Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

The Launch

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prettydaylily

Today marks the launch of my new book blog.

(I’m very excited!)

This love of mine for all things reading and books has been a part of this blog for a long time. Because reading is one of my passions, it couldn’t help but leap onto the virtual pages of Mockingbird Hill Cottage. And it will still be a presence here. In fact, I have a book review slated for tomorrow. But since this blog reflects my daily life, it is an eclectic mix of topics and no one topic can predominate.

That’s what got my brain percolating. Why not a blog devoted to the passion that I have had since I first learned to read as a little girl? I guess you can say that, in terms of passions or hobbies or things I love to do, reading has reigned the longest. Reading is the Queen of my life.

So I’ve designed and launched this new blog.

It’s called Just Let Me Finish This Page. (Click on the link.) I chose that title in honor of all the times I was late for dinner or for starting a chore because my head was buried in a book. When Mom called, “Dinner!” I would respond with, “Just let me finish this page!” A few minutes later, she would say it again, “Claudia, I said it’s time for dinner.” “Okay Mom, just let me finish this page…” And on it would go until she put her foot down and I had to put the book aside.

This is for you, Mom. I got my love of reading from you. Thank you. I miss you.

The new blog is just that. New. I haven’t added a navigation menu and won’t until I know more about the direction it will take. But since there’s only one post so far, I don’t think you need to navigate anything!

I’m proud of the look and feel of the blog.

I hope you like it, too. Please stop by and visit. You can subscribe via email. You can add it to your bookmarked sites. There is also a link to Just Let Me Finish This Page on this blog’s sidebar.

Come on over!

Happy Monday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Flowers, Bees & My Recommendation for Photo Editing

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coneflower-beginnings

The coneflower that is about-to-be. It’s there, but the petals haven’t fully grown yet.

I love coneflowers and I have plenty of them in the gardens. They are easy to grow, long lasting and, to me, the quintessential flower for a cottage garden.

And they re-seed. What could be better?

Gosh, the landscape around here is such a lush green. Days and days of rain will do that. So, though the rain was a pain in the tush, the payoff is pretty spectacular.

Lawn mowing yesterday. Lawn mowing today. Weed pulling today. Weed pulling yesterday.

Are you getting a picture of my weekend?

bee in day lily

Such a tiny little bee. I stood there for several minutes, watching him alight on the stamens, then move further inside the lily, then back to the stamens.

Taking photos of flowers and birds and bees and bugs takes patience. I’m not always the most patient person, indeed, at times, I am unbelievably impatient, but I am patient about photos of flora and fauna. If I had started doing all this earlier in life, I could easily imagine myself as a National Geographic-type photographer, setting up my camera and tripod at some location, then waiting and waiting for the perfect shot. I would love that.

By the way, the single best investment I have made, besides my camera, is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom – or simply Lightroom. It goes on sale a couple of times a year and I happened to purchase it at one of those times, encouraged by my friend Dawn of Creative Cain Cabin.

Yes, PicMonkey is free but it doesn’t hold a candle to what Lightroom can do. Not even close. Photoshop has a steep learning curve and is more expensive than Lightroom. That learning curve, along with the cost, often puts people off.  But Lightroom is more affordable and, once you figure it out, easy to use. I can see a distinct difference in the pre-Lightroom and post-Lightroom photos on this blog.

Of course, you still have to know your camera and its settings. You have to be willing to take it off Auto and use it on Manual. But all of that comes with practice.

I use PicMonkey for fonts, but that’s about it. I don’t do a lot of fonts on my photos anyway, it’s not my thing. I did, however, create this watermark in Lightroom.

If you have a blog and are serious about your photos, if you don’t have a blog and are serious about your photos, if you don’t want to invest several hundred dollars in Photoshop but you do want something better than the limitations of a free photo editing application, Lightroom is for you.

This might sound like a commercial, but truly, it comes from the heart. I have thanked Dawn again and again for pointing me in the direction of Lightroom. It’s that good.

Anyway, I’ll try to keep an eye out for the next time Lightroom is on sale, so I can tell you about it.

bee in day lily closest

Boy, do I love this shot.

By the way, dear friends, the new book blog will be up and running tomorrow. Well, it’s actually up and running now, but I’m not going to reveal the name until Monday. I’m excited about it. Of course, it will evolve over time, but the basic underpinnings are there. I worked on it yesterday between bouts of mowing.

I do hope you will like it!

Happy Sunday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

 

On the Edge

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Oh my.

The sun is out.

We’ve had 3 days of torrential rain, thunderstorms and wind. I was getting ready to build an ark.

But lo and behold, there is such a thing as the sun. Thank goodness.

Don has a gig today which involves performing on the Village Green in Woodstock, so no rain is a good thing.

Thank you for all the anniversary wishes. We had a lovely day together. It was low-key; we told stories about our first meeting on that fateful day twenty years ago. In honor of our anniversary, a friend of ours posted the video of a song by James Taylor called “On the Fourth of July” which so perfectly told our story that I cried. I immediately downloaded it and listened to it over and over. It was a day of gratitude for the miracle that drew us together on that particular Fourth of July. Of gratitude for the well wishes of so many of our friends; on this blog and on Facebook, friends from our childhood, from our work in the arts, from our families, from our ever-expanding world.

I’m so profoundly grateful.

I thought you might like another look at the plants and flowers that grow on the edge of our property. Some of them are blooming at the moment. I don’t know the names of most of them. Yet.

saturday-milkweed flowers

The milkweed flowers are about ready to burst open.

saturday-wild honeysuckle berries

Berries on the wild honeysuckle.

saturday-wild sort of daisies

I don’t know the name of this plant, but the daisy-like flowers are very sweet – maybe some sort of wild aster. Do you see the little bug flying toward the blossoms?

saturday-wild plant1

This plant grows on the edge of the property behind the kitchen and up in the back forty. It’s about four feet tall and those little yellow flowers are beginning to appear. Anyone know the name of this one? It intrigues me.

saturday-wild plant2

saturday-purple flowers

I love a dash of purple in the garden.

Today? All that rain means the lawn needs mowing. And the garden beds need weeding. And I want to work on the book blog. I’ve picked a name for it and have designed a simple header.

I hope you’re having a lovely weekend, my friends.

Happy Saturday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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