CHRISTMAS in JULY

Posted on July 1, 2020 by sbranch

Rabbit-Rabbit Girlfriends! It’s been way too long, and I’ve wanted so much to write, but I needed to finish something before I did . . . so I could tell you! And yesterday, in the nick of time for July first, so we can celebrate Christmas in July . . . I did! I finished! I’m a person again! Let’s start this celebration with MUSICA from the way-back machine (pure proof I love you), because this is the way I like my house to sound when the screen door is open in
I come bearing gifts. Meet one of the characters in my new book! Yes, it’s finished! Many of you know I wanted to write something special for this Christmas, which may, considering the circumstances, be our most memorable and creative ever! So, I did, I’ve been deep in Christmas every day since March! A lovely place to spend a pandemic since choice does not seem to be on the menu!😷

I used my tiniest brush to make a childrens’ book for big people, and little people too.❤️ It’s been so much fun choosing shoes and clothes . . . like playing with paper dolls! 

And Look! I blot my paintbrush on watercolor paper ~ so I saved them, and cut them, and look at all the new bookmarks! I hope I can meet you at a bookstore someday ~ because I made them for you! I’ll come there bearing gifts too!❤️

So, I finally named it Home for Christmas, because no other title would do . . . that’s where it looks like we all might be this year the way things are going! Not the worst place to spend Christmas!

I painted every little bit of the book, even this . . . little things matter too…

That’s the truth, and here’s the cover! One day, after months of putting one foot in front of the other inching along to today (which was going to happen one way or another) . . . the cover materialized right on my art table! I saw it happen! My Santa has never been in a book or a calendar, it was now or never! After all, Joe was my model for Santa. And yesterday, I turned in the very last page and realized, it was okay now, I could go ahead and put it up for presale! It’s a 64-page storybook, with watercolors and photographs ~ it’s

And going off to the printer in Crawfordsville, Indiana at the end of next week. And that’s when I get started on phase-two of book publication . . . Waiting for it to arrive at the end of August . . . knowing that…If you want one . . . you can get it HERE . . . I am going to TRY and see if any of my favorite independent bookstores would like to have a zoom-book-party. I’d love to invite you to something, we’ll see what they say. There is one party I know FOR SURE is coming next month, in August. Remember when I was going to be in Duxbury, MA for a luncheon and book-talk last Mother’s Day? And it had to be canceled? Well, they’ve gotten creative! They’ve planned a computer party that you will ALL be invited to.❤️ Don’t ask me how it will work, I have NO idea, I don’t know if it will be on Zoom or what, but I hear it’s going to be amazing ~ that you’ll be able to hear and see me, that I can even show pictures. I’ll send you details the minute I know them! So keep your calendar looking like mine, with nothing on it except for full moons and birthdays you’re not attending!

And because it seems many of you missed them the first time ~ we ordered more Santa Cups to go with the book! Kellee put them up for preorder too! HERE. They’ll get here the same time as the other cups!

Speaking of . . . everything’s on schedule! They should be here the end of this month! If you wanted one, I hope you got one because the Little Things cup is now completely gone. Before they’ve even arrived! There are still a few Bluebirds available ~ you can see the handle, back, and bottoms of them HERE. If you placed an order, we’ll send them the minute they arrive, first come, first serve.💝

And, yes, Calendars are coming too ~ the 2021 wall calendars (one of them is all art, the other one is mostly photographs) are up for presale now… but they’ll all be here, including the Blotter, the Mini, and the purse calendar, too, around the end of this month.

And one last bit of business, YES! (isn’t that the BEST word?!) We did reorder the Pandemic Postcards, and they did come in . . . Okay, well, we have other plans too. We’re going to make Christmas cards and Thanksgiving cards, and new wrapping paper for Spoonflower ~ and other surprises ~ we’re doing our best to create the best distancing, but reaching-out Christmas we know how to do. What do we want for Christmas? A vaccine, thank you very much.💞 It makes me happy to think we have the best minds in the world working on making that happen in the safest and quickest way possible. I can’t live in here the rest of my life. I need to do a yard sale!!! Stuff is piling up. I may end up having an estate sale in the antique section of my webstore! Might just have to! Wouldn’t that be interesting.✔️ What do you think?

Back to our regular scheduled programing . . . the little things that make life sweet. Morning shadows ~ so quiet here these days.  This pandemic asked us to go inside in more ways than one. Just like all the other unexpected, undesired, unplanned-for events in our lives. I wrote a book about it which a lot of you read … Martha’s Vineyard Isle of Dreams was my very own maskless pandemic! Same question I was always asking then, time will pass anyway, what am I going to DO with it? Now that I’m a person again, I’m about to find out! Paint is probably the answer! 🤣 I’m a little bit addicted! Although Joe thinks I should say “cook!” 

I know I’ll take pictures of shadows! Nature’s art! I love it when the sun tips off of things. . . so pretty.

One of the many reasons I love morning!

Minding my own business, washing apples and making toast, and hello sunshine, poof, magic!

