Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Featured and the Furnace

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Good morning! The good news is that we got very little snow. Just a smidgen. The bad news is that our furnace has stopped working. Oh joy. It’s very old and I’m very nervous that we may have reached the point where it has to be replaced.

Sometimes I miss the days when we could call our landlord. We’re waiting for Gino, our trusty oil and furnace guy, to check it out. I’m sitting here with a coat on over my flannel pajamas not-so-merrily typing away on my laptop.

I don’t know if you’ve discovered Jennifer Carroll’s blog, Celebrating Everyday Life, but it’s simply gorgeous. She is an amazingly creative woman. She owns an event planning company, she is a designer, a stylist, publishes a beautiful e-zine and designs beautiful printable paper products. Brenda and I discovered her blog a few months back and oohed and aahed over her wonderful sense of style.

I am honored to be featured today in Jennifer’s weekly series entitled {Blogs I love}. She wrote a lovely post about Mockingbird Hill Cottage. I would love it if you would stop by and read it. Thank you, Jennifer, for your generous feature and your kind words.

Okay. Gino is here and let’s see what he discovers. Cross your fingers for us. Update: The boiler is shot. Have to get a new one.

Happy Thursday.

 

Like Water for Rocks

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Thank goodness for this lovely. Because all I’ve seen for days, weeks and months is this:

This is only a small section, folks. Not all of those clumps are rocks, by the way. But many, many of them are. Let me tell you, if I spent all day, every day, all summer long, trying to pick up every rock in this expanse of dirt, I still wouldn’t succeed. I’m going to rename this property. No longer Mockingbird Hill Cottage, the new name is Don and Claudia’s Rock Quarry.

Endless. Mind numbing. Back breaking. Fruitless. Depressing. I think that about covers it.

So yesterday we reseeded. This took quite a while as, and I know I’ve said this before, most recently in the first full paragraph of this post, this is a huge expanse of dirt. Then I hooked up the hose and watered it. This took a long while. No sooner had I done it, than the ground looked dry again. Hmmm. So I searched for our sprinkler and hooked that up. By this time, Don had left for work. I knew I would have to do all this watering in sections. When I went out to move the sprinkler, I skidded in wet mud. There was mud all over my jeans, my muck shoes, the hose – you name it. After doing this a few times, I wised up and gingerly tried to move the sprinkler to a new section of dirt by pulling on the hose. I didn’t want to have to shut off the water every time I moved it because our hook-up is way around the other side of the house, so of course, I got drenched with water each time.

Fun times.

According to my entirely self-imposed schedule, I’m supposed to mulch today. I’m sore, tired and have to do some more work on The Tempest. So you know what? I just might wait to mulch until I come back home for a few days next week. At the moment it just seems too overwhelming.

On to other things. Having my own post office box, a new thing for me, is fun. I don’t get to the post office often – maybe once a week. On Monday I dropped in to mail a package and I had two notices of packages waiting!

Regula, who lives in Switzerland, sent me CHOCOLATE. After my post about the Spicy Hot Chocolate (which Don, it turns out, likes) she took pity on me and sent me some real Swiss Chocolate. That will be going with me to Hartford. She also sent individually wrapped pieces of milk chocolate and, I think, an herbal tea, plus a crystal heart and a doily. Yesterday, with its endless wrestling with dirt and mud, turned out to be the perfect day to sample some of those little pieces of chocolate. Okay, many. Delicious! Thank you, Regula!

And Carol (who hails from Tennessee) sent me this:

A Bride and Groom she found while thrifting. They are lovely. You are so sweet, Carol, and I thank you so much for thinking of me!

Blogging Friends are Real Friends. Virtual-Smirtual. They are real as real can be.

Have a wacky Wednesday.

A New Cozy Little House

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This post is dedicated to my dear friend, Brenda. Her blog, Cozy Little House, is very popular and many of you reading this post know her well. If you don’t, trot on over and make her acquaintance. Brenda and I have been close friends for a couple of years now. Do you want to know the story behind the beginnings of our friendship?

Like many blogging friendships, ours was first confined to leaving comments on each other’s blog. I liked her blog and I liked her style. She’d leave a comment on my blog, I’d leave a comment on her blog. I had noticed that we were both readers of another blog. I’d often see Brenda’s comment when I was leaving mine. This particular blogger had some health issues. To protect her privacy, I don’t want to go into more detail than that. One evening, I read a post by this blogger that greatly concerned me. It worried me enough that I felt compelled to reach out to someone else who also read the blog. I emailed Brenda, introduced myself officially, and expressed my concern. By that time, she had also read the post and shared my concern. We each wrote to the woman in question and in the process, Brenda and I exchanged telephone numbers. We also spoke to this woman (now becoming a friend) on the phone several times over the course of a couple of months. To make a long story short, eventually she decided to stop blogging, cut off all contact and we had no idea what happened to her. We still don’t. We were worried about her and tried to contact her via email and phone calls but it became clear that, in the midst of coping with her illness, she had cut her ties to the blogging world. We had to respect that. In the meantime, our friendship had grown. And it keeps growing.

Brenda has gone through a tough time lately. Her marriage has ended and she is moving from East Texas to Tulsa, Oklahoma. A new start. I couldn’t be happier for her. Through all the adversity, even when everything seemed hopeless, she has kept her sense of humor – even through the tears.

Here is the new Cozy Little House. The movers are coming today – Sunday – and Brenda departs for Tulsa tomorrow. Her daughter (a realtor) and her husband have been instrumental in helping Brenda find her new haven. They have simply been extraordinary.

Leaving any place you have lived for a number of years is always emotional. Leaving a marriage is also emotional, even when you are grateful for your new-found freedom. Life is complicated that way. But look what’s waiting! A new home, a new life, daughters and grandchildren nearby, independence and the chance to start anew.

I know I’ll visit Brenda one day in Tulsa. I can’t wait.

Bon voyage, my friend. You deserve every happiness.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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