Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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You are here: Home / Archives for snow

Potpourri on Sunday

January 19, 2020 at 10:53 am by Claudia

• One other thing about that Norman Rockwell print I shared with you the other day – A big part of the reason we fell in love with it is because it’s centered on ‘show people’ and it points out a truth about any performer, actor, dancer, or singer; offstage they’re just people like everyone else. It’s only under the spotlight that they seem larger than life.

• We got about 4 inches of snow yesterday and last night. Don has already been out to shovel, bless him. I didn’t have to do anything! A nice accumulation, but not overwhelming. And everything out there looks clean again.

• I had two dreams right before I got up. In one, I was staring at some books on top of some tall bookshelves. As I stared at them, they moved and disappeared and I realized I could move things with my mind. In the other, I was staying in a house with several people but I was there alone. I realized the toilet was overflowing with, how do we say it, crap. And I was cleaning it all up with my bare hands. It was undoubtedly influenced by an episode of Will and Grace that we’d seen earlier in the evening. But it was a jarring way to wake up!

• Wanted you to see just how high the ceilings are in the Lake House.

Please excuse the shoddy and temporary wallpaper job. It was done as an experiment and it’s still up!

This is a hard one to photograph because of the dark walls. I always have to lighten things up a bit, plus the light from the big picture window in the den is flooding the room. But see? The ceilings are very high. In contrast, the ceilings in the newest vintage dollhouse are very low. The rooms are 3/4 size, not quite the 1:12 size for most dollhouses. They’ll be a challenge.

I didn’t end up doing any work on the dumpster dollhouse yesterday (also known as the English Cottage.) But I will today.

I hope you’re all tucked in, safe and warm. Some of you are also enjoying a long weekend and isn’t that lovely?

Happy Sunday.

Filed Under: dollhouse, miniatures, snow 8 Comments

What Are You Reading?

January 6, 2020 at 10:37 am by Claudia

Just a dusting of snow overnight. A stray flake or two falling.

Perfect. No cleanup necessary, no shoveling, no chipping away at ice. Thank you!

Well, we’re back into the non-holiday days of January. Though I’m happy to have a fresh start in a new year, I do dread the expanse of winter ahead. Don and I were saying it would be perfect if we had just three seasons a year, but it seems that isn’t going to happen, and considering the horrors of Climate Change, that’s a good thing.

We had a sunny day yesterday and this is a late afternoon view of the McCoy.

I’m in the middle of Jane Eyre. I’m really enjoying it. Brontë was such a wonderful writer. I swear I read it when I was young, but perhaps I just skimmed it? I’ve seen several adaptations of it on film and television, so I know the story. But I don’t remember reading all the detail that I’m reading at the moment, so it seems almost new to me.

I’m also reading The Seine, but I’ve had to temporarily put a pause on it because of Jane Eyre. Later today or early tomorrow, I have to read the script for the production I’m coaching.

So we come to my favorite question: What are you reading?

Happy Monday.

Filed Under: books, McCoy pottery, reading, snow 76 Comments

Some Christmas Finds and a Few More Thoughts

December 11, 2019 at 11:13 am by Claudia

I had an errand or two to run yesterday and I also had to pick Rick up from the bus station, as Doug has been out of town and won’t return until today. On the way to the bus station, I stopped at a local antique shop. Actually, it’s a barn and there are multiple dealers there, including my friend Sydney of Fox Run Antiques. Same place where I found the egg cup cubby. Happily, I ran into Sydney and had a nice chat with her.

I hadn’t been there for a while and I’ve been on a search for some more vintage Christmas. I found two more putz houses:

The green house was made by the Dolly Toy Company, which I referenced the other day.

They were modestly priced at $4 and $5 each, which – for fairly well-preserved vintage – is a good deal.

Then I found another bluebird ornament!

You might remember that I have another bluebird ornament, slightly different in design. It has a “thumbprint” indentation. This one does not. Both of them have the same style of bluebird. It was only $3. I had a brief fantasy of slowly collecting bluebird ornaments and having a whole tree of them, with a bluebird tree-topper. Wouldn’t that be fun? But, since it’s taken me several years just to find two of them, that seems unlikely. If you ever see one, let me know!

With tax, $13 for all three. You can’t beat it.

We had some snow overnight, but it’s just a coating and I can see some of it melting already. Because it was rain transitioning to snow, it was a wet snow and it’s currently coating all the tree branches. Very pretty.

This is my favorite kind of snow because it’s pretty, there isn’t much of it, and the driveway doesn’t need to be shoveled because it stayed wet. If we had this kind of thing all winter long, I’d be fine.

We finished Season 3 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel  the night before last and now we’re watching it over again, which is what we did with the two previous seasons. Excellent. Brilliant. A heads up on upcoming series: Schitt’s Creek  returns to PopTV and the CBC in early January and Grace and Frankie  returns to Netflix in late January.

Thank you for your kind comments yesterday. I knew you would understand my sadness. Frankly, if you didn’t understand, you would most likely have left this blog long ago because I’ve never hidden the way I feel about these things. I try not to be judgmental – it’s a constant struggle because I’m only human – but those who think of animals as expendable and as beings we shouldn’t concern ourselves with are not going to be my pals. Likewise those who berate me and tell me I shouldn’t waste my worry on animals and, instead, worry about humans – as if caring about one automatically rules out caring about the other. That’s a false dichotomy.

Having ‘dominion’ over animals means caring about and for them. It doesn’t give us free rein to slaughter them or abuse them or hurt them. And I don’t believe we are ‘superior’ to them – far from it.

Happy Wednesday.

 

 

Filed Under: antiques, Christmas, deer, putz houses, snow, vintage 27 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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