Mockingbird Hill Cottage

The sun finally came out yesterday. I shoveled and Don worked the snowblower. Even though the snow was relatively dry and fluffy, there was about 14 inches of it. And the driveway slopes downward to the street, which means the amount of snow down there is much higher. Since the county plows had been up and down our road several times, the mound of snow at the bottom of our driveway was huge. I don’t know how he does it. Our snowblower is really hard to push (I can’t do it on my own.) If we had to do it over again, we’d have purchased something lighter that I could manipulate as well. At one point, a stone got in the blades and the snowblower stopped. Don wasn’t sure if he needed to replace something, so he had to push it back up the drive (with no power). Impossible! So I went down there and we each took a handle and pushed it up the drive together.

Today, I’ll dig the car out. We were both exhausted after all of the cleanup and I can’t say enough about the work Don put in. At some point, we’ll have to hire someone to do this kind of thing and it can’t be a plow because the plows destroy all the gravel on the driveway as they push up (and down) the driveway. It would have to be someone with a snowblower.

Today, we take it easy – except for shoveling around the car.

In the meantime, both of us are waiting for packages that seem to have disappeared within the postal system. Everything with a tracking number has this message: “In transit, arriving late. Your package will arrive later than expected, but is still on its way. It is currently in transit to the next facility.”

In some cases, it’s been “in transit to the next facility” for well over a week. I’m now worried that presents won’t arrive in time for Christmas. I mentioned this on IG yesterday and so many people responded saying they were dealing with the same thing. I’m not blaming the USPS at all, I’m blaming Louis DeJoy, who did his best to hobble the entire system so that Trump could win. Add in a pandemic in which more people are ordering online than ever and you have a big mess.

Forgot to include a photo of the tree in the modern dollhouse. The only houses that don’t have Christmas trees are the vintage houses. They’ll get them eventually.

Okay. Have to go. I asked Don to hold off on recording a song until I finished this post. He asked me to join in on the chorus with some harmony, so I’m going to do a little singing today.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

The good news: we never lost power, thank goodness!

The kind-of-good news: it looks like we got under 20 inches, more likely 16 or 17. It’s not always easy to tell on our property because we are on a hilly plot and the winds tend to pile up more snow in certain areas and less in others. But looking at the birdbath, I’d say 15 or 16 inches. I’ll measure when we get out there later today.

It was snowing when we got up and it finally stopped about an hour ago. It started around 7 pm yesterday. It was windy during the night and every time one of us woke up we listened to make sure our white noise machine was still running. It was.

Don will wait a while to use the snowblower as the wind chill is in the single digits. It’s very, very cold here which makes it difficult to be outside for too long but also made the snow light and fluffy and that’s a good thing.

While we were waiting for the onslaught, I worked on the dollhouse bedroom, cutting the acrylic windows (after several tries, I finally got them right) and painting the window trim, then gluing the trim pieces in. Using pieces from another kit in a house that’s already been constructed can make for frustration!

When I do this kind of thing again, I’ll probably use something a bit less thick than the acrylic – something that I can place against the wallpaper, rather than in the window opening. Having to fit the acrylic inside of the opening in a house that’s already been built is not easy. The only thing I have left to do construction-wise in this room is the baseboards – both in this room and the downstairs. I have to order them.

I’m already thinking about another house. I really want a Beacon Hill but I read all sorts of threads on how difficult it is to build (Greenleaf’s instructions leave a great deal to be desired) and how much sanding, etc. needs to happen. None of this surprises me, as I ran into the same problem with adding missing pieces to this house. Building it myself would be a huge commitment. I’d rather run into one that’s already been built and needs some work. I’ve been looking at other possibilities, as well, but the nooks and crannies and many rooms in the Beacon Hill are what excites me.

We’ll see where I am led.

Stay safe.

Happy Thursday.