I just spent some time on the porch with my husband, drinking our second cup of coffee. He leaves in about an hour for the city. We had a lovely day yesterday. Too short, but we’re grateful, nonetheless. I baked him some more cookies and biscuits, so he’s set for the week.
The gift that keeps on giving. I thought this morning glory would never bloom, now there are buds everywhere. What a blessing as we move into Autumn!
And the hollyhock just keeps blooming. It’s rather amazing! I hope it comes back next year.
It’s still unbelievably hot around here and it looks like it won’t ease up until the end of the week. I’m over it. Yes, I’m finally officially ready for fall and cool, crisp weather. Don mowed a bit yesterday and he couldn’t get over how hot it was – it was 90 degrees in the late afternoon. Enough, already!
I’m contemplating starting to paint another wall in the kitchen this week. I’m going to take it slow; it will be an ongoing project, with the cupboards being the biggest challenge. Walls first. Cupboards later.
This was my view the other evening when I went outside to deposit some trash in the trash can. So lovely.
I see that Don has just finished cleaning the gutters, bless him. I have to go so I can say goodbye for another week. And then I’ll start raking up those leaves!
Happy Monday.
Your hollyhocks are beautiful. So are your morning glories. Seeing your pictures, I become homesick for New England.
I understand, Trina!
Beauties, those blossoms! Mine are really happy this morning, too. I guess all they needed was a little heat! (But I could do without it.)
Oh, so could I. I’m sick of it!
Your morning glories are, well, glorious and the hollyhocks are so sweet. What a blessing. Our weather is still plenty hot too but not unexpected. I am busy watching the babies today & getting ready to help a single mom out by keeping her baby three nights a week for her to go to college. Our evenings will be less peaceful but we feel up for it.
You are such a good person, Janie!
to janie …
that is a wonderful thing you are doing to watch her baby and make it easier for the single mother to go to college! i don’t know how large your home is, but your heart is great big!
to claudia …
thanks for sharing the beauty you find … and all the work you put in to keep your gardens so pretty!
glad that you and don find ways to sneak in some time together with your extra-busy schedules!
if we lived closer, i’d be glad to help paint your kitchen walls (i love to paint). good luck on all the projects!
kathy in iowa
Come on by, Kathy! I would love your help!! xoxo
So strange how we’ve all had this same heat. It is nice to have those cool mornings. Our weather is set to cool on Weds & can’t wait. I’ve had a bad summer so it will be known forever as “the summer of my discontent”. I’m determined to have a wonderful fall. Hoping the same for you! Have a wonderful Monday.
I’m ready for fall. Mother Nature, do you hear me?
Your morning glories and hollyhocks are gorgeous…they bring joy! We’ve set heat records the last 3 days…supposed to dramatically cool down on Wednesday. I am so looking forward to it! When hubby mows this afternoon, he’s going to bag the grass, and hopefully a lot of the honey locust leaves at the same time. They are the first to drop around here. I’ll be madly watering my flowers and evergreens….still so dry here! ;)
I think we have to wait until Friday. Yikes. I’m getting crotchety.
If I could, I would send you my temps. :) Sounds like a nice morning with your guy. I need to go and check my Morning Glory and see if any blooms are left. It seems to have stopped. But my garden is loving the rain and is bouncing back. Have a great week! Kit
We have been wet most of the spring and summer, but we need some rain now. And some cooler temps!
The hollyhock is gorgeous! And so are the morning glories! I am going to try some next year. So much to do in my garden, but temps are so hot, I just can’t force myself to get out there. Cooler weather forecast for this weekend, and I can’t wait. Hopefully, your lovely morning will continue into a lovely afternoon!
I was going to rake today but it’s too hot!
As much as I think Morning Glories should be summer flowers, I have to conclude that, at least in my neck of the woods, they are September bloomers. If I can just remember that, I won’t be so disappointed thinking they will never have blossoms. And if a few pop in mid to late August, I will be happy and not discouraged!!
This weather is getting to me. Even taking the dogs out is awful. Wednesday is supposed to be our magical day when this heat is gone. Can not wait. We need rain so badly! We do have many Monarchs in the yard, so that does make me happy.
Glad Don was able to get home. Even a brief visit is wonderful! Painting in the kitchen with the air on sounds like a good project for a hot week. We have to take one day at a time and wait for the cool weather to “fall” our way! Have a good Monday!!
Yes. My other morning glory bloomed a couple of months back with about two blooms. And then it stopped. So I think it’s a September bloomer here as well.
