Mockingbird Hill Cottage — Page 584 — Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Day Fourteen

March 27, 2020 at 9:40 am by Claudia

I don’t know about you but I have no idea what day of the week it is. I actually thought today was Monday.

The craziness that is the kitchen china cabinet. Or hutch. Or whatever. I’m never sure what to call things. What makes one piece a hutch, another a cupboard? I’m sure there’s an actual definition, but I’d love to find something that works for all my free-standing cabinets. There’s one in the kitchen, one in the den, and one in the office.

Suggestions welcome.

We watched Cheers again last night. I finished Eight Perfect Murders. I felt manipulated – and not in a good way – just as I felt when I read Gone Girl. I didn’t have as strong a reaction as I did with GG, as I will dub it, but I felt curiously empty of any feeling. Surely that’s not what an author wants from a reader? So if you want my official recommendation? Meh. Don’t buy it. If you’re curious, reserve it from your library or wait until it’s out in paperback. My only consolation is that I purposely bought it online from Oblong Books to help them out during this time so I don’t regret it.

I have limited funds, but I just placed an order with John Sandoe Books, in support of my favorite bookshop in London – they’ve had to close. I ordered three books that are not yet published here in the U.S. I feel it’s my little mission to place at least one order from all of my favorite independent bookshops during this time. I can only do it once, and now I have. I would order from Shakespeare and Company in Paris, but they aren’t doing mail orders. At least, I’m pretty sure they aren’t. I’ll check that again later today.

We tried to reserve a home delivery spot with a local grocery store, but they are booked for at least the next six days. I have a feeling I’ll have to stay up until midnight in order to grab the next open slot. We really don’t want to visit a grocery store and we still have food, but we’re running out of a few essentials. I’ll keep you posted.

It’s a beautiful, sunny day – the high will be 61. Then a few days of rain will follow. Very grateful for some sunshine today. I’m seeing robins and woodpeckers and cardinals and bluejays and all sorts of little birds. I can tell the birdbath is being used (hurrah!) and Don saw a bunny rabbit run by our kitchen door. The peepers are serenading us every night. All is well.

Note: At the end of yesterday’s book review, I made sure to say that only comments made directly on the blog post would be counted; not via email. But two of you sent your request via email anyway. I cannot count those. If you’re serious about being entered in the giveaway, come here to the blog and leave your comment on the post. Thank you.

Happy Friday.

Day Thirteen & A Book Review: Everywhere Holy

March 26, 2020 at 9:33 am by Claudia

Today I am reviewing Everywhere Holy by Kara Lawler. Thank you to TLC Book Tours and Thomas Nelson for a copy of the book.

About the Book (from the Publisher):

Popular writer and blogger Kara Lawler shows women how to embrace the sacred in mundane, ordinary life – and in the process, discover themselves.

Life doesn’t have to be lived on grand mountaintops for it to be meaningful. We can see God at work right where we are: in our ordinary and mundane routines, in the faces of our family and friends, and–especially–in nature.

Kara Lawler speaks to the hearts of those who find themselves lost in the midst of their chaotic schedules and weary attempts to be all that is expected of them. Everywhere Holy addresses our deepest struggles, including:

How to feel joy, despite depression and anxiety
Dealing with hardships and understanding unconditional love
How to view life as an adventure, even when that feels too hard
How to feel more connected, more grateful, and more at peace

In beautiful prose, Lawler describes the unique sacredness found in God’s creation and offers 15 inspiring insights for cultivating it day-to-day. She encourages you to make this lifestyle change through the observance of small acts. In so doing, you will discover a holy space that honors God and the life you’ve been given–and will discover yourself and your unique place in the holy that is everywhere, whether it’s in the woods behind your house or in the face of a stranger on a bus in a busy city. No matter where you are, there is holy free for the taking.

My review: I have, throughout the course of my 12 years of blogging, resisted writing anything that might be considered ‘religious.’ Spiritual? Yes, occasionally. But my resistance stems from my upbringing, where I was taught that religious beliefs were intensely personal and private and that one did not preach to others, but respected their beliefs or non-beliefs. That is why I do not read blogs that are what I would consider ‘preachy.’

That being said, I am intensely spiritual and my beliefs have changed and grown over the years and one of the things I am absolutely sure of is the presence of God (or a Higher Power, Divine Intelligence, the Creator, Buddah, Allah, whatever word you use) in the world around me; in nature, animals, people. Kara Lawler writes about this very thing.

Her essays, drawn from her own life, are lovely explorations and realizations of God everywhere. She is a young mother, therefore her writing will really resonate with women of a certain age. But the truths realized should resonate with anyone who has sought peace, looked for a sense of guidance, a sense of the wonder of life in a bird or a beautiful rock or in the smile of a child.

