Mockingbird Hill Cottage — Page 469 — Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Day One Hundred Thirty-Four

July 25, 2020 at 9:21 am by Claudia

Caroline is working on a dollhouse.

I guess she works like I do; stares at it a long time, sometimes for weeks, and then she starts in.

Interestingly, she hasn’t come to me for any advice and I’m right here. Again, rather like me. I’m always determined to figure it out all by myself. Does she know where to get wallpaper? Does she know how to lay floors? What order in which to do things?

Of course, she does have her laptop over on the desk. Surely she could sneak in a visit to this blog where I have a list of sources and a lot of helpful information. I mean, I wouldn’t see her do that, so her pride would remain intact.

I know all this because she is away again. As I said on IG; why is she traveling during this pandemic? She asked me to water her plants up on the roof and feed the dog and take in the mail. So, you know how it is…when I was younger and my neighbors asked me to take in their mail and keep an eye on their house, I would walk through the house and look at the decor because I’ve always been interested in houses and how people live in them.

Ditto with Caroline’s house. I took a little tour and, much to my surprise, there was a dollhouse sitting on her work table. A rather nice one.

Do you think I might have inspired her in some way?

I’m a wee bit jealous, as I have to share my work space with Don. Caroline has her own office/studio.

I guess I’ll just wait for another opportunity to peek inside, maybe after a month or so, to see what she’s done so far. But I have to be very careful about that because Caroline craves privacy.

I’ll report back when I know more.

____________________________

Mowing this morning and I have to get going before it gets too hot and humid.

The mini dollhouse was a gift from Barbara.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

Day One Hundred Thirty-Three

July 24, 2020 at 9:46 am by Claudia

We got a lot of rain yesterday that lasted most of the day. I’m so happy about that, though it means that I can’t mow today and will have to wait until tomorrow. Our plants are happy, our trees and grass and birds and critters are happy – and we’re happy. It’s still quite muggy and we have two days coming up of temps in the nineties, so tomorrow has to be my day to get out there and mow what I can before I run out of energy. I’m not letting Don do it yet.

He took another walk on the property this morning. He’s sleeping better and I moved back upstairs last night. I counted up the nights I spent down here on the sofa – nine. Oh boy, did our mattress feel good last night! We’re slowly getting back into our daily routines and we realize more than ever how important a routine is, especially during these days of staying home and self-isolating. We’re used to the need to create structure/a routine each day as we’ve been freelancers for years. When I was teaching and coaching full-time, my days and evenings were so full that I craved the one day I got during the week with no structure. But it’s been flipped these past 19 years, so now we create and need our daily routines.

I finished both the Diane Keaton book and Weather by Jenny Offill this morning. Both were excellent. Jenny’s book, written in a ‘pointillist style’ as one of the blurbs stated, was fascinating, compelling and incredibly timely. However, that very style kept me from totally engaging with the main character. It created a distance that had me observing the words, rather than living in the pages. But I liked it and I’m glad I read it. Next up is Furious Hours – Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep. It concerns the trial of a serial killer in Alabama and the book that Harper Lee was writing about it. I’ve wanted to read this since it was first published and this is a signed copy that I got at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. It’s finally time.

What else? I’m constantly, or so it seems, thinking about the interior of the dollhouse and what I’m going to do with it – right now, the open living space on the first floor. I’ll leave the bathroom until last because it’s the room that interests me the least. (Just as our bathrooms interest me the least!) I’ve ordered a pretty substantial piece from an Etsy seller – she makes the most wonderful furniture. She is making it especially for me because the piece that was listed was a bit too tall for the rooms in my dollhouse. She lives in Italy. I’m narrowing down my choice for wallpaper in that room. I’m trying to figure out the window situation. This is what’s going on in my head at any given moment during the day.

Thanks for being there for us during this worrisome time. Don is getting stronger by the day and we are so grateful.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

Day One Hundred Thirty-Two

July 23, 2020 at 9:41 am by Claudia

We had a big old storm late in the afternoon yesterday; lots of rain, thunder, and lightning. There were severe thunderstorm warnings all over the Hudson Valley. When we were sitting in the den, I saw golden light coming through the closed blinds, so I quickly opened them and saw this. I was immediately out on the porch in my bare feet so I could capture this view.

Don is feeling much better today. He got a lot of sleep and he’s in a kind of “Hello, beautiful world!!” mood. He can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I, on the other hand, did not get enough sleep and it’s entirely my fault. I slept downstairs again and was scrolling through Twitter (something I never do before I go to bed) and the news was so upsetting and depressing that I couldn’t get to sleep for the longest time. I have no one to blame but myself. Lesson re-learned. We have decided that I’m moving back upstairs tonight. I can’t wait for my comfy bed! I’ve actually been sleeping well and pretty solidly during this time (probably because I can’t hear Don snore) but the narrowness of the sofa is so limiting that I feel sore when I get up. It’s as if my body knows it cannot stray from the confines of the sofa, so it tenses up.

Anyway, sheets will be washed today, pillows moved back into the bedroom, no more clothes stashed on top of the basket of throws in the den. No more having to turn on the light in the bathroom and leaving the door slightly cracked so I can navigate up the steps to the bathroom in the dark.

I filmed another short video for IGTV yesterday, this time focusing on the vintage dollhouse in the den – the Lake House. You can find it on my IG account. I had to use iMovie to stitch two different videos together and somehow the video looks smaller than usual. But if you click on the square at the lower right of the frame, the video will enlarge.

I’m always picky about how I sound, the hesitations and pauses I use when I speak. But that is the way I speak in real life, so why hide it? I pause and consider and move on and pause again. I also go off on tangents. Basically, I chat.

You’re getting the real me, my friends.

Stay safe.

Happy Thursday.

Day One Hundred Thirty-Four

Day One Hundred Thirty-Two

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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