You’d better believe that I ran out to the porch for this one! After a long and rainy day, this beauty was our reward.
More rain today and tomorrow. It’s pretty dreary out there.
I find myself feely drowsy a lot and I know it’s because I’m finally getting some sleep, along with releasing long held tension from the past 5 years. I imagine a lot of people are feeling the same way. We’ve been held hostage – he’s still trying to hold us hostage. I would liken this aftermath to PTSD on a massive level. (I’m no expert, of course.) It’s going to take a while to recover. The last two nights, I’ve fallen asleep between 9 and 10, while watching tv. I can’t seem to stop it, though I try. My body and mind are letting go.
Let’s see, what else? We watched My Favorite Year the other evening – one of my very favorite movies. Peter O’Toole is brilliant, as is the rest of the cast. It makes me happy.
We’ve begun watching The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. Excellent! It’s so well done and the subject matter is fascinating. We’re also watching older episodes of The Great British Baking Show.
I’m rereading A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny, the second book in her series. I’m going to pull these books out to reread from time to time. In the meantime, the newest John Connolly arrived in the mail and I’ll probably start that later today.
Don’s playing guitar and writing some instrumentals, which are lovely. He’s cooking lots of interesting dishes.
We’re hanging in there, trying to just be, to support each other, and to gradually let go of everything that is the Orange Man. Joe Biden is the President-elect, OM will be gone. I’m ticking off the days.
Barbara asked about the bedroom in the dollhouse. Here is a picture of the wallpaper I’m using:
I have some touch up work to do there before I wallpaper, using spackle to fill in the gaps between the dormers and the walls. I might start in that today. Yesterday, I spent hours looking at miniatures on eBay and Etsy. I have three projects ongoing at the moment, the vintage Lake House, the modern dollhouse, and Dove Cottage. So when I start looking at miniatures, I’m thinking of all of them. Oh, the possibilities!
Stay safe.
Happy Friday.
Hi Claudia, Happy Friday to you and Don! It is a relief to know that the idiot and his family will be gone soon. I too have been sleeping better. Your little houses are very pretty. It’s over cast here today so hopefully we will get some rain. Lord knows California needs it. Take care xo
I hope you get some much needed rain, April!
Stay safe.
We just started watching The Queens Gambit too after a neighbor suggested it. Very intriguing. There was a young boy at the school I worked at who was a chess player who won local tournaments when he was in 3rd/4th grade. Fascinating game…but I could never play it!🙄
I never could play either. My brother tried to teach me once when we were on vacation. He ended up getting frustrated!
Stay safe, Debbie.
beautiful sunset! i mean, really, they all are beautiful … but this one with all its pinks and purple-y blues is extra-beautiful! thanks for sharing it with us.
oh, peter o’toole … i had such a crush on him in my younger years. and his choice of movies (at least the ones i’ve seen … lawrence of arabia, casino royale, the lion in winter, goodbye mr. chips …) … all great.
same with your dollhouse works …. i applaud your ability to work with such tiny things and make them look so real, as if life-size. and your patience! love that wallpaper choice, too. hope you found what you’re looking for online.
glad you are sleeping better. you used the phrase “letting go”. i am not often good at that, but this year’s stresses and messes have made me think more about my own ways of letting go … especially of stress and sadness. for me, it’s meant crying gallons of tears and praying more, also doing what i want (read, write, paint, etc.) more than sometimes what i need (wash windows, for example). sometimes sleeping more just to let my mind and body rest (some stuff’s been coming out in weird dreams lately). also, letting go of anger through lots of walking, now with this back pain, it hurts to walk or do anything else so i am trying to pick up more knitting, painting, etc. as a distraction. and still walk. it’s all getting better or it will. the events of january 20, 2021 will for sure bring a big lift.
i am grateful that it is friday. the weekends are much easier for me and i can spend more (socially-distanced) time with family members … :)
hope you have a good day today and weekend ahead. :)
and stay safe, everyone!
kathy in iowa
I’ve had my days of crying and anger and frustration. I understand. Plus, you’ve had to deal with contracting COVID and having others around you not wear masks. It must be so maddening.
Enjoy your well-deserved time off this weekend, Kathy.
Stay safe!
Glad you are finally able to get some decent sleep.
The wallpaper is lovely! My daughter knows how much I’d like a Beacon Hill dollhouse (and also how daunting a project that would be), so she recently bought me the 1/144 version as a surprise. I’m having a lot of fun decorating it, but it’s much harder on the eyes than the usual 1/12!
I can’t imagine doing anything that small, Barbara! Good for you!
I would love a Beacon Hill, too, but I think I’d rather find one than construct one!
Stay safe.
These last 4 years have been a strain! Glad you are able to rest, relax and recover from the stress of living under this horrible president. Looking forward to a happier future with Biden/Harris!