I haven’t seen any Monarchs here since the ones that were ‘birthed’ on our property have moved on. I see some swallowtails, but that’s about it.
Such pretty flowers…I see more buds waiting to bloom on the hollyhock too!…I’m sick of this heat also…the weather online says it is 86 degrees with a real feel of 100 degrees…we won’t see a break until Thursday if it really happens!..I thought I was done with the air conditioner…oh well Claudia..stay cool and play with your mini’s..
I’m so sleepless today that I can’t do much of anything!
Hope your week flies by and the next day off for Don will be there in no time. We’re heading into increasing temps by mid-week, then a gradual decrease. Not abnormal for this time of year for us. Your flowers are beautiful. I’m learning from you, Claudia! I’m not cutting my flowers, just enjoying them in the garden. I do make one exception, I cut flowers to bring to my Mom and Dad when I visit them. My Dad hasn’t been to my house in at least seven years and as he can no longer walk, will never be able to see it again. So, I like to bring a little of my yard to them.
Taking flowers to your parents is a lovely thing to do, especially if they are from your own garden!
to wendy …
that is very sweet, you bringing a bit of your yard (flowers) to your parents. bet that brightens their days. may they and you be blessed with good health, happiness and lots of time together.
kathy in iowa
How nice of you to say, Kathy! Thank you. Time with both my parents is precious, as they are in their 90’s.
We’re really hot here on the West Coast, too. Had a short glimpse of Fall with cooler temps but it went away all too quickly; however, this kind of hot/windy (Santa Anas) weather is normal for us in SoCalif at this time of year, as you know (not that I like it, although I do like the lower humidity that comes with the hot, dry winds off the desert, blowing east to west; it clears up the sky although it does fill the air with more dust and old pollen; and we just have to pray for no wildfire). We need a good rain SO badly. We haven’t had measurable rain for MONTHS here (feeling parched again). We’re 93 right now just after 2pm PST and it’s supposed to be over 90 degrees through next Sunday, every single day; so, I feel for ya(!) because we’re getting it, too. I just reported somebody to Animal Control who has a medium-sized dog (pretty thing) tied to a tree in a front yard; has been upsetting me over the past week or 10 days (my edge of town, but not my neighborhood; I drive by there frequently, though…) and, today, I kinda snapped (he’s not livestock; he’s a dog) although he has shade from a tree. But I’d bet serious money he doesn’t have a drop of water in the shallow bowl I saw sitting near him; he’s long-haired and was really panting in the hot air. As my friend Shirley says, “People are stupid, and they’re getting stupider.” He seems so vulnerable; there’s not a lot that’s right about his situation. Poor dog.
I’ve got the strange situation of a transplanted-from-ground-to-pot hollyhock which was a volunteer at our other/former house from four years ago. It bloomed amazingly this spring, for the first time in the pot, so I’m keeping it watered to see if I can get another bloom next year although I know it’s a long shot. The plant was so tall and lush and magical; I didn’t even have to stake it in the pot; it was strong!
An aside: Have to say, since reading of other readers of yours watching it and their subsequent comments here on the blog, I’d avoided The Viet Nam War series on PBS (Ken Burns) because, wimpy me, I felt I couldn’t handle it, not with every other bad thing going on in my life and the world right now. But, last night, although the series is half over, I did watch Episode 6 on a first-time out with the show, and I found myself in tears several times. It is gripping. I couldn’t turn away. It’s like it’s pulling together anything I thought I knew from over such a long period of time with fragments of info from people I’ve known, school, random news articles, movies; what I recall from what was on TV news at the time (sans body counts of course); LIFE magazine; other TV docs I would usually turn off because of what’s unpleasant and hard. I said to my husband, “We were kids, but we lived this; this was our time. But, to a degree, I was insulated, in my own little bubble; I just didn’t know.” For him, he’s a little older than I, and he did have to register for the draft; and his big brother (by 7 years) did two tours in some of the worst of jungle combat; so, my husband was a lot closer to the war than I was, in that regard. (There’s a sadness about my husband, too, at Christmas—every Christmas, when it’s time to string the exterior holiday lights on the house—when, back in the small Midwestern town he grew up in, neighbors put up Christmas lights on the houses one Christmas, c. 1967, then left them up and burned the lights every night til the last hometown Viet Nam soldier/veteran [including nurses] came home from the war, and how it seemed like those Christmas lights stayed up forever because, yes, it was at least another five years; the bulbs would burn out, and neighbors would just replace the bulbs, over and over again.) I said, “Are you going to watch the rest of this PBS series with me?” And he said, “Ken Burns is a genius. But, no, I can’t do it. I just talked on the phone to my brother today and we can’t ‘go there’ yet; I don’t know when the right time will be for it, if ever; I don’t want to remember.”
