The hollyhocks that are growing at the base of the tall hollyhock I bought this year are blooming. Lovely!
I love me some morning glories!
I haven’t had a chance to check anything else out yet. I arrived here around 7:30 last night. Remind me not to drive home again on a Sunday night. Or a Friday night. Backups everywhere.
I’m getting ready to move my car to my neighbor’s driveway so that I can get in and out today. Once Stella is delivered, there will be guys here helping Don uncrate her and get her in the house. Lots of instructions as to uncrating from Marco at Antique Stove Heaven and lots of instructions as to the use of the refrigerator dolly from our local hardware store and lots of instructions from Raymond at Antique Stove Heaven as to NOT lifting her by her handles.
Yikes. This is why I didn’t want to be here!
Anyway, keep an eye on Instagram today. I’ll try to update when I can. In the meantime, I have to get my car inspected at 11:30.
I wrote a big long text message to my neighbor this morning, explaining in detail how crazy it’s going to be here and finally ending up by asking if I could park in her driveway. After all of that, I got this response. “Of course! We’re in North Carolina!”
I laughed out loud. Had no idea they weren’t there.
The news from Texas and Houston is devastating. My heart is breaking for Southeast Texas. I encourage everyone to donate to the Red Cross or any other organizations that will provide much needed relief. Prayers for Houston.
Happy Monday.
All will go well with the stove move. Slow and steady wins the race! (A reminder) My prayers are with Texas too. I can’t believe how terrible this has all turned out. I heard it will take years for Houston to recover. My church already has feet on the ground. They need all the help they can get.
I am with you. I wouldn’t want to be there. BUT , how exciting is your day going to be? !
I’m afraid for those in Harveys path. God bless.
I’m just so excited to see Stella at Mockingbird Hill Cottage! I’m picking Ashleigh up at the airport today and tomorrow we will drive to So. Ga for her Grandma’s funeral on Wed. My trip to Cali has been cancelled. Sara and family will also drive south later tomorrow. It will be a long few days but I am so glad I can be there for my girls. My Mom will stay home and my friend Carter will come stay here so she isn’t alone. So all this on top of worry about my Texas family has me stretched pretty thin. So far all my family are okay but the rain hasn’t stopped so they may flood. I’m spending a lot of time in prayer.
The day will go well with Stella and at the end of the day you will have your lovely new stove to gaze upon.
So worried for Houston and others in the path of Harvey. We have family and loved ones in Houston as well as Louisiana and Mississippi. I’ve been a nervous wreck all weekend worrying about everyone and their safety. So far we’ve been blessed and everyone is safe but the rain keeps coming for Houston, that’s terrifying. We were spared here in San Antonio thankfully. Prayers, thoughts and donations are surely appreciated from all.
Have a blessed day Claudia
I just saw your pics on instagram…it’s crated, of course. I’m anxious to see Stella in the kitchen. The news from Texas is unbelievable…so much water! My thoughts and prayers are with all those impacted by Harvey. I don’t think I need to tell you to enjoy your day…I know you will! ;)
How exciting that your new old stove is arriving and will be safely ensconced in your kitchen today!! Maybe even now? Since I’m four hours behind you. There are no words to describe the devastation and loss people are experiencing in Texas. There will be help….the Americans I know are always willing to help.
Just saw your Instagram’s photos of Stella [in her outerwear of course]. Very exciting. I’m new to Instagram [have only just started poking around there within the last 2 weeks] but I THINK I figured out how to follow you. My only other follows on Instagram are Rob Reiner & Barbra Streisand, so you’re in VERY good company, my dear. LOL. Am currently following the flooding coverage on MSNBC as I have been since Friday. Epic catastrophe taking place. As amazing as it sounds, this almost seems worse than Katrina, which was unbelievable at the time. May the Force be with all citizens of Texas and with the 1000s of people who’re trying to help, however they can, from the Governor down to local folks with boats who’re just going around seeing what needs to be done first. Wonder what lame comments will be made tomorrow by the WH’s current occupant? As a childhood friend’s Jewish grandmother used to say [when talking about any kind of bad news], “Wherever it is, it should only stay there…” Peace. Shalom. 🕍
#Resist
Such a gamut of emotions from Stella highs to Harvey lows. Hoping for the best for everyone today. Your flowers are beautiful.
