Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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A Peek at the Lake Cottage and Christmas Sweaters

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Both of us slept in today, which is rare – so I’m running behind. I haven’t even had my second cup of coffee! The endless rain and mixed precipitation has ended, thank goodness, and I do believe the sun is making an appearance. And next week’s forecast has changed to another round of “mixed precipitation” and maybe an inch or two of snow. We want more  snow like you originally predicted, thank you very much!

I’m not sure why we have such a need for a white Christmas this year, but we do. I have my suspicions, life has been tough for all of us. Anyway, fingers crossed.

The Lake Cottage is very hard to photograph. It’s very dark inside, it’s up on top of the china cabinet in the den, and I have to stand on the old ottoman to take the pictures. So, these are not the best, but frankly, this is what you’re going to get.

The exterior of the Lake Cottage. For those of you who are new to the blog, this is an antique dollhouse that I found a few years ago. It’s handmade and incredibly charming. But, because it’s handmade, I am reluctant to change it very much, as I can feel and see the love and care that went into its construction. I’ve not painted it and I won’t.

See? It’s funky but I love it. I consider both this house and the vintage dollhouse in the kitchen to be folk art. Therefore, they stay relatively untouched. I added the tree that I previously used in the modern dollhouse.

I had some other photos of the interior, but I’m going to retake them today. They’re blurry, most likely because I was balancing on the squishy ottoman when I was taking them. I’ll move one of the  kitchen chairs into the den this time. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, Miss Lucy is our model of the day.

I just knew she had to wear one of the red sweaters.

Oh my goodness, she’s adorable. I’m really so crazy about her.

I have to tweak the other red sweater and then I’ll have made them all Blythe-wearable. A group photo will be forthcoming.

For those of you new to the blog: Maria asked I could take detailed photos of the dollhouses and descriptions of the pieces I chose. I’ve already done that! All of that information is up in the navigation bar under “dollhouses/minis.” There are posts showing the progress of each dollhouse and there is always a final post in which I describe everything and give sources.

Okay. Have to go.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

 

Decorating the Tree

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Out of all the Blythe-related photos I’ve taken over the past year, this is my favorite:

Imogen is ready to hang an ornament and Pippa is looking up at the tree. The magic of Christmas.

It took some fiddling and I had to add a support for Imogen; Pippa is somehow posing without any help. Actually, the final photo turned out better than my original concept.

And, I forgot to put the girls back on the shelf last night and they’re STILL holding these poses!

I tell you, these girls provide endless delight.

Reader Elaine is the person who originally informed me of the existence of sweater ornaments. She lives in Toronto and found a cute one at Canadian Tire. She also passed along photos of the Target sweaters. So I sent her two Target sweaters and she sent me two sweaters from Canadian Tire and here they are. They arrived yesterday.

The red is deeper than this, but reds are hard to capture. Thank you, Elaine. I’m going to do my snipping and binding at the back of the neckline so I can wrestle them on two of the girls. Aren’t they cute? VERY Christmassy.

We are getting a lot of ‘weather’ over the next two days. Snow, rain, snow, rain – with the final amount anyone’s guess. So we’re going to hunker down here at the cottage. Next week – if the forecast holds up – up to 10 inches of snow on the December 22nd and 23rd. Whoa, Nellie!

Stay safe.

Happy Thursday.

 

Tuesday Thoughts

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Very, very cold here today! It’s currently 13 degrees. Yikes. I think we have a few days of this frigid weather and then it will warm up a little. Right now, the snow is on the ground and a lot of branches are still coated with snow because it was so cold last night. The sun is shining and it’s beautiful out there.

One more photo from our snow day:

Harper – not at all sure about this ‘snow’ thing.

I’ve since added some tights so her legs don’t get cold.

We have to run a few errands today, and we also want to take a little drive because it’s so pretty around here. The snow isn’t dirty yet – it’s all crisp and white and clean.

I’m close to finishing the new Anthony Horowitz. His books are so conversational that they tend to read quickly. It’s a lot of fun. Then I’ll return it to the library where, I hope, the newest Herron will be waiting for me.

We have been thoroughly enchanted by vintage What’s My Line  episodes on YouTube. We watch at least two of them every night. It’s such a glimpse into another era, one in which we both grew up. The panel is smart, funny, charming and, above all, civil. There are none of the gimmicks that someone doing this show today would inevitably add. None of the “I’m funny and I’m going to throw in jokes whenever I can” crap that derails everything these days. No “me, me, me!” We are always amazed by the civility and kindness that permeates the program. I grew up watching it in the 60s when I was old enough to begin to appreciate it. We’re getting reacquainted with Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, Dorothy Kilgallen, and John Daly – all of them brilliant and charming, accomplished, with full and active working lives beyond appearing on the show. It’s fascinating and extremely entertaining. We inevitably google someone’s name during the course of each show to learn more about them. So many of the guests and panel members now gone; in fact, most of them. I miss them. I miss that era of respect and civility. It’s such a contrast to what we see today.

More and more I find myself yearning for what was – and I know that “what was” wasn’t perfect. There were conflicts and inequities and McCarthyism and racial inequality – we see very few African Americans in the early episodes. So I’m not fantasizing that everything was ideal. It wasn’t. But the civility, wit, respect with which people were treated. That was real.

Just some thoughts in my mind this morning.

Stay safe.

Happy Tuesday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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