Good for you for reporting those dog owners. Why isn’t the dog inside in air conditioning?? I do not understand people.
I can’t watch the series either. I’m older than you. I lived through that time, remember it all too well. My brother’s friend was killed in that endless and senseless war. I know how brilliant Ken Burns is, but I don’t need to be educated about it. I don’t want to remember, either.
On a completely-diff note, OMG, Claudia, I just learned that Mattel is reproducing the original 1962 Barbie Dream House, down to every last detail of the mid-century house and furnishings. It was the cardboard fold-up doll house and mine was secondhand from a neighbor in the 60s after she’d grown too old for it and, although it was fairly battered, we sold it to the mailman who was a collector (when I was a teen) and I never got over it; hardly any exist today because they just weren’t up to the years, being paper and all. This new offering comes with a retro Barbie as well, and the item in total is $100…but I’m dying in bliss, here. It’s my childhood ‘doll house’!!! It’s 1964 all over again, me and my Barbies. Just google Barbie Collector and it’ll take you there, if you want to have a look; several photos…it’s available to buy in October…I guess I’m joining the Barbie Fan Club after all this year (I’m a retro/vintage Barbie fanatic)…just click from their home page on the category called ‘Signature’ and scroll down…TOO much fun! I just got my 2017 Christmas present, making it VERY easy for my husband and cousins; they need not worry about what to get me for Christmas; just pool your money, dear loved ones; this is the only present I need for Christmas and, yes, I’m being TOTALLY self-indulgent!
I don’t think Mattel would mind me copying this verbatim, about the Dream House (doll house):
“It was a challenging project – we’ve never produced a vintage structure before,” reveals Barbie® Signature Principal Designer Bill Greening. “Let alone one made mostly of cardboard. I learned a lot about the quality of cardboard on this one!”
To create a vintage reproduction of any kind, Bill explains, they assemble a team to look at archive items and determine how to approach the project. “Luckily we had our packaging team and some help from the games and puzzles team to pull it off,” Bill says.
They were only able to find one sample in their archives with the furniture still unassembled, but that was enough. They scanned the “sheets” with the furniture and sent them out for development. “We wanted to make sure the assembly of the furniture was all part of the fun, like the original,” Bill says. “I love the hi-fi/TV combo. It’s the 60s version of the entertainment center. I love the how the lid opens up and reveals a printed record player. I also love the flat cardboard printed pillows.”
The reproduction of Barbie® Dream House® comes with an instruction booklet, and it also comes with a vintage repro doll and fashion, too! “It’s a vintage blonde ponytail Barbie, wearing a floral PAK sheath dress collectors know as ‘On the Go’ from that original Dream House era,” Bill notes. That makes the reproduction of the Dream House even more special, since the doll was sold separately back in the 1960s.
I didn’t mean to be insensitive, jumping from war to doll houses. It’s sort of like my emotions these days; all over the map. I just got excited because of something uplifting and fun, and I sorta need that right now; maybe we all do, in our own ways.
I’m the same way and dollhouses are a blessed form of escape and happiness. I totally get it.
On my heavens. I have to get one!!!
I just found the website and looked at the picture. Yes, I did have that house and I definitely want this one – Plus the Barbie is so cool looking!
Did I have a dream house? I’m not sure. I think I did. You’re a Barbie collector – you have to get it! I just may have to get one myself, along with a Barbie!
I’m telling ya, Claudia; it made my day!! I was all ‘done’ with the Barbie Collector site/Mattel; felt like it was time to curtail my collecting; I don’t like their re-done online shop site. It’s too ‘busy’ and they’re mixing up the adult-collector dolls/accessories with all the little kiddie stuff. I feel like I’m in a dense fog there, trying to push my way to the clearing, just to find what I’m looking for! I’ve been very vocal about it on collector sites but all I’m doing is echoing other adult collectors; if anything, the site is just more difficult to navigate and I wish they’d just left well enough alone. They also formerly had a much-more extensive archive for the fashions/dolls of our boomer youth. Sigh. I’d love to look at the photos.
