My Favorite Blue Pictures

It is not quite forty degrees here and the wind is blowing and it might as well be the dead of Winter. How's that for whining?  I decided that since it is so miserable outside I would share some of my flowers from the inside.  I have been collecting flower prints since I was six years old.  That's right six.  We moved into this great old house the Summer I turned six.  The previous owners had an estate sale before we moved in and since my Father was also a junker he and I went.  As we walked through our soon to be new house he said "Is there anything you would like?" To say he overindulged me would be a gross understatement.  Even then I loved anything old.  I pointed to these two pictures still hanging on the wall and said  "I would like those." I don't know if he was surprised at my request because he never showed it but he purchased the pictures along with some other items and we went home.  This was 1963 and my Mother was not into decorating with anything old.  She liked the new look and she was not pleased with our purchase.  When we moved into our house Dad made sure those pictures went right back on the wall they had been hanging on.  He felt they were original to the house and should remain there.  My Mother decorated around them and cursed the day I started collecting flower prints.  When I grew up and moved away those prints went with me.  They have hung in every place I ever lived and now hang in my front room.  I have added a few more along the way. This sweet little round frame and several others. This frame to the left was found in an abandoned house in the middle of no where in Kansas.  My Father and I pilfered it when we were on a family vacation.  My Mother was mortified to say the least. I have dozens of these pictures and I truly love them all.  They remind me of a simpler time and they bring me peace when I look at them.  Of course my favorites are the first ones bought for me by my Father.  They remind me of him and what a great bond we had.  Everyone that knows me very well also knows that it is those pictures that must be saved from fire, flood and famine.  I once told a former boy friend that if the Nazi's were coming it was those pictures that must be saved.  He didn't blink an eye.  He knew exactly what I meant and I knew we would always be friends because he understood.   As I get older I sometimes wonder where all this junk will go when I am done with it.  Maybe I will have to have a contest to find the best home for my blue pictures but for now they will stay on my wall until they are taken down over my dead body.