I flipped the light on in the kitchen this morning and found these two like this. Doesn’t it look like they’re up to something? Things go on around here I know nothing about.

While I was busy, one of my favorite people, the wonderful Vera Lynn died . . . 😢 The thing about losing people, especially the very old, it’s not just them, it’s their connection to history, what they could tell us if we asked, and even to our own ancestral past . . . even if we aren’t related.

XOXO

Such an important person of her times. If World War II had a heart, it would be her, if it had a soundtrack, it would be her. Whether or not you’re familiar with her, you’ll enjoy this tribute . . . We always took her music to play in the car when we were driving the back roads of England. James Taylor is the voice of Martha’s Vineyard, Vera Lynn is the voice of Britain. 

OXO

There was something else I learned about I wanted to tell you . . . oh yes, have you heard of Radio Garden? Go HERE ~ and hear what’s playing on any radio station in the world! BBC London? Yes! WMVY, our Martha’s Vineyard Station? Yes. WCAI from the Cape and Islands? Yes. Homesick for somewhere? They have a radio station!

Driving home from the market the other day, I rolled down the car window to take this picture ~ if this mitten looks familiar but you only have one? The other one is on the fence post at the corner of Look and Spring Streets on Martha’s Vineyard!

I haven’t touched the garden this year! Sad thing is, you can’t tell! You don’t do gardens at Christmas-time in this neck of the woods, and that let me out. It’s lucky a lot of ours came back. Can’t ask much more than this!

All doing fine without me. I think roses and hydrangeas are the two number-one flowers on Martha’s Vineyard! (Don’t you like the way I said that?😂)

I always do what my dishtowels tell me to do!

And there’s my boy, in his regular position when I’m putting clothes on the line! Doesn’t want to miss a thing!

And here’s my other boy. Life is good. We decided to start watching Foyle’s War over again (on Acorn) . . . I missed some of it the first time! Joe and I meet at 6 pm and quiz each other on what we remember from the show from the night before! So good, if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It has the gift, removes today from your mind completely!

Flag’s up!

I’m a flag putter-upper from way back!

No fireworks on the island this year!

So happy I have the photographs! Jack’s fine with it, he’s asleep next to me in his drawer right now, breeze coming in through the window, and no loud bangs to scare him.

Did you know about this “co-incidence?” ⬆️ I think this is just too much. The same DAY? On the 50th Anniversary? Miles and miles apart? So far apart, and news traveled so slow then, people had to put two and two together! Imagine their faces! Just like mine!😲 How can that BE?

You will need a taste treat for the fourth . . . why not try a recipe for something delicious that also makes you laugh! This is the one! It’s in the new version of Heart of the Home if that makes it easier…p.99.❤️

Well, time to face the Musica and go be a person, if I remember how. First up? A nap! Then back to

W E A R   A   M A S K 😎

Yours forever,💞 Anna Susana Dana Branchburger, the third.

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Home in the Time of Pandemic

Posted on May 27, 2020 by sbranch

Hi Everyone! It’s time to stop and put the kettle on! Get yourself a cup of something and come back so we can catch up. As always and forever, home is what you make it. And that’s true even and especially in the time of Pandemic! We’re living through a very sad time for so many, our friends, and neighbors that we love. So let’s put on a little MUSICA, and sing along, and for the lucky of us, all that is not so good, becomes a blessing.❤️ 

If you like this song, go tell your remote that you want to see the old movie Without Reservations with John Wayne and Claudette Colbert! Have you seen it? Sometimes I feel like I’ve seen every good old movie ever made . . . and then something like this comes along and surprises me and makes me wonder what else they’re hiding! The stars spend lots of time on the train (you get to see lots of 1946 scenery) ~ you’re listening to the theme song now ~ how could it not be darling? It’s free on TMC.

We took off our storm windows yesterday. The doors are open now, the sun is shining, it’s about 68º, the wisteria’s in bloom, so are the lilacs, and the sea breeze is blowing fragrance through all our rooms. Sleeping is heaven! We’ve waited months for this! Do you believe that purple? Mrs. Bowditch, the woman who lived here before us, planted that maybe 50 years ago and I thank her every spring.

Why does fresh laundry flapping in the wind make everyone so happy? I don’t know, but it’s true. I think because we’re in love withAnd we know it when we see it, smell it, hear it . . . There’s no place like home.

Have I ever shown you my kitty graveyard? Where Girl Kitty (in fact, two Girl Kitties), Bill and Man Kitty are buried? The history of my world. 

 Every spring I go out and move the debris off their graves and sweep them. Sweet little corner of my garden.💞

Days get longer, sun rises earlier, casting long shadows through the morning windows . . . Makes me run to get the camera.Everything I need is here.

The sun through the leaves makes these shadows move and dance like sea water with the sun shining on it. Gotta take a picture! 

It is so quiet on the island . . . Notice how our walk hasn’t been “prettified?” It is as it always was. Woods and dirt roads, potholes and all. Just the way we like it. New spring leaves, wild blueberries, beach roses, and the sea.