Enjoy! Thanks for posting!
Oh, so am I!
Thank you, Ellen.
Stay safe.
Gorgeous photo! Frame that one (I know, not enough space). I just watched My Favorite Year, caught it by accident channel surfing. I adore Peter O’Toole. It’s a totally fun movie! Bedroom wallpaper is luxurious and soothing. You have a great eye. BTW, I did finally mail one of the two packages. Don’t mean to be a nudge, but I hope it got there. The other one will be on its way soon. Listening to your husband play and compose must be paradise. And I agree, we all have PTSD (not to take anything away from soldiers). These years have been unending trauma, and the shenanigans continue. If you think of it, there are some helpful videos on tapping, which is similar to EMDR, found to be very effective for PTSD treatment. You can do it at home without a therapist. It’s very gentle. Forward to 2021!! Also, happy Friday the 13th. XO
I don’t know if it got here and you’ll have to be patient as I try to avoid the post office as much as possible. It’s impossibly small and I invariably have someone too close to me in the waiting room. You have no idea how small it is!
Thanks, Nora!
Stay safe.
Very beautiful wallpaper pattern and colour, Claudia. The employment with miniatures and dollhouses gives joy and meaning to our lives! Helga
It surely does, Helga. I am so grateful for it!
Stay safe!
I love the picture of the sunset, and from that angle in front of your home. I do not have a color printer, but if I did I think I would go back & gather the pictures you’ve posted of that specific angle… and frame them into a series. I don’t know why I’m so intrigued with them, but I am.
Taken from my front porch, near the door.
Thanks, Jan.
Stay safe.
Good Morning Claudia!
I have been MIA for quite a while. I wanted to be able to be positive for you, but could not. I stayed away. I believe now that things have turned and there is once again reason to have hope. I would love to catch up I have lots to tell/say, but this is your blog.
I have missed you and Don!
I’m glad to hear from you again, Trudy! Welcome back!
Stay safe.
We have enjoyed a couple of those gorgeous sunset lately as well. So beautiful!! The colors are amazing.
I agree with the PTSD reference. I find myself dozing off several times a day. That is unusual. I think, as you and others have said, we are all totally exhausted. And the idiot isn’t going to fade away graciously, or at all. Someone said when he finally acknowledges the election, he will be announcing his 2024 bid. Which means we will have to listen to his whiny voice and see his ugly ornangeness non stop again. 130 Secret Service officers either down w Covid or in quarantine due to his traveling to his rallies ~ for no other reason than to make himself feel good. When people w an AIDS diagnosis willfully exposed and infected people, weren’t they dealt with legally??
We have beautiful sunshine, but very cold temps today. Get to go into Madison today to pick up a curbside Kohl’s order today. We pop the trunk and they load the package. Safest way we can now shop. We have been told here in WI to act as if everyone we encounter has Covid because the numbers are so horrible. STAY HOME EVERYONE!! WEAR THE DAMN MASK. Stay safe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The hardest thing for OM will be if he’s ignored. If he’s no longer relevant. He thrives on attention. The 2024 bid will be just to keep attention on him. The reality is he will be more and more riddled with dementia and will be busy being prosecuted.
Don went to recycle this morning and some ass was there without a mask. And people around here are pretty scrupulous about wearing masks. The other day I was in Lowes and the woman helping me had to keep pulling her mask up over her nose. To be fair, she kept doing that, but come on!
Stay safe, Chris.
Wonderful pix this am, Claudia! It also feels like there is some hope on the horizon! As tough as the goon & his squad are making it hard for Biden/Harris, things will begin to straighten out, I believe.
We just finished watched “Single Handed”. Great Irish series on Netflix & Prime. Finally, I can actually sit & watch something & not be distracted by the horrible stuff that’s been going on in this country. Like you, sleeping better too!
Have a good, warm (?) weekend!
Not warm, unfortunately. It’s damp and cold!
Stay safe, Priscilla!
Lovely sunset! I know many of us are now sleeping better but it’s hard to let go of the last 5 years because OM is OM. I rest easier knowing Joe Biden is our next president. I recently had to let go of a over 40 year friendship because she won’t stop saying the election was stolen and things about Hunter Biden and on and on. I asked her to stop, she wouldn’t. So now she is blocked. Sad to let something go after so long but I can’t let those things in my life. So I’m moving forward. Hugs!
I understand. I can’t have people who believe that sort of nonsense in my life. Just can’t.
Stay safe, Linda.
I ADORE that wallpaper! Perfect for the style you are going for, imho. :-)
Thank you, Anne! I really like it, too.
Stay safe!
Gorgeous photo.
I don’t remember a Lake House doll house.
