Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Saturday Morning

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The view from my chair this morning.

It’s rainy today. There was a chance of some snow as well, but I got up at 5:45 and there wasn’t a flake to be found. We sort of wanted to see a bit of snow this morning. Ah, well.

I worked outside for a few hours yesterday, emptying pots, stacking them near the shed, carting all of the outdoor chairs to the winter shelter of the porch. Then I did my best to stack everything in one of the dry areas of our roof-leaking shed. We have someone coming to look at it right after Christmas.

The Beacon Hill dollhouse is up next. I still have things to finish in the English cottage – the bedroom, specifically – so that is ongoing. Since I got busy with the film, I couldn’t really work on the Beacon Hill, and it smelled really musty. So, over the course of 3 months or so, I tried dishes  of baking soda, lysol, and coffee grounds. Nothing worked until I used activated charcoal, and lo and behold, the smell has greatly decreased – it’s almost gone. While I start to put primer on the exterior of the dollhouse, I’ll keep some charcoal in the interior rooms. Hopefully, by the time the outside is primed, the smell will be gone. I’ve already removed the exterior shutters (in order to paint and reposition them in the correct place next to the window) and I’ve fixed the wonky porch as best I can – it will always be a bit wonky, but so is our real-life porch. I have to add some pieces near the base of the kitchen window and I’ll be good to go. Haven’t come up with an exterior color yet.

By the way, Don named his guitar “Spoiler” after the movie. Perfect, right?

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

 

The Tree and Some Thoughts on Movie Making

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The tree. Finished. We hung the ornaments in the late morning hours yesterday and then hauled all the bins back to the storage facility. It’s really a perfectly shaped tree – if I didn’t know better, I’d be inclined to think it was artificial. It’s also the perfect size for this little area in front of the french doors. This is a small house and every bit of it is used, so finding a place for the tree is always a challenge. We used to put it in the corner of the den, but that space is now taken up with my first dollhouse – Hummingbird Cottage.

And that’s all I’m doing for several days – except to clean up the outdoor pots and put some of the furniture on the porch. I’ll probably do that tomorrow.

The hardest part of working on the film was the long hours. I was routinely gone for at least 15 hours. 12 hour workdays on the set are the norm, and there are times we worked 13 or 14 hours. Add in time to get ready in the morning, a commute of an hour – minimum – from and to Brooklyn, sometimes having to grab an Uber at 1 am because the trains didn’t stop at my local station after 11:30 (they were doing track maintenance,) and you can see the kind of days I had every week. I don’t know how the crew members who routinely do this kind of work manage to do it day in and day out. Of course, I’m much older than most of them, so there’s that. Believe me, Don, who understands, had to be a listening ear to my constant tales of exhaustion. He was great. So was Annie. They both said “You can do it!!!” in texts and on the phone. They were my cheerleaders.

It was so hard. And I feel the effects of it now. My body is slowly letting go of the past six weeks and it now craves rest and sleep. I nod off in the afternoon. I constantly nod off in the evening. That’s okay. I need to rest.

I don’t know how I did it, but I did, and I’m really, really proud of myself. I don’t think I’d want to do it again, but who knows? What made this all worth it was getting the chance to work with Jim and Ben. It was personal for me and that somehow kept me going.

Of course, getting to work with Sally Field and Bill Irwin was pretty darned wonderful as well. I can’t imagine two nicer or more talented people.

All my plans for exploring Manhattan and Brooklyn had to be whittled down to one day a week because by the time I reached Saturday, my first day off, all I could do was sit around the apartment. I was incapable of doing more.

I’ve never had a baby, but I imagine this is much like that experience in that you forget about the labor pains once you hold your child in your hands. I am slowly forgetting about the hours and the exhaustion and, in fact, didn’t feel any of that on the last day of filming because there was such a feeling of celebration amongst us. Job well done by all!

The people I met and worked with, the kindness shown to me by everyone, the privilege of watching each scene being filmed on our monitors, running on the set to give Ben a note, joking around with Jim and Ben, laughing constantly with Michael Ausiello, the author of the book the movie is based on, watching Michael Showalter, the director, work, watching the incredible crew members do their magic, watching Sally and Bill – so amazing, seeing Jim and Ben doing brave and brilliant work – those are the memories I will hold close to my heart.

One more thing:

The girls put up their own Christmas tree. They’ve been busy!

Stay safe.

Happy Thursday.

A Special Gift and Lights on the Tree

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Yesterday, while having our second cup of coffee, I asked Don if he really wanted an item he had mentioned to me – Don sometimes has impulse ideas for a gift that he ends up regretting. Sure enough, he was wavering. Then, as a muttered aside, he said that what he really wanted was a resonator guitar. What do I know about resonator guitars? Nothing. But I do now. They have built in cones that make the sound bigger and they can be played with a slide, which is great for arthritic fingers and hands. Don has had a hard time playing for any length of time nowadays because of arthritis. This kind of guitar would be a perfect solution. (It’s often used by blues musicians, by the way, and was invented in the 20s before there was electronic amplification of guitars – the cones were needed to compete with the rest of the instruments in a band.)

Anyway. We talked about it and suddenly I thought, “I can buy this for him with some of my pay from the movie! I have the money.” So, I told him I would buy it for him and we started to research and listen to videos, etc. Don’s local music store didn’t have any in stock. But we found one south of us that did. So we got in the car, retrieved the extra bin of ornaments, got on the thruway and drove south (not very far.) We had an appointment to look at the guitar at 12:30. Long story short, we learned a lot more and it’s fabulous and I bought it for my husband for Christmas. Yay!

He is so happy. Playing the guitar has been a constant for Don since he was 10 years old and his Samoan godfather taught him to play a pedal steel guitar. He needs to play. And he’s been taking an online course from a blues guitarist from Detroit (who is also a minister!)

He has spoiled me many times (see dollhouses as Christmas gifts.) This Christmas I’m spoiling him. I told him I don’t need much for Christmas, maybe an inexpensive watch. I’ve been spoiling myself buying dolls and clothes, so I don’t need any big gifts. Just being here in our lovely little cottage with the tree and rest and peace is all I need.

I’ll take a picture of him playing the guitar later today, so you can see what it looks like.

And then we stopped and had fries from Five Guys – something we haven’t done in years. Oh my heavens, they were good.

Then I discovered Don had bought the wrong lights for the tree – he bought the kind that are netted and go over bushes – so I sent him back to the store. After he came home with the right lights, we put them on the tree and stopped for the day. We’ll put the ornaments on this morning.

For someone who just wants to rest, my days have been very busy since I got home.

Actually, I really like just having the lights for a day or two. That’s a piece of vintage fabric at the base of the tree.

Monty is already adorned for the holidays.

I’m keeping it simple this year. I have no idea where the putz houses are and I’m not looking for them. They’re not lost, I’m just not sure where I put them. Unless I have a burst of energy, I’m not decorating the dollhouses. Just the tree and few little things here and there.

I’m tired and my body is trying to recover from the insane schedule I was on for six weeks. I keep nodding off in the late afternoon and evening. The less holiday decorating I have to do, the better.

We’re watching Get Back, the Beatles documentary. Don has already watched it once and now we’re watching it together. It’s fascinating.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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