I thought you’d like a little ocean view this morning.

   

We’ll never forget this Memorial Day . . . it’s never been this quiet. No one came! Except of course for these guys. The ferry went back and forth to the Mainland but stayed mostly empty. We are all so grateful that people are choosing to stay home. It’s strange and we miss them and the excitement they bring, but we’re just not ready for it yet.😷 When all this is over, we will happily welcome them back with open arms.💞

We hung our flag as we always do . . . Everyone did, the island has gone back in time to how it was before it was discovered! Very quiet. We’re still coping with the virus. We get a new case almost every day, our curve, small as it is, hasn’t flattened. No stores are open, no restaurants either. The Island has always been a little cut off from the real world, but now more than ever. Actually it’s a lot like it is in the winter, when we have it all to ourselves, only the sun is shining! So we do what we do in the winter, entertain ourselves! Only now, we can do it outside. Usually my friends are working and we don’t have much time for fun in the sun!   

XOXO

It was my dear friend Lowely’s Birthday . . . so we decided to try having a party . . . we miss each other!🎉 We’re all extremely virus-aware, none of us go ANYWHERE, except maybe every three weeks to get food, fully masked and gloved! We want this thing to end as FAST as possible, so we do our part by staying home. We’re the lucky ones. So many MUST go out, I’m sure many of our girlfriends too, are needed to keep everything running and to take care of the sick. I join with the whole world when I say, on bended knee, thank you for what you are doing.💞 

For Lowely, I asked everyone to bring something with a candle in it, even the birthday girl had to bring her own “cake,” and this was hers, a beautiful triple-cream cheese! Isn’t it cute? A true “cheesecake!” Notice she put her ring on her candle? We all put our rings on what we brought (mine was a Honey Crisp apple with a candle stuck in it) so we could join in on Lowely’s wish, and blow out our candles when she did.

This is how we normally do it . . . the birthday girl (OR boy!) blows out the candles and we all get our wish.

I miss doing what I would do for a NORMAL birthday party . . . setting the table, and making actual food too!

This is the view from our upstairs window. I learned a lot. I learned that a circle seems right and looks good, but when a person is in her chair, the person straight across is THIRTY FEET away. That’s a little too much social-distancing. More distancing than social. Hard to hear anyone from 30 feet! Next time I’ll do two rows, with ten feet between them and stagger the chairs. This would work at a park or a meadow too … if everyone brought their own chairs, their own masks, their own food. The smaller the group probably the better. I’m looking forward to lots of one-on-one this summer.So something awful happened. I accidentally whacked my very first cup, called Little Things, on the kitchen faucet and chipped it. Joe tried to sand it down and save it, but the first time I poured water into it, a crack appeared, and it sprung a leak. It was the end of that cup and, here’s the hard part: it was my only one!😱 I LOVED this cup (I saved it, might put a plant in it or some pencils).

It was like an old friend, being my first and all. And “Little Things!” The one on the left is paper, my first mock up. I went around for the last two weeks moaning. Then yesterday . . .

I said to myself, who is in charge here? And made the executive decision to RE-ORDER it. Now, of course they won’t let me order just one ~ they have a minimum order requirement. And I started thinking that because it was the first, maybe someone else wants one? I told Twitter I was reordering it, and from their reaction I realized perhaps my cup had sacrificed itself for the greater good.😇 With one life to give for her fellow girlfriends. So Little Things will arrive in our Studio in August and is up for preorder now. Because this is a re-order, I only got the minimum, which I think should be enough, I hope. This time I’m keeping two. Taking no chances.✔️

Then I noticed one of my other favorites, my Bluebird cup, and realized, eeek, I only have one.😳 Way too precarious a situation. So I ordered that one too . . . 

I remember painting for it . . .

 And then it came in and I loved it. And it will do the same in August, and I will love it just as much. And all because of the self-sacrifice of Little Things.💞 If you missed either of these the first time, we are getting a second chance!

And last but not least, a little preview of my new Christmas book due this August or September, depending on when I get it done. I have a deadline! When I’m not walking in the morning, or hanging clothes on the line, this is what I’m doing. Writing, painting, drawing, erasing, and re-drawing. Thank GOD in heaven for erasers.

Am I having fun or what? Painting jammies!

I have never painted Nipper before . . . he was our childhood dog. I can still hear my brother calling, “Here Nip!” before going out on his paper route. Isn’t he the PERFECT 1950s family dog? Sweetest boy in the world. I loved painting him. I never realized how feathery his paws were, or how long his ears were. You get to know people when you paint them.💞DamPanic or no DamPanic, my dreams never change.💖

Bye for now dear ones. Back to work I go! I hope you are safe and sound🙏, getting some fresh air, and enjoying this one amazing life we were gifted with. Learn the words to that song, sing it around the house ~ singing makes your heart lighter.😘  Me and Millie. Jack would have loved Millie.💞 

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