So sad for the people in Houston and other Texas towns who have so much devastation. Cant wait to see Stella in her new home. xo Laura
Saw your instagram post of the crated Stella, and it made me so happy! We had one of these in the first home we bought and it was such a dream. If it had not been crazy expensive at the time to move her across the country when we left that house, I would have her still. Oh, the biscuits you will make! Crusty outside and soft as pillows inside, and all of it filled with the sparkle of expectation, the ‘first -on -one -foot -then -on -another’ waiting of the days when she journeyed to you, and the joy of her homecoming. Enjoy that first incredible bite!
With family in Louisiana and SE Texas, I am glued to the TV—again—and am wrapping everyone in prayer. Good people are already scurrying to do what can be done, and for that I am so thankful.
Peace and peace, and again peace,
Leslie P.
Prayers for Texas. It is so devastating to see all the ruin and destruction. looking forward to seeing Stella in your kitchen.
Marilyn
Stella looks so pretty with the sunny yellow background!…I just knew they would be a wonderful combo!…The people of the great state of Texas are on my mind indeed…I wish I could be there to help…
OMG, saw the instagram. Stella arrived; you survived. Love the photos.
Texas. It’s so awful; I feel so awful. If this had been when I lived in Houston and my elderly folks were still alive in California, I just don’t know what this would have been for them except a bad health event; it was always so hard for them to be separated from my husband and me in those years we were away. I felt it in the opposing way, when they suffered the Northridge earthquake (1994) and I couldn’t get to THEM, living so many miles apart. It’s torture. The most helpless feeling. I can, in this case, indeed imagine how frantic people must be, to know what’s happening with their loved ones in this catastrophic hurricane.
Again, I’ve lived in southwest Houston when it flooded…water filling up a lower patio/courtyard to the lip of the sliding door, me alone in the house with 5 pets, measuring with a stick as the water rose inch by inch in pouring rain (new to the city; knowing nothing about it; wouldn’t have known where to go, just moved there [mere days earlier], my husband urgently trying to get to us while being stuck across town with impassable roads…and I didn’t have a car yet myself…and there was no second story/upstairs in this house for temporary escape); water up to the front door frame; water up over hubcaps and spreading on to lawns as it jumped the curb – – but this, what’s going on right now in Houston is, as another reader said, epic. My husband and I have been on the phone about it twice already today, here in SoCalif; he’s keeping tabs as much as he can on people we still know in the Houston area; feeling very uneasy. Very.
I don’t know if I can ever get out of my mind, the photo of the nursing home patients sitting waist-deep in water in their wheelchairs inside the facility. It was unbelievable, to the point that a first reaction was that the photo had to be fake which, of course, it wasn’t. The last thing I read, they got them out…but all of this can’t help but bring back horrible memories of Katrina; and how each day, things just got worse and worse. The news will only get more tragic, with loss of people, pets, possessions; businesses, schools; I can’t even go there in my mind with it; none of us can.
It’s hard to believe that, in this day & age, with technology/planning, etc., how we can still be so vulnerable to Mother Nature and natural disasters. She will always be bigger than us. And with climate change, her angry side will only get angrier. God help us. God help Texas.
OMJittles, Claudia …
Playing catch-up { obviously } with reading your blog. I too received the same “perennial” Hollyhock ‘Fiesta Time’ from my girlfriend from Paris, France this summer during her visit! Hollyhocks are one of her favorite flowers she grows on her balcony, so she wanted me to have a ‘Jennie’ plant for our pollinator bed. My only concern is it’s ZONE 6 { we’re ZONE 3 to 4 } on the tag, but she assures me as long as I allow the dead blooms to reseed at the foot of them they will come up yearly … I was so smitten with the loveliness of the leaf shape to the ‘happy’ blooms I went back to the nursery and purchased TWO more to keep ‘Jennie’ company within our pollinator bed! { yes, against my better judgement, but based on faith …} I’m in the midst of labeling all of my perennials within all our beds with the help of our daughter {… printing penmanship exceeds my own printing}
When I come via blog reading to visit the cottage I feel a kindred spirit in so many ways.
Isn’t that hollyhock beautiful? I’m hoping she comes back next year. She’s absolutely gorgeous. I now regret that I didn’t buy more than one! You were smart to do that!
Thank you so much for your kind words!