Mockingbird Hill Cottage — Page 1462 — Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Waiting

October 28, 2012 at 9:42 am by Claudia

I’ve been edgy and nervous for the past couple of days, as we prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. I keep hoping, of course, that she’ll change her course, but I know that we must be prepared. There have been trips to the store to get flashlights and batteries and lanterns and candles. More trips to get gas and dog food. And still more trips to get food for the pantry. Quite frankly, this is an expense we don’t need right now, but again, we have to be prepared.

The pantry has never been this full.

Very hard to get a photo of the pantry while holding the door on the left open with my foot!

Don keeps telling me everything will be fine, that he thinks the forecasts have been over-hyped. So does our neighbor, Bill. But I think that’s a guy thing. We’ve cleaned out the gutters. Anything that has to be secured or put away has been taken care of.

This time, I took the top off the birdbath. During Hurricane Irene, I didn’t and it broke in two. The chairs have been stashed on the side of the shed. Tools have been stored. Today we’ll remove our window air conditioners (it was time for that anyway) and I’ll bring in the plants from the porch.

We may lose power. I have a book review scheduled for Tuesday, so I’m going to write that today and schedule it to post. Ideally, I would prepare a few other posts and schedule them but I tend to write my posts on the day I publish them. I am a blog-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of blogger. So, if you don’t see posts or I don’t respond to your comments, you’ll know that I have no power, thus no cable or wi-fi.

I may be doing a lot of this as I nervously wait out the storm. We have a lot of trees that are old and I worry about them. I worry about the animals who live on our land. I worry about our house and our roof.

So, please, say a prayer for us and for everyone who lives in the path of this storm. Send us positive energy. I believe in that.

Happy Sunday.

A Favorite Thing #9

October 26, 2012 at 8:00 pm by Claudia

Welcome back to A Favorite Thing – week number nine. As we close out the week, it’s always fun to share some favorite things with each other. I think it’s a nice way to start the weekend. Let’s take a look at some of last week’s highlights:

Melanie, of A Comfy Cottage, shared her love of books with us – an affliction that many of us share. Melanie has books stashed all over her house and in her post she shows us some of the ways she displays them.

Liz, of Rose Vignettes, shared her new café au lait bowls that she got from Lidy at French Garden House. They are so lovely, aren’t they? You’d better believe I had my eye on that chocolate marshmallowy goodie in the foreground.

Clara, of Rosewalk Cottage, shared the striking arrangement she made for her foyer. Beautiful, Clara! I love the vivid fall colors.

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This week I’m sharing two favorite things. In the foreground is my grandmother’s baby shoe. My mom passed this treasure on to me. The leather is still amazingly supple after all these years. I love the little white buttons. Obviously, this is priceless to me and I keep it tucked in the china cabinet in the den. Right behind it is one of my McCoy Singing Birds. I have 3 of them – 2 in aqua and one in this cream color.

Now, it’s your turn! What do you have to share this week?

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.

I Saw a Tiny House, Scout & Storms

October 26, 2012 at 9:14 am by Claudia

We went to Trader Joe’s yesterday (see flowers on table) and bought a lot of food. Much of it is frozen, which, now that I hear about this huge hurricane bearing down on the East Coast, might not have been the best idea. I have to admit that this one is making me nervous, especially after the damage to our trees during Hurricane Irene last year. We’ve lived here seven years. We rented for four years before that. That makes 11 years. Before I moved to San Diego, I lived in the Northeast for a total of 10 years when I was in grad school in Philadelphia and teaching at Boston University. I can think of one fizzled out hurricane that came during all that time. That’s it. Now two years in a row? What is going on??

I was too lazy to get up and get my camera, so I took this photo of the evening lamplight with my iPhone. Look who managed to appear! Her Royal Highness, Ms. Scout. Don was making dinner and she was not about to miss any bit of food that might come her way. And get that stare. She’s willing me to get up off my duff and give her a treat.

On our drive to TJs, we grabbed these photos of this tiny house. I’m fascinated by the Tiny House movement. I subscribe to Tumbleweed Tiny Houses and I also am on the subscription list for Tiny House Listings. No, I’m not going to live in a tiny house – Don is 6’4½” and I am 5’8″ – but I really admire the desire to leave less of a footprint and live a simpler life.

So there it was, just to the right of us on the highway. There were windows on all four sides. There are solar panels on the roof.