Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

The New Schedule

at by

Zoe and I thank you for all your lovely comments yesterday. I had tears in my eyes more than a few times.

Thank you for your support, for your kindness, and thank you for being here. Bless you.

So, we’ve decided the new schedule. I will post on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. The weekend day may change – I’ll wait to see how the whole thing feels. I’m sure it will take me a while to get used to it, so for now, I will ‘schedule’ the post in my planner.

Some breathing space is much appreciated. I’ve been suffering from anxiety again after a nice long break from that little monster. I know it will go away eventually. But in the meantime, I’m going to get out my oil paints and see if I can get my mojo back.

I pulled out my pottery paintings the other day and took a photo of them. I’m proud of them.

Still haven’t framed them!

I just need to play with paints for a bit and see where that takes me.

Stay safe.

Happy Sunday,

 

Blogging

at by

Saturday morning.

The concert turned out to be a big hit, with a good-sized crowd. Don’s friend, John Putnam, has a band and they drove up from NYC and were a huge hit. The other performer was a musician Don discovered who lives in West Virginia. Also a huge hit. John Putnam, by the way, works a lot professionally. He was in the Escape to Margaritaville  orchestra and that’s how Don knows him.

While that was going on, I got a loud warning on my phone about a severe thunderstorm that was headed our way, with warnings specifically for the people attending our county fair. (Just a couple of miles from us.) I looked outside and all I could see was the sky lighting up – continuously – with lightning. At times, I saw an entire streak of lightning in the sky – wish I’d had my camera with me! There was thunder also, but mostly lightning. It looked like a special effect for a movie. But as far as I know, we had no rain. Very strange!

Okay. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. It is becoming increasingly hard to think of something to talk about every day of the week. The fact is, there are times when nothing much is happening. We’re older, we’re not working at the moment, and our days are fairly quiet. When you’ve been blogging for 15½ years, finding new things to talk about is a challenge. Don’t worry, I’m not ending the blog yet. I’m just trying to find a solution so that I don’t feel like I have to pull a rabbit out of a hat every day.

I’m thinking of blogging 3 or 4 days a week. I don’t get much ad income anymore – that has decreased for most bloggers. I get enough to help with the odd bill or two, and to pay for the costs of maintaining this blog. Just barely. I’m not sure how decreasing the days I blog will affect that ad income. I guess I’ll find out!

I was thinking of setting specific days for my posts so that you don’t have to wonder if I’ve posted on a certain day. Maybe Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Or Sunday, if that seems better for you.

What do you think?

I love blogging, but it takes a lot of effort on a daily basis. I need to come up with a solution that gives me some breathing space. I’ve held the job of blogger longer than any other job I’ve had, and I’m one of the few original bloggers still doing blogging. And I’m one of a few that blog on a daily basis.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

Friday Thoughts

at by

A young deer has been trying to chomp on the plants in the big garden bed. I happened to look up this morning and saw him eating something. I shooed him away – boy, was he cute – and just now, he was right by the shed and the hostas planted there…I shooed him away again. Both times, he ran up the trail into the woods.

He’s young. He doesn’t understand my Rules For Eating yet.

I mowed the lilac side of the front lawn yesterday and I have to admit it, it was hard, probably because I’ve mowed a lot this week and my arms are tired from pushing that front wheel drive-less lawnmower. I finished, but I’m taking a break for a bit. The back forty needs to be mowed, but sometime next week will be fine. The lawnmower has now moved to the top of the repair list.

Don has been coordinating and hosting a series of concerts this summer. They are held outdoors in a park in a town north of us. Don recruited all of the performers and he emcees each concert – once a month for four months. Anyway, there is another one tonight. It has rained or threatened to rain every Friday there has been a concert and true to form, it’s doing the same for tonight’s concert. So he’s spent a lot of time this week ensuring the performers are coming, pressuring the powers-that-be to find an indoor location and making that decision, not at the last minute, but a few days beforehand so that the public knows the venue is changing. I think they’ve been doing this for 14 or 15 years. Don played in the very first concert long ago. He has noticed that the number of people attending has decreased considerably since Covid. It’s very depressing. The same thing has happened with theater – subscription bases have decreased. Theater – especially regional theater – is struggling. I’ll write more about that later, but several well-known theaters are in serious financial trouble. Back to the concert series: it almost seems as if lockdown kept us home and once lockdown ended, people didn’t return to their previous activities and support of the arts. I’d say it was about money – and it is, of course – but this series is free.

The Arts are in trouble – not-for-profit theater is really in trouble. It seems as if I hear/read something about that on a daily basis.

I’m proud of all the work Don has done to make these concerts happen. I don’t know if he’ll do it next year, but I’m betting that after some time away from it, he will.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

 

 

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

Thanks for visiting! Feel free to browse, read and enjoy. All content is my own; including photos and text. Please do not use anything on this site without permission.

Disclosure/Privacy Policy can be found in the Navigation Bar under ‘About MHC.’

Also, I love receiving comments! I do, however, reserve the right to delete any comment that is in poor taste, offensive or is verging on spam. It’s my blog. If you’re a bot or a troll you’ll be blocked. Thanks!

Archives