Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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You are here: Home / Archives for life

A Thunder-Filled Morning

June 14, 2021 at 9:14 am by Claudia

We woke (a wee bit too early) to the sound of thunder. Big thunder. Thunder that shook the house, along with flashes of lightning. Early morning thunder doesn’t happen very often. As we made coffee and opened windows, the thunder kept rolling; long and loud booms coming from over the mountains.

It was wonderful. There were no high winds; just thunder, lightning, and eventually, pouring rain. We have more coming today and tomorrow.

Sort of a magical way to start the day.

Thanks for all your comments yesterday. I’m not sure what to do. Ad income, by the way, comes to me simply by your visits to my little spot on the Internet. It doesn’t come if you read the blog from an email but don’t come to the actual blog. Anyway, the costs of hosting this blog and maintaining its security are covered by that ad income. In the last month, I’ve had to renew and pay for my host for another year. My security just got renewed yesterday. Soon, another form of security will be up for renewal, as well as the services I use to back up the blog. So I’m in the midst of paying out money for those services and having to make a decision about emails at the same time is a bit overwhelming

Most of you weighed in yesterday on the way in which you visit the blog and I really appreciate it. I think I’ll try a survey of sorts later this week – here and on Instagram – to see just how many people really need that email delivered to them, as well as if they’re even reading them anymore. Then I’ll make a decision based on the results.

I’ve started another Roseville painting. This is where I left it yesterday and I have much more to do. I try to find a balance between being too critical and accepting that it’s all a process. So far, I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve created.

Now to find a tabletop easel. This one is too low and I end up with shoulder pain because I’m hunched over while painting. Shoulder muscles and neck tension are an issue already – always have been – and I don’t want to make that even worse.

Our days lately – we do our usual morning things; drinking coffee, waking up slowly, reading, meditating, Don goes to a virtual meeting at 6:30 am, I make our second cup of coffee and we chat for a while, then I write the blog and have some oatmeal. After all of that, Don goes upstairs to write music and record and I paint downstairs in the kitchen – along with, of course, all of the chores that need to be done on any given day. I like that we’ve found spaces in which to create, spaces that shift and change depending on just what it is we’re working on at the time. Dollhouse? Upstairs. Painting? Downstairs. Don sometimes records downstairs if I need the studio space. We are very sensitive to each other’s needs so we adjust as needed. This is a small house, so we need to be respectful and flexible.

I’ve had a hard time reading lately, most likely because I’m immersed in painting and gardening. It’s fine. I’ll shift back to reading more at some point. I’m not worried.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Filed Under: Don, life, oil painting, storm 58 Comments

Miniature Easel, Yarrow, and the Blog

June 13, 2021 at 10:04 am by Claudia

Another view of the yarrow. For some reason, yarrow has always been difficult to photograph. Ah well, I keep trying.

It’s a beautiful morning, though it’s turning cloudy and we’re due for rain and perhaps a thunderstorm this afternoon and evening. I can see catalpa flowers falling slowly – one by one. Don and I were outside early this morning and the scent coming from that tree is heavenly. By the way, all of the wild phlox and the wild roses have lost their flowers. Their time is truly fleeting.

I was so excited when a box from Denmark arrived in the mail yesterday. Huzzah! Here is the beautiful easel made by Hanna of Atelier Hannas Mini  on Etsy. The easel is hand made using beautiful wood, and it works!

Isn’t it gorgeous?? You can see that the easel is adjustable. I’ve already played with it. Hanna is so talented. This one took a long time to get here. Hanna had to make it and she was awaiting some parts that come from England. It was worth the wait.

I had to try out one of my mini paintings, which suddenly looks like a big canvas! I think I’ll eventually put a work that is in progress on the easel, so it looks like our resident artist is currently working on a new painting. We’re going to assume that there is a big window on this side of the easel that floods the room with light.

Truthfully, I’m a little jealous of the artist. She has this lovely space, a large easel, a comfy chair and lots of light. I work at the kitchen table with a small “sort-of-an-easel” and am surrounded by kitchen stuff. I hope she knows how lucky she is!

Okay. Business stuff. As you may or may not know, the email versions of my last two posts didn’t go out. Traffic to the blog greatly decreased because many of you rely on the email to tell you I’ve posted, even though you know that 99% of the time I post every day. That means lost ad income.

Last night, at 3:30 am, both of those posts went out. Go figure.

Here’s the problem. I, and many, many other bloggers, use Feedburner, a free service owned by Google, to send out updates of our feeds, as well as email versions of our posts. For the past several years, Google has virtually ignored Feedburner. It is impossible to get any sort of help when something goes wrong. In doing some research, I learned that Google recently announced that they were going to do some work on Feedburner, but had decided to  get rid of email subscription services. So, as of July, it is no longer an option. That means I have to find another way of sending the emails and all the alternatives cost money. And I didn’t particularly want to invest any more money in the blog.

But I have over 400 subscribers, so I have to face reality and choose a new service. Truth be told, I’m not at all sure how many of the 400+ still actively read the blog and Feedburner doesn’t supply any information as to who, specifically, doesn’t read the blog. All of the alternative services determine pricing based on subscriber count.

I did some initial research yesterday and I’ll keep on working on it. I have to make a choice soon, as the emails will no longer go out as of July. In the meantime, I hope the current problem has been corrected and you subscribers will get your emails on time. I promise to do my best to find an even better service than Feedburner. Thanks so much for your patience.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.

 

Filed Under: blog, dollhouse, flowers, life, miniatures 65 Comments

Number 2 – Peony

June 12, 2021 at 9:17 am by Claudia

I finished the painting yesterday afternoon. I guess it is the second in a series? I seem to be headed in that direction. I’m finding the process of painting a piece of pottery challenging and exciting and I’m learning a lot, to boot. As I said yesterday, all pottery has texture, of course, but Roseville is known for the lush, overblown-in-the-best-possible-way, use of flowers and texture, gorgeous shapes, and handles that are pieces of art in and of themselves.

This one took a couple of days. I knew I needed to tweak it a bit more yesterday and I also had to add the background. Then I went back and tweaked it some more and finally, I forced myself to stop and call it ‘Done.”

This is Peony by Roseville. I display this vase in my cabinet in the studio.

I’m pretty pleased with it. As with anything creative, there are always things I’d do differently next time around, but I’m pleased.

I like the idea of doing a series; I own so many sizes and shapes of Roseville and some may be a bit difficult to capture at this point in my growing process, but I’m up for the challenge.

Bonus: I get to reacquaint myself with my pottery, to really look  at it. It’s all good.

Some of you mentioned that you didn’t get the email version of the yesterday’s post. Since I also subscribe to it, I’m aware of that when it happens. As I’ve said before, there’s nothing I can do about it and it does happen periodically. You know the drill: I post every day and the email is not meant to be a valid indicator of when I post. It’s fallible. Just come directly to the blog.

Easy peasy.

It’s cloudy today and cooler. We may get some rain.

I weed whacked yesterday and between that and Don’s massive mowing on Thursday, the property is looking much neater. I have pruning to do, but I’ll work on that next week.

A big thank you to my husband for letting me use his laptop to post. After rescheduling my previous appointments at the Apple store (all due to my mood at the time) I’m going there on Tuesday and asking for a new keyboard. Let’s hope I’m not without my laptop for long.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

 

Filed Under: life, oil painting, Roseville pottery 26 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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