But they’ve made up for everything(!) with this new offering, which is highly unusual and, although I know the ‘cardboard’ will seem quite ‘primitive’ in these ‘modern times’, it is just priceless to have such an authentic repro as this 1962 Dream House. Never in my wildest Barbie dreams did I ever even conceive of such a thing unless maybe they’d do a tribute Hallmark Keepsake Ornament of the House; something like that…but never the actual House of its original size. I was absolutely shocked! Pleasantly!
I guess I’ll be going with the Gold membership (mid-range) although I really didn’t want to invest in that kind of money over the next 12 months.*** This three-membership-options thing is brand-new; heretofore, you joined (nominal) and would get $20 ‘shop rewards’ every quarter, so you still get that with the Gold but ***you have to now purchase a certain dollar amount per quarter, too, in order to get the rewards, and I don’t like that, but, what to do. (Not hard for Barbie dealer stores, as they’d probably buy the max [like if you’re allowed to buy up to, say, five of an item] but sort of hard, I feel, on the individual collector, like me.) I’m still looking into it, but I don’t think you can buy the Dream House on that cheapest member offer (“Pink”); gotta read up on it more. But this is the sort of thing where they’ll only sell so many of this new repro House and then it’ll be over (“no longer sold”), and you’ll see the House then go up for sale on eBay or Amazon for twice the price. My small collection is pretty-much complete but, confess to say at my most-extravagant, to catch up to dolls I’d missed in the years when I wasn’t collecting, I’ve paid as much as four times the original price (I can hear my dad saying, ‘there’s a sucker born every minute’ [!!]) of a repro vintage Barbie that had been offered by Mattel, oh, maybe 5-10 years earlier. (I stick to what they call the original face sculpt; the reproduction Barbies of my youth. There are a lot of Barbies out there in subsequent years that look nothing like the 1959-1964 dolls.
Oh, is that why I couldn’t pre-order? That means I have to pay some amount in order to get the house, even though that’s the only thing I’ll order from them? That sort of sucks.
Yes, I tried to talk to someone in Customer Service on the phone about it yesterday but she wasn’t sure and I was going to be sent to a supervisor but I was on my way out so said forget it. She actually said to me, “I think you can only buy the Dream House if you’re a Platinum member” and that’s the most expensive membership to buy(!)…in terms of what you have to purchase from them each quarter to meet the membership agreement; unless you want to lose $30 in shop rewards each quarter. (I mean, they’re not going to pull the agreement if you don’t buy anything more; it just means you don’t get the perks of the membership. A choice!) Yes, it sucks. I don’t want to spend that much money with them each quarter.
Sometimes Amazon itself (not the Amazon individual sellers; secondhand marketplace…who’ll ratchet up the prices for things that they themselves buy from the Barbie collector site [Mattel] and then resell) will be allowed to sell a Barbie/Mattel product for the same price as what’s on the Barbie/Mattel online site, no membership of course required. But I don’t know how it’s decided what Amazon gets to sell and what they don’t get. (I’m betting they won’t get to sell this Dream House repro!) Department 56 is the same; I think I’d read that Department 56 on some things won’t allow Amazon or, say, Macy’s, to sell Department 56’s holiday stuff til a year later; it’s all kinda crazy. Who gets the first sales.
So, I’m mulling and chewing my nails trying to rationalize/justify/decide. I’d say just call them at Barbie Collector, and maybe you’ll have better luck than I did, depending upon which representative you get in Customer Service: 800-747-8697 7a.m. – 10p.m. Central Time, 9a.m. – 6p.m. Central Time on weekends. “Holiday hours may vary. Write us at P.O. Box 620380 Middleton, WI 53562-0380”
I don’t know why they have to make it so difficult. They piss off enough collectors and they’re gonna regret it because they just won’t get the sales. It’s like, I was reading about Gold Crown Hallmark stores the other day since, in my area, they are FEW and far between. I’d talked to a gal who works in one, who really wanted to buy a successful store from a lady-owner who was retiring and she said, “They make it SO hard for a normal person to buy and operate one of their stores.” So, yes, I was reading that Hallmark wants you to have up to a half-million dollars in the bank (various assets in total, but at least $100,000 green cash up front) and I don’t know enough about retail business to understand all that but it seems like a helluva lot of money, doesn’t it?!! Would they rather have a niche in an area…have a store…or no stores/representation at all? If I lose the store that’s a half hour away from me, the only other one is an hour from me on roads I’d rather stay off of…but I guess they have high standards for owner/product and that’s just the way it is…
Back to the Barbie Dream House repro, I guess it’s down to, if they require that Platinum membership, it means $100 for the house and the $34.95 member fee to get it. They instantly apply the first $30 shop reward to it so, in actuality, the purchase cost of the house is then $70, you get free shipping and it’s only sales tax, so I have to decide if I buy nothing else for the entire 12 mos of the paid membership, is the Dream House itself worth a final price of $75 (for cardboard, and one vintage-repro doll)? The extreme sentimentality of it for me, and the fact my husband and cousins are buying it for me for Christmas? (I’ve made it easy for them! They don’t have to shop now!) I know it sounds silly and I’m a grown-up woman for wanting it, but, yeah, I think I just talked myself into it! You sometimes can’t put a price on these things, i.e. things to make us happy, feel better; memories. I donate plenty; try to do things in my small way to give, and not always receive or want/want/want, but…I want this house!
