Mockingbird Hill Cottage

• Inspired by this book,

which is a wonderful series of “Portraits of the lives & homes of eccentric, eclectic & free-spirited bohemians,” I took some shots of the den this morning, not doing anything to brighten the photos, to make it look sunnier than it is. The den is always a bit moody, surrounded on two sides by our covered porch which keeps it in shadow much of the day. Since we take two steps down into the den, all of this works to make it a cozy, sunken retreat.

There are stacks of books on the coffee table, on the floor in front of the china cabinet, on the table to my left and on the bookshelves.

This is the room in our home that seems the most cozy-British-cottage in atmosphere and appearance. The sofa is old and slip-covered, there are books and reading lamps, there are piles of throws in a basket, an old wicker ottoman. There’s china and pottery, the dollhouse sits in a corner and then there’s the television, as well.

It’s always been a difficult space to capture in a photograph, for not only is it somewhat dark and moody, there are windows on three of the walls. Rather than getting frustrated, I’ve decided to embrace it and go for highlight and shadow. As is.

• I’m still under the weather and I’m getting restless. I don’t like sitting still for very long. Lots of nose blowing and coughing. I blame Don for this, though he says it’s been too long since he was sick to blame it on him. But I came down with it last Friday and that was less than a week since I had left Chicago.

It’s your fault, Don.

• Yesterday, we woke up to all four pilot lights out on Stella . We didn’t know if something was wrong with her, or with the connection to the propane, or if we’d run out.

We ended up being out of propane, which was rather shocking because we thought it would last longer than it did. But Stella is a big girl and Gino, our oil and propane guy, said that some of his clients who have bigger stoves that are hooked up to propane, like, for example, Vikings, go through a lot of it surprisingly quickly. So now we’ll make an adjustment in our propane delivery. Learning curve. We did have them check again to make sure there are no leaks and there are none.

• If you’ve been reading the blog lately and thinking: “Oh good! There are no more ads on the blog!” let me assure you, there are – now. I was in contact with BlogHer yesterday because of something else and I discovered that I had no ad income for the past two months…what?? And then, when I investigated further, I realized I couldn’t see any ads on my blog. Back story: I am usually on what is called the back end of the blog, writing posts, answering comments, etc., and I don’t always look at the front end – the page you see. And sometimes, during the course of the day, I have an ad blocker on for some sites I visit. Also, since we’re feeling less financially insecure lately, I haven’t been monitoring my monthly income on BlogHer. I’ve seen the monthly deposit go into my checking account and have been happy with the amount.

Anyway, it’s all been resolved. The ads are back. I’m going to be better at checking on things. BlogHer was great about it. There might be a day when I no longer have them, but for now, they help pay for the costs of maintaining this blog.

• Every day I discover something else that we wouldn’t be able to deduct on our income taxes with this horrific bill. Today it was Don’s union dues. Which begs the question, would I be able to deduct the expenses of maintaining my blog to balance out ad income? I wonder. I already know I won’t be able to deduct some expenses that go with being on the road. This will be very tough on us because we are freelancers.

Keep making your calls. I called (with a croaking voice) my Representative yesterday, and I emailed him twice. And I’ll keep bugging the crap out of him because this bill will be very hard on New Yorkers, who already pay a lot in property taxes and, of course, they want to keep that from being a deduction, as well. In other words, anything and everything that helps us get by, they want to take away.

Don’t get me started on what this vile man is doing to national treasures in Utah. They belong to us, by the way. So when I read words like this from Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke – The land is being returned to the people! – I cry foul. It already is ours. What he wants to do is drill and frack and let corporations make money off of it and take away sacred sites that belong to us and that have deep and powerful meaning to Native Americans.

Please Mueller, do your thing, but do it quickly.

Happy Wednesday.