We’re having yet another gorgeous cold, sunny day, so I changed the order of things on my to-do list and went out back to do battle with a squirrel attack on the LED lights that light up the little bay tree year-round.

Apparently, this is a well-known issue.  You can google it.  Cities have had their holiday lights decimated by these chewing rodents.  And they are rodents.  We excuse them because of their cute, fluffy tails.  I will not be outdone by a rodent!

I mended the lights that could be mended and added several strings I bought 75% off after Christmas. I hung up lots of scary plastic ribbons on the bay and an old owl kite from the magnolia.  We’ll see.

While I was out there, I noticed that the daffodils are poking up.

Roxie wins the photo-bomb prize.

Also noticed that some branches on the flowering quince looked ready to be brought indoors for forcing, so I put some in the “apple tree” vase on the kitchen table.

And I saw one camellia had bloomed way ahead of season.

Anyway, all this took longer that anticipated, which meant that I did not have time to make the requisite New Year’s Day black-eyed pea dinner from scratch and would have to go to the store for canned peas. And the ham hock in the freezer turned out to be beef bones.

Let me tell you, I was greatly relieved to discover while there that I would be able to select my valentines in plenty of time.  That’s always such a concern.

The black-eyed peas are turning out to be pretty good, even though the store was out of ham hocks.  I just went Cajun with andouille sausage and rice. Sometimes, you just make do.

Then I decided that I wanted to make the corn bread into cornbread sticks and remembered that I gave my cornbread stick pan away years ago.  So I used my madeleine pan.  Turned out great.

Why, you may rightly ask, would a girl from Oklahoma have a madeleine pan and no cornbread stick pan.  Well, you know, I’ve moved around a lot, and I’ve learned to adapt and make do and it’s all good.  And that’s a pretty darn good motto for a new year.  Learn to adapt and make do.  Could be delicious. Or beautiful.

Yesterday on our early morning walk, I took lots of pictures of my neighborhood and posted them.

Today, here are of some of my favorite things inside 188o.

I think the dominate feature of this place is all the built-ins.  I swear!  If there was a Murphy bed, you could live here with no furniture at all.  I love them.  Here is just a sample:

1800 is blessed with lots of windows, and I am blessed with their beautiful views.  But this post is about inside the house. Here is one of my bedroom windows.  Can you see the hummingbird feeding there?

I also enjoy the windows that surround my breakfast nook table.

Many years ago, I painted this Lewis Caroll quote around the top:

(The Red Queen to Alice in Alice in Wonderland.)

I admit it.  I’m proudly eccentric.  For many years, I wanted a red front door but couldn’t seem to make that happen.  So I just went out and found one at an abandoned house and brought it home and leaned it against the wall in the Snug.

Now, of course, I have a red front door, but I’m keeping this one.  Found that beautiful brass knocker all rusted on the back of a tinker’s wagon in Turkey.  That story will get its own post one day.

My favorite room is “The Snug,” my tiny sitting room.  Up near the ceiling hangs my cross collection, collected on my travels.

I like this tiny little bathroom too.

And this sink:

And I have a few favorite pieces of furniture.

I’ve had this sofa, now in the Snug, for decades and had it recovered last year.

I sleep very well in this great old bed.

Finally, this desk is the first piece of furniture we ever bought, and, ironically, it is the finest piece we ever had.  We found it an an unclaimed freight warehouse in Lubbock, Texas, in 1965.

Today, it has been re-purposed and serves as a sideboard and wine rack in the dining room.  Its drawers are full of table linens.

I’m very fond of that old high chair too.  It came from a junk store in Belmont, California.  All my children used it.  It has absolutely no safety features.  They all survived.

I love my neighborhood.  All my life, through no plan of my own, I’ve moved around a lot.  I’ve lived at 1880 the longest.

This is a very eclectic neighborhood, built mostly in the 1930’s and ’40’s with no guidelines or restrictions, we have lots and houses of all sizes.  Most have detached garages that are on the alleys.  Some of these are now modest rentals. Apparently, this is perfectly fine.

We even have some tiny houses:

Having moved here from a community where there were restrictions on everything from paint colors, to building a deck too near a property line, or adding a room that blocked a neighbor’s view, I found this a bit shocking.

A friend lives in this colorful house on my street:

I would call that face-powder pink and deep lilac.  I would welcome some guidelines, on occasion.

And this monstrosity is presently going up on a small lot where formerly sat a modest house, lived in for decades by the present owners’ great- grandparents:

It blocks the mountain views and sunshine of neighbors who had enjoyed it for all those decades.

To make the small lot large enough for the new house, this $100,000 retaining wall was necessary.  This would never happen in my community to the south.  Restrictions are not all bad.

And I suppose this neighbor is well within her rights to “decorate” her front porch anyway she pleases. Good lord!  Sometimes I miss the days when I had the Hillsborough police on speed dial!

But I do love this neighborhood and plan to stay forever.  When I first moved here, there were no children, and the former local primary school had become a day-care center for children who were bused in from across town.  It seemed that young families preferred the new tacky-tackies in the sprawling outskirts.

I thought it was pretty silly a few years ago when this pre-school-age-appropriate playground was installed at our neighborhood park and the former wading pool became a splash pad.

Well, if you build it, they will come!

Now there are seven children just on my block between nine and newborn.  And their parents are beautifully restoring some of our wonderful old houses.

Ellen died two years ago, so now I am the old woman on the block.  I miss Ellen.

Her house is now beautifully restored an inhabited by dear new friends, Burt and Katja and Farris and Mathilda.

If you build it, they will come.  Here is good — and it just gets better.

In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion  .  .  .

The NY Times published its first-ever front-page editorial today.

Extremists on the right will say, “Well, you know the NY Times.” Their answer seems to be to blame everything on “Obama” and “the liberal media.” Would it were so simple.

Extremists on the left seem to think the answer is to paint placards and drink herbal tea and hang around my state capitol singing Joan Baez songs. Would it were so simple.

You can read the whole thing at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/opinion/end-the-gun-epidemic-in-america.html?ref=todayspaper