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You are here: Home / Archives for Little Z

Assembling, Walking, Listening & Reading

September 16, 2016 at 8:58 am by Claudia

The heat went on this morning. I don’t mind telling you, I was shocked!

NO! I’m not ready yet, thank you very much.

Yesterday was gorgeous, a simply lovely day. We took a two-mile trail walk late in the day. Earlier in the day, I put this together:

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It wasn’t hard – once I got into the rhythm of it, the construction ran very smoothly. I really love it. The wood is beautifully finished. The two holes you can see are there in case you want to hang it on the wall.

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Now I’m on a furniture finding mission – that will be fun! I want to gather enough pieces together to give Little Z a choice. I’m visualizing them in a big box with his name on it, where he can reach inside and sort through them, picking what he wants on any given day.

We wrote our little letter yesterday morning and sent it off to Zachary’s school. We won’t be there for any celebration, that is happening in the next week or so. Mere and I were laughing during our phone conversation yesterday – if I know Little Z, he won’t even be listening to the letter when it’s read aloud, he’ll be thinking or doing something else entirely. That’s how he rolls.

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Here’s the little Bose wireless speaker. It’s seven inches long and about 2½ inches high. Great sound! It sits on a charging station.

I finished reading Martha’s Vineyard: Isle of Dreams  yesterday and I felt like I was ending a visit with a very good friend. I didn’t want it to end. Susan Branch has that wonderful, warm quality to her writing. You feel like you could plop down on a chair in her kitchen and talk the day away. That is no mean feat. Are you following along on their journey to England? They should have docked by now. I’ll have to catch up today.

Actually, we have a lot in common, Susan and I. We’re both late bloomers and we didn’t meet the loves of our lives until later in life. Both of us thought that the chances of that happening were nil. And then, when you least expect it…there he is. We’re nesters. Gardeners. Romantics. We love Fred Astaire (I used to be rather expert in all things Fred Astaire.) We love old standards and the Great American Songbook. We love birds and animals and vintage and collecting. We love old movies; many of her favorites are also my favorites.

I feel like she’s a sister I’ve never met. I bet lots of you feel the same way, because she writes about things that are important to so many of us. I’ve followed her a long time. Maybe some day, I’ll get to meet her.

P.S. If any of you are being redirected to an update Adobe Flash site, please let me know. It’s been happening on my end and my suspicion is that it’s due to an ad. I’ve also got my security guys checking into it. If it ends up being an ad, I’ll disable them until we get to the bottom of it.

Happy Friday.

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Tagged With: Susan BranchFiled Under: books, dollhouse, Little Z, Susan Branch 40 Comments

Birds, Flowers, Hi-Tech & Little Z

September 15, 2016 at 9:25 am by Claudia

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This morning I saw four catbirds trying to maneuver around these leaves in order to do their thing in the birdbath. Note to Claudia: Time to scrub the birdbath (something I do a couple of times a week).

The other day, I watched a shimmering green hummingbird sample each and every one of the pink geraniums in the three whisky barrels. You can see one of the barrels in the photo.

It was magical. Wings moving faster than the eye can see, flitting, hovering, heading toward the chicken wire fence, then stopping abruptly to reverse direction. No time to grab the camera and, truthfully, sometimes it’s just nice to be. To simply glory in the wonders of nature.

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Hi-Tech month has come to a close. (I think I’ve been spelling “Hi” as “High,” which might be incorrect in this instance.) Yesterday, we took a little trip to Target to buy…brace yourselves for this exciting news…a new dishpan, drying rack and dish drainer. Yep. We went all out. And we bought a pack of socks for Don. Whoo hoo!

Actually, I did buy something with the money I got back from Apple when I exchanged computers. I bought a Bose wireless speaker for the office. It’s small but mighty. (I’ll show you a photo of it tomorrow). At times, I like to listen to music when I’m working, yet I find I don’t want to be wearing ear buds. Too restricting if I need to get up and move around. So this kind of thing seemed like the perfect solution.

And I can take it with me when I’m working out of town!

I tried it out when I got home and it delivers excellent sound quality. Bose is a favorite of ours.

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It’s much cooler this morning. I’m actually wearing a shawl. And socks! Even though I’m resisting the seasonal change, I must admit I like the cooler weather.

Today, I will put together Little Z’s dollhouse, scrounge through my stash for anything I can pass along to him, and search for more sturdy furniture online.

