Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Someone is Back

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I was chatting with Don yesterday morning andI mentioned that I hadn’t seen any sign of a groundhog this year. Had Henry passed on? He’s been around so long that could well have been the case. Later in the day, after running errands, I happened to look out the window to see a groundhog in the corral, eating grass.

I ran for the camera and stayed inside to take some photos. Groundhogs are notoriously shy and any hint of movement will send them back to their lair. As it was, I could swear he was looking right at me.

Yes, the shed needs painting and you know what? I don’t care! It is what it is. Weathered and worn.

Back to Henry. Or is it Henry II? Seems a bit smaller than Henry, but I can’t swear to that.

I can’t tell you how happy this made me! I immediately texted a photo to Don, who, about a half hour later, called me back. He was relieved, as well.

This might be my favorite photo. I’ve never seen him do that before.

Yay! Welcome back after your winter of hibernation! There’s lots of grass to dine upon. Have at it! (Just stay out of my garden, please.)

It’s been raining off and on for a few days now. It rained all night last night. We are waterlogged here. Will the sun make an appearance? Fingers crossed.

I’m just about finished with my book, but I had to break away to write this post. I haven’t been reading as much lately simply because I’m finally able to work outside and that’s my priority. This rain gives me the perfect excuse to indulge in reading and I’m grateful for it.

I snapped up this galvanized tray yesterday at Target. It was in the garden section. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but I like that look – within reason, of course. Too much is too much.

Anyway, here’s what I ended up doing:

I set it on top of the cake plate, which has a much smaller diameter. It provides more room for the succulents. And it contrasts nicely with the white of the table and the cake plate.

One photo was taken yesterday, one today, which accounts for the variations in the light.

I like it.

Two more days until I head into the city for the opening of Anastasia. It’s hard to believe that after all this time, it’s finally opening on Broadway. I sure wish Don could attend with me. It would make all the difference in the world. He, in fact, considered flying in to surprise me, thinking he might be able to wrangle a day off on Tuesday. But, the show is moving on stage on Tuesday and tech rehearsals are starting and he absolutely has to be there. I completely understand.

But, oh how I’d love to have him by side. Sigh.

Happy Saturday and Happy Earth Day.

Stella is Out of Here

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I see Spring Home Tours sprouting up all over the Internet.

Here’s mine:

The car on the right, completely buried under the snow, is mine. When we moved some snow away from the kitchen door so we could fully open it, I grabbed the tape measure.

22 inches. Just under two feet.

All day long the winds blew, the snow fell – sometimes at a rate of 3-4 inches per hour – and it covered our windows so completely that we couldn’t see outside.

We have a heck of a lot of cleanup to do today.

The good news: the aforementioned delivery of heating oil and…we never lost power. At one point in the late morning, the lights started to blink. Don was in the shower, so I shouted that he’d better finish quickly. (Since the water pump is electric, if we lose power, we lose water.) Amazingly, that was the only scare we had.

I know some places – NYC for instance – didn’t get quite as much snow as expected. Trust me, we did, and then some. Toward the end of the week, the temperature is going to hit 40 degrees and it will start melting, but it’s going to take a while for all of this to disappear.

Don’s thinking he’ll leave on Saturday. We need a couple of days to get him ready since we lost two days this week.

In the meantime, I added a few items to the gallery wall:

I read, I went online. I looked out the window repeatedly. I ate: apple pie for Pi Day.

And I finally did some hand quilting:

Since the quilt design is very linear, I’m quilting interlocking circles of varying sizes. Nothing plotted out, just whatever I want to do at the moment. It’s taking me a bit of time to get back into that hand quilting rhythm. I like my stitches to be fairly even, but it takes a while to get there. I don’t know how long it’s been since I worked on this, but I know that at the very least, it’s been since last year. When I opened up the quilt, my ‘memory’ of having done a fair amount proved to be untrue. I have a lot to do! A good project when I get back from NYC and have to fill my evenings without Don.

Okay. Have to eat some oatmeal and suit up for shoveling.

I have some gardening books that I’m going to review over the next week. First up: tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday.

 

Books, Clutter and Beautiful Weather

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Cluttery office. Charging cords, stacks of receipts from NYC, printer…you know, stuff.

This fits right in with my thoughts about living in a space, a home, that reflects who you are, not what you think you should be. There are too many styled interiors on Pinterest, Instagram and blogs. I know I’m not alone when I look at some of these very pretty pictures and think to myself, “Does anybody live there?”

I’ve written about this before, so I don’t need to belabor the topic. On our excursion yesterday, I found a lovely book that beautifully illustrates that very idea.

It’s the book in the upper left hand corner, Life Unstyled  by Emily Henson. Beautiful photos of interiors that are real, funky, imaginative and not styled within an inch of their lives. I’m a bit more than halfway through it and I’m really enjoying it. And Emily is a stylist! (I’ve also written in the past about the book Undecorated, which covers this same subject. It’s in my personal library.)

Hope in the Dark  by Rebecca Solnit was recommended to me by Sarah, Darko’s assistant. Sarah and I have worked together before and we both love books and reading (Sarah’s mother is a librarian.) This book has been a beacon for Sarah during this period since the election. Our local independent bookseller had a copy, so I snapped it up.

I picked up The Creative Cottage  when I was staying in NYC a week or so ago. I’d seen it last year and found it absolutely charming, so this time I bought it. I love the cottages that the author has chosen to highlight – all of them artistic and individual. All of them the kind of place where you walk in the door and know that you will not see this anywhere else because the space absolutely reflects the owners’ tastes and passion.

I also found Inside the Dream Palace on the shelves at the bookshop. It’s about New York’s famous and storied Chelsea Hotel, a place that has always fascinated me. So many artists and musicians and writers have lived there over the years.

Don got a book about the history of the railroads in our neck of the woods.

We had lunch at The Commissary, where this message was on the wall next to the cash register:

Indeed.

I had the Tofu Pocket – oh, so tasty! And vegan hot chocolate, of course.

It was 60 degrees and sunny here and everyone was out on the streets, lapping it up. College students in t-shirts and shorts, people carrying their coats rather than wearing them, happy, laughing and crowded, as it’s a three-day weekend.

I’m feeling a bit under the weather today. Coughing, stuffed up, not at all fun. But I trust it will all go away in the next 24 hours or so. In the meantime, I’m taking it easy.

Thank you so much for your blog birthday wishes yesterday! Here’s to ten years.

Happy Monday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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