Just a short one today ~ I don’t want you to think I’ve disappeared! I’ve finished two of our 2016 calendars and turned them in; I have just the blotter to go, and a deadline. Working at my art table like a fiend right now.
It’s still a winter wonderland here on the island . . . Every so often I look up from my work and there are beautiful flakes floating down in the wind . . . I call out to Joe (who’s starting to take apart the dining room ceiling to find out where the leak is in the upstairs bathroom) “It’s snowing!”
Snow climbs up our bedroom window and drips off the bay window…
The kitties are waiting for me when I come down the stairs to make my tea in the morning; we turn on something black and white: Betty Davis, Joan Crawford, or Susan Hayward, and get down to business.
Some people’s paths are strewn with flowers, mine is strewn with pony tail bands and I wouldn’t change a thing.
And I do this most of the day. I take time out for exercise, riding my stationary bike ~ I figure winter will end one of these days, and I want to be ready. We are eating healthy, exploring Netflix at night, getting up early, and making the winter count so we can be ready to GO when spring finally gets here; a fixed-up ceiling in the dining room and new calendars. I can’t tell you how it feels to turn in a calendar, all finished to the best of my ability, and think, oh boy, it’s DONE. I’m so excited to get back working on our new book . . . So off I go dear ones! Thank you for being here, I hope I do you proud. XOXO
More winter, more animal kingdom, Downton and . . . MUSICANot really, just kidding.
Conflicting reports on whether the groundhog saw his shadow or not, abound. So we better enjoy this winter of 2015 while we’ve got it, because we don’t know how long it will last. But we definitely have it now, and boy do we. Boston got 40 inches of snow in the last seven days. It’s not as bad here, but more than we remember having before.
So we stay hunkered down and enjoy the show . . . because around here it’s mostly animal kingdom. (In fact while I’m writing this, I just saw the turkeys go past the window on their way to the feeders!)
Yesterday there were three squirrels chasing each other around the feeders at the same time, up and down the wisteria trunks, over the top of the arbor, vying for space at the feeders, so cute. I could only get two in my lens at once . . .
Wet and snow spattered . . .
Jack’s right there, enjoying the show . . . I put my head right next to his and we watch together . . .
It goes on all day . . .
Squirrels making themselves at home . . .
Do you see that? Are you just going to let them do that?
And then, look at the birds waiting their turn on the branches in the background . . .
Love it when I catch them in mid air . . .
There are three feeders and a suet cage outside the kitchen windows . . . the wall between the windows kind of gets in the way of photos . . . it’s like a giant fish tank for us while we cook or do dishes. Highly entertaining.
Our house “sounds like an ant farm,” says Blog Daddy, from my description of the paths Joe has dug coming from every door, to the street, to the feeders, the trash area, the barn, and the wood pile . . .
Joe loves it out there . . . here he’s pulled back the plastic to fill his apple basket with dry firewood. . .
Of course Jack misses nothing . . .
He has a well-rounded day . . .
He LOVES the fire and will sit and stare at it for hours. Like mother, like son. ♥
I sneak up on him . . .
. . . and while all this nothing is going on here in Smallville, I’m working on the Calendars for 2016, asking myself, as usual, on every month, “what would the Girlfriends like to see?” I’m on September of the wall-calendar now . . .
I also have the mini calendar to do, the big blotter, the purse calendar and the little magnet. I paint and write most of the day.
I’m wearing out pencils with all the drawing I’m doing. When they get low, they become “kitchen pencils” ~ they go into the jar in the kitchen ~ as opposed to drawing pencils.
You know how much Jack loves to retrieve pony-tail bands I shoot for him?
He deserves to live forever, one way or another, preferably both. This is me immortalizing Jack.
Because this guy is an original.
He could play like this all day everyday. But I have to get those calendars done!
Girl has found a new place to sleep. On the red checked pillows I got at Ikea the last time we were off-island. But as soon as I come with the camera, she leaves . . . so we are lucky to get this pose from Queen Victoria Girl Kitty.