I’m not sure what to do. I’ll have to think about it. But I’m not even a Barbie Collector and I’d still love that house and the report doll!
I talked to a second person at Mattel and they affirmed you can only buy the Dream House with platinum membership, so, I purchased the platinum membership (“charter” membership; they’ve never offered this before; it’s all new) AND the house and my final price is $75.78 (yours could be diff as I assume NY sales tax may be diff than Calif sales tax). What I get for the $75 is the dream house, the retro doll and a freebie gift of a little souvenir-style/promotional ‘sack’ of Barbie shoes which I’m sure are all plastic because, of course, Barbie is plastic. I imagine the worth of the doll could be$30-$50 if they’d offered her individually (most stand-alone, repro-vintage Barbies [original face sculpt] on their site [of what’s the basic plastic and not the other composition of what they call silkstone; silkstones are more expensive] are $50 [on sale, from original price!]); the shoes, maybe $10 although I think they state the value as approx $5.
This second rep at Mattel with whom I spoke also affirmed you can indeed choose to not buy one other thing in the 12 mos of your membership. (And it ends at 12 mos; you have to renew it; it doesn’t auto-renew; so, it’s finite, if you want it to be, in other words.) Frankly, at this point, the only reason I bought the membership is to buy the dream house. I’m really not wanting to buy more dolls later in the year unless they come up with a really cool Barbie retro fashion or Barbie/Midge/Skipper retro doll.
In the end, this was an easy online transaction and I’m very satisfied; now, just looking forward to getting my purchase in October. If it comes out later that there was misunderstanding and we could have bought the dream house with the medium-cost membership (“Gold”) I’m not going to get upset over a $15 diff in membership price. It’s not that I’m casual about money but, in the end, I’ve convinced myself this is a smart purchase in total for me, for lots of reasons, and I did want to get in on early purchase/early access (a perk of the platinum-status membership) ‘just in case’ for some reason it did sell out early (unlikely, but you never know!). I mean, if you break it down, the Dream House itself in the long run is a lot less than $100!
Well, it ends up being a pretty good deal! I’ll have to ponder on that one!
It took me forever to scroll back and figure which of your daily posts this was (talking of the Barbie Dream House) but it’s exactly what I figured would happen in the early offering of that Dream House on the Mattel Barbie collector site (the customer reps apparently didn’t have all the right info yet): Some of us probably unnecessarily bought the most expensive membership (the Platinum) in order to be able to preorder the House when, today, I got a message from them that, oh boy, for these first couple of days in October, you can now preorder the House on GOLD membership (the ‘medium’ price of membership) when two diff reps by phone had told me, oh no, sorry, but you can only get the House on PLATINUM status, not GOLD. Wrong!
So, if you waited, Claudia, good deal/better deal for you. I doubt the House will sell out THIS quickly; I just got a bit nuts over the whole thing. I could’ve waited a week and bought it with the less-expensive membership! All it meant with Platinum membership is that you got first dibs at ordering. I supposed the next thing will be that you can actually buy the house on the cheapest membership which is Pink level.
Seems so stupid to be talking about toys when our world is spinning with Puerto Rico and this unconscionable mass murder in Las Vegas, but I needed to divert from it for a little bit.
Thanks so much for the update, Vicki!
I cannot watch the Vietnam series either. My uncle lost part of his leg and his body was full of shrapnel. My friend’s brother was killed and a schoolmates fiance was killed. Our neighbor when we loved in Brooklyn lost his leg. The memories are too painful. I can still remember when my late mother received the telegram that my uncle was injured. My uncle passed away at a relatively young age due to heart trouble. My late mother always blamed orange agent. On a happier note I love tha tphoto of the moon.
Marilyn
Such loss that you and yours experienced, Marilyn! I’m so very sorry. I completely understand why you can’t watch it, my friend.