One day as I was daydreaming I asked Jerry if he would build me a little playhouse way out in the backyard where you can't hear the traffic. One with a little front porch, picket fence, window boxes of flowers and of course add electricity so I could watch movies, make coffee and nap on Sunday afternoons.
Jerry is the kind of husband that very rarely says no to me. Anything I could dream of he typically gets right to work on. I'm so blessed. His answer to this request was: " Why don't we just buy one of those pre-built Amish made ones?"
Naaah, that won't work. "I know! Chris' parents had the cutest little camper in their backyard that I always wished I could see inside, but was too shy to ask. It was a little blue Scotty- I remember the dog on the front of it." So he says, " Call and ask her". Chris was my best friend in Jr. High and we married the Steadman cousins, so that makes us family :) Her answer: "Oh sorry, that's been gone since probably the 70's, but boy my mom loved that little camper. It was her little dollhouse. She made curtains for it and loved to decorate it". Darn! I would have paid almost anything for that little tin can cottage!.
Not more than a couple weeks passed and I was driving home from doing a wedding at Hotel Hershey for a sweet girl who married her famous football player fiance. I was exhausted from a long day's work and driving home blurry-eyed but happy, when out of the corner of my eye I thought I was imagining that I saw the camper of my dreams! I checked my rear-view mirror, hit the brakes, backed up along the shoulder and there she was! I couldn't believe it.
Lynne took the other van home way on ahead of me. I'm smiling all the way down 283 when my cell phone rings. It's Lynne.......
"Kelly!! Oh my gosh! Did you see it??", she asks.
" Yep, I did. I already stopped, looked inside, took pictures and informed Jerry that I found it!" She confirmed it, it's meant to be for me!
So my new project in the wedding off-season is fixing up this little sweetheart.
Jerry has already been working hard giving her an interior face-lift. (I think he's trying to get his brownie points to cash in on that mountain cabin he's been long dreaming of.)
Everyone's been saying I should name her; since I kept referring to my camper as "her".
Ok, since it's a vintage camper she should have an old fashioned name. Jerry said "call her Louise".
I'm embarassed to say that is my middle name. It was given to me by my grandmother, and used often to irritate me by my late mom, my husband and my sister. I came to despise it less when many years later I found out it was my grandmother's middle name, my favorite Aunt's middle name, and the middle name of my cousin's daughter, who is young and cool and actually happens to love it.
Except she needs a 'flower name'. So...... Dahlia Louise it is. Man, it's like choosing a name for a child! It must have some meaning.
Oh the plans I have for me and Dahlia! She's gonna have a nice new happy place in my backyard with all the trimmings, and she's gonna go on 'road trips' with the BFF's. She's a work in progress but she's gonna be sooo cool. I'll have a little party in the spring when she's all prettied up and invite y'all over!
I'm hoping she gets back to looking like this!
Maybe I'll post before and after pictures, but ya know it's like a girl that gets plastic surgery; she doesn't really want anyone to remember the 'before' part!I'll get back to posting wedding flower pictures soon. I've got my head in the clouds trying to decide how to decorate my little 10 feet of heaven on earth.
