Five more days until I mark a year of lockdown. Perhaps we started it here a few days earlier, but I can’t remember. I think that the moment we officially hunkered down coincided with my decision to change the titles on my posts. Does it seem unreal that it’s been a year? Not one bit. It seems every bit as long as a year.
Today starts a warming trend here in the Hudson Valley. Baby steps today, but by tomorrow it will be in the mid-fifties and on one day this week – actually two – we will be in the mid-sixties! It won’t stay that way, of course, temperatures will drop down to the forties next week, but even that is welcome!
I’m going to cut my hair today. I cannot stand it any longer! Since it’s baby fine, it looks straggly when it gets too long and believe me, it’s too long. Don has promised to assist with evening out the initial cut. Fingers crossed!
I put the little wooden house from Helga on top of the desk. It probably won’t stay there, but maybe it will!
Thanks for all your thoughts on bathroom/no bathroom in the English Cottage. A reminder that though this is a period house, it has an eclectic mix of more modern and period pieces of furniture and it will be occupied by someone living in 2021. I don’t do period houses inhabited in times of yore. Many miniaturists do, but I don’t. So, any house of mine is living and breathing in the present day, just as Hummingbird Cottage, a Victorian house, is. So…no outhouses. In eliminating the bathroom, we will just imagine it just out of range of our eyes. I may put a little whimsical sign up, pointing to the loo, or I may just ignore it. Also, this is a very small house and all wall space is taken so I won’t be putting in false doors on the walls – besides, the bathroom would be somewhere just beyond the open back of the house, not in the side walls that are already established as exterior walls made of stone.
This is the kind of thinking and rethinking that goes into any dollhouse construction or renovation. The Beacon Hill, with 8 or 9 rooms, will definitely have a bathroom, as does Hummingbird Cottage. But I’m learning that bathrooms are expendable, if necessary, in my particular imaginary world.
In the meantime, the room won’t be a library. I’ve already purposely added a large shelf system in the living room and it’s filled with books. I do see a stack of books by the chair, however. A nice place to retreat and read in private, if necessary. I do think it will be more of a studio, an artist’s studio. I see an easel and art supplies. The rest of it will evolve as I work on it.
It’s sure more exciting than a bathroom!
Yesterday, Don mentioned that he’d like to work on a small house that functions as a guitar shop. Whoa! Needless to say, I was immediately on board. It would be his baby. Why not two floors, I suggested, and he can live above the shop? Yes. He’s already thought up a story for the owner who is gradually acquiring inventory for his shop. His 70th birthday is coming up, so a kit for the shop might be in order, don’t you think?
Okay. I have to pay a couple of bills, cut my hair, clean, etc.
Stay safe.
Happy Monday.
Your concept about the bathroom is one I agree with. They can have very fun decor and accessories but to me are not the focal point. That little house is charming on the dresser. Yes, looking at day 360 gives me a very strange feeling. 2020-21 has been some kind of time warp which my body/brain still can’t comprehend. Love that Don wants his guitar studio! You inspire many of us, starting in your own home. Enjoy the warm days! I hope to get a coffee somewhere and sit outside. Stay safe!
We may take a drive tomorrrow! It will be 55 and sunny.
Stay safe, Nora.
A guitar shop! That is a great idea. You just lit a fire under me! I’m thinking a miniature yarn shop…I could have such fun with that.
You could do a bookstore Claudia!
I do like the idea of a loo sign in your dollhouse.
Stay safe
You should do that, Marilyn! It would be such fun for you!
I’m always happy to enable with books and miniatures.
Stay safe!
what a year (give or take a few days) it’s been, huh?
while i am blessed to still have a job, get to do the shopping for family members and see them at least at a distance, my anniversary of one year of not getting to go visit them indoors, hug them and help them, work on puzzles together, etc. is in a couple of weeks. grateful for vaccines to bring some relief to people and hope i can go inside sooner rather than later (still wearing masks and gloves) to make visits easier, better.
like don’s idea of a guitar shop and your suggestion of adding a second story to create a home for the owner. you two are so good together!
happy haircut. happy monday!
stay safe!
kathy in iowa
I understand. We haven’t seen our families in a long, long time. Happily, Meredith got her first vaccination today. And of course, we haven’t seen our ‘family’ here – Rick and Doug – except to say hello from a distance. The news from the CDC that after we’re fully vaccinated plus two weeks, we can see other fully vaccinated family members and friends in person is very welcome! Rick and Doug already had their first vaccinations before we got ours.
Stay safe, Kathy!
that is good news, isn’t it?!?
unfortunately i work with people (co-workers and clients) who have made no changes, taken no precautions over the past year. my boss, for example, has continued to eat restaurant food every weekday for lunch, get a cut and/or hair coloring every month and made several overnight trips (for fun) since this whole thing began. i am not slighting her right to choose nor her support of businesses, just her cavalier attitude and choice to not always wear a mask. ugh.
on a brighter note, i heard over 23% of adults in america are now vaccinated … hooray! glad and grateful that you, don, meredith, rick, doug and my father and brother are among them. :)
kathy in iowa
But the willful ignorance of these people is maddening.
Can’t wait until it’s your turn to be vaccinated, Kathy.
Stay safe!
As an interested bystander of dollhouses, I forget the backstories that you give to your dollhouses. So, an outhouse definitely wouldn’t work…lol.
A guitar shop for Don, with a living space above? Sounds just about perfect. Now, I hope he will do that, cuz it would be so fun to see.