And even though it is still like this outside (10 degrees this morning) . . .
Upstairs the hibiscus is in full bloom in an east window of the “blue room” — which could also be called “the junk room” . . .
The flowers just keep coming. We don’t do anything but water, and I think this plant is happier here than it was on the porch during the summer.
And we have a fire everyday . . . for the sound of crackling and hissing, because it’s warm . . . and to give Jack and me something to zone out on.
If I couldn’t have my own fireplace, this would be my second choice ~ this one in the Library at Downton Abbey . . . It’s hard to have a favorite room at the Abbey (we’re now such good friends I feel I can call it “the Abbey”), but this and the dining room are my favorite. I think it’s because of the elegant carvings over the black fireplace, but there are also gorgeous red sofas in here, it’s dark and romantic and perfect for “cocktails.”
This is why I like Lady Mary and Tom together. I know I won’t get my way, because Charles Blake is very charming and he and Mary do have chemistry ~ and maybe there is something wrong with marrying your sister’s widower who used to be the chauffeur. But times are a’changing, as we are only too well aware, and how about for the children? I think they would all be perfect together.
Did you watch? Goodbye Miss Bunting! Hooray! I thought maybe she wouldn’t go and screamed OH NO when Tom jumped up to go say goodbye; I hated it when they kissed but then, deep breath of relief, he let her go. I loved it when Mary said, “Are you happy now?” at dinner. Bye-bye, Miss Bunting, you give Bunting a bad name.
I don’t see why Julian Fellowes didn’t give Tom a perfectly lovely normal feminist to fall for, there had to be one in England at that time ~ they couldn’t all be dinner ruiners. “Feminist-socialist” does not automatically equal “no manners.”
I haven’t mentioned it, but didn’t you love it when Violet was remembering where she met her Russian Prince, the Ball at the “Winter Palace,” and what she wore . . . “powder-blue velvet with silver lace?” Made tears in my eyes. Would have loved to see Violet dancing in that. Would love to see her being courted by a Prince too. What he might lack in hair laundering I’m sure he would make up for in manners.
I’m sure she was beautiful.
She still is, just like her granddaughter. If nothing else, I would watch for these dresses and what they put in their hair, their jackets and hats. I love this show!
Poor Edith. Someone is going to see her making that phone call in Carson’s office. Probably Mister dark-circles-under-his-eyes. Have you noticed that no matter how sick Barrow makes himself, he stays mean and sneaky? No more, but no less than before. He’s on an even keel when it comes to scheming. You’d think he wouldn’t have the energy for it. One other thing. Cora suddenly looks, and acts, like an all-American Girl. Golly! Poor Robert is confused to the point of needing a time out. OK, that’s enough, now you tell me, what did you think?
Bye from cold, icy, wintry, sunny, bright-white Martha’s Vineyard, from Joe, Girl, Jack and me . . . and Smallville, USA. I’m off to get my warm pair of shoes from in front of the furnace! Be sure to try the Punxsutawney Pudding and Spareribs on the February page of the Calendar, I promise you deliciousness! ♥
want to be ready. We are eating healthy, exploring Netflix at night, getting up early, and making the winter count so we can be ready to GO when spring finally gets here; a fixed-up ceiling in the dining room and new calendars. I can’t tell you how it feels to turn in a calendar, all finished to the best of my ability, and think, oh boy, it’s DONE. I’m so excited to get back working on our new book . . . So off I go dear ones! Thank you for being here, I hope I do you proud. XOXO
I’m working on the Calendars for 2016, asking myself, as usual, on every month, “what would the Girlfriends like to see?” I’m on September of the wall-calendar now . . . 
choice ~ this one in the Library at Downton Abbey . . . It’s hard to have a favorite room at the Abbey (we’re now such good friends I feel I can call it “the Abbey”), but this and the dining room are my favorite. I think it’s because of the elegant carvings over the black fireplace, but there are also gorgeous red sofas in here, it’s dark and romantic and perfect for “cocktails.”
