the goose goofs off: the goose loves st. paddy's, even late

Happy St. Paddy's Day, Friends!

Yes, I'm not dumb. I know I'm an entire week behind. But bear with me. A few weeks ago, I arranged a collection of our green/Irish/Scottish/shamrock things on our two floating shelves, above the kitchen table. These shelves had Christmas stuff awhile ago, then were empty, and will have other stuff in the future, but for awhile, we're going with green.

But there's several reasons why this is okay:

a) green is good for all of March, especially in ~~hippie-ville~~ Portland

b) we're an Irish/Scottish family, so we could keep this stuff up year round if we wanted

c) it snowed on Thursday, and it's supposed to snow on Monday, so it's not going to be spring here anytime soon, so there's no point in replacing it with "springy" decor

d) it'll probably be June by the time I get around to changing it up again anyway.

I love this display because almost all of these pieces have a special meaning or story or origin.

I'll zoom in, so you can see our treasures close up. The large shamrock plate is from my aunt and uncle - Jim and Pat Dempsey of the "Spokane" Dempseys. They gifted us this plate when Billy and I got engaged, and we loved their early display of support and the truly thoughtful gift.

I made the whisky tasting frame of Billy and three of his groomsmen back in 2009, after they attended an event in CA following Billy's mom's memorial service. Such good buddies.

The (empty) bottle of Balvenie (that's whisky, for you PBR-lovers) and the quiach cup (the little silver thing with handles) are from our wedding - Billy and the boys (dads included, right?) enjoyed the "wedding whisky" in celebration, and we used the quaich cup tradition as part of our celtic-themed rehearsal dinner.

The little white dish was a wedding gift from the Shaugnessys (Pat Dempsey's mom & dad), an Irish family themselves, and has an Irish blessing on top.

Then, to the right: the four-photo frame was displayed at our rehearsal dinner, and includes photos from when Billy and his parents traveled to Scotland in 2005.

The glass vase with the stones and the candle was lit as a memorial to Billy's mom Barbara, also used at our rehearsal dinner.

The tartan is a sash that Billy's aunts presented to me at the wedding, another Scottish tradition. They pinned it using the little silver sword pin (in the above photo).

The center frame was purchased at HomeGoods, and the print inside was printed from Pinterest. Probably the least-meaninful piece, but I like how it brings everything together.

On the top shelf - a photo of Billy and his parents, which we displayed at the rehearsal dinner. The green pieces of paper are bookmarks that we gave as rehearsal dinner favors, and have a celtic blessing on them.

The candle has the claddagh image and a prayer, and was a Christmas gift from Barbara many years ago, now. We used it at the wedding - Bill lit the candle before the main procession at the beginning, and it stayed lit throughout the ceremony.

Finally, the last "quadrant" includes a photo of Billy from Scotland, and a purple-wood cross my parents gave us for our wedding.

The white frame has another printable found on Pinterest, and the green vase was made by Jackie awhile ago at our house. She hadn't taken it home yet, so I incorporated it into my display!

The black frame has an Irish blessing and photo from our wedding RSVPs - our friend Allison put it together as a gift for our rehearsal dinner, and we love it.

In the back is a mirror from Goodwill that I refinished and spraypainted. It's kinda hidden, but I think the shape and color goes well with the display.