It’s going to be in the 50’s around here…near 60 later this week. And while we still have some snow on the ground, the cranes have returned! You can hear them talking to each other from one end of the marsh to the other. A sure sign that Spring is coming,
Hope you have a great day…,stay safe! ;)
I’d love to watch him do it! He’s very creative, so I would just be there for advice.
Same here with the temps! So glad to hear that the cranes have returned. I’ve been hearing some new birdsong that I haven’t heard all winter. Fingers crossed!
Stay safe, Donna!
I was a bit more drastic when I cut my own hair several weeks ago. I buzzed it with an electric clipper attachment of 1 inch! I did not realize it would be as short as it turned out but…it is growing out slowly and is so easy to take care of so I have definitely gotten used to it! Nobody looks at me anyway so it really doesn’t matter!
You may have to redesign your real house to fit all of your dollhouses! A fun hobby for you!
Good luck with your haircut!
I would look terrible with a very short cut! I’ve never looked good with short hair.
The haircut worked very nicely!
Stay safe, Ellen.
Oh, good luck with your haircut. Mine is so long now, I can put it in a pony!! I don’t think I have had hair that long for about 25 years. Right now it doesn’t bother me, but in the summer I am thinking it might be ‘ugh’ in the heat.
I like the idea of supposition in the bathroom being just out of sight! And that little house… oh, so cute!
Just read the CDC guidelines for life after being fully vaccinated. It sounds quite lovely. I think if one knows who they are gathering with, it is nice, indeed. However, seeing the crowds in Florida right now, makes me think the end isn’t QUITE in sight…. Take care.
I just heard them on the radio! That means we can see Rick and Doug in about a month! They had their first vaccinations before us.
Stay safe, Chris.
I started March 13
Went for first haircut four weeks after second shot. Saturday 9 am
They got me in store before mall opened
No one on our side but the lady and me
I am still masking and isolating but move Wednesday
Will continue until others are finished
Indiana continues to do well
Son in law is fifty and got his
WV is doing as young as 20 in certain areas but leaving the elderly to wait
Heard Iowa is doing people in plants while my friends there can’t get theirs
Love the idea for Don
I turned fifty in September
Celebrated a week later in Florida with son on his bday
In February next year
Two of the grand girls their mom and I spent week in nyc to celebrate
Few years ago
Prayers you both
I keep seeing people I know who are quite young who have been vaccinated. Not sure why, but I’m happy when anyone gets vaccinated.
Stay safe, Brenda! You leave on Wednesday?
Always love to here what you are doing with the houses, etc – so creative . And Don’s idea sounds good too! I measure covid-19 by the outbreak here in Albany GA and the local government shutting us all down on March 20th, with full shut down in my county Monday March 23rd (as a few of us, like the mall building) uncertain of criterias on shutdown and it was fully clarified on March 23rd. Gov. then followed with 1 month shut down (full shut down) April 1st -Apr 30th and we reopened, partially, on May 1st here at the mall (I work in a mall office). And while I try to be hopeful with the vaccine (just had my 1st shot Mar 3rd too), seeing the idiots partying hardy in Daytona Beach over the weekend, no masking, no social distancing, etc and also the spring breaker pictures showing same? Expect another round of outbreaks when all these bozos return to their states / homes and surprise ….COVID. Anyways, stay safe and sound, you two.
Oh, and I have been cutting my own hair since the original shutdown date of March 23rd. I had a professional cut in autumn of 2019 – I remember that autumn well as it was when my mother was passing (she did pass Nov 7th 2019) and because of covid, we weren’t able to visit her grave until May 2020 (she is buried in Andersonville National Cemetery with my father and her stone was place approx early March but with Covid the park was shut down and only the cemetery was opened in May 2020. All these dates that I remember around covid… Anyways, I have been cutting my hair ever since! I had a slight asymmetric cut during the 2019 holidays and as it grew out, I then cut it myself into a pixie type cut and even braved doing my own clipper undercut back in May 2020 ! In all that time, it was only recently I did a slight ‘overcut’ on the crown but I just spike it up with spiking gel and make it work, lol. Don’t we all long for “normal life” again? I know I do.
Yes we’ve both been cutting our own hair since the beginning of lockdown. This is my second cut – Don has had a couple as well. But Don’s is getting long and he can’t wait until he gets a professional cut. I can get away with a longer wait as I have long hair.
xoxo
hej, dawn pinnataro …
very sorry for the loss of your mother and how covid-19 has made things even tougher. hope you are comforted by happy memories and God’s presence and promises. also that some relief is coming with the vaccines.
sending a virtual hug, if you want.
kathy in iowa
ps: i have fine, little hair and it’s in a short pixie (as it has been for all but maybe ten years of my life and as it will remain). been cutting my own hair, three or four times in the last year. really need a pro cut and miss the dear friend who’s cut my hair for about 23 years, but it’s been one of the few rather freeing things for me this past year … to cut my own hair/not think about it (or think about lipstick or earrings, etc .). hope it’s been that way for you, too … easier.
There will definitely be more outbreaks. Also in Texas and Mississippi – their Governors are idiots.
Stay safe, Dawn.
I don’t know what I love most here — that the cottage is going to have an art studio or that Don is going to create his own mini guitar shop. Both are big wins, loads of fun and so joyful! Hooray!
Thanks so much, Jeanie!
Stay safe!