Roseville pottery

In the Mail

December 17, 2015 at 9:05 am by Claudia

First of all, this arrived yesterday:

12-17 meandmag

Since this is a selfie, the writing is reversed, but you get the idea, right?

I’ll try to take some photos of the article for you. I’m thrilled that Hummingbird Cottage is the lead feature and a photo of the fireplace gets a full page at the beginning of the article. Don hadn’t seen the article yet, so he read the whole thing and was quite chuffed! As am I.

Again, on a tough day, something lovely lightened my mood. Very grateful.

My ankle is much, much better. I still wear an ace bandage for some mild support and, more importantly, to remind myself that I have to be careful. The bruising has faded a great deal and, as I’m at the two week mark, I’m very pleased.

I hung the lights on the porch railing yesterday. They were modified by necessity as one of the strings wasn’t working and I wasn’t about to go in the shed and look through bins for some more. It’s just fine as is.

No little white tree yet, but maybe today. Or maybe not.

Barbara sent me a package that arrived earlier this week. It was full of lots of goodies. I didn’t take a picture of the lovely Christmas napkins and mints that come in a guitar-shaped tin and winter gloves meant to be used with an iPhone (huzzah!) but I did manage some pictures of the other treasures inside that box.

12-17 books

Yay! I finally have my own copy of All the Light We Cannot See! If you remember, I had it on reserve at my library and didn’t get a chance to read it before it’s due date. The second book is mystery that takes place in Canada (Barbara is from Canada) and I’m excited to read a new-to-me author.

12-17 robot

An incredible robot ornament – isn’t it neat? We’re calling it Mr. Robot, in honor of Don’s appearances on that series.

12-17 ghirardelli

A bag full of Peppermint Bark from Ghirardelli. Oh. my. goodness. As you might imagine, we’ve already had several. I love peppermint bark.

12-17 stereo

Eeek! For the Top Secret Project! This is perfect, Barbara! I haven’t done any work on the TSP since Dad’s death. I haven’t been in the right frame of mind. I am thinking about it, however, and I plan on getting back in gear when I have my little office/studio space set up.

By the way, the house that I’m using for the TSP was designed for the HBS Creatin’ Contest. I never had any plans on entering that contest, but many incredible miniaturists have entered their projects and I am blown away by their creativity. The deadline to enter was just the other day. I’m going to try to gather some links to their finished projects so that you can see them for yourselves. You won’t believe what they have created!

12-17 clematis flower frog_

And this was in the package. Roseville Pottery in the Clematis pattern. Barbara wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but I knew because I’d been watching one of these on eBay. It’s a flower frog. It was designed to sit in a matching console bowl, like the one I showed you the other day.

12-17 clematis flower frog rear

The rear view.

12-17 clematis flower frog bottom

See? There are holes in the bottom.

It’s gorgeous. Thank you, Barbara. I am blessed by your generous spirit.

I am blessed by every one of you who read this blog. Thank you.

I’m clearly celebrating Christmas a bit early this year.

Happy Thursday.

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Tuesday Bits

December 15, 2015 at 8:32 am by Claudia

12-15 sunrise

This morning’s sunrise. Purple and gold.

Yesterday was an time-suck of a day, trying and trying to get through to NY State of Health, which administers the Affordable Care Act here in New York state. The deadline for enrolling is today. Whether due to high demand or a faulty phone system or both, every time we tried to call, we would go through all the commands and be put on hold, terrible 70’s movie soundtrack music playing in the background, only to be cut off. Over and over again.

I was a wee bit panicked because we had to add some information – like the fact that I’m starting to get Social Security this month (Yikes!) and that Don will be changing the policy next June when he is eligible for Medicare (Double Yikes!) – and that had to be done with a person on the other end of the line. Finally (and take my advice – this often works) I tweeted them. As I looked down the list of tweets and replies, I saw that many, many, MANY people were having the same problem. They finally responded, asking me to leave a Direct Message with our phone number, etc. and they would have a Rep call. And lo and behold, they did.

I find the whole thing exhausting. (This is not a political discussion by the way. I know many people who are finally able to get health insurance after many years without it. And it’s the law of the land.) Anyway, it isn’t easy for freelancers like us, because they want to know where we’ll be working in 2016 and we have no idea. So whatever number they come up with isn’t accurate and then we’re supposed to keep them informed about changes in our income, and it’s a pain in the tush, because we forget to. We ended up having to pay a penalty on this year’s taxes because our income changed. And we’ll have to do it next year, as well.

