Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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We Need a Bit More Light

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Whoops! We need another strand of lights. Even after I purchased two new boxes! I briefly wondered if I could just go with it…but no, that’s not going to happen. So I suggested a trip to Target this morning, casually adding that Five Guys with the best fries in the world happens to be right down the street. Bingo.

But I like the rest of the tree a lot.

Now that the Blythes take up the real estate that once held my aqua McCoy/Putz houses, I need to find a new place for the houses. I’m considering  the temporary removal of the aqua vase and singing birds from the piano so that I can create a little village there. The top of the piano is the closest thing we have to a mantel (remember, I called it a “pantel”once?) so I think that might be the solution. I try to keep it simple around here because our cottage is small and it already has a lot of ‘stuff’ everywhere. But the houses? Yes, please.

I feel like I’m finally rested from the intense experience of the premiere. I’d like to preserve that joyful feeling I had – still have, a little. But it’s hard to maintain that kind of high over time. I’ll just have to hold it close so I can access it when I need to.

I love Christmas. I love the tree lights and the ornaments and the feeling of peace and hope. We plug in the tree lights first thing in the morning and don’t unplug them until we go to bed. The rest of the winter can be rather bleak, but at least we have this in December. Our porch lights will stay lit for a few months, of course.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

Saturday Thoughts

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Well, we’re a day late with the tree lights. I felt under the weather yesterday – a reaction, I’m sure, to searching for trees on a very windy day. So I asked if we could delay until today and Don, who was tired, thought that was the perfect idea. Today, we’ll put on the lights. Tomorrow, we’ll hang the ornaments.

It’s going to rain a lot today. The temp will reach 54 degrees, which is warm for this time of year. It’s so dark out there right now, you’d think the sun had just come up! Sort of the perfect day to put on some Christmas music and light the tree. We always like to wait a day or two and enjoy the tree with the lights before we add the ornaments.

Still on a high from Tuesday. As is Don. I’m so, so grateful for this entire experience, from the initial coaching with Ben, to filming in the NYC area and living in Brooklyn, and then to a year later and the premiere. I am a theater animal and though I tried to get into movies many years ago, the woman I spoke to had an immediate opening for a Nicole Kidman movie that she wanted me to drop everything for, but I was coaching the Summer Shakespeare Festival at the Globe and I refused to quit my job  and leave them in the lurch. So those dreams quickly vanished. Having the opportunity to do it 15 years later, is a nice little ‘coda.’

And I’ll say one thing more. I’m sure working on any movie is exciting, but the thing that made this such a powerful, one-of-a-kind experience was Jim. The young man we auditioned for the program 24 years ago, the guy who suddenly had unexpected and enormous stardom come into his life and who handled it with great integrity, the guy I had so many laughs with over the years, the guy who is true blue – well, it made the whole thing so personal and intimate. And I have to add Ben, as well, whom I got to know very well when we worked on his dialect during pre-production. Add to that the gift of properly getting to know Todd, Jim’s husband? Icing on the cake. It could never be duplicated and I am profoundly grateful.

I felt the need to dress a girl yesterday:

Darling little Pippa.

Okay, my friends.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

Tissues, Christmas trees & a Sweater

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Just thought I’d share the pack of tissues that was handed out to audience members. Perfect – and timely – because this movie will  make you cry.

We’re still on a high from the premiere and we’re trying to stay there. We need to remind ourself that magic and miracles are not limited to a certain age group. This entire experience started for me at the age of 68 – an offer out of the blue. And now, at the age of 70, I’m seeing myself on the screen, hearing Ben’s excellent dialect work, and my name is in the credits for the film. Twice. Since it’s been a long time since Don has worked, he needs to know this as well. He’s been depressed about not having a job for over three years. He needs to work. And we need the income. But mostly, he just needs to do what he was born to do. I keep reminding him that Margaritaville came to him out of the blue, as well.

Christmas tree: We went to three different places yesterday in search of the right tree. Our favorite vendor has the weird pruned branches that we’ve now seen on trees everywhere. But theirs are the worst. And they’re charging $96.00 for a tree. So we went to Lowes. They were charging $30 less, but their trees were pretty crappy. I don’t know if they’re waiting for a new shipment or what, but there wasn’t a lot available. (We got our tree from them last year and it was quite lovely.) So, we drove down the thruway to another vendor and we found our tree there. It was priced midway between the other two. By that point, we were determined to get a tree. Prices are outrageous here, but we love a real tree, so there it is. We don’t put a lot of money into Christmas otherwise – our families don’t exchange gifts, our parents are gone, we don’t have kids or grandkids…so it’s just us. Some Christmases are a bit more lavish, depending on income, and some are very lean – I think that will be the case this year. But our tree is everything to us, it’s what we love, so it’s worth it.

Here it is. Though we are going to turn it a bit. The side of the tree on the right is better. We’ll put the lights on it today and decorate over the weekend. (Note the ever-present heating pad on my chair in the den.)

A couple of little Christmas ornament sweaters arrived here yesterday from Kohl’s. One seems like it will be impossible to fit without a snip or two at the back. The other had a wide enough neck so I was able to wrestle it on Sophie. These are bigger than the ones from Target. Who knew that these were a thing? I sure didn’t. But I guess certain stores carry them every year.

Here’s Sophie, late in the day:

Warm and cozy and her red sweater. I don’t know about you, but I love a red sweater.

Today, we’re taking it easy. We’re still tired from Tuesday. I’ve been to hundreds of opening nights in the theater over the years, a few of them big events on Broadway. But this one was even more intense and required a lot of energy to navigate, as well as to be ‘on.’ For this introvert, it was wonderful and magical…and completely exhausting. Time to retreat for a few days.

I hope you don’t mind if I just say thank you to all of you for your support and your wonderful comments yesterday. I just don’t have the mental energy to answer them all. Things will get back to normal soon, I promise.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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