Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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A New Year

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Well, Happy New Year! I was born in 1952 and this year ends in ’22, so you do the math. It won’t happen until the end of the year, but, believe me, I have taken note.

We had a very low-key New Year’s Eve. I think we went to bed around 11 pm. We dined on delicious Thai food, ate a few chocolates, watched one of our favorite movies – It Happened One Night – and toasted the new year with sparkling cider.

Now we’re at the point in the weekend where we keep thinking today is Monday. Just as we thought Saturday was Sunday. I’ll be happy to get back to normal, whatever that is. The tree is still up, though it’s very dry. (We never have the lights on when we’re not here, so it’s safe.) We were going to take it down today, but Don asked if we could keep it up one more day. Normally, we’d have it up until the 6th, at the very least, but this tree from Lowes is not lasting as long as the trees we usually buy from our favorite nursery. I’ll miss it. It’s quite beautiful.

Plus, it’s raining. Again. We’ve had endless fog and rain. It’s getting rather depressing.

This tray full of vegetables and a copper pan with the makings of soup was one of the miniatures that Ben gave me as a present on the last day of shooting. There are several others that I’ll share with you. Here’s the back story: When I was coaching Ben via Zoom, I used our office. I did my best to angle the camera so that the Beacon Hill wouldn’t appear in the shot. Not everyone understands dollhouses, for one thing, but more importantly, it seemed unprofessional. But eagle-eyed Ben caught sight of it once and became excited and wanted me to show it to him. So I showed him the Beacon Hill and the English cottage and he was quite taken with them. (His mom had a dollhouse.) I mentioned that I hoped to get to Tiny Dollhouse in NYC while I was staying in Brooklyn. If you didn’t read my post on IG, I went there on the one day I had off and they were unexpectedly closed. I was so disappointed. But Ben, who was always on set, sent his boyfriend David to the shop to pick out a few things for me! David, by the way, fell in love with miniatures while he was there. Ben presented me with the loveliest card with very moving thank you, along with a gift bag. Inside the bag were all the miniatures. So, so dear of him. One of them was for Don and me – a really neat guitar. I’ll show you more in the future.

And here’s Zoe and Bertie (on another dark and dreary day.) She’s wearing a new dress.

Okay my friends. I hope you had a lovely weekend.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

A Bit of This, A Bit of That

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Admittedly, I worked obsessively on the puzzle yesterday, with a long session in the morning and then another one in the afternoon. I finally got the Tower of London in place in the late afternoon and Don said, “Enough! Go sit down. Dinner’s almost ready!” But he understands. He’s the same.

I love, love assembling jigsaw puzzles. I get in a zone, I talk out loud to myself as I fit pieces into place, I feel anxiety fade away. But I must do it all by myself – no help from others. I don’t know how I’d do with any sort of communal jigsaw puzzle. Not too well, I suspect!

I finished the Simenon/Maigret and have started Cloud Cuckoo Land  by Anthony Doerr, who wrote one of my favorite novels ever, All The Light We Cannot See. He’s brilliant.

A package arrived yesterday from Northfield Primitives (in Yorkshire, England.) Of course, I had to photograph this new member of the family. Meet Bertie:

Imogen has been walking him.

Isn’t he adorable? Isn’t she adorable?

We watched a new documentary about Kurt Vonnegut the other evening and it was excellent! If you’re at all interested, it’s on Amazon Prime. There was so much I didn’t know about him. What an amazing and brilliant man he was.

Okay. I’m off to organize and clean up my studio/office space which I said I would do yesterday.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.

Relocating Books and a Flower Child

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The modern dollhouse is dismantled and, for the time being, it’s wrapped in a sheet and tucked under my dresser. But it sticks out, as it did when I tried to place it under the work table. It will be moved to a spot under the bed later today.

The top surface of the both bookshelves was cleaned and then, several trips up and down the stairs later, we have this:

This looks crooked and wonky because the only way I can get a photo is to sit on the bed. Even though our house is very old and does have slightly uneven floors, it’s not quite this bad! All of these books are To Be Read. Except for the Mary Stewarts and (not in the photo) the PD James. They are to be reread. I actually like the books here more than the dollhouse as the covers are colorful and bright and they cheer up this corner of the bedroom.

Our library is accepting donations again, so I am going to sort through books and amass piles of them to donate. Normally, I do this once a year, but the last couple of years have been…well, you know.

I made progress with the puzzle, too.

Today it’s sunny, so we’re going to take a walk this morning.

A new dress arrived in the mail from a seller on Etsy – WoollyRockers. I’ve purchased from her before. She made a series of dresses in the Strawberry Thief pattern by William Morris, which, as you can see, I also have on the sofa in the English cottage.

I’ve always thought of Sophie as a bit of a flower child, and this long dress, coupled with her long hair, confirms it. Zoe was dressed in that hat when she arrived in the mail and it is the perfect color to complement the dress. Next on the agenda for Sophie and Maeve; a neck joint that will make their heads move a bit more, so that they aren’t always looking down. (That’s a thing with Blythe dolls in their original state – heads looking downward.) That lack of flexibility results in Sophie often looking sullen. It will involve some ‘surgery’ but now that I’m home, I’m going to get going on that project.

I have some major sorting and cleaning to do in the office/studio and that will be on the agenda for the next couple of days. It’s rather a mess in my cubicle and since Don recently cleaned and reorganized his section of the office, I must avoid embarrassment and do the same!

Stay safe.

Happy Tuesday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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