presents

Day Seventy-Three

May 25, 2020 at 9:44 am by Claudia

“Day Seventy-Three” also means seventy-three days without a speck of makeup. Normally, I only wear makeup these days when I’m going out to see friends or work and sometimes when I go out shopping. Since I’m not doing any of these things nowadays and when I shop, I have a mask on – no makeup required.

I took this just after the rain ended on Saturday. It’s so green out there!

Much more work has been done on the puzzle:

As you can see, I’m in the final stretch. This part is the most difficult because it consists of blobs of paint indicating the stones/cobblestones/tiles. Don said to me yesterday “You’ll get it.” And I will. I have another one ready to start after I finish the Van Gogh.

You might remember me saying I went to the post office the other day. I went there to pick up two packages that were waiting for me. They had been sitting there for a while but I’m sure you understand that our very small post office is not conducive to crowd control. Anyway, I waited until yesterday to open them.

The white boxes are furniture kits from the now-defunct House of Miniatures. I have several of these and I can always use more. Plus, there are a few that I’ve not seen before. These are a generous gift from a reader of the blog, Anne. Thank you so, so much, Anne! They will be put to good use.

On the bottom are five 1000-piece puzzles, courtesy of reader Terri. Having already put these together, she asked if I would like her to pass them on to me! YES! Several of them are book covers – for Pulitzer Prize winners, children’s books, C.S. Lewis, etc. That makes me happy! And the other is a New Yorker cover about books. I now have six puzzles at the ready. Thank you so much, Terri. As I wrote her this morning, she’s helping maintain my sanity!

As always, I am humbled by the generosity of my readers. Thank you for being there for me. It means more than I can say.

Today we celebrate Memorial Day; which, to my mind, should be a somewhat solemn occasion. After all, we’re honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country – which serves as a stark contrast to the pictures I’ve seen of people partying on barges and at the beach with no social distance whatsoever. Sacrifice? They don’t seem to understand the meaning of that word. Coupled with the contrast of yesterday’s front page of The New York Times, listing many of the names of those who have lost their lives in the pandemic, while That Man golfed and once again, expressed no regret or sadness or one iota of compassion, it is a sad day indeed.

I hope you find some peace and beauty today.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Post-Birthday-Post

November 22, 2016 at 9:16 am by Claudia

11-22-sunrise

Sunrise this morning.

Lovely, lovely day yesterday.

Aside from getting something from the IRS in the mail which indicated we owed a huge chunk of money, even though I had sent in our tax payment in early November, which led to me panicking, running upstairs to the office and then remaining on hold for 45 minutes until I could speak to someone. I was hoping against hope there was a simple explanation; that our payment hadn’t been processed yet when the letter was printed and that the discrepancy in the amount due was just an additional late fee.

Whew. That’s exactly what it was. We owe a mere $21.00. Major sigh of relief.

As all this happened right before we were due to leave for dinner, I wanted to get it out of the way so I could relax!

Don took me to a local restaurant that I knew of but hadn’t been to yet. It’s called the Gunk Haus. Gunk is a word used freely around here, a shorthand for the local mountain range, the Shawangunk Mountains. Gunk Haus opened a few years back and they have a great menu which includes some vegetarian and vegan dishes, along with their meat entrees.

11-22-adorableone

(Photos will be dark as everything celebratory happened after the sun went down.)

Here’s my adorable husband.

11-22-me

And me.

The food was delicious and we’ll definitely be going back. It’s in an old house/barn, which has been beautifully restored.

We came back to the house and Don made me go upstairs while he ‘arranged’ everything:

11-22-cake

The cake. Don’t you love the sentiment? It was made and decorated by a local bakery. It’s a flourless chocolate cake that is unbelievably swoon-worthy. Oh. My. Heavens.

11-22-themaestro

The maestro with his birthday extravaganza.

I made a wish, blew out the candles and we gathered up the presents and retired to the den.

