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A Favorite Thing #28

March 15, 2013 at 8:00 pm by Claudia

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It’s time for A Favorite Thing again – week number 28. How nice to visit each other and read about our favorite things – especially at the end of a somewhat dreary and cold week here in the Northeast! Before we begin, I want to say that I’m perfectly happy if you link to more than one post for this party, as some of you are doing. No problem! But I will only comment on one of the posts. Since I visit everyone who takes part and leave a comment, I think one comment per participant is fair. I hope you don’t mind!

Let’s look at some highlights from last week:

Book Post collage 2

Roses, Lace and Brocante shared a post with the title A Home Needs Books. I couldn’t agree more. Shane has inherited some beautiful vintage books from her father, including The History of England, published in 1870. Simply gorgeous.

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Lucy of Heart and Hearth, shared several spring-type things, including this project, made while a child was sick at home for the day – tulips made out of egg cartons. Adorable.

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Tammy, of T’s Daily Treasures, shared another favorite thing – magazines! Yes, we all love magazines, but you have to take into consideration that Tammy lives in Kuwait, where there are no libraries and where bookstores are subject to censorship. That makes this find, discovered in a stationary shop, all the more precious!

Thank you all for sharing your treasures with us last week.

lampandphoto

My favorite thing this week is really two things, though it was meant to be one. I started with the lamp on the right, which has been a favorite of mine since we found it in a little antique shop several years ago. It came with a shade that really didn’t match and it took a while until I found this little red shade. I love quirky little lamps and this one makes me smile. It’s on the desk at the bottom of the staircase and provides a warm light in the evenings.

But hey, on the left is a treasured photo of Don and me taken on the beach in San Diego. There’s a long story about it  that you can find elsewhere on this blog. Short version: we had been dating about 8 months and were at our favorite beach. (I can’t even begin to dwell on how much younger we look here. Or how much skinnier.) A photographer from the San Diego Union Tribune took our photo and wanted to use it in an article for Valentine’s Day. Since we were keeping our romance quiet at that point – we worked at the same theater and I also had students working there – I decided that it wasn’t a good idea to have our photo splashed on the front page of the paper. We wanted a copy of the photo but the photographer said that he couldn’t legally give us a copy if we didn’t consent to having our names published in the paper. Oh well. I left town to audition students for the program and when I came back (on Valentine’s Day) Don surprised me with this photo. In his oh so charming way, he had managed to cajole the photo out of the nice photographer. It’s priceless to me.

Okay! Your turn.

You can link up anytime from this evening through Sunday. Make sure you enter the URL of your post. If you’re unsure how to do that, just click on your post title after you’ve published it and copy the information in your browser address window. Come back here, paste the URL into your link entry and there you go! If you have any problems, drop me an email and I’ll help you out. Please link back to this blog on your post. That way, those that read your post and are interested in reading more can do so.

One of my concerns about link parties is that the very reason for them has somewhat gone by the wayside. They’ve become so big and there are so many of them that many bloggers don’t take the time to visit any of the other participants. Link parties are a way to meet new bloggers and share with each other and the only way to do that is to visit each other. So, please, take some time to visit everyone over the next few days. No rush. Stop by, introduce yourself, and leave a comment. It’s the neighborly thing to do. It’s also nice if you leave a comment here, as well.

Enjoy, my friends!


Filed Under: A favorite thing 31 Comments

Oh March, You Are A Tease

March 15, 2013 at 8:51 am by Claudia

alittlemore

Our warmer weather took a windy and cold turn yesterday. Oh, March, you are one tough month to get through. You are not quite winter, not quite spring. You just are.

I put on my winter jacket and went outside in search of signs of spring. There aren’t many. Granted, I haven’t yet cleaned up the garden and there are leaves covering everything. But my trusty Sedum, always the first to push out of the ground, is on schedule. I do believe this emergence happened earlier last year, but then again, we had a strangely mild winter last year.

ahintofgreen

This little plant, whose name I can’t remember, was here when we moved in. It comes up very early in the spring and has tiny little white flowers.

That’s it. No sign of the hyacinth or the daffodils. I’m sure there are more subtle signs here and there but it was darned cold out there. Oh, I forgot. I did see buds on the Lilac bush.

I find March, quite frankly, to be a pain in the tush. I want to shout “Get on with it, already! We’re all waiting for spring; why do you have to tease us so?” Because March is a tease. If not for the fact that I have several dear friends with birthdays in March, I would find no redeeming qualities in it whatsoever.