Speaking of Little Z, the other night he asked us if he could come visit us in “N as in New York” which is how he always says it, and I pray he keeps saying it that way for at least a little bit longer. It’s so charming. Of course, we said yes, and we told him we were going to be coming to Florida to see him next month. He corrected us, saying, “You’re coming down  to Florida.” Ummm….yes, you’re right, smart nephew of mine!

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Today we have to write a letter and send it to his school. They always do something for Grandparents Day but Z doesn’t have any living grandparents, so we’re going to stand in for my mom and dad. The school sent us an envelope that was supposed to include a drawing from our ‘grandchild’ and a request for the letter, but what we received was the packet for a student named ‘Delilah’ – nothing from Little Z! Ah, well. We’ll return the stuff from Delilah when we send the letter to Florida.

Apparently, the teachers read each letter aloud to the students and then post them on the bulletin board.

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Side note: Why are pillowcases so expensive nowadays? Two standard pillowcases for $30? Seems a bit pricey to me, so I’m going to search for a better deal. Maybe a trip to HomeGoods is in order.

The winner of a copy of Beulah’s House of Prayer  is Martha! Martha, I’m sending you an email. Congratulations!

Oh lordy – I had to add this. My former student Chris Nee (she’s a BU grad) who is a wonderful person and extremely funny, too, is the creator of Doc McStuffins. This is what she tweeted:

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Happy Thursday.

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Filed Under: birds, flowers, garden, giveaway, Little Z 38 Comments

Recapping

September 6, 2016 at 9:44 am by Claudia

I’m thinking it’s Monday, of course. But it’s Tuesday. And so goes a week where I will continue to question what day it is.

Oh, goodness, I was melancholy yesterday. It was due, I think, to a number of things: the seasonal change, which seems to affect me more and more the older I get, the anniversary of my brother’s passing and the awareness that it will soon be a year since my father died. I finished A Great Reckoning. If you want to know my thoughts on this extraordinary novel, scroll down to yesterday’s post. I finished A Fine Romance by Susan Branch. And we took a little drive to shake off my melancholy.

A recap of the past several days (some of these photos were on Instagram so I’m sharing them with everyone today):

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We sent this photo in a text to Little Z because he couldn’t grasp the fact that our lawnmower is the kind you push, not the kind you sit on (as is used on his lawn).

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The den in the morning. It’s darker outside when I first get up. Soon it will be completely dark at 6 or 7 am. Not sure how I feel about that.

I had a lovely two hour phone conversation with my dear friend Christine (a fellow voice and speech coach who I met when I worked in Wisconsin five years ago). My favorite quote from Christine during that conversation: “You can’t make somebody not nuts.” It’s a quote she read a while back and boy, do I need to remind myself of this at times.

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We took at trip to Saugerties, where we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant (Mexitarian – our new word for vegetarian Mexican food) and saw this vintage Roy Rogers guitar in an antique shop. (You know I love to get Don anything Roy Rogers, but this was $200!)

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This came in the mail. Be still my heart. And it still sits on this cabinet because I haven’t decided where it should go. It’s 8 inches high and several inches wide. Am I running out of room?

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And this is complete. Sigh of happiness.

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The twenty-fifth anniversary of my brother David’s death was on September 4th. The sheer magnitude of that number is too much for me to handle. Dave gave me this brooch during his fight against the lymphoma that would ultimately take him from us. I wore it for a couple of years but I placed it in a shadow box after he died and it sits on my desk.

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We took a drive to Rosendale yesterday and ate at our favorite vegetarian restaurant. These cheery flowers were on the table.

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Of course a visit to Rosendale means a visit to my favorite independent bookstore.

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This planter is outside the shop.

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Would I love to have a ceiling like this one? Yes.

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We had a lovely chat with Jesse and Maggie, talked about books and reading, perused their offerings (I bought Mycroft Holmes  by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and some pretty notebooks by Rifle Paper Co.) and watched an adorable little girl run in the shop with her dad, all set to pick out a book. Later on, she went up to Don and said, “Are you an old man?” He answered, “Yes.” And then we laughed. To that little moppet, Don is  an old man. To me? Nah.

The sugar maple is dropping leaves like nobody’s business (it’s always the first tree to start the change.) I read up on bird migration yesterday because I’m missing my birds – I don’t see them anymore. But at the end of the day, my mourning dove appeared to drink some water from the birdbath. That made me happy.

Happy Tuesday.

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Filed Under: books, bookstores, Dave, Don, Little Z, Roseville pottery 36 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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