Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Chateau De Fleurs Marketplace

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I just finished reading the last Where Bloggers Create post! Whew! I need a nap.

You all know I am away from home and therefore away from all my creative supplies. So, even though I wanted to, I didn’t sign up for Lisa’s Outside the Box Challenge. Yesterday I said to myself, “Aw go ahead, see what you can come up with.” So I went to Target to buy the particular packaging required – this is a big Target in San Diego – and they didn’t have it! And there was no space on the shelf where it should have been. It simply didn’t exist. Darn it! I really wanted to see what I could come up with.

Then I thought I might join up with the Bloggerette Sorority (Karen’s wonderful idea) – but I can’t do the first assignment because I don’t have a printer here.

Sob.

Can you tell I need to get back home? I need my stuff.

Last week I grabbed a few hours in the morning and drove up to Christie’s place for the Chateau de Fleurs Marketplace. Christie moved to a new home this year and she andRita have started a monthly marketplace with all sorts of wonderful vendors. My schedule has been so busy here that this was the first time I was able to see either of them. I thought I’d take a couple of posts and share some photos with you. The photo at the top of the post is from one of the booths.


I absolutely went crazy for this. This fabulously creative woman, Lisa Loria, makes wonderful jewelry and also makes these – I believe they are called Bling Babies. She uses vintage lamp bases, a doll’s head and fashions these wonderful jewelry displays. She’s teaching a workshop on them this weekend that I wish I could attend. Isn’t this wonderful? Here’s another:


I must admit, the doll head without the body thing never did it for me. But now….I find myself loving them. What would Don do, I wonder, if I started amassing these? I mean, besides my Shirley Temple doll and my Tressa doll and the-one-that-I-can’t-show-you-yet-but-I-will-when-I-get-home?

Gorgeous. From Rita’s booth.


Another doll head – this time in a birdcage.



I’ll share the rest of the photos in a couple of days. I will miss all the amazingly creative vendors here. Such eye candy everywhere. If I were independently wealthy, here’s what I’d do: I’d fly out once a month, just for a few days, and drink in my fill of all my favorite sales and shops. Then I’d fly back home to my little cottage. Oh, and I’d be so wealthy that I wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of shipping big pieces. So I would buy everything I wanted. Because I was so wealthy, I would have already added an extension onto the cottage so that I had a place to put all this stuff.

Does that sound like a plan?

A Visit to the Old Homesteads

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I read through my email this morning and noticed that a photo of my sideboard turned kitchen island was featured at Houzz today. It is in a feature entitled “What to do with a Sideboard.” I was very surprised and pleased!

I’ve reached ‘S’ on the Where Bloggers Create list. Amazing studios out there in bloggerland!

Today I took a little trip in the car – a nostalgic trip – to take some photos of the apartment I lived in when I first moved here and the house Don and I lived in for 6 years.

It was good and bad.

The apartment building looks the same as ever –


This two story apartment building had 7 or 8 apartments and mine was the one you see on the ground floor.


See those steps? Don kissed me for the first time on those steps after an opening night party. Ah, memories…

Now for the house. We rented a Craftsman house in a charming neighborhood for 6 years. I planted a garden, mowed the lawn, pruned the bushes – it looked lovely. Since then it has been rented to a succession of people, including students. My garden is gone.


The grass is dead, the maple trees (rare for San Diego) have a lot of dead branches on top, the siding is dirty and hasn’t been cleaned in years.

An ugly security door has replaced the charming wooden screen door that was there before. Behind that ugliness is a gorgeous, dark wood, extra-wide door. Now it is totally hidden from view – in a neighborhood that is quite safe. Do you see all the plants that look brown in the front of the photo? Those are alliums. They surround the front and the sides of the house. In the spring they have the most beautiful pink blooms. People used to stop and ask me about them.

I guess this is what happens to a home that is neglected. My old next-door neighbors, on the other hand, have planted a beautiful xeriscape garden in their front yard, built a small natural stone fence – it is gorgeous.

Well you know the old truth, “You can’t go home again.”

On a brighter note: Happy Birthday to my husband!! I miss you, honey. I’ll be home in a week and a half and we will celebrate.

Sweet Tooth & Ralphie

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Meet my enemy, waiting for me around every corner, tempting me:


The King Size Drumstick available at my neighborhood 7-11. He tempted me today as I sat here on my sofa like a slug…I could hear his voice calling to me. He used a clever ruse. He knew I had absolutely no exercise today and whispered in my ear that the several-city-blocks-long walk to 7 -11 would be good for me. Then he said that while I was there I could get money from the ATM so that I could get more quarters from the bank tomorrow for my laundry. Oh, and I could get an A & W Root Beer.

I gave in. There are now 2 of these in my freezer. These may be the reason I have not lost weight here in San Diego even though I am walking most every day. But they’re so good.

Now I want you to meet my new neighbor, Ralphie:


Look at that face. Look at those eyes. My next door neighbor here at the apartments is my husband’s friend of many, many years Adrian. He is part of the acting company this summer. Adrian lives in Los Angeles and is wonderful with dogs. He has been part of a program where dogs that really need training and rehabilitation live with foster parents for a while so that they can eventually be eligible for adoption.


Ralphie is ten years old and for most of his life he was ignored, isolated and had no social skills at all. He didn’t know what it felt like to be loved. Adrian took him in and rehabilitated him but when he proved to be a little difficult the agency wanted to put him down. My friend would have none of it. He knows it takes time to try to erase ten years of neglect. So he adopted him.

I must tell you he is the sweetest boy. He laps up any and all attention. It is as if he is making up for the past ten years. When I’m in my apartment with the door open and the screen door closed, he comes and stands there…staring. He wants to play. Today he had a tour of my apartment. I’m crazy about him.

I tell you it makes my blood boil when I hear what is done to innocent animals. I don’t understand doing that to an animal who only wants to love and be loved. Ralphie’s story reminds me of my Riley’s story. Although Riley was much younger when we adopted him, he suffered the same neglect and has issues because of it. I call him our boy with special needs. Riley, like Ralphie, just wants to be loved. And we do love him.

Thank goodness Ralphie found his loving home.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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