It’s the ides of March today. Et tu, Brute? Or better yet, Et tu, March?

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Keep your eye on the Etsy shop over the weekend as I will be adding new Springtime Crochet Flower Garlands. Aha!  There’s a touch of green for you, fickle March!

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Blogkeeping: Have you heard? Google is discontinuing Google Reader, effective July 1, 2013. Yep.  You can read about it here. Or here. Or here. Some of these links suggest alternatives and you can transfer your data through something called Google Takeout. I’m not sure why they would discontinue something that is apparently wildly popular, but then again, they did it with Picnik and might eventually do the same with Feedburner – both of which Google acquired and then let languish. Go figure.

Just wanted to give you a heads up if you use Google Reader’s service to keep up with your favorite websites and blogs.

And the winner of a copy of Prague Winter by Madeleine Albright is Trudy Mintun! Congratulations, Trudy. I’m sending you an email right now.

Happy Friday.

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Filed Under: blogging tips, life 38 Comments

A Little of This, A Little of That

March 14, 2013 at 9:25 am by Claudia

scoutie

• Don’s been back home for almost a month now and I’ve noticed a change in Scout. She’s been with us over 13 years and has lived through the prolonged absence of one or the other of us many times. It comes along with working in theater and film. She doesn’t like it when one of us is gone, but she’s pretty resilient. This time, however, when Don leaves the house to run an errand or go into the city for an audition, she goes into a funk. Though she hangs out with me for a little while, mostly she waits for Don. She goes into the living room and stares out the window. She parks herself on the floor of the kitchen facing the door. She starts at every noise, thinking it’s him. I will call out to her and ask her to come in the den with me, but she won’t. She never used to be that way.

More evidence that she’s getting older, that these things aren’t as easy for her anymore. She lost her brother recently, then Don went away for a long time. It’s too much for my little girl. Now I will be going away in a month. We really have to take her into account now as we make decisions as to who’s working where and for how long. We always have, of course, but now she is more needy, more vulnerable than ever. She’s our child and her comfort and peace of mind has to be a top priority.

• I’m finishing up an Obsession Scarf which will soon be on its way to a customer. Then I will start on more banners as they are currently sold out! Wow. I’m so glad you like them. Thank you to everyone who purchased one. Meredith and I just made our 99th sale on Etsy! How can that be possible?

hydrangea

(I just realized that the color of this vase matches the color that’s used in my menu and the titles on the sidebar.)

• I want to steer you toward one of my favorite blogs – that of my friend, Martha. It’s called Poetry and a Cup of Tea and it is simply wonderful. Martha loves poetry and literature and all sorts of other  things. She writes beautifully and shares her heart in every post. She also has a great sense of humor.

I think we were separated at birth. I cannot tell you how many times she has written about something that I remember from my childhood, or an author that I was sure no one else loved as much as me. Yesterday she wrote about The Fighting Prince of Donegal, a Disney movie from our youth, and the Scholastic paperback version of Disney’s story that she still has.

I had that book, too. And I watched that movie countless times when I was a kid. I had a huge crush on Peter McEnery, who played the lead.

And I thought I was the only one.

She’s written about The Barbie Game (yes, I had one) and The Girl of the Limberlost (one of my very favorite books ever.) She tells a great story and she always shares a poem with her readers.

Stop in and say hello. I’m crazy about her.

• I often talk about my grandmother and her skill as a needlewoman. She was a strong influence in my life and the life of my siblings. My sister, Meredith, just wrote a post about her. Click here to see some of my grandmother’s incredible handwork.

• Did you know I almost always respond to your comments? Yep. Right there under your comment. If you’re interested, you can either check back here or you can put a check in that little box that says you want to see the response via email. Then, as if by magic, my response is sent to your inbox. I can’t guarantee something profound every time, but I do my best!

• Today is your last chance to be entered in the giveaway for a copy of Prague Winter by Madeleine Albright. Just scroll down and leave a comment on that post, if you are interested. I’m picking the winner this evening.

Happy Thursday.

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Filed Under: books, crochet, Don, etsy, Fellow bloggers, Scout 41 Comments

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Welcome!

Welcome!

I live in a little cottage in the country with my husband. It's a sweet place, sheltered by old trees and surrounded by gardens. The inside is full of the things we love. I love to write, I love my camera, I love creating, I love gardening. My decorating style is eclectic; full of vintage and a bit of whimsy.

I've worked in the theater for more years than I can count. I'm currently a voice, speech, dialect and text coach freelancing on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater.

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