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Ringing in the New Year with Gershwin and Mallomars

January 1, 2015 at 9:28 am by Claudia

Happy New Year!

It’s the symbolism of the whole thing isn’t it? Because time, as we know it, is a human construct, as are the calendar and clocks by which we measure time.

I can’t go any further with that concept or my head will spin.

Anyway, a new year equals a fresh start, a reset. No resolutions for this girl, just an ongoing challenge to be a good person. If I can swing that, I’m happy. I always have goals I’m working toward and they are ongoing, new year or no. And dreams….they’re in there, too.

I made it to midnight. Glory be. Don made a wonderful dinner. We ended up watching Live from Lincoln Center where the New York Philharmonic’s menu for the night was all Gershwin. Gershwin is my favorite composer, so I was thrilled. As was Don. Then we watched Michael Feinstein at the Rainbow Room, an event that celebrated the American Songbook. Sigh. More happiness. It ended up being the perfect New Year’s Eve.

We might have had a few Mallomars. And some sparkling apple cider.

And a kiss or two.

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What? Another Jane Austen/Penguin Classic?

I succumbed. It just seemed to me that Pride and Prejudice was rather lonely up there on the shelf. Yes, of course, Shakespeare was there, and he’s pretty nifty, but P & P needed some sisterly company.

I had to.

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Oh, so pretty.

Girls, there will be more friends coming throughout 2015. I promise.

The tree is still up. We’re not ready to take it down yet. Too lovely. So it stays.

Our next event here at the cottage is this coming Sunday, January 4th.

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Someone has a birthday.

The words ‘Sweet Sixteen’ come to mind.

Happy Thursday.

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Adventures, Day Two

December 31, 2014 at 9:04 am by Claudia

Two days, two day trips. That’s a big deal for homebodies like us. We took off again yesterday in search of chairs. Gosh darn it, we didn’t find even one! But we had fun. We drove across the river again, this time to Hyde Park (home of FDR) to visit one of our favorite antique shops.

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I always see lots and lots of treasures there. I find I am much less inclined than I used to be to bring something home unless I know I have room to display it or simply cannot imagine existing without it. That narrows the list of possibilities down quite effectively.

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This volume (with the green cover) came home with me because I do have room to display it. I collect books by the American poet Edgar Guest. You can see a few others to the left of my new find. Edgar Guest was not only a very popular poet, he was my dad’s godfather and a friend to our family. He and his son Bud Guest were well-loved Detroiters. I don’t often find his books, so when I find one in good condition, I grab it.

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Heap O’Livin was part of the opening line of his more well known poems – Home. You might remember that I found a framed version of it about a year ago.

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I wrote a post called Collecting Edgar Guest that you might be interested in. It gives more background information on Mr. Guest. I wish I’d been lucky enough to know him.

As the chair search continued, we moved on to another shop in Hyde Park and then drove up to Rhinebeck, one of my favorite towns in the Hudson Valley. It was very cold outside and we were hungry, so we grabbed a couple of slices of pizza, then proceeded on to another favorite antique center. No chairs. But there was a Maxfield Parrish original print that I want very badly. One of my first posts ever on this blog was about Maxfield Parrish and how much I love his work. I’ve wanted an original print for years but have never been able to purchase one. It was never the right time. This antique shop had three of them. I thought about putting the one that won my heart on layaway. But I decided to walk away and, if it still calls to me after a couple of days, I’ll go back.

Oh, it was gorgeous! And just the right size for a cottage that already has a lot of treasures hanging on its walls and very little available wall space.

For the second day in a row, we were treated to a simply spectacular sunset as we drove home. This one was amazing. Don stopped the car on the side of the road so I could take a photo.

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From the moving car.

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After we stopped. The sky looked like it was on fire. Incredible.

Here we are at the end of another year – years which seem to be slipping by all too quickly. We have no plans tonight other than to toast the New Year with some Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider. I seriously doubt whether I’ll be able to make it to midnight.

Be safe as you celebrate, my friends. See you in 2015.

Happy Wednesday.

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A Day Trip and a Remembrance

December 30, 2014 at 8:45 am by Claudia

Yesterday morning, Don called out to me, telling me to go out on the porch and look at the sky. This is what I saw:

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It’s as if someone took a giant piece of chalk and streaked it through the sky. I love the X.

Later, we decided to take a drive to a little town across the Hudson from us called Millbrook. We used to go there quite often when we lived on that side of the river, but we haven’t been there in quite a while. There are a couple of charming antique stores there (we’re on a mission to collect mismatched, but sturdy, chairs for the kitchen table.) We didn’t find any chairs, but we dined at this incredible diner.

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It’s the Millbrook Diner, which has been around since 1929. Jimmy Cagney, who had property nearby, used to stop in there for a bite to eat. It is unbelievably cool, the real deal. Don, who loves nothing more than eating at a diner, was in heaven.

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Here he throws his arm heavenward in thanks for his eating experience.

He ate a lot.

And we also stopped at a local bookstore.

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I can’t resist a bookstore, especially an independent bookstore. As is the usual with us, we ended up chatting for quite a while with the staff, who were incredibly helpful and fun. I saw Mary Oliver’s latest volume of poetry, Blue Horses. After I had read yet another in a series of poems out loud to Don, he grabbed the book and bought it for me. So I bought one for him: Of All The Gin Joints: Stumbling Through Hollywood History.

Even-steven.

Today, we’re heading out to another favorite antique shop. The search continues.

By the way, be sure to stop by my post about Living Small to read some tips I’ve shared and to learn more about the new show Tiny House Nation on the FYI network.

And now, I want to stop and take a moment to honor a longtime reader of this blog who died very suddenly on Christmas day. Rizzi, that was her nickname, her full name was Madeline LeClair, wrote the blog Gifts From the Sea. She lived with her daughter and son-in-law and their two daughters in New Jersey. Rizzi used to comment on this blog frequently and I visited her blog, as well. She stopped blogging about a year ago. Recently, she had been suffering from bronchitis and complications from that illness took her life.

Rizzi’s niece, Ann Marie, is also a reader of this blog and she wrote me to tell me of Rizzi’s death. Both Rizzi and Ann Marie are kind and generous, the sort of people I felt blessed to come to know through this blog. When I started to write about my new dollhouse obsession, Rizzi sent me three unfinished cabinets for the dollhouse. You see them every time I publish photos of the den and the kitchen. The blue hutch in the den was from Rizzi. The shelf unit over the Aga oven in the kitchen was created from one of the unfinished pieces that I took apart and reconfigured.

Those pieces will always be there and they will remind me of a lovely friend who took the time to share her world with us on her blog, and also took the time to stop by mine.

Rest in peace, Rizzi. You will be missed.

Happy Tuesday.

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Ringing in the New Year with Gershwin and Mallomars

Adventures, Day Two

A Day Trip and a Remembrance

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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