Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Serendipitous

October 4, 2012 at 9:12 am by Claudia

Do you love a good story?

I have one for you.

A month or so ago, I was at our local grocery store, or rather, in the parking lot walking toward the store. A woman called out to me and asked me if she could share something with me. I said sure. Turns out I remind her of her mother; we both have longish graying hair, we look somewhat alike and we drive the exact same model and year of car (and my car, you remember, is 11 years old.) She had often seen me driving around town and would be certain she was seeing her mother but would then realize that, no, it was that other woman. This had happened many times. So she was glad to finally meet the other woman and introduce herself. We had a lovely conversation in the parking lot and I met her son, who was with her.

I like meeting people and I loved that story. I came home and shared it with Don.

Like many of you, I often start reading a blog which leads me to another blog which leads me to another blog and that’s the way I often find a lovely, new blog that I bookmark. I’ve found several lately. Yesterday, my friend Heidi left me a note on my personal facebook page with a link to a blog she thought I would like. I recognized the name of the blog because it was one of those recently bookmarked blogs. So I wrote Heidi back and told her I knew of the blog. She said the author was local. Really? I said. For some reason I thought the author was from someplace else, probably because she talked about visiting the Luckett’s store in Virginia. It turns out that Heidi meant local as in someone who lives in our very small town.

Well, I thought, how interesting! I will trot right on over to that blog and leave a comment introducing myself. Hi, I said, Heidi told me you’re a local blogger. So am I. It’s nice to meet you. And I left a link to my blog.

I almost immediately got a return comment. It said (I’m paraphrasing)...Um, Claudia? I’ve just gone over to your blog and seen your picture….do you remember a strange woman who approached you in the parking lot and told you how much you resemble her mother? That was me. It is a very small world. And I recognize your house. I could throw a rock and hit it, we live so close. We are neighbors!

I admit to a gasp or two. I looked at her photo which shows a short hair cut. When I met her, it was longer. It may still be. But yes, I could see that it was my friend from the parking lot.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Then I got obsessed with figuring out where she lived. If she lived that close to me, where exactly was it? She has a photo of her barn on a recent post. I studied it.

Bingo. I suddenly had an idea where she lived, which, if I was right, was around the corner from me. You understand I’m not talking about a suburban street here, but down the road and around the corner. When I told Don about it, his response was ‘Let’s hop in the car and look!’ So I looked at the barn photo once more, memorized it, and we drove off in the dusk of the evening.

I was right.

Her land backs up to our property. She lives in one of my favorite houses around here, one I’ve always admired.

She’s been blogging for six months and writes about home, garden, vintage – the sort of things I write about.

She has great style. The name of her blog is Breida with a B. Stop by and visit. She wrote about this same thing today.

It’s funny how you can meet someone, have a conversation, but have absolutely no idea that person is a blogger. Like you.

I’ve met bloggers who live far away from me. But to find one that lives around the corner from me? In my little town? What are the odds?

Serendipity.

————————————————

By the way, for those of you who want to see a photo of me with my new haircut, just look at my photo on the sidebar. That’s what it looks like. My hair grows very quickly and I had let it go throughout the time I was nursing Riley. I had 4 inches taken off and it now looks normal again.

On another note, I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming to the point where I finally established a Facebook Page for Mockingbird Hill Cottage. I have stayed away from this in the past because I felt I had enough to handle already and that adding yet another something I had to keep up-to-date was simply too much for this particular blogger. But I’m trying to grow my blog and some of you, along with many of those in the know, have suggested this. So, I did it. I don’t have a widget yet, but you can get there by clicking on the f under Contact on my sidebar. Or click here.

Would you do me a favor and click Like? The more of you who ‘like’ my page, the better!

Oh, I’ve been busy. Crocheting, sleuthing, meeting, creating, gasping.

Happy Thursday.

Filed Under: blog, blogging 65 Comments

Blogging Stuff

September 19, 2012 at 9:31 am by Claudia

If you’ve been blogging for a while, as I have, your blog has probably gone through a lot of changes. Mine certainly has. And while I have some screenshots of Mockingbird Hill Cottage’s past incarnations, I don’t have all of them. So when I saw this link on another blog the other day, I had to investigate. It’s an internet archive called the Wayback Machine and if you enter your URL, you just might find some earlier screenshots of your blog. I found two (from the days this blog still had ‘blogspot’ in its URL:

Check out my blue glasses. Those glasses were very popular here in blogland. I had a lot of comments on them. My blogging pal Elizabeth still thinks of me as Claudia-with-the-blue-glasses. Eventually I bought another pair of glasses (not in blue) and I had to quietly phase this photo out. Confession: I have another pair of the same blue glasses now. They’re readers and are a bit too strong for my eyes at this moment. But for all of you who loved them, rest assured, I sometimes wear them – usually for crocheting.

