Image via SHELTER

I continue to have great excuses for not being present here, but I’m hoping that this is the start of easing back into a regular blogging routine.

Tonight I cleared out all of the starred items from my Google reader, quite a job.  Yes, I waited until the last minute to complete this task, but it wasn’t a top priority until it had to be.  I starred a lot of the items as inspiration for future blog posts.  After taking about 22 pages of notes in a Word document, patterns of inspiration have emerged.  Out of all the hundreds of posts I browsed tonight, one hit me in particular:  this post from SHELTER, one of my favorite interior design blogs, on pink upholstered seating.

I thought of my grandmother’s pink chair, similar to the one pictured above, that sat proudly in her living room with another matching chair.  The elegant pink upholstered chair now sits in my parents’ bedroom, one of the rare furnishings of the past century in a home filled with antiques.  Tonight I thought of my grandmother and how she cared about the furnishings that filled her home, just as she cared about what she wore.

I  have always admired that chair, but it has become dearer to me in the past couple of years after sitting in it to nurse Baby Boy in the middle of the night.  It was in the early hours of the morning that I gained a greater appreciation for its comfort and its beauty.  And I couldn’t help but think that my Grandma would be happy that I was enjoying her chair in such a profound way.

Something else that’s hereditary is my curious list making/note taking habit.  I have a need, a compulsion, to compile lists of things that inspire me.  My mother does the same thing.  She keeps lists of things that she reads or hears about for future reference.  Sometimes she shares these items with me.  She reminded me recently that her mother did the same thing.

Some compulsions are in the blood.