Saw somebody interviewed on TV last night who said he wants so much to be elated right now, and we should be, but of course OM is doing his best, in vengeance, to destroy what he can before he’s pushed out the door. And then I just read this in (online) The Guardian although it sounded like it was pulled from The Observer (okay, I get it; they’re ‘sister’ publications) but an interview with Mary Trump (who’s really just been this incredible voice over the past months), Mary stating: “As for saying he’ll run in 2024, that’s just a face-saving exercise. It’s a way of distracting him from the fact that he’s probably going to prison. But the worst thing Donald’s looking at isn’t financial difficulties or the prospect of jail. It’s becoming irrelevant. I don’t think he would ever recover from that.”
To another subject: I feel exhausted and I didn’t even do the shopping, but my husband and I just finished the assembly line of unpacking, disinfecting and organizing a big grocery-buying trip. Last one for awhile. (It looks like our neighboring L.A. County is going back into the most-restricted Covid tier by Sunday. Restaurants shut down again. Etc.) Anyway, I just want to go back to bed. (I remember when we formerly could go to the grocery store at any time of day rather than this early-morning stuff; just come in, unpack it; easy. Oh well. We all remember those days a year ago.)
Again, we’re in SoCalif and what my husband did notice is that the two grocery stores (big-box stores) he went to (in another nearby city which is about four times the size of our small town) were, in fact, gloriously well-stocked for the most part; just no cleaning supplies. But lots of food. So, clearly no supply issues in large part. As yet.
And we have a beautiful, sunny November morning here at the end of the 10am-hour with no wind and pleasantly cool at 60 degrees (f). Enjoy it while it lasts because Sunday and Monday we’re back in the 80s with Santa Ana wind. Again. But for the first time in a few years, this is actually typical. So many years when we’d be so hot at Thanksgiving that it was hard to cook an oven meal in the hot kitchen, yet we’d had frost two weeks before. I’m kind of heartened to see what I expect to see here for our weird seasons which had always sort of been something to count on.
At the beach a few days ago, still scores of people parked at the shore in the rented spaces in their big motorhomes and we really noticed more than ever that these people are SENIORS. (I hope it means that working people got their jobs back!) It’s off-season and weekdays, when the beach would heretofore be somewhat vacant in our usual places. Especially too with cooling temps (the Pacific is a cold ocean). My husband says it’s obvious that retired folks are sick of being stuck at home but still want to be safe, so the motorhome/trailer thing is a way to get out from the usual ‘four walls’ yet still be self-contained and distanced from others pretty much (for me, it still seems a little tight between parked ‘coaches’ but my husband says it’s an illusion we see from the car and they’ve probably got a good 10-15 ft [or more] clearance from rigs on either side of them in the parking spaces). I’m kinda kicking myself that we never invested in anything like this (camper, trailer, RV-motorhome) although I still don’t think it’s really my thing for travel; yet for this kind of staycation, how relaxing to be ‘camping out’ with the waves right before you in these nice days of tolerable sun and just a change in environment.
(I know I’ve spoken of this before but I continue to be startled by the number of people out beach-camping these Covid days; we also see many older people, just like my husband and me, sitting in their cars at the marina, just watching the boats come in & out of the harbor; something to do; a way to be safe and distanced. Change things up a little. We can keep at this sort of thing; just a bit longer; find our patience til a heavily-vaccinated population occurs in 2021. Just gotta hang in there.)
Yes, you do. It’s the one on top of the china cabinet in the den. If you are ver confused, all of the dollhouses are shown under dollhouses/miniatures in the navigation bar.
Stay safe, Vicki.
Yep, you’ve got enough of a collection of houses now that I need a review. I love ALL of them!
And, by the way, I keep looking at that incredible sky of the photo you posted on Nov 13; that vibrant magenta mixed with the blue-purple sky is absolutely stunning. I don’t know what it is but we just don’t seem to get those kinds of sunsets/sunrises where I am. They tend to be on the orange and yellow side. Sometimes a pale pink with what’s left of a robin’s-egg blue, but not that kind of vividness you’ve got!
To be fair, I sometimes refer to that house as a vintage dollhouse, which it is. But it’s officially The Lake House.
xo
A glorious sky and yes, a well-deserved reward. I understand what you mean about the drowsy tiredness. It has been so stressful. I’m sleeping a little better but the Covid thing is still keeping me up at night. Last night I was watching a wonderful documentary on Great Performances about Fiddler on the Roof — history, but much more. It was so good and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I might have dropped for a few minutes because I got a burst of energy or at least more awake-ness and watched to the end but I may check it out again on demand.
Have a fun weekend with the doll houses! Eager to see the next photos!
I had to fight that drowsiness last night as we were watching the finale of one of the season of The Great British Baking Show and Don kept prodding me to stay awake.
Stay safe, Jeanie.
I love that wallpaper for the dollhouse bedroom. I want it for my house!!
I know! So do I!
Thanks, Jenny.
Stay safe.