books — Page 157

Monday in the City

December 21, 2015 at 8:10 am by Claudia

12-21 sunset

When we lived in California, we would go to the beach to watch the sunset, hoping to capture that moment when the sun was almost set – just a blip of orange or yellow light on the edge of the horizon. That’s what I was attempting to capture in this photo.

It looks like we’re going to have warmer than usual temperatures this week. In fact, it’s supposed to reach 67° on Christmas Eve, not unlike the temperatures we used to see on Christmas Eve in San Diego. Topsy-turvy. And obviously, not a trace of snow in the forecast, though we did see some flurries on Saturday.

I’m off to the city later today to see a 7:00 performance of a one man show about C.S. Lewis that I have had a small hand in. It’s still in development, so I’m going to take some notes on what I see tonight. They’ve been trying to get me in there for a couple of weeks, but the darned ankle kept me from going in. My dear friend from my Old Globe days is producing the show and I’ll get to see him tonight, as well.

But I’ll leave early in the afternoon, which should give me time for a visit to The Mysterious Bookshop. Heaven. I’ll stock up on a few books, drink in the shop’s atmosphere, IG a photo or two, then I’ll grab a bite to eat and catch the show.

Long day. NYC is wonderful but a trip into the city is always a long one, with three hours of travel time in addition to the hours in the city. Ah well. There will be no time to catch a glimpse of our little town’s tree at Rockefeller Center. I’ve seen pictures, though, and it’s beautiful.

Still having problems with timely email delivery of the daily blog posts. I don’t know why. It’s ticking me off! Hang in there.

Happy Monday.

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A Wee Tree

December 20, 2015 at 8:33 am by Claudia

I drove around yesterday looking for a strand of clear lights on a white cord. (First time I’ve driven since the ankle injury!) No lights anywhere. No little inexpensive pre-lit trees, either. I definitely want low-key this year, but I found myself balking at the possibility of no tree lights.

So I came home to my $20 Michael’s pre-lit tree and proceeded to pry off every one of the lights, which had been clamped to the branches in a rather intricate pattern. The clamps were sort of like the plastic closures that come on a loaf of bread and they were very hard to remove.

Two hours and a couple of broken fingernails later, I had finished. In the meantime, Don went out to the shed and brought the Christmas light bin inside and I found one unused strand of lights. I hadn’t planned on opening any bins this year, but we had no choice. Lights were strung on the tree, some little ornaments I had upstairs were hung, and then to fill it out, I added some faux berries that were in the light bin.

12-20 tree

And we’re done.

Just enough for us this year.

And it’s fairly well protected where it is, so Scout won’t fall into it – another reason we didn’t want a real tree this year.

I’m close to finishing my book and I’m in a little bit of a panic because I don’t have another book by Susan Hill ready and waiting. And I’m so into this series that I don’t want to start something else. If all else fails I can get it on the Kindle, though I’d prefer a real book I can hold in my hands. But I’ve got a plan. Tomorrow I have to go into the city in the evening to watch a performance – something I have been involved with off and on. I’m going to go in early, take the subway to the stop closest to The Mysterious Bookshop and I’m going to spend an hour or so in that lovely shop, where I know they will have Susan Hill’s books on the shelf.

I’m going to treat myself to the next three in the series. Hey, if I have to haul myself into the city this close to Christmas, I should have some sort of reward, don’t you think?

Happy Sunday.

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Saturday Bits and Bobs

December 19, 2015 at 9:13 am by Claudia

12-19 office before

Office. Before. As you can see, everything is as we left it when we hauled the IKEA boxes upstairs.

We’ve decided to hold off on painting, perhaps because I hate painting, which might explain why we haven’t done the much-needed repainting of the kitchen. Every year, I plan on doing it. Every year, I don’t.

Anyway, we’ve decided to see how everything looks once we put the desk, chair and lamp together and move things around. But Don isn’t feeling well, so there’s no hurry.

On top of that, I finally hauled out the little white pre-lit Christmas tree and set it up.

And the lights aren’t working. Crap.

Maybe Christmas isn’t in the cards for us this year? Just kidding. But it does seem as if I’m getting messages from the universe to slow down and do very little.

A couple of things to mention:

• The email version of yesterday’s post went out about five hours late. I don’t know why this is happening, but it’s a Feedburner thing and I spent more hours than I would have liked to yesterday trying to figure it out. The thing is, I could pay for an email delivery service for the blog, but I already pay for enough to maintain this little piece of real estate, thank you very much, and since I have a nice amount of subscribers and I post every day, the amount I would have to pay is just something I would rather not do.

For those of you who subscribe via email, if you don’t get the post between 11 and 1, Feedburner is lagging behind and you should just hop on over and visit the blog directly. You know I post every day, with very rare exceptions. And why not come here directly? It’s prettier here than in the email, anyway.

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• This book is excellent. This is the first in a series of books featuring Detective Simon Serrailler. They take place in the fictional cathedral town of Lafferton. Susan Hill is an amazing, detailed, and thoughtful writer. There are at least five other books in the series and I cannot wait to get them all. I’m about 2/3 of the way through this one and I’m taking my time simply because the experience is so pleasurable.

• I promised you some links to the blogs of miniaturists who have entered the Creatin’ Contest. Their work is amazingly detailed and I can only dream of doing what they do.

From Pepper at MitchyMooMiniatures.

From MiniModPod.

From Brae at Otterine.

From Minibase.

From Nancy at Nancyland.

From I See Cerulean. More details here and here.

And even though Elizabeth at Studio E couldn’t finish her entry due to the loss of her mother, this post – dedicated to her mom – gives you an idea of what she’s doing and it’s amazing.

As I find more entries, I’ll post the links for you.

• I took some pictures of the article in The Dolls’ House Magazine:

12-19 article1

12-19 article2

12-19 article3

The photo of the fireplace is also featured on the Table of Contents page. That gosh-darned plastic fireplace that I wasn’t going to use, but one day pulled out of a box in a fit of desperation to slap some white paint over its original blah beige because I needed a fireplace. Another one of my photos of the fireplace is one of my most pinned photos.

Who’d have thunk it?

Happy Saturday.

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Monday in the City

A Wee Tree

Saturday Bits and Bobs

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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