Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Tree Lights and Rain

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It’s been quite rainy since Monday. It was so dark this morning that it was almost impossible to get a good Queen for a Day photo. I had to wait longer than usual. You’ll get no complaints from me about the rain – as you know, we desperately need it.

The lights are on the tree. One string wasn’t working, but we still had enough on hand, thank goodness. After we finished, the tree looked like it was leaning to the right, so I kept turning it, with Don giving me updates, until it looked fairly straight. We were busy yesterday, so we didn’t add the decorations, but we will today. It will be a nice rainy day activity. Besides, we rather like seeing just the lights for a while and, true to form, I briefly considered only lights this year. But I think, in the end, we’d regret it, as we have such a nice collection of vintage ornaments.

I have to take my car in tomorrow or Friday as I’m hearing a metallic sound when I brake. It’s probably a brake pad that needs replacing – or a rotor. Crap. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.

FYI: I don’t know if I mentioned it on the blog – I don’t think I did – but the day after the election, I got two messages. Very clear messages. The first was an image of Dump and “Leon”  in handcuffs. I saw it at least twice that day. I also received a simple message: “They’ll be found out.” And I became very calm and have remained so since November 6th. I still believe Kamala will be inaugurated.

We’ll see.

Queen Imogen.

Queen Madeleine. Taken this morning; getting a good photo took forever, as it’s so dark and rainy out there. Her hair is a bit flyaway, but that’s the norm. She’s French; she has her own style.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.

Glitter, Miniature Decorating, Winterizing

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The tree is up in Dove Cottage. I was trying to focus on the tree, rather than the furniture – hence, the blurriness in the foreground. I aim to keep the decorating in the little houses as spare as the decorations in my big house: the Christmas tree, a few putz houses here and there, and that’s about it.

The Lake Cottage, Mockingbird Hill Cottage, and Don’s studio have trees. I may switch out the tree in Don’s studio with the vintage dollhouse in the kitchen. He doesn’t care, so why not? That way, I could get a glimpse of the tree through the windows of the house. Hmmmm.

I did a lot of work outside yesterday and it was incredibly windy! Lots of trips back and forth to the shed, as I begin to move porch pots for winter storage. I used a dolly to move the vintage pots that live in the secret garden to the porch. They’re really heavy! I also swept the floor of the shed. I’m getting ready to hang the lights on the porch, cover the sideboard with a tarp, and store the cushions for the winter. It’s really, really cold with nighttime temps dipping down into the teens. We – at least here in the Hudson Valley – are unofficially in winter.

The pansies are still going strong, though I haven’t looked at them this morning. I hope they hang in there as long as possible.

Four more girls wearing their crowns:

I’m having a lot of fun with this series. The photos have to be taken in the early morning, with a certain kind of morning light. Yesterday, I slept in, so there I was – no coffee yet – blindly grabbing Nina, trying to get everything in place for a picture.

Since Maeve has gold glitter on her eyelids, I couldn’t resist.

Such are my days; crowns, glitter, dollhouses, and winterizing….

Stay safe.

Happy Monday,

 

Cleaning and Organizing

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Still going strong! Though I’ve noticed it’s beginning to dry out. The putz ‘village’ has been put away, as have all the little Vintage by Crystal figurines. But the tree is staying – at least for a few days. Which brings me to our weather forecast – we may be getting a lot of snow Saturday night into Sunday. If that’s the case, I’ll probably remove and store all the ornaments and lights and have Don take the tree up into the woods on Saturday. If we get a lot of snow, then Monday will be all about digging out, which would then take us to Tuesday, and that would be pushing it.

As I said to Don yesterday, we desperately wanted snow for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Now? We’re not so crazy about the idea! And as I look ahead on the calendar, it looks like I might be dealing with snow when I have to drive to Rochester. Right now, it looks fairly benign. We’ll see…

We’ve been very committed to our daily walks, so I’m giving us a big old pat on our backs. Yesterday, we were both busy with chores and figured we’d skip it, but later in the day Don decided to go and I joined him. I’m glad I did.

The office/studio was in a bit of chaos yesterday as I decided to tackle the closet. I needed to organize a few things and the closet was full of doll boxes. It was getting ridiculous. When I buy a doll, I tend to want to keep the box (they’re a specific size) in case I eventually want to sell it. And collector dolls, like the Gene Marshall dolls, are worth more when you sell them with the original packaging.

But since the Gene Marshall dolls are inexpensive and I think my little collection is complete, I’m not going to hang on to those boxes. And I don’t need 20 Blythe boxes. So I pulled out lots of them and flattened them for recycling, which involved lots of trips up and down the stairs and then outside to the porch, where we keep the recycling. And I threw out a lot of other stuff, as well. Every inch of space in the closet is being used, but it’s much more organized. I used one of the doll boxes for the Christmas trees that were on the Blythe shelves (I even labeled the box!) And I did the same for the dollhouse trees and Christmas accessories. And the putz houses. Here’s hoping I don’t have dig them out again next year because I inadvertently moved them.  Then I vacuumed every inch of the office and our bedroom.

After that, I sent an Etsy order off in the mail and returned a book to the library – the Michael Connelly, which was excellent. I’ve just barely started Wolf Hall  and will read more of it today.

We had a nice New Year’s Day. We ate our black-eyed peas. My husband was raised by a dad who was from Oklahoma and a mom who was from Texas, so he takes that very seriously. I think it’s a lovely (and healthy) tradition. Black-eyed peas are very good for you. And we watched the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which was absolutely fabulous!

Don has to get a shot in his eye today, which always looms over the entire day, bless his heart.

Okay.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.

 

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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