I’m very happy one of us is getting Medicare next year. I never thought I would say I was looking forward to it, but I am. Even under the Affordable Health Care Act, we pay a lot of money every month for insurance – more than we can afford.

Enough of that.

This arrived in the mail yesterday.

12-15 rosevilleclematis2

I snagged it for $9.99 on eBay.

It’s the Clematis pattern. I really like it.

Interesting side note: Don really likes Roseville Pottery. He likes it even more than the McCoy. He likes it so much that he wants this piece on the coffee table in the living room, where he can see it from his chair.

12-15 rosevilleclematis

The other side.

I am in love with this stuff. But I have to back off from eBay for a while.

Thank you for all the comments yesterday on the magazine article. You guys have watched the dollhouse evolve over the years, step by step, piece by piece. You have an investment in the whole process. And to be perfectly honest, knowing you were out there, anxious to see updates and cheering me on, was often the push I needed.

So thank you.

Happy (IKEA) Tuesday.

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Pottery: Intact and Not-So-Intact

December 12, 2015 at 8:35 am by Claudia

Yesterday I spoke of a surprise gift and today I’m sharing some more gifts.

My goodness, I am blessed by sweet and generous people in my life. And I’m very, very grateful.

Cathy, a longtime friend of this blog, wrote me to ask if she could send me a few pieces of pottery that had belonged to her mother. She and her sister have many pieces from their mother – all of them with a story that is meaningful to the sisters – but these three pieces didn’t have any particular sentiment attached to them, so Cathy generously sent them to me.

12-12 gifts

Oh my!

12-12 catalina1

On the left is a piece of Catalina Island Pottery – a candlestick. This pottery was made on Catalina Island off the coast of California, sometime between 1927 and 1947. It’s very collectible.

12-12 catalina2

One of the marks – there are other, fainter marks on the bottom as well.

12-12 bittersweet candleholder

This is Roseville Pottery – a candleholder in the Bleeding Heart pattern. Sigh. It’s beautiful.

12-12 hull pitcher

And this little pitcher is Hull Pottery. I have one other piece of Hull that is lovely, though it has a broken handle. Now, I’ve got two!

Thank you, dear Cathy! What a delight it was to open this package. As I told Cathy in my email, Don stood there and oohed and aahed right along with me. I will treasure these pieces and give them a good home.

From the sublime to the ridiculous: I seem to have a problem with receiving damaged items in the mail. First up was the broken glass on the Maxfield Parrish (the seller has sent me a check to cover the glass replacement, by the way.) Yesterday, I got a box in the mail containing a piece of Roseville that I won on eBay. This is what I found when I opened it:

12-12 the mess

I’m not kidding. I wanted to cry. I immediately contacted the seller, of course. It had been packed in a box that I think was too small. It did have bubble wrap around it but there wasn’t enough space in the box for any extra padding.It seems to me that there should be a lot of padding around fragile items. The seller contacted me and was clearly very sorry that it had happened and said the same thing the other seller said – that she never has problems with breakage. Well, now you do, and I seem to be the lucky recipient. I took photos and sent them to her so she could see the damage for herself. She is going to refund my money. So in both cases, the resolution has been a positive one.

Nevertheless….

So, I grabbed the glue I use for miniatures and I put it back together as best I could. It doesn’t look all that good, certainly not at all good if you look closely, but if I put it in the back of the china cabinet it should be okay until the day I can find a replacement.

12-12 glued together piece

There are chips missing – especially near the handle – but this is the best I could do.

12-12 glued together piece2

This shot really shows the patchwork of glued pieces. You can see why I loved this piece. It’s the Zephyr Lily pattern in a blue/green and it’s a planter/window box.

Hey, at least I was able to patch it back together, right?

Waaah.

The ankle is much better, though I was on it way too much yesterday because Don had to go into the city for an audition, so I was on Scout duty. Next week: IKEA! It doesn’t take much to get me excited these days.

Happy Saturday.

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In the Mail

Tuesday Bits

Pottery: Intact and Not-So-Intact

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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