Mockingbird Hill Cottage

This is my favorite time of year to photograph the dolls. The porch, the potted flowers, the natural light! It just makes the perfect background. This is little Miyoshi. Her face up just might be the most beautiful of all the girls.

Don mowed most of the front lawn yesterday. I offered to do the areas around the garden beds because I know he worries about that. So I ran outside to mow and ended up pulling some weeds in a couple of the beds, as well. I also pruned some of the rose bush (it’s not looking good at the moment and I’m wondering if it’s dying.) Long story short: I was sore and allergy ridden from the day before and I’m even more sore and allergy ridden today. But we mowed most everything on Thursday and Friday. The only part of the lawn we didn’t get to is the lilac side. Weed whacking begins next week.

It looks pretty and very green out there. Today, it’s raining.

I’m grateful for the rain because we need it, but also because it gives me permission to stay inside and rest. I’m going to clean up my work area in the studio so I can find things. It’s too cluttered at the moment.

We haven’t seen Phileas in several days. Don thinks he’s moved on. We had tree trimmers from the county doing work on our stretch of the road on Thursday and they were around for a long time and VERY LOUD. Maybe Phileas decided to vacate the premises?  I hope he comes back. Don had a sad note in his voice when he said “I think he left.” I’m sad, too.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

Just thought you might like to see Nina.

As I’ve said before, I don’t really plan on buying more Blythes, except for a Dragonfly Blythe. Nina is a Dragonfly and so is Pru. Ola, the wonderful woman who was the customizer behind Dragonfly Blythe suddenly stopped customizing a few years ago. Her many fans were shocked. Consequently, they are now rare. My dream girl would be a redhead. But I’ve had some disappointing experiences in my search. There was a redhead that I dreamed of having and after many long chats, the woman who owned her promised her to me if she should ever want to sell. Long story short, the promise fell through and she sold her to someone else. Two beautiful redheads came up for ‘adoption’ but their owners wouldn’t ship to the US because of tariffs and customs fees. (Thanks, Agent Orange.) I have a couple of friends who are on the lookout for me. But it’s frustrating. Anyway, I’m grateful for the Dragonfly girls that I already own. And doesn’t Nina look beautiful?

I mowed the back forty yesterday and promptly had a huge allergy attack afterwards. Darn it. I’m still feeling under the weather today, so Don is going to mow the front lawn. We have rain coming in this afternoon, as well as tomorrow, so we’re trying to get ahead of it.

No groundhog sightings yet. No bunny sightings either. But it’s early spring here, so I expect we’ll see them sometime this month. I’m on a wee pause with the dollhouse as I ponder what room to renovate next. So far, the bedroom is winning out.

I’ll check in again tomorrow.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.

Well. Yesterday was a strange day. It was abnormally warm  – in the eighties – and in the afternoon it got windy. It was noticeably windy but not anything I would have been overly worried about. At one point, I was sitting in the den and I heard what I thought was stuff moving around on the porch. So I went outside to make sure the plants were secure and there was a huge limb on the ground. It was from the big maple tree next to the house, a tree we love and a tree that has already lost several large limbs over the twenty years we’ve lived here.

I was shocked. The winds hadn’t been all that intense. I called Don and we carried it to the pile on the side of the property. It was a significant loss. Shortly after that, another  limb went down from a maple near the secret garden.

All of this was very upsetting and I’m in mourning today. I love our trees. I love all trees. The whole thing was so unexpected. The only thing I can come up with is that the winds (coming from the SSW) were in the ‘perfect’ position to cause damage, if only for a specific pocket of time – almost like that time we had that microburst.

It’s about 20 degrees cooler today and it’s going to rain.

What else?

My hair has been driving me crazy. It’s baby fine and I have been dealing with breakage. Consequently, it is many different lengths and unless I blow dry it, it looks terrible! I had been talking to Don about cutting my hair again (he loves to do that) and I decided the only thing to do was to cut it so that it matched the shorter breakage area around my face.

Five inches gone! This is the shortest my hair has been in years. It already looks healthier. Don thinks I look younger. I’m not so sure about that, but I like it. And it will be cooler for the summer.

No work on the dollhouse yesterday. I took a break to ponder what room I’ll tackle next.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.