Mockingbird Hill Cottage

You can see the frost on the ground and on the shed roof through the window. It got very cold last night. And it will tonight, as well. All the porch plants are in the house, which makes for a crowded floor by the front door and by the dollhouse here in the den. There’s one more very cold night coming up next week, but then it will stay in the 40s for a while. So I can’t let the plants die just yet. It’s not in me.

For the first time in several days, the sun is shining. Don and I were chatting this morning and we both acknowledged that it makes for a real change in our moods. Even though it’s freezing out there at the moment, it’s sunny. I’ll take it.

My goal for this weekend is to stay away from the news as much as possible. I texted for several hours yesterday and I may do some more of that this weekend. But listening to endless speculation about what might happen on Tuesday is, in the end, not very helpful after you’ve heard it the first time. I’m going to clean, listen to music, work upstairs in the office/studio, finish my book – the kind of task on which I can focus and lose myself.

I’ve been rereading Still Life, Louise Penny’s first book in her series. It’s like spending time with an old friend. Meeting Armand Gamache for the first time as he meets the inhabitants of Three Pines for the first time is delicious. The perfect books for me during all of this insanity. I may just reread all of them in order. We’ll see.

My needs are simple. I ordered new underwear, more socks, and  new pair of flannel pajamas and they all arrived in Thursday’s mail. I’m set. Strange, isn’t it, how new undies, socks, and pajamas can make one so happy?

We were saddened to hear of the death of Sean Connery. There is and will never be anyone like him. Rest in Peace.

Happy Birthday to my nephew, Dave, (Meredith’s son) and to my brother-in-law, Ron. Both of them Halloween babies.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

It’s been raining endlessly for three days (I know, we need it so I shouldn’t complain) and now it’s snowing. Big, fat, wet flakes. Sigh. I can step back and admire them from afar, but frankly, I’m not ready for snow. Tonight, the temps are going to go down into the low twenties, so all of the porch plants will be hauled in (I am incapable of letting them die when I know it will get warmer) and I expect that everything on the property that is still going strong will have disappeared tomorrow. Leaves will fall, the burning bush will be a memory, my roses that have another bloom in October will be gone, the catalpa and oak leaves will fall to the ground.

I realized this morning that yesterday was the fifth anniversary of my Dad’s death. How can it be five years already? That means that February will bring the fifth anniversary of Scout’s passing, as well. We lost Dad and Scout just a few months apart.

A bit of a melancholy morning as I contemplate the change of seasons, the upcoming time change, the loss of loved ones, the loss of my garden, and the slow, crawling, seemingly endless expanse of time until Tuesday and beyond.

I worked on the other window in the dollhouse yesterday. I texted for a few hours. I’m doing all I can for the Biden campaign until there’s nothing left that I can do.

Right before I went to bed last night, I put some of the furniture back in the dollhouse to see how things look. Is the paint I’m using on the trim the right color? What kind of baseboard should I use? What color should I use on the kitchen island? If only I had endless amounts of money, I could buy those pieces that I have marked as favorites on Etsy and eBay. What kind of wallpaper should I use in the bedroom? And on and on it goes. I think I’ll play dollhouse on this snowy day.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

First things first: It is too late to mail in your ballot. Too late. So, if you’re still hanging on to it, you need to deliver it in person, whether to a ballot box set up by your state, or to the local department of elections, or – as is the case here in NY – to an early voting site, where you can walk right in, drop it off, and leave. Those who were bringing their ballots to our local poll site were allowed to go to the head of the line and quickly drop them off.

Speaking of voting, I’m a huge fan of Mandy Patinkin, who has, along with his wife, been making wonderful videos of their life during lockdown. It was evident that they were staying in a second home somewhere north of the city but that covers a lot of area. He posted a video of them emerging from early voting yesterday and I had to play it a second time. They voted in the same place we did. So, Mandy Patinkin is our neighbor!

Oh my god. Miniatures are fun, yes, and creating a dollhouse or renovating an old dollhouse is satisfying, but, my friends, it can also be a huge pain in the ass. I submit to you yesterday, when I spent almost five house figuring out the best way to add a window.

A bit of back story. I am not a fan of the dollhouses made by Greenfield, which this one is, because they are made of thin plywood which needs to be sanded and things like windows are made cheaply. To be fair, if it’s for a kid, that’s not so much of an issue, but I much prefer dollhouses made byReal Good Toys or vintage dollhouses that have been handmade. The Greenfield trim is always out of scale, there are no window frames that can be easily and cleanly set into the opening. There’s just a few pieces of wood and an acetate fake window. Hummingbird Cottage has acetate windows as well, but there are set into solid frames and they’re done quite subtly.

Since this is a rehab, I had to remove a lot of broken elements. Barbara sent me her Arthur dollhouse kit which has helped enormously. The irony is that I could have used her kit to build a new dollhouse, but my aim, as you know, is to renovate an unloved dollhouse that has been discarded.

I now realize I should have taken photos of the “windows” that came with the kit, but I didn’t. They are acetate with lines drawn on them in white – in this case, the top of the lower portion of the window is represented by a thick white line, and then a fan design at the top in the same white. It looks childish, which is fine if that’s the way you’re going, but not-so-fine if you’re trying to make it realistic and maybe a wee bit elegant.

I tried to find diamond-paned windows but it was next to impossible. You can find them, but none of them fit in the opening. I finally settled on thin sheets of acrylic.

Okay. So yesterday, I painted the parts of the frame and cut a piece of acrylic that matched the size of the acetate windows, thinking it would be the best way to go about this. But, as I learned (having had to trim the window several times) the acrylic glued onto the frame itself made the whole thing uneven and too thick. Very frustrating, as I had to pull it apart several times. FINALLY, I realized that maybe I simply needed to cut the window to match the opening, not to overlap it as would have been done with the acetate, and try my best to pop it in. Thankfully, Barbara’s gift included the very wall of the living room I was working on, so I traced the window opening onto the acrylic.

Oh, and I had to scrap several stabs at windows because I got glue on them. I got glue on this one, as well, but I think it will be okay. It’s not perfect, but at this point, I don’t care. Only I know where the imperfections are.

I’m going to fill in the lines that show the parts of the frame with some spackle and paint the spackle. I’ll also touch up the paint on this window and paint the frame for the other downstairs window (I’ve already popped that window into the opening.)

You learn as you go with this craft. I’ve never had to replace windows. I’ve added windows and doors but in all cases, the windows and doors came in a solid frame, so I didn’t have to go through all of this. I’m not skilled enough to make a whole new window, especially with a curved top. I don’t have the tools.

By the way, the door is the same way. No frame around the door. So I have to find some way to attach it and mini hinges are notoriously hard to work with.

I was so determined to figure it out that I forgot to drink enough water and also forgot to eat lunch. Not good. I’ll be better today.

Stay safe.

Happy Thursday.