Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Decorations in the Miniature World

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We got about 2 inches of snow and it’s quite lovely out there! Tonight and tomorrow will have lows in the single digits so I’m hoping the snow lasts through Christmas. Fingers crossed.

An interesting thing happened yesterday. I got a call from the USPS. My first thought was that it was a scam, but for some reason, I picked it up and it was a woman named Melanie from Customer Care in Albany, checking on the package from Spain that I had been tracking. I told her it had arrived but that I was checking on another delivery (the Etsy sale) and she started tracking it on the phone. She checked all the little details that we don’t see and said she thought she saw some movement and that she would get back to me on Monday. We had a quite a long conversation and she was really helpful. Sure enough, the package moved from Grand Rapids, MI to Richmond, VA later in the day. All in all, a very satisfying experience!

A little tour of some ‘small’ Christmas decorations:

The putz house village. When it’s sunny, the light comes through the windows of the houses – many of them look like stained glass.

The vintage Lake House. If you look closely, you can see the tree in the window.

There it is.

A glittery gold tree inside the entrance to the other vintage dollhouse.

And Santa arriving with a beautiful wreath.

I love these little touches, things that I know about, but no one else does. I doubt whether Don has noticed this Santa yet, but he will.

Whoops! I forgot about Hummingbird Cottage! (I’ve already shown you Dove Cottage, though I had to check back through my posts to verify that.)

The tree is always placed upstairs in the den.

A little tree in the bedroom.

And one by the front door.

A wreath on the newel post.

And the tree through the window.

The decorations in my real life house are kept to a minimum – the tree, the putz houses, a few little vintage treasures here and there. The rest of the decorations are in the miniatures. And that includes the doll cubbies, which I’ll share with you on Monday,

Tonight, The Shop Around the Corner, and on Sunday, It’s a Wonderful Life.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

 

 

Friday Thoughts

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Last night’s sunset.

We’re due for some snow today – probably about an inch – and a bit more tomorrow. Over the weekend, the temps are going to be frigid. Oh boy.

A couple of stories about age and the perception of age:

I had been rereading some old paperbacks that I read in the 70s. Comfort reads. In one of them, the characters kept talking about “Great Aunt Annie.” The descriptions painted a portrait of a very old woman who was eccentric and a bit batty. Almost Dickensian. Imagine my shock when the author said she was 72.

72! My age! I guess back in the 70s, which I remember well, 72 was considered ‘doddering?’ I don’t remember thinking that, but it does point out how concepts of aging have changed. I told this story to Don and he burst out laughing. Now, we aren’t as spry as we used to be, but we’re pretty darned vital and we certainly don’t think of ourselves as fragile or, to be honest, old.

Although, I am  a great aunt.

And in that same vein, Don got a call from CVS the other day. He gets his prescriptions through CVS/Caremark and they’re sent through the mail. He chatted with a very polite young woman and I heard him say, “No, I’m fine, but thank you.” When I asked him about it, he said “They wanted to know if I needed someone to come to the house to check my vitals.”

Cue more laughter.

I’ve heard this from our medical insurer as well.

I feel an inner “Age is just a number!” ready to burst forth. Of course I realize that many people do need these services and I’m glad they’re available, but I do feel like some entity is hovering in the background, absolutely sure that we must be feeling a certain way because of a particular number.

Last night, we watched Miracle on 34th Street. Tonight? Meet Me in St. Louis.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

 

Ornaments, Mail Woes, Movies, and the Final Queen

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One of my favorites: the bluebird ornament. I have two of them. This one has the indented center which works as a reflector. Something tells me they were called thumbprints, but I may be wrong about that. The other, which I found several years later, is a smooth bulb.

Well. Christmas is one week away. Suddenly, it’s almost here. I’m now wanting to slow time so it lasts longer. When I was a kid, I wanted it to come QUICKLY! Now, I want it to be ‘in the offing’ a bit longer. I want more time to listen to Christmas music, to indulge in being smack dab in the middle of the Christmas season.

USPS woes: My package, which came from Spain, landed at JFK, then went to the Jamaica, NY processing center where it went through customs, then went to the Metro NY Processing Facility, then suddenly ended up at a postal center in Pennsylvania. After two days, it landed at processing center in New Jersey, then traveled all the way back to the Jamaica, NY International processing center, where it sat for 3 days, then to the Queens NY facility, then to Newburgh where it sat for two days, and finally to my local post office. It’s being delivered today. It should have been here a week ago. Needless to say, I live 75 miles north of NYC – this should have been a no brainer.

My customer’s package – she paid for priority mail and lives in Virginia – left my local post office on the 14th, went to the Queens NY Distribution Center, left the center on the 15th, landed in Richmond, VA on the 15th, and then – for some reason – ended up in Grand Rapids, MI on the 16th, where it remains. It is now 2 days later and there has been no movement.

It makes me crazy. But it especially upsets me when a customer has paid for 2 day delivery and doesn’t get what they paid for. I am tracking it as best I can, but I can’t submit an inquiry until the 21st. Hopefully, she is tracking it as well.

I imagine that it all happens in the sorting. Packages mistakenly get put in the wrong bin. This has happened to me more often than not. Sigh. I imagine all of you have stories to tell about the same thing.

We’ve started watching a Christmas movie every night. Last night was A Christmas Story, tonight is White Christmas. We have no interest in modern movies, they’re not our thing. Yes, we’ve seen Elf. It was immediately disqualified from any future viewings – cute, but not something we want to revisit.

And finally, Queen Sophie, my first Blythe:

She always looks slightly skeptical, doesn’t she?

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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