Mockingbird Hill Cottage

This morning, I was scrolling through Instagram and came upon the Stories for both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, which highlighted their final events yesterday. And I found myself crying. Crying at the enormity of this day, a day I thought would never come. At the goodness of Biden and Harris and all those who have worked tirelessly for them.

I really have nothing more to say or to add to what I’ve already said over the past 5 years. No one who knows me has any question as to how I feel.

Today will be a long, long day. And tomorrow will be as well. I mentioned my mantra to Vicki in a response to one of her comments. At first it was “Please, God. Please, God. Please, God.” But I don’t believe God intervenes in elections. If she did, why did we have Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini or Idi Amin? We have free will. It’s up to us. So “Please, God” was more a plea about goodness prevailing. The goodness that I believe is in all of us. It’s just that in some people, it’s been overwhelmed by fear and ignorance.

So my plea became “Love wins. Love wins. Love wins.” And I have to believe deep down in my very essence that it does.

So we’ll wait together, all of us, hoping and praying and invoking the power of whatever we believe in to guide and support us as we wait to see this corrupt monster removed from office.

I’m thinking of all of you today. May you find pockets of peace today. We’re stocked up on chocolate (sugar-free in my case) and chips and popcorn. Yesterday, I installed new mini blinds in the office. Today, I’ll do the same thing in the living room. It will keep me busy.

Take a walk. Hug your children or significant other or dog or cat.

See you on the other side.

Much love today and always.

Stay safe.

Happy Tuesday,

We were chatting this morning, reflecting on how quickly all the trees around here have become bare. No leaves. The only trees that still have leaves seem to be the oak trees and with today’s endless wind, that might not be for long. Increasingly, autumn and spring seem to have a shorter span of time than winter and summer. Spring is often late with summer coming too early. Winter seems to drag on forever. But spring and fall? Blips on the horizon.

Anyway, we have a wind advisory today and you know how much I like those. In fact, there’s a snow squall going on at the moment. All of the porch plants are still in the house since it’s going down to freezing tonight and tomorrow night. I’d give up the ghost, but the next 10 days or more after that are predicted to have warmer nighttime temperatures. So, even though pots of plants everywhere are driving me a wee bit nuts, it’s worth it to hang on to them for another week or two weeks.

This is what the windows that came with the dollhouse look like. Not my cup of tea.

Today I’ll do some more sanding on the door and maybe I’ll be able to start painting it. Quite frankly, there’s a lot that needs to be done around the house so if I want to keep busy, and I do, I have my pick of chores.

We started to watch the special coverage on MSNBC last night, with Joy, Rachel, Brian, and Nicolle but it was too much for us. Steve Kornacki, the guy that does all the polling charts, etc., is just too hyped up. He went off on all of the ‘what ifs’ – based on only one poll, mind you – and that’s just the kind of thing we don’t want to see. As Rachel says, “I don’t know who is going to win. And neither do you.” Yet, Steve is making his frenetic predictions, touching one state and turning it red, then touching it again and turning it blue and it only serves to make everyone nervous. Also, as someone who has cast shows, the rolled up sleeves and harried look is a bit too central casting. I’m sure he’s a nice guy but frankly, I’d give anything for someone who didn’t concoct all sorts of scenarios, and was instead, calm and clear headed. Basically, we watched for five minutes and turned it off. That leaves us wondering just where and when we will watch on Tuesday night. I don’t need or want hype. There’s enough of that already.

Okay, my friends. I’m off to keep myself busy and do maybe my last round of text banking this afternoon.

Stay calm. Stay grounded. Sending my love to everyone.

And stay safe.

Happy Monday.

A darkish shot, taken this morning up in the office. The light doesn’t really flood this room until the afternoon.

No, the door hasn’t been attached. Another problem with this kind of dollhouse is that the door doesn’t quite fit the curved opening – I’ve had to add wood putty, I’ve had to sand it, and now, since I’ve added an interior wood floor, I have to sand the bottom of the door to make it fit. Every day, like clockwork, I go upstairs and sand a little. But I don’t have a lot of patience for it. Hopefully, today will be the day when it suddenly fits and I can go about painting the exterior and interior of the door, as well as the parts of the frame.

I had a restless night which was not helped by the time change. Crap, I hate these time changes. They throw me off for at least a week. When Don and I came downstairs this morning, the clock on the cable box said 4:30 am. The other clocks said 5:30, of course, but that 4:30 is going to extract a price.

Sigh.

I cut my hair almost all by myself yesterday. I was so sick of the excess length and my split ends that I did some research online and watched several videos that showed how to cut your long hair by yourself. When I brought it up to Don, he seemed relieved that he didn’t have to do much. (I had also ordered good hair cutting scissors a week ago, so I was ready.) While Don was out running an errand, I went for it. This method isn’t completely foolproof and usually the hair that falls down your back needs a little evening out, but for the most part it looked quite good. When Don came back, I had him trim any hair that was a bit too long or uneven. Voila! I’m quite proud of myself. I think I took about 2½ inches off. I’d like to take off even more, but I wanted to err on the side of caution this first time around.

That’s it, my friends. We’re doing our best to lay low, stay away from anything but essential news, and not lose our minds in this run-up to Election Day. I hope you are, too.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday.