Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Depending on your point of view, you’re either very lucky or unlucky that this post is being published today. We are on day 3 of the nor’easter, which has been mostly about wind, and today, lots of rain. But on Saturday at around 1 pm, our cable/internet/and phones stopped working and we didn’t get it back until sometime in the early hours of this morning.

The hardest thing was contacting our provider as we had no WiFi and had to go outside, walk here and there and attempt to get some sort of LTE signal. Meanwhile, the wind was blowing, leaves were hitting us in the face, and we were shouting into the phone. The outage covered our neighborhood and well beyond, I think.

So we couldn’t watch the final episode of a series that night. We actually had to sit and talk to each other! (Actually, we love talking to each other.) I couldn’t check on the news, which wasn’t at all a bad thing. No scrolling through Instagram. At one point on Saturday evening, we got in the car and drove to our local supermarket, where we were able to pick up a strong signal and checked our email. Then we drove around the neighborhood for a while. Same thing yesterday – we went to our local library and used their WiFi. While we were there, we ran into two people who were also without cable, internet, etc. We had a nice chat, commiserating about the whole thing. That’s when I learned one of them had heard from our provider and that restoration was to be at 2 am this morning. I still didn’t trust that, but when we got up this morning it was back on. Thankfully, we never lost electricity.

Boy, we sure are dependent on all these things that were certainly not necessities, or even in existence, when we were growing up. But we learned we could exist without them.

Don loved it because we did things we normally wouldn’t do – changed it up a little – and he’s all for that. Interestingly, in the middle of the whole thing, a text came through on my phone and it was my niece, who was in Sydney, Australia with her daughter! Couldn’t make a local call, but I got a text from Australia.

Quite the adventure!

I’m going to count my blessings and read today.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Corners and doorways in the Beacon Hill on a dark and rainy Saturday morning:

Closeups always show me things I need to fix!

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

A very cool start this morning. Autumn is definitely here. It’s amazing how fast everything changes.

I spent part of the afternoon yesterday, trying to put a new body and neck joint on Rowan. It seems as if the body I use – Obitsu 22 – has had an alteration in the design, which impacts trying to attach the neck joint. Or I’m going mad. Anyway, it’s was a frustrating session and I still haven’t figured out the answer. Since I have to do this with Miyoshi as well, I’ll be doing some research today.

She got a change of clothes and here she is:

Her hair can look dark auburn one minute and a more vivid red the next, depending on the light.

The Beacon Hill status: I waiting for a few supplies that won’t get here until next week – ile floor for the bathroom, more unfinished baseboards, the two bookcases that will go in the den. I do have some baseboards in the studio, so I might start painting and installing them.

Then I have to pick out the color of the exterior paint.

I cleaned up the studio in anticipation of the work ahead.

Don has a gig tonight. Thankfully, it will occur before this weekend’s potential deluge. A nor’easter is coming up the coast. I haven’t read today’s weather update yet, so I’m not sure how much rain and wind is expected, but we’ll definitely have rain on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Today, however, is beautiful.

(If you get my Substack in your email and can’t leave a comment, it’s because you have to click on the title to go to Substack directly. Then you can leave a comment.)

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.