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My Birthday

Never do I feel more loved than on my birthday! My favorite thing, contrary to most other days of the year, is my answering machine! I love the messages and singing I find there. This year I added a new “favorite birthday thing” to my list . . . the comment section of this blog! You are darling people, that’s all I can say! ♥

Thank you!!

The only true non-fattening birthday cake! Cute, but just not good enough. Can’t make a wish on this! But it’s festive! My birthday dishtowel! (A fun, quick sewing project, and a good way to use a bit of that special stash, in case you’re looking to make something easy.)

Of all days, yesterday my new Birthday Fabric came in for approval! So exciting to see designs and art becoming fabric! I approve! Now it goes off to be made, and when it’s done we’ll have it here on our web site . . . isn’t it cute? I just can’t wait to make an apron out of it! Maybe in time for Joe’s birthday!

And here is the perfect surprise Joe had for me! A very old copy of Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell! I screamed (in a soft and feminine way) and hugged it; isn’t it wonderful??? I’m an old-book person; he couldn’t have found anything I would have loved more.

It’s filled with illustrations! Crying out for me to make a coloring book out of it with my watercolors!

And there were all kinds of things inside . . . this thick, creamy program from a Woman’s Club event; I can only imagine what this event looked like, sounded like, the dresses! There was even entertainment with this entertainment!

There were dried flowers between the pages! The book was signed, as a gift from “Georgie,” and dated 1900.

And I found this photo in the back . . . There’s nothing written on it so I have no idea who this woman, wearing the ruffled blouse and cute hat, standing in what appears to be a garden, is. Maybe it’s Georgie.

Have you all seen the movie Cranford? I think you would love it if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s so darling . . . and takes place in a beautiful town in England called Lacock that Joe and I visited last time we were there. The beauty you see in this movie, is real! That’s how the town really looks! I’m excited to see how the book compares to the movie!

So then, because it was my birthday, and such a beautiful day here, I went outside, spread my blanket on the lawn under a tree, and read my other book, which I am loving, called The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (who really knows how to tell a good yarn)! I tried to read this book slowly, so I might have it on the boat, but there’s just no way; I’m practically skipping ahead to see what happens!!

Looking UP from my quilt! I had to show you the view from my back! ♥

Yes, it was a little bit of Birthday heaven. Just me, my book, my pillow, a juicy apple, one stuffed egg, the sunshine, the trees, and the birds. And the lovely faint hammer-pounding coming from the arbor where Joe was working (the aphrodisiac sound I adore). That’s why you didn’t hear too much from me yesterday! Later, we went out to lunch with friends, then to my favorite place, the nursery, to browse and look for a new magnolia tree. For the second year, we cannot find the kind of magnolia we want! We were told, the variety we like is “too old-fashioned” and they don’t carry it anymore. It’s the prettiest one too, a Saucer Magnolia “soulangiana” — now all they want to sell us is the purplish one; I want the light pink. It’s always good to have something to look forward to; we’ll find it someday!

My birthday party is tomorrow night, and guess who’s in charge of making my birthday cake? Me! I volunteered! Now I’m trying to decide between a flourless Chocolate Cake (almost diet food), with the creamy texture of peanut butter — OR my Orange Cake with the pineapple filling which is my true favorite.

That’s my day today. Oh yes, and besides that, a brand new WILLARD will start to go out next Tuesday! To you, as always, with love from me.

XOXO

Have a wonderful day; it’s Friday the 13th, the luckiest day of the year!!! Thank you again for all your sweet Birthday Wishes. You made it extra special this year. ♥ Also want to wish a Happy Birthday to our Girlfriend, Gladys Taber!

Let’s Go Outside!

Blank piece of “paper” . . . all mine to do something with . . . what would the girlfriends like today? Well, one thing for sure, we have to start with Birdsong; and let’s go outside!

It’s getting almost ridiculous around Martha’s Vineyard this year, we’re having the most beautiful spring; every day the sun is shining and all the neighborhoods are in bloom. Up and down the narrow streets, huge old trees in cottage gardens are dripping in the softest Easter-egg colors of pink, yellow, and white; looking like the aisles of a flowery wedding.

And it’s not just us who are celebrating . . . this is the view from our upstairs bathroom window and that’s the happily married squirrel couple that lives in the old Linden tree.

Had to zoom in to show you how pretty these two are; we really have a bird’s eye view here . . . the ledge of this window is one of Jack’s favorite hangouts. These squirrels play like crazy; round and round that tree they run; up and down. I would love to get a look inside that nest!! I always wonder if they have my bird-feeder hanging hook that just up and disappeared a couple of years ago.

We have not been home this time of year for years . . . for some reason it seems like we’ve chosen March and April to go out to California — I’d never even seen the weeping cherry we planted a few years ago next to the picket fence garden (in the first picture) in bloom! So I’m really enjoying this! I almost forgot how beautiful it is. There are wild violets in the lawn! Makes me remember the quote by John Greenleaf Whittier:

The sunshine seemed to bless, the air was a caress. ♥

A caress.

Right down the middle of our backyard this deer sashayed, perfectly at home. The nerve of some people’s children! So smart, she looks both ways before she crosses the street. Where’s she going? I don’t know.

This picture makes me think of the blooming lane in the movie Anne of Green Gables, which really was a big inspiration to me when it came to planting things here. It’s so amazing to look at something like that and think, “Anne of Green Gables doesn’t own blooming trees, I can have them too!”

And then there’s the forsythia that spatters sunshine yellow all over our neighborhood. In the back of this photo, near the house, are three tall Linden trees in a row; still no leaves. The squirrel family lives in the middle one.

We won’t be barbecuing anytime soon!

This is the place to take your blanket, your cardigan, your tea, and your book when a (caressing) breeze begins to blow up from the harbor and the petals start to fall.

Here’s the new dogwood we planted last year. It’s full of buds now, but not in bloom yet; the lilacs aren’t out here yet either — we have so much to look forward to!!!

Outside our kitchen window we have three bird feeders. Or should I say, squirrel feeders! This is Harold. His tail is a little thin compared to the others, that’s how we know him, and this is how he and his relatives entertain us . . . we don’t make it easy for them, but nothing really stops them. We sort of like it anyway . . . it sends Jack to the moon!

When we make grilled-cheese sandwiches, this is what we get to watch while waiting for the cheese to melt. I do wonder how this can be comfortable? But Harold seems happy.

See the bird on the far right? He’s skipping over to the next feeder, he’s in mid air. You know what I love about this? Anyone can have it. All this beauty is waiting at the nursery, and year after year, it comes back as a benediction.

And then there is this. Only about three more weeks until we go to England! So much to do! I think about what all I want to show you over there. Hillsides of wildflowers and meadows of baby lambs; the grocery store, and the knitting store, and the old bookstores, and the houses! I will bring the spy cam, and maybe get some pictures of English people’s cute shoes! Table settings and teapots and desserts and linens in tea rooms, and old old OLD churches where people are buried in the floor; dovecotes, and gardens with roses tumbling over ancient stone walls, foxgloves crowding cottage doorways. I can’t wait! Hope you’re all packed and ready to go. The clock’s ticking! ♥