot of time in my hometown settling her estate, selling her home, etc. She was released from the hospital Friday and sent to another SNF. I feel badly for her, and I'm hoping she can get the care she needs to improve her quality of life.

I miss being home because I'm such a home bird! My dogs have missed me a lot, and they have not been happy with my absence. I have missed working in our back garden, but fortunately for me, the annuals I planted haven't needed a lot of attention, and we've had so much rain.

This is my favorite time of year to be home, and the following is what I like most about it:

getting in the back-to-school mode (i.e. back on a schedule) even though no one in our home is in school right now
hearing the school buses driving up and down the hills early in the morning
making lists for buying new art supplies, pencils, and planners
planning trips to local art supply and stationary stores
getting up earlier with the school buses and reading my lessons for my Bible study that starts in August
cleaning out and organizing my menu/blogging desk in our kitchen
reorganizing my art studio

Speaking of school and art supplies....In late spring I applied to be a member of the Koh-I-Noor Artist Team. Koh-I-Noor is a company from the Czech Republic known for manufacturing pencils. The company's founder Franz Hardtmuth defined a total of 8 types of soft and hard pencils, two medium hard and one type for natural graphite. He marked the soft ones from B to 8B, with 8B being the softest and the 9B mark is for natural graphite. The marks of soft gradations were based on the same principle as for hard gradations, just with the letter H. Later, a number of gradations H - H8 were extended by H9 and H10. According to the personal notes of Franz Hardtmuth, the marking of pencils using the letter H originates from the family surname Hardtmuth, B means Budweis, or Budějovice in Czech language (a Czech city), and F refers to his first name Franz. This 21-degree gradation marking system for graphite cores is still used by most pencil manufacturers around the world. Most of you have heard of the number 2 pencil: That one is actually a "2B."

I was accepted, and I wanted to share the projects I shared on Instagram.

I drew these peaches with Koh-I-Noor's Tri-Toned Colored Pencils. Each pencil has three different colors in it. I think It makes drawings very interesting because the artist can't control when the colors change from one to another.

I like to make bookmarks for my favorite books and place them in my reading tag journals.

I drew this one with the Mondeluz gray-toned colored pencils.

When I applied for the Artist Team I had no idea that my mother's condition would decline so rapidly. I have not drawn anything this month, and I'm feeling the pressure because I believe in honoring my commitments. If I had known that my mom would require another hospital and SNF stay, I would not have applied.

We have been planning different major projects around our home. I have met with a decorator and carpenter. We are postponing our planning meetings until after Labor Day because I have too much going on right now to meet with them. Because we are saving for these projects, I haven't been spending a lot of money "fluffing" the house this summer. I did purchase one thing during the MacKenzie-Childs Barn Sale, though, and I hope to use it soon.

This is the Piccadilly pie plate. I wanted to bake a tomato pie in it before summer ends.

I hope I can!

I would like to get back into blogging, but it's hard because I haven't been home much to blog. I have posted on Instagram because it's easier to do so on the run. If you would, please follow me on Instagram, and also please, if you do follow me, like and comment on the posts for Koh-I-Noor. They were so kind to send me beautiful pencils and paper for my art in exchange for posting on IG. I would really appreciate it. Click on the graphic below to follow me.

I haven't been reading as much as I normally do, but I will try to put together a Summer Reading post in mid-September and feature my favorite books of the summer.

Below is a teaser of my Welcome Fall tablescape:

I hope you will come back next week and read these posts!

Until next time...

Blessings!
Ricki Jill

Late Summer Update and Upcoming Posts

Monday, August 25, 2025

Happy Monday, My Lovelies! How was your weekend? Ours was nice. We were actually in town for the first weekend in a really long time.

Today is Bastille Day! To celebrate, I put together a little tablescape in honor of our French friends. We owe a wee bit of our Independence here in the USofA to the French and their help during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

If I could get away with it, I would eat cake everyday. I think cake is the perfect treat for Bastille Day, don't you? But we are having small bites: little petit fours with our daughter's favorite tea, "Paris," by Harney & Sons. We had birthday cake last week for Independence Day and Shelley's birthday; Mr. Bookish's birthday is Thursday, and my mom's is Saturday. "Let them eat cake," indeed! We need to go easy on the sweets today. ;P

My husband has French ancestry, plus he's from New Orleans. His parents lived right around the corner from the French Consulate in the Garden District. Our daughters both have French middle names in honor of this heritage.