But on to the design itself. The background was from the Background Fairy and I really liked it. The banner was based on a photo I had taken of peonies. I asked a designer friend to come up with the font in the blog title. And yes, that is the Papyrus font you see in the body of the blog. Despite all the negative stuff I have read about this font, I really liked it. Still do. And those capital letters in the post title? I resorted to them when I couldn’t figure out how to make the post title larger. Now that I know more about html, I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be a problem. Those capital letters are now the bane of my existence. I am currently in the process of going back to each of the posts that have caps (over a year and half’s worth) and changing them to the normal combination of lowercase and uppercase, because in this new blog look, the all-caps-look is HUGE.

I’ve often referred to the period of time when the look of this blog was courtesy of a designer. Here it is:

Since I loved that earlier look of blue borders and faded writing I asked the designer to come up with something in that vein. I sent her 3 photos that I liked and she designed the header. I was still using Papyrus, but that eventually changed when I started using Century Gothic. During this particular incarnation of the blog, I began playing around with html. I changed font sizes, I increased the posting area, making the blue border more narrow. I eventually got rid of the ecru spidery writing background of the posting area because it was just too hard to read the posts. I added some red highlights, eventually finding my look: the combination of aqua and red. But I started feeling like a bit of an imposter because this look I wanted the designer to create no longer seemed like ‘me.’ It was too frilly. And I’m not frilly at all. I tweaked the banner because it took up too much real estate. I changed the font. When my efforts to contact the designer for some updates failed, I took control of the blog and changed everything. New banner, new borders, new everything.

After using the usual photo collage as my banner, I eventually ended up with this (taken with my iPhone):

This was the look of the blog until I moved to WordPress. Now, with the possibilities of the WordPress platform, I have been able to create a look I really truly love. Clean. Colorful. Less extraneous ‘stuff.’ All of which helps to highlight the content and the photos, which is really what a blog is about. Every previous incarnation of this blog helped me to find my true voice. Everything extraneous has been sorted, purged and distilled down to this new look.

Have you checked in on your blog lately? Is it serving you well? Does the look of it fit who you really are? Does it enhance what you are writing about? Our blogs reflect us. It’s a good idea to step back and look at your blog with fresh eyes. And since we all love to decorate and fluff, why not do it to your blog as well?

Just some thoughts for today.

Tagged With: blog designFiled Under: blog, blog design., blogging, blogging tips 19 Comments

Tweaking the Blog

September 4, 2012 at 7:51 am by Claudia

I’ve been wanting to join in on my pal Brenda’s Tweak it Tuesday for a while now. The problem?

I haven’t been tweaking anything lately.

Oh, wait….except this blog.

Some major tweaking has been underway at Mockingbird Hill Cottage. Over the course of the past month or so, I’ve been working on a move to WordPress. I could have done it more quickly, but I took my time with the whole thing, especially with the design. And I used Sharon Hujik’s book How to Move From Blogger to WordPress to help me with the nuts and bolts of the move (link in my sidebar; I’m an affiliate.)

I did it all by myself! I still can’t believe it went so smoothly, but it did.

Here’s a look at Mockingbird Hill Cottage in its early days:

I rather liked that free background with its pretty browns and creams. Yikes, look how big that header is! That’s one of the early templates from Blogger.

Along the way, I’ve redesigned the blog several times. I even had a designer have a go at it. But it’s all about control for me. The last time I redesigned it on Blogger, I eliminated every element from a designer and created my own design elements. I didn’t want to be dependent on a designer any longer; too many things can go wrong, believe me. Here is what it looked like around here a mere two weeks ago:

 

I loved that design. But for many reasons, some of them involving serious concerns, I wanted to move to WordPress.

After a few weeks of tweaking, I ended up with what you see here:

I love it. The colors are pretty; it’s clean, crisp and simple.

It was the right move to make. If you’re interested in more information, I’ve written about it here and here.

I’m very happy in my new blog home. Same URL, no more Google Friend Connect, but plenty of ways to follow along. This move involved some extensive tweaking – and it was worth it.

Linking to Brenda’s Tweak it Tuesday party.

Tagged With: blog design, bloggingFiled Under: blog, blog design., blogging, blogging tips 4 Comments

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Welcome!

Welcome!

I live in a little cottage in the country with my husband. It's a sweet place, sheltered by old trees and surrounded by gardens. The inside is full of the things we love. I love to write, I love my camera, I love creating, I love gardening. My decorating style is eclectic; full of vintage and a bit of whimsy.

I've worked in the theater for more years than I can count. I'm currently a voice, speech, dialect and text coach freelancing on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater.

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