Kara writes beautifully. This is the sort of book that can be opened at any chapter, though there is a progression in the storytelling, for some sustenance in the course of a day. She lives in the country with her husband and two young children, a host of pets, and the Allegheny Mountains as a backdrop. She has struggled, as we all do, to find her identity. In the course of her journey, she discovers holiness everywhere and finds who she really is.

If this is the kind of book you are drawn to, I think you’ll like it very much indeed.

About the author:

From Kara: Through my writing, I hope to help people see beauty, remember their own identities, and find God, right where they are. It seems hard, really, in the shuffle that makes up this beautiful (but not always easy) life. How can we even focus on beauty or God, with full lives and the current state of the world? Quite honestly, that’s a struggle that has left me out of breath and on my knees. But, by doing this–by noticing beauty and looking for God all around–, I believe we really can discover who we are and who God meant for us to be. I try to see the beauty in the mundane, the extraordinary in the ordinary, the holy in the everyday, and as St. Ignatius said, “God in all things.” Join me on this pursuit of holiness amidst the chaos of an everyday.

Kara Lawler lives in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania with her husband, Mike, and their children, Matt and Maggie. Kara holds a BA in English and a MA in education and has been teaching high school English for close to two decades. She is the co-author of A Letter for Every Mother and has been published on various sites to include Today Parents and Huffington Post. Find Kara on www.karalawler.com and on Facebook to follow to join her journey of identity, faith, friendship, marriage, and motherhood.

Good news! One of you will win a copy of this book. If you are interested, leave a comment on this blog post. (It has to be here, not via email.) I’ll pick a winner on Saturday evening. (U.S. readers only.)

Happy Thursday.

Day Twelve

March 25, 2020 at 10:54 am by Claudia

I thought you might enjoy this shot that Don took of his studio. It gives the impression of a very tall window and the view outside. I love this picture.

• Yesterday, I witnessed a car pulling into my neighbor’s driveway. Two young people – teens – emerged from it and walked to the front door. There was no social distancing. They knocked on the door and someone, I assume it was one of our neighbor’s kids, opened the door, whereupon all involved hugged each other and went inside.

Are you kidding me? I was dumbfounded by this apparent lack of concern for any of the rules put into place by our Governor, by the government, or, for that matter, science and facts. I told Don and he was stunned. What is with people?

• I didn’t do any work on the dollhouse yesterday. I needed a break. Using the trim or not using the trim was discussed in some of the comments yesterday. In the case of almost every dollhouse I’ve ever seen, we’re talking gingerbread trim. Remember that my intention for this house is not that. It isn’t a Victorian house. It’s meant to be my version of a Cotswold cottage, which is why I am spending hours upon hours making stones for the exterior. I’ve done a lot of research and I rarely, if ever, see a Cotswold cottage with any decorative trim. The beauty of those cottages lies in their simplicity. Truth be told, I eliminated much of the decorative gingerbready trim on Hummingbird Cottage – my first dollhouse rehab. There is one section of the remaining trim that I’ve never been happy with but removal was too complicated and potentially damaging, so I left it.

I’m not a dollhouse historian – some builders out there make everything to period and the intricacy of their designs is incredible. I so admire them. But I do like to make my houses more real than are the standard dollhouses I see out there, which are designed, remember, for children. It’s also why I’m a stickler for scale.

Now, if I was going to do a Chautauqua-like house, and I loved those Victorian cottages and took scads of pictures of them when I was working there, then I would wholeheartedly embrace gingerbread. But it would have to be to scale and often, the trim included with a kit is not.

Anyway, I think some more stone making is in order today. Back at it!

• Reading Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson and last night’s feel-good watch was Field of Dreams. I love that movie.

• Heads up: I have a book review scheduled for tomorrow.

• Yesterday, we lost the great playwright Terrence McNally due to complications from the coronavirus.

Terrence wrote the books for Ragtime, Master Class, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Love! Valor! Compassion!, The Ritz, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, The Full Monty, and many others, including the book for Anastasia, which is why I have this photo of us together. He wrote about the AIDS crisis, he championed plays with gay characters. He wrote beautifully and from the heart. He won multiple Tony Awards for his work.

I am honored I had the chance to work with him, both in Hartford and on Broadway. We chatted about food, about becoming vegetarians, about when we quit smoking and about our mutual friend, Jim Parsons. In fact, he had someone take this picture of us so he could send it to Jim. He was a kind and good man.

He was a lung cancer survivor living with COPD and that he was taken by the coronavirus is so breathtakingly sad. He was 81.

Don was in a production of Lips Together, Teeth Apart right before I met him and it remains one of his favorite experiences in the theater. Terrence had a way with words that was unmatchable and his death is a tremendous loss to the American Theater.

And they can’t even dim the lights for him on Broadway.

Happy Wednesday.

Day Thirteen & A Book Review: Everywhere Holy

Day Twelve

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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