Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Please Put The Book Back

July 27, 2018 at 9:45 am by Claudia

I’m loving this wide angle lens.

We got out of the house yesterday and paid a visit to our friends at Milne Antiques. I felt like I’d been sprung from prison. As we drove there…the sun came out! It was still very humid, but I can’t tell you what a difference that sunshine made in our outlook.

Don was looking for a vintage suitcase, as he wants to use one to display his photos when he starts the street photography thing ‘officially.’ He messaged Rebekah late last week to ask her if she had any and she responded that she just so happened to be visiting the house of John Burroughs, the famous naturalist, the following Monday and she knew some vintage suitcases were part of the lot. (I had no idea that John Burroughs lived and worked in this area, but he did.) His granddaughter was clearing some of the belongings in his house, which is part of a family compound. More on the suitcases tomorrow.

As happens every time I visit Milne, we ended up bringing home more than the one item we were looking for. I bought a child’s chair in turquoise that I’ll share with you tomorrow – I haven’t taken a photo yet. My real find, which I zoomed in on and fell in love with immediately, was this:

Are you kidding me? I had to have it. I love graphics, I love books, I love libraries.

Rebekah told me it came from a former library in New Hampshire. It was first a house, than it was purchased by the town and turned into a library, now it’s been purchased by someone who is converting it back to a home. (I hope the town still has a library.)

As you know, I love quirky things that I am not going to see anywhere else – nothing mass produced or made to look old. I am confident that I won’t see this treasure anywhere else, but more importantly, it speaks to my love of books and reading. And, like the sign on our stair landing that says “Use Other Stairs” where there are no other stairs here to use, there’s a little joke involved. Whoever took the book hasn’t followed directions and the book hasn’t been put back.

I wouldn’t put one there anyway because I love the graphics too much.

I’m crazy about it. I can’t stop staring at it.

As I sit here in my chair, I keep looking at it and smiling.

The sun is out this morning, so we took the opportunity to sit and sip our second cup of coffee in the Secret Garden. The cicadas were loud and I could hear the bullfrog, as well.

Sort of perfect.

More tomorrow on our other finds and also pictures of the shop.

Happy Friday.

 

 

Filed Under: antiques, books, libraries, reading, vintage 30 Comments

The Library

June 6, 2018 at 10:04 am by Claudia

We visited the New York Public Library on Friday.

It really is the most gorgeous building, one of my favorite places in the city.

Reading, books, gorgeous architecture and those ceilings!

Happy Wednesday.

Filed Under: libraries, New York City 34 Comments

Bracing for the Storm

March 13, 2017 at 9:22 am by Claudia

I’ll be very happy when I can take pictures of my garden again. As it is, with this relentless winter, I run around the house at the last minute and snap a picture for the blog, hoping that it will do. You can bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow’s picture will be of snow and blizzard-like conditions.

Over a foot of snow expected and…wait for it…high winds.

Don is out getting salt and last minute stuff. I’m running to the store after finishing this post. We just discovered we have less heating oil than we thought, so we called our supplier in a panic. He has hundreds of deliveries today, so we’re praying he makes it here. In the meantime, Don is buying a space heater. Of course, there’s always the possibility that we could lose power. Fingers crossed that we stay plugged in here at the cottage.

Don has so much to do before he leaves at the end of the week and the combination of feeling under the weather and this storm is not helping. Poor guy. He’d like to get on the road by Friday, but I’m wondering if that will be possible.

I wrote about this on Instagram and I’ll write about it here – I went to my tiny local library yesterday afternoon to check out a couple of books. You know that I donate books to the library a couple of times a year, right? Since I have so many books and many of them are new review copies, I like to pass them on to the library because they have an annual book sale. We all know that libraries are just keeping it together financially, so anything we can do to help them is a good thing.

So I walked over to the ‘new fiction and nonfiction’ table and realized that three of the books were donated by me. They were new books, just out this year. I opened each book to make sure I was right and, sure enough, each had the word ‘donated’ inside the cover. That made me so happy – happy that I can contribute to their collection, happy that others can check out these books and enjoy them. Maybe this has happened before, but this is the first time I’ve seen books that I’ve donated become part of the library’s collection.

Well, friends, I have to get going. Time for a quick shower and then errands.

Wish us luck. Everyone who is in the path of this storm, please stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Filed Under: books, libraries, snow 45 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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