Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Morning Glory

September 13, 2019 at 11:31 am by Claudia

Well, lookee here! Despite the assault by the deer, we have a morning glory!

It hadn’t completely opened when I took this photo. I’ve seen a few buds on this segment of morning glories – these are the plants that the deer dined upon. The other morning glories are nearer to the kitchen door and they have quite a few buds. It rained yesterday, so I’ll spray them with the natural deer repellent again today.

A happy sight to see as I looked outside this morning.

We spent a fair amount of time this morning watching the light show on the kitchen ceiling. We figured out that it was coming from the chrome on Stella. The sunlight was hitting the corner of the stove. It was rather amazing.

I doesn’t take much to entertain us.

It’s quite cool this morning, but sunny. I am this  close to finishing The Book of Bones  by John Connolly. I’ll probably finish it after I write this post. It’s excellent, as I’ve come to expect from this writer. But it’s not for the faint of heart. Connolly’s books are always intense and a wee bit gory.

Not sure what I’ll pick next, but I look forward to seeing what it will be.

I’m running late this morning, so I’ll close on that note.

Happy Friday.

Filed Under: books, flowers, garden, morning glory 32 Comments

Day Two of the Challenge

September 10, 2019 at 11:22 am by Claudia

I have a deep love for pansies. Just like last year, they’re still going strong several months after I planted them. In fact, they were the first flowers I planted in pots – in early April. One of my pansy pots was still thriving in November of last year. Don’t know if that will happen again this year, but they are definitely plucky little beauties!

This new challenge I have set for myself – that of shutting off and then staying off my cell phone and laptop after I’ve checked in with both in the morning (including writing a blog post) – is showing me just how addictive a cell phone can be. At one point in the afternoon, I had the phone next to me because it was charging off my laptop and, boy, I had to actively, even aggressively, resist picking it up to ‘check in’ with Instagram. All while I was reading a book. It was fascinating and more than a little revealing.

It is  an addiction, you know. Reams have been written about it. They’re convenient yes, but they’re intended to be addictive, and we see evidence of that everywhere we go. From those who walk down the street with their heads downward, looking at their phones, to those who can’t turn off their phones in a theater during a live performance because they might miss a text (who is that important?), to those who must document via a selfie everything they do in the course of a day, to those who share a meal with someone only to be looking at a screen the entire time. No one is that important. It’s all smoke and mirrors, designed to make us feel  more important. But really, there’s a serious issue at hand if one’s sense of self-worth comes from a virtual life lived inside a phone.

I’m not nearly as bad as that, but I do have my issues. It’s time to take control of that. I made it through the vast majority of my life without a cellphone. Without a personal computer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for both. But I have to remind myself that when cell phones were first available, I said to everyone, “The last thing I want is for everyone to be able to reach me when I’m out of the office, or driving, or walking on the beach.” I held off for a long time before I bought one, and we only did that because we were driving in separate vehicles on our move across the country to New York and wanted to be able to stay in contact with each other in the case of an emergency.

I love having a smartphone and I don’t regret using one. It’s enormously helpful in my professional work and I love the visual stimulation of Instagram. The iPhone camera is so good that I often use those pictures for the blog and for Instagram. But I am putting my foot down. I refuse to let it dominate my day.

I’ve declared war.

Today, we’re driving across the Hudson River to investigate a small independent bookstore. I’ve been there before, but it’s been many years. Don just finished his book and is looking for a new one and he’s sort of exhausted the inventory in our local bookstore.

A little adventure for the day.

Happy Tuesday.

Filed Under: books, cell phones, flowers 30 Comments

Saturday Thoughts: Decorating

September 7, 2019 at 11:20 am by Claudia

Another beautiful morning. Another great walk with my husband.

It’s beautiful here.

We’ve walked six days in a row and we’ll probably take tomorrow off as it’s Farmers Market day and Don has to get going early in the morning. I’ll probably mow the lilac side of the front lawn, so that will give me some exercise.

There’s much I could and should be doing around here, but all I want to do is sit on the porch and read. Maybe I’ll clean somewhere in the house this morning so I’ll feel as if I’ve earned my reading time – maybe the bathroom – my least favorite thing to do around here.

I’ve been thinking about decorating and the continual emphasis on defining one’s style. I’ve never understood this need to categorize something. Is it that it makes one feel secure in a style choice? Like, “country” or “mid-century modern” or “boho?” Does it bring comfort to conform to one style? Or maybe it’s simply that the home/apartment owner likes that style exclusively?

As you know, I like things eclectic and undefined. I think it’s much more interesting, because that lack of confinement within just one style allows the owner’s personality and passions to shine through. We’ve definitely become more eclectic in the past several years. Almost everything here is vintage/used; different time periods, different styles. We have an overall color scheme and I think I have a pretty good eye for pulling it all together. You can’t look around our house and say that it is anything  definitively. It’s just us.

You could say it’s funky, I guess. I’m fine with that.

And hopefully, cozy. I’m fine with that, too.

I’m always bemused by the whole ‘boho’ craze. I’m of an age, you know, and boho is basically the way everyone decorated their dorm rooms and apartments when I was in college. It was an inexpensive way to adorn a space. Been there, done that. And I have a confession to make: I was never a fan of macrame, except when necessary as a plant hanger. Macrame wall hangings? No. Houseplants, yes. But houseplants are eternal and are not defined by ‘bohemian’ or ‘boho’ even though we see a lot of them in those spaces.

But we know that decorating styles recycle and eventually become the hot ‘new’ look.

Except they aren’t.

It’s all personal taste, of course, and that particular look was never my taste even when I was living it in the seventies. Neither was mid-century modern, because my parents decorated in that style. And just as my mom eschewed her mother’s style, I’ve apparently done the same. The difference being that I admire the lines of certain mid-century furniture and like to see how homeowners use it in their living spaces. (And I like decorating my modern dollhouse in miniature versions of mid-century furniture, but that’s another story.)

Anyway, I’ve always tried to dodge any sort of label, whether it’s about me, my personality, my reading choices, my political beliefs, my spirituality, or my home. I think labels are limiting and we’re all much more complex and interesting than that.

Just a little of what I’ve been thinking about on a Saturday.

Happy Saturday.

Filed Under: decorating, flowers, garden 30 Comments

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Welcome!

Welcome!

I live in a little cottage in the country with my husband. It's a sweet place, sheltered by old trees and surrounded by gardens. The inside is full of the things we love. I love to write, I love my camera, I love creating, I love gardening. My decorating style is eclectic; full of vintage and a bit of whimsy.

I've worked in the theater for more years than I can count. I'm currently a voice, speech, dialect and text coach freelancing on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater.

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