Margaret’s Day

Fifty years ago today my little life in Dayton, Ohio was changed forever because this was the day I became a big sister. Margaret Michie Carter was born and I had no idea what craziness was in store for me. I was the dutiful, well behaved and this will come as a big surprise to most of you, shy, quite one. Margaret came into the world, big. She was loud, funny and musical with a definite sense of style.

Margaret had her own ideas about how things should be done, including things like math. Following rules was not her thing, but she quickly learned how to win over the rule enforcers with her wit and charm.

Margaret also was good at turning a crazy idea into money making venture. I can remember her sitting at a table in our family room with dozens of bottles of model airplane paint and hundreds of plain metal barrettes painstakingly dotting colors with toothpicks onto the skinny tops of the hair clips. She turned her eye for color and design into a great business selling her wares in pairs to the preppy mothers and daughters who lived in our town.

Reading a book was not her idea of fun when she had orders for hairclips to fulfill. Margaret liked to earn money because there was always the latest fashion or cool room décor that she had her eye on. She also loved to organize all her stuff and loved to collect decorative jars and boxes. If the container store had not been invented before she graduated from college she would have started it.

Margaret eventually turned her great eye for design and fashion into a successful decorating business. Growing up in a demanding customer service oriented family trained her well for work that is very personal and requires customers to like and trust you.

I think that after years of hard work and self determination it is fitting that Margaret was just named one of the top 15 designers in Washington DC. If you would like to see the whole article here it is.

http://blog.builddirect.com/15-best-interior-designers-in-washington-dc/

So congratulations and happy birthday to my sister Margaret Carter. You make the world colorful and exciting. You must have had a big effect on me because I went from being shy and dutiful to the person I am now and I think that happened about the time you came along. I hope your next fifty years are even better than the first fifty.

Birthday Sister Part Deux

Both my sisters have early September birthdays so today is Margaret’s big day.  Margaret was my baby sister for the longest time but got displaced a week before her fifth birthday when Sister Janet came along.  It had to be a real shock to Margaret’s life that she had to go to Kindergarten and lose her place as the baby of the family all at the same time.  It was also 1969, which was a big mess of a year for all of America with Vietnam, the Moon landing, Nixon’s election, the end of the Beatles and Woodstock that took place not far from where we grew up.

Margaret always had a flair for the dramatic and the aesthetic so it is no wonder that she grew up to be a great decorator.  As a very young child she insisted on designing her own room.  I remember that she really wanted a canopy bed to go into her at the time very trendy  pink and purple bedroom.  My parents told her she could get the bed, but it would have to be her big birthday present.  She quickly agreed.  I thought she was crazy to forgo the chance for something really great like a bike for her birthday since she already had a perfectly fine bed, but no, being surrounded by beautiful things was always important to Margaret.

Margaret had a design business in Boulder and Telluride Colorado called The Carter Home Collection but after decorating all available famous people’s houses out there she moved to Washington DC. Margaret Carter Interiors is the name of her current business and you can visit her website to see some of the beautiful work she does.

Sometimes it is hard to imagine that we are related because we are so different.  Margaret has a spectacular singing voice the opposite of mine.  Just to give you an idea of how good she really is when she lived in Kansas City she was the lead paid vocalist at a black gospel church.  One thing that is not unlike me is she is very white so imagine how good a singer she must be.

Margaret is also an organizational freak.  This was true at the youngest possible age.  The difference in looking at our closets as children you would have thought her to be the older sister because everything was in it’s place and it’s place was usually a very cute decorative container that was complimentary to the other containers.  My closet had everything thrown on the floor and was just lucky to get the door closed.

Although I have improved in my organization so has Margaret and now her bar is set to a height that no other human will ever reach her.  I think she has a color-coded L.L.Bean canvas bag system for everything that involves 18 different handle colors.  I didn’t even know Bean made that many different bags let alone could I think what I would need to sort and carry in them.

So to my most organized and stylish sister Margaret I want to wish her a Happy Birthday.  You are still young because you are younger than me!