Blog
Visit Betsy Davis’s Garden
You might remember when I wrote a series about Handmade Homes, houses of people I know who have unique, personal homes. Nothing cookie-cutter about them! They were each different from the others, but all were warm and welcoming. One of the first homes I featured was...
Memorial Day is for Memories
Cute vintage Peewee Herman doll. It is now mute, however. Lorraine was not big on holidays. She had never had children and saw most holidays as a push to spend money on other people, and in her opinion, most of the people in her life didn’t deserve a present. Besides,...
Lorraine Takes a Hard Look
Mac, Lorraine’s live-in boyfriend, had disappeared. Maybe he was out there (doing his so-called job) selling used magazines, but more than likely, he was hiking somewhere in Montreat with a woman he had picked up somewhere. He’d be back, surely, when he got hungry. ...
Lorraine and Mac at Home
1917 Smith Corona Typewriter Needs some love! $50 44 Cherry Street is a fictional account of some fictional characters who live in Black Mountain. Lorraine is the only remaining resident of the four-plex after Covid and the landlord’s upgrading of the building led to...
Thanks, Kiddos!
Something strange happened yesterday as I was driving to work. A song by Aaron Burdette came on the radio and when he sang the line, “I wish I could go back and do it again without the stress…just the happiness,” tears started running down my face. I don’t think...
Go See HUMANS!!!
Get your tickets from the website: ashevillecreativearts.com/mainstage There are those moments in my life that stand out because I was being such a jerk. Abby was about 13 and I was scolding her about something I thought she could do better. She looked at me with...
Go See Humans
Puppets created for the show help tell the story No time today for a normal (abnormal) newsletter today, but I want to update you all on the upcoming opening of Humans at Diana Wortham in Asheville. Here’s the link to get your tickets...
So, Is Lorraine a Hot Tamale?
Find out at 44 Cherry Street Some last minute Easter gifts are here https://ashevillecreativearts.org/mainstage-productions/ Click above for tickets and information for Humans! There has been so much going on in the past few weeks! I have been working hard with Julie...
Adding Cool Stuff to the Collection
One of the new designs by Andrea Freeman of Freeman Clayworks I read a wonderful essay by Anne Lamott yesterday morning on Facebook. She is facing a birthday this month, and as we all do, she is questioning how it is possible that she has reached an advanced age so...
We Are Growing!!
Chifferobe is adding a space at Marquee in Asheville! New delivery of locally handmade wreaths, perfect for Spring with fresh-cut Pussy Willows. It’s finally Spring and it’s time for new growth. And Chifferobe is growing! I am so excited to tell you that we have made...
Romance and Trees Bloom on Cherry Street
The following is the latest chapter of 44 Cherry Street, a fictional story based in Black Mountain. To read earlier chapters of this story, log on to the website, chifferobehomeandgarden.com and click on 44 Cherry Street. To catch you up: Lorraine is a longtime...
A Week from Heck
I need all the cuss word pottery this week Ever have one of those weeks? Well, this week has been horrible, so I feel the need to whine. First thing that happened was me versus the internet. The internet won. I was trying to pay a bill for a foolish purchase we made...
A Dancing Fool!
The only image of me in Mexico. That's what happens when I am the one who takes all the pictures! You know how the minute you say something like, “Spring has arrived!” the weather changes and snow is once again in the forecast? Well that is just what has happened....
Bells Are Ringing…Somewhere
This is for real! The weather is warmer and Abby's chickens are busy laying. Come in and get a dozen fresh, organic free range beauties, just $5 Mac was ready to leave Black Mt. Pres. He believed he had come up empty this time. There was no hen here in this henhouse...
New Face on Cherry Street
44 Cherry Street: Fiction Mac Buchanan sat in the last pew at Black Mountain Pres looking beatific. He was ostensibly moved by the sermon by the pastor, Mary Katherine Robinson, but he had his mind occupied by other things. Mac had the chiseled features of a...
