Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

12 on 12

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It’s our 12th anniversary today. I like saying it’s the 12th anniversary on the 12th.

12 years ago, wanting desperately to avoid the stress of a big wedding with all the logistics involved, we, with the blessing of our families, married in the small town of Nevada City, California. Don was acting in a one man show there and it was the perfect, charming place in which to marry. Since the traditional day off for the theater is Monday, that was our wedding day. We had 4 witnesses; Don’s brother and his wife, and our married friends who ran the theater. The wedding took place in the beautiful old Victorian Parlor of the National Hotel. I walked down a grand stairway in my wedding dress (found for me by my wonderful sister) and the moment I saw Don I started crying. Don cried. And our friends cried. It was incredibly moving and wondrous. And I remember every detail. I don’t know if I would have if we’d had all the hoopla of a big wedding. We were both ‘present’ in every way.

Did I mention that I had a cast on my left ankle? Oh yes.  Earlier in the summer, I fell down our back steps and broke my ankle.  I had fully planned for the cast to be off by the day of the wedding. But, the orthopedist informed me that my walking cast had to stay on a bit longer.  Tears flowed. I wanted to be a beautiful bride and how could I be that when I had a big old cast on my ankle? Don filled my heart as he has done so many times when he said that the cast would be part of our story. That it made the whole experience richer.

So I walked – carefully – down the stairs, assisted by my sister-in-law.

And it is part of our story.

Happy Anniversary, honey.

Book Review: Stiltsville

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Today I am reviewing Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel for TLC Book Tours. As always, I am provided with a free copy of the book for my honest review.

About the book:

Set against a vivid and lush South Florida background during the years of Miami’s coming-of-age, Stiltsville offers a gripping, bittersweet portrait of a marriage—and romance—that deepens over the course of three decades.
One sunny morning in 1969, near the end of her first trip to Miami, twenty-six-year-old Frances Ellerby finds herself in a place called Stiltsville, a community of houses built on pilings in the middle of Biscayne Bay. On the dock of a stilt house, with the dazzling skyline in the distance and the unknowable ocean beneath her, she meets the house’s owner, Dennis DuVal—and a new future reveals itself.

Turning away from her life, Frances moves to Miami to be with Dennis. Over time, she earns the confidence of his wild-at-heart sister and the approval of his oldest friend. Frances and Dennis marry and have a child—but rather than growing complacent about their good fortune, they continue to face the challenges of intimacy, and of the complicated city they call home.

Stiltsville was called “an exquisite debut” by Publishers Weekly, and “a perfect balance of wit, weakness and tenderness . . . wonderfully buoyant” by BookPage.  Susanna Daniel interweaves the beauty, chaos, and humanity of Miami with an enduring story of a marriage’s beginning, maturity, and heartbreaking demise.

My review:  One of the perks of reviewing a book I might not otherwise encounter occurs when I get to discover a terrific new writer and a novel that is simply wonderful.  And this book is. Susanna Daniel is a marvelous writer. She draws on her own experience living in Stiltsville with her family as a young girl. Her descriptions of Miami and the Biscayne Bay are so vivid that I felt I was there. She clearly knows the city of her growing-up years intimately.

Even more powerful, though, is her loving portrait of a marriage. We first meet Frances and Dennis when they are young and travel with them as they navigate marriage, parenthood, job loss and other challenges. These two characters are so finely drawn, so fully realized that the reader feels like a friend who is there as everything happens. It is an honest, beautifully written portrait of a marriage. Family, extended family, and long-time friends are also very much a part of this novel. When faced with the ultimate challenge, will the marriage stay strong? You’ll have to read this beautiful novel to see. I recommend this book highly.

About the author:

Susanna Daniel was born and raised in Miami, Florida, where she spent much of her childhood at her family’s stilt house in Biscayne Bay. She is a graduate of Columbia University and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and was a Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.

Susanna lives with her husband and son in Madison, Wisconsin, where during the long winter she dreams of the sun and the sea, and of jumping off the stilt house porch at high tide. She is at work on a second novel.

A Hutch for the Studio

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Thanks for all your supportive comments on the newly painted table! I’m really loving the change. Since the kitchen and living room are open to each other and I have 3 darker pieces in the living room, this lighter version of the table makes a big difference. After the table, I moved on to touching up all the chips on the kitchen island. It definitely takes a beating. I’m throwing a couple of coats of Varathane on it, as well.

When I posted for Where Bloggers Create, I mentioned that I was on the lookout for a cabinet for my little studio. Today, via Craig’s List, I found one – just down the road from MHC. My thought was to find a kitchen hutch like the one I already have in our kitchen. Made in the 30’s and 40’s for kitchens without much storage space, they are compact and don’t take up much space. And that is a real necessity in my upstairs hall aka studio. This little hutch is quite interesting. My neighbor told me that it had been in her family for at least 60 years.

It needs cleaning up – and perhaps a new paint job? Husband rather likes the way it looks now. I’m going to scrub it more thoroughly tomorrow. There was ugly contact paper on the shelves, which I removed. Gosh, it is so hard to take a photo in this part of the hallway. I have to hang precariously over the stairway and it ain’t easy for this tired woman. Here’s a close-up of the funky handles on the drawer and doors.

Funky…but I rather like them. I’m going to paint a couple of pieces in the bedroom, too. Yes, I am on a tear. Something about Autumn and the crisp air brings the Supernester out in me. I also think it gives me a focus and keeps me from dwelling too much on other ‘worrying’ things.

Thank goodness, Don is rather good natured  about the whole thing. One minute he’s relaxing, the next we’re in the car on the way to buy a hutch. Later, he’s watching baseball and suddenly he finds himself helping me maneuver the hutch up our stairway. Tomorrow, I will ask him to help me move the craft table out to the shed. (Don’t tell him yet.) I’ve decided there isn’t enough room for it. I can pull the sewing machine out of the sewing table and use it as a craft table when necessary. Have a wonderful Monday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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