Mockingbird Hill Cottage — Page 804 — Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Errands, Treasures & Maybe a Primal Scream

April 19, 2018 at 10:08 am by Claudia

Yesterday: I went to the dump, recycled boxes from the cable company, drove to the cable company and turned in three pieces of equipment, ran errands at Lowes and Target, came home, vacuumed, and then had dinner with Rick and Doug.

A rather efficient day for someone who has been feeling not-at-all-efficient lately.

Today: Frosty precipitation on the ground, freezing temps overnight and it’s April 19th. Every conversation I have with a fellow resident of the Hudson Valley revolves around “When the heck is Spring coming?” I don’t remember it taking this long. We might be three weeks behind rather than two weeks.

So frustrating!

Valiantly trying to open despite the freezing temperatures.

In my never-ending quest to find more pieces of that antique red transferware plate, I frequently walk through the part of the corral where I found them. No red transferware as of yet, but I did find this pottery shard yesterday:

It has moved to my little found treasure dish.

The seashells were obviously found elsewhere, but the green cup handle, the old hose nozzle, pieces of pottery, robin’s egg shell, pod and feather were found on the property. This is actually a lovely brown aesthetic transferware plate, but I’ve covered up most of the design!

Rick and Doug are in that wonderful first stage of home ownership where they have no idea what was planted where on the property and they’re discovering crocus and lots of daffodils and all kinds of early bulbs. Each new season brings new wonders.

Don has started an Escape to Margaritaville Ukulele Orchestra. Everyone who has signed up will procure a ukulele and Don’s teaching them chords and they’ll eventually play together – maybe even a flash mob kind of thing.

He’s so darned cute, that guy. They’re on Instagram: @e2mukuleleorchestra.

If you have a hankering to learn some chords, Don and fellow cast member Matt have provided some videos to help you.

And that’s all for today. Rainy, cold, blah, blah, blah. I am about ready to do a primal scream.

Happy Thursday.

Readjusting

April 18, 2018 at 10:02 am by Claudia

Well.

I ended up having ‘one of those days’ yesterday. I couldn’t climb out of my funk. Nothing seemed to go right. I was depressed by the rain and cold and the lack of spring weather. I was more than depressed about Spanky and his corrupt gang of grifters.

Don said he was having the same sort of day. Maybe something was in the air? Something astrological? (I don’t follow astrology, but what the heck.)

It’s still very cold. Too cold to do more work in the garden. And temps are really not going to rise significantly until the last week in April. Insane.

I spent part of the day connecting the new cable box and then trying to replace a perfectly good modem with another one that our cable provider sent. Of course, that means I was on the phone with our cable company for a long time. Turns out that the new modem didn’t have a phone jack and we still have a land line and are not about to get rid of it. So I reverted back to the other modem, which was working perfectly well.

Now I get to go to the local cable office and drop off old modems, new modems and the old cable box. Oy. I miss the days (not that long ago) when someone actually came to the house and hooked everything up. Now we seem to pay even more for cable minus the in-person customer service. I told them so during my extensive phone time with them yesterday.

And then to top it off, while I was buttering my baked potato and getting ready to sprinkle it with pepper, I mistakenly grabbed the cinnamon, which promptly dumped all over the potato. I like cinnamon, but not on a baked potato.

Good times.

Today is a new day.

Attitude readjustment in process.

Happy Wednesday.

Cleaning and Fluffing

April 17, 2018 at 9:50 am by Claudia

I often find myself marveling at why I don’t do something more often. There are things I just don’t think of very often. Like this:

For some reason, I decided it was time to clean this coffee table and I looked around to see what I had on hand. I found some Pledge furniture oil, so I took everything off the table and went to work. Such a simple thing and it made such a big difference! Why don’t I do it more often? Now, of course, I want to clean every non-painted piece of furniture, including the sideboard and the piano.

I had to amuse myself indoors as it rained quite heavily for most of the day yesterday. And I probably won’t get to do much, if anything, outside today because the ground is really soggy and more rain is expected. So it’s furniture polishing!

Here’s a closeup of the pillow. It’s sort of wonky, isn’t it? But I don’t mind. It is appliquéd and embroidered – by machine, I’m sure. It makes me smile; a little spring garden on the sofa.

That sofa, by the way, is a remnant of my Boston University days. I bought it for $500 – which, considering the fact that I was grossly underpaid at the time – was a lot of money. It’s still a lot of money! But it fit perfectly in the niche created by the bay window in my Cambridge apartment. I’ve considered getting rid of it; the springs are a bit troublesome, but then again, the same thing holds true for the sofa in the den. We really need two new sofas, but as we flop around on these a great deal and do not have a showplace kind of house, they’re fine for now.

Here it is in my old apartment approximately 28 or so years ago.

Heavens, I loved those windows! It was a beautifully sunny apartment.

Don informed me that he now has a rehearsal and filming on Thursday afternoon – something for NBC news. So I won’t be going in on Thursday. Maybe Friday? Maybe Sunday? We’ll have to see.

Two words: Sean Hannity. (I laughed out loud. I might have cackled.)

I leave you with that.

Happy Tuesday.

Errands, Treasures & Maybe a Primal Scream

Readjusting

Cleaning and Fluffing

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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