11-22-presents

A box of caramels, some Crabtree and Evelyn hand cream and some foot balm (all set for winter!) I also received some earrings in a pretty leaf shape – as Don kept saying, “I know you love plants” – and the most beautiful snow globe I’ve ever seen (photos tomorrow). Neither of us is normally into snow globes but this one is incredibly well made and very striking. The scene is a large cardinal surrounded by snow. Don said it reminded him of winter life around our cottage. It’s really beautiful.

The large package you see there? When Don asked me what I wanted, I mentioned a certain something and he came through:

11-22-nutting

Another Wallace Nutting. This one is much larger than my other Nutting. It’s called “Apple Pool.” Don told me he spent a long time at the antique emporium, looking at one, than another, but he kept coming back to this one. It’s gorgeous.

11-22-closeupnutting

A closer look.

On the back:

11-22-backofnutting

We’ve decided that as we gather more of these beauties, we’ll hang them on the wall in the office/studio. Dad’s painting has moved to the upstairs hallway and it looks great there.

A piece of cake – oh lordy! – and a little boy named Z singing Happy Birthday to me on the phone. A perfect day.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes! You are so wonderful, all of you!

More tomorrow.

Happy Tuesday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Presents from Prague & Work in the Studio

April 10, 2013 at 8:53 am by Claudia

When I was showing all of you my egg cup collection in the days leading up to Easter, I mentioned that I was thinking of expanding it – collecting souvenir egg cups, for example, and pretty china pattern egg cups. I don’t remember whether I mentioned this bit of information to Don; even if I did, he usually doesn’t retain the random comments I make during the course of a day, much to my frustration. I mean, isn’t everything I say worth its weight in gold?

Look what he found for me in Prague:

eggcupprague

This sweet egg cup in the traditional shape.

eggcupcollage

And this square-shaped egg cup. Both of them have scenes from Prague. Praha=Prague. These aren’t vintage, they’re new. That sweet Don has given me the first two egg cups in my souvenir egg cup collection! I really love them.

Then I opened these:

paintedeggs

Beautiful Czech hand-painted eggs! Aren’t they lovely? Don imagined I might want to place them in some of my egg cups. Smart Don!

paintedeggincup

Clearly these were made to be ornaments but right after I took this picture I removed the ribbons and now they are displayed in various egg cups throughout the house. Like this one:

humpty

Humpty has a head!

Sweet husband also got me a t-shirt, which shall remain in it’s wrapping until I go to Hartford. It’s black. One does not wear black in this house full of flying white Scout hair, which is a pity, since I love to wear black.

Don kept telling me that he was working on finding something for me in Prague and he spent a lot of his spare time searching it out. He had the hotel staff working on it as well and hoped he could pull it off. I must admit I was intrigued. Well, he’s still working on it – even spent his last morning in Prague trying to find it. Here is his idea. Since he knows how much I love my favorite book ever, To Kill a Mockingbird, he was trying to find me a copy in Czech. They do exist. His idea is to start me on a collection of foreign language editions of the book. Isn’t that the coolest idea? I have several English editions and one that was signed by Harper Lee. Adding foreign language editions is a brilliant idea. So cross your fingers that Don can pull this one off. The hotel staff translated the title for him, so his search continues.

crowdedstudio2

Yesterday, I spent some time in my crowded studio. Yes, it’s cute, but trying to multi-task there is frustrating.

crowdedstudio

The iron gets plugged into the bathroom outlet, the ironing board blocks the entrance to the bathroom, I have to squeeze by the board to get into the bedroom – you get the picture. And I was working on two floors: a cutting mat was on the kitchen table, along with my rulers and rotary cutter; the quilt was on the living room floor so I could measure it, and then I was upstairs at the machine stitching together strips for binding.

binding

All done. Now I have to sew it onto the quilt.

I had a thought yesterday. Mabel doesn’t have a ¼ inch foot. Ella (the Elna) does. Which machine do I take to Hartford?

Don’t forget to visit my post on the Poise Feminine Wellness line of products for a chance to win a $100 Visa Gift Card. Just click here.

Happy Wednesday.

signature2

Post-Birthday-Post

Presents from Prague & Work in the Studio

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

Archives