Below are the resources used on our table. I don't think anything is new.

French Toile Placemats: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

White Crochet-Trimmed Napkins: Vintage

Spoons: Horchow

China: (From our wedding registry) Rosedale by Wedgwood

Marie Antoinette vase and napkin rings: Molly Hatch via Anthropology

Ribbon: Michael's Crafts

If you're looking for something to read today, here are three recommendations:

The Balcony is about a French country estate and the families who lived their over the span of about a century.

All the Light We Cannot See is a WWII historical fiction that is one of my all-time favorite books. Please read this book!

Paris is nonfiction, and it takes us on a tour of all twenty of the city's arrondissements. I found it fascinating!

I hope you have a lovely week!

Until next time...

Blessings!
Ricki Jill

Bastille Day 2025

Monday, July 14, 2025

Happy June, My Lovelies! This edition of the Tales of the traveling Tote will feature our anniversary trip to Amsterdam and our river cruise on the Rhine. I could write a dissertation about our trip because we saw and learned so much. But instead I'm featuring my favorite things about the trip. We left Birmingham on our anniversary (March 19th) which was the opening day of tulip season.

My favorite thing about Amsterdam was the Van Gogh Museum. We had special tickets and went early. There were very few people around, so we were able to take our time in the galleries. Here are some favorites:

The Bedroom

Arles, October 1888

oil on canvas

28.5" X 36"

We had seen this one before when it was on loan at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016.

Sprig of Flowering Almond In a Glass

Arles, March 1888

oil on canvas

9.6" X 7.6"

Below is one of my favorite paintings. Van Gogh's Almond Blossoms was the most cherished paintings by his family, and it was heavily influenced by his interest in Japanese print making. The perspective is looking up through the branches toward the sky. This perspective loses the view of the tree in its entirety.

Almond Blossom

Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, February 1890

oil on canvas

29" X 36"

We also visited the Rijksmuseum which is located on the same campus. It was slightly crowded, but we really didn't have much trouble seeing everything in the galleries. I think most people were outside because it was the first pretty weekend after a cold, rainy winter. They were in the process of restoring The Night Watch which is Rembrandt's most celebrated painting. It shows citizens of Amsterdam protecting the city.

We enjoyed one of our best meals in Amsterdam at the Rijksmuseum. In the café they had these gorgeous (and huge) Delft tulipieres.

Our first stop on our cruise included an eBike tour of Kinderdijk windmills. We saw nineteen windmills in all, and we were able to tour one that is a working museum. It was very interesting seeing the millers go about their day and moving the windmills to catch the wind.

Kinderdijk windmills

One thing that has been on my bucket list as an adult is to see the Cologne Cathedral in all her gothic splendor. She did not disappoint, and I might have been slightly overhwelmed.

Another favorite activity one afternoon was viewing many, many castles along the Rhine from the boat. I sketched several of them while enjoying afternoon tea.

Ehrensfels Castle

near Rüdesheim, Hesse, Germany

This castle was actually rebuilt in 1212

One of my favorite places in Germany is Heidelberg. I've visited there several times, and I wanted Shanley Belle and Christopher to experience it, so we took a little side trip there. This was the only day without sunshine; it was very foggy for almost the entire day.

This is one of my favorite views at Heidelberg Castle. This is the moat, and at one time, it was a zoo for a very spoiled queen.

We were a little early in the season, but this area as well as many of the walls and ruins at the castle become covered in wildflowers in spring and summer.

My new favorite region of France is The Alsace, and we visited several World War II sites and villages. Below is a panorama view of Strasbourg. This region is known for its gingerbread, and it's enjoyed year round.

The last thing I want to share about our trip was a visit and hike in the Black Forest of Germany. This area is known for cuckoo clocks and Black Forest Cake. We took a class to learn how to make and assemble the cakes. It was a lot of fun! After sampling the cakes, it was nice that we had the opportunity to go on a little hike.

Mountainside brook in the Black Forest of Germany

Disclosure: La Countess de Monet was unable to make this trip because I needed a backpack for many of the biking and hiking tours we did. She was not happy, I tell ya! So in order to make it up to her, I took her to a flower arrangement class at a beautiful local farm here in Central Alabama. You can read about our adventure HERE.