Passing Along My Bad Traits
There are things you want to pass along to your children, and things you do not. My list of things I wish to pass on: my love of reading, my high energy, my cooking skills. That’s about it. The list of traits I really hope I have not passed along takes off from there...
Spill it, Sister!
What's up at 44 Cherry Street? Last week when I asked Lorraine about Frederick, she burst into tears and told me between sobs that he was gone! “Gone???” I asked. “What in the world happened?” Grandpa Ron and Max She was crying hard and couldn’t speak, so I offered to...
Checking in with Lorraine at 44 Cherry
Someone who reads my newsletter wrote to ask me what was going on with the gang at 44 Cherry Street. As this has been a busy time, I didn’t know, so I walked up Cherry Street and opened the gate that leads to the front walk and the steps up to the front porch. I...
These are my heroes!
We are sometimes faced with hard choices. At that crossroads we must decide to go left and face demons or go right and possibly escape harm. I want to celebrate in this post people I know who have gone left and knowingly encountered more pain than I can imagine, but...
Jim Cantore at the airport? Surely it will snow!
You will need these Polar Bear Bowls and dinner plates for the chili you make this weekend. Mid-January is a strange, unpredictable time of year. Right now we are all freaking out because there is a possibility of snow late Saturday night. I just received an automated...
Where will this portal lead us?
Wood sculpture of a noisy crow, $150 The first thing I read this morning was an excerpt from an essay by Indian writer Arundhati Roy that a Facebook friend had posted. In “The Pandemic is a Portal” Roy contends that the changes wrought by this now two-year-long...
Annoying People Are Everywhere
My friend Calvin is an earnest young man who has overcome many obstacles, but, who, in his mid-twenties is still trying to figure things out. I met him when he lived in a group home in Black Mountain. When he lived here, he impressed me with his drive to succeed. He...
Best Books of the Year
According to me!! Sheila Martin's Cranes The books on my Best Books Of 2021 list are not necessarily books that came out this year, but just those I read this year. Keep in mind too that I have a terrible memory, and forget most books the minute I finish reading them,...
The Year’s Best TV Show, Chosen by me!
More new cups by Andrea Freeman! At this time of year many people are posting their favorites of 2021, and I planned to reveal my favorite television shows of the year in this post. As I thought about it, though, I realized that most of what Ron and I watch on...
Happy Holidays?
Tiny blue bird by Sheila Martin will make everyone happy!! I love the Christmas season and wish we could stretch it out longer. I love the lights in people’s yards and the glimpse of a Christmas tree all lit up in the window. Friends line the rooms of their homes with...
Alexa is Spunkier than You Think
I play music in the shop mainly to lift the mood and to camouflage the voices of shoppers who might be saying unpleasant things about the merchandise in the store. (Things I have overheard: “My five year old could have painted that.” “This shopkeeper sure is proud of...
Full of Gratitude…And Turkey!
Thanks to all of you who took the time to write to me or to stop me in the street to give me advice about how to handle this year’s Holly Jolly. The shop is so full right now, that the thought of so many shoppers crowded in here makes me nervous. And then there is the...
I’m in a Quandary! Please help!
Please help me with this quandary: Holly Jolly is coming up fast and I am not sure how I want to participate. For those who don’t know what this is, Holly Jolly is a Black Mountain tradition that takes place on the first Friday night of December and kicks off the...
Another Crisis!! Just what we need!
My friend Suzie Hughes made this fabulous garland. Isn't it great! Every day we hear about some new shortage. Everyone knows there is a shortage of workers in every field. (Poor Natty has almost 300 reservations for Thanksgiving dinner at Milton’s and hardly any help...
Turning Red, Green, and Gold
Some of the handmade ornaments at Chifferobe On Monday, my day off, I drove over to Sloane Simmons’s pottery studio to pick up more of her fabulous cuss-word pieces. It was a gorgeous sunny, warmish day which felt like late summer, but it was also the day after...
Hours
Every Day
10:30am - 5pm
Location
132 Cherry St
Black Mountain, NC 28711
Phone
(828) 669-2743