Tassels

My good friend and co-worker, Linda,  is spending the summer in Germany....with her husband, who happens to work over there.  Win win.  She gets to spend the summer in Europe and see her husband.   She sent me an email the other day with an attached photograph of something that she specifically said she had taken just for me.  Right before I opened it, I thought for a few seconds about what she would have seen that made her think of me.


This friend has a great sense of humor and she "gets me" so I assumed it would be something very funny.  And being a co-worker, I thought maybe it would be a picture of a cute kid.  Or maybe a dog or cat....because if you know me, you know there are a lot of those around here.  But nope.  It was nothing funny.  Nothing with 2 legs.  Nothing with 4 legs. 


It was a picture of a beautiful tassel....holding back some lace curtains.  She saw it while touring the Swabian Versailles Palace in Ludwigsburg, Germany.  This palace was built between 1704 and 1733 by Duke Eberhard Ludwig.  It has 453 rooms in 18 buildings.  Why?  Because.  Perhaps a house becomes a palace when it reaches a certain number of rooms.   The tassel was in the Duke's wife's section of the palace.

Seeing a tassel made her think of me. 

Oh,  I do love tassels. 

Such a necessary nonessential. 

This large black & white tassel....brought to me from Paris from my friend Kathy... hangs on my stairway post.  I kept the price tag on it because it was in French. 

One of my sweet kids tore it off....

thinking I had just forgot it on there. 

 (grrrrrr)

When we bought this house, we were out shopping for a new light for over the kitchen island when this lamp called my name.  Literally. I'm not exaggerating.   

Chuck bought it for me for a house warming gift. 

 awwwwww.

I'm sure there was some begging involved on my part.

Tassels can bring an old lamp back to life.

Even the bottom of my chandelier looks like a tassel.

And you can't get much more nonessential than a rooster tassel. 

But oh, so necessary.