Tiny Tuesday!


Last year after my birthday, I posted about this small pencil and pen organizer Lindsey gave me for the adult colorer on the go.

I’ve recently reorganized it, maximizing the options with two-ended colored pencils.

And in the very back, in case there’s ever a time when Tom wants to go hang out somewhere (Starbucks? a park?) with me and sketch, the last section has a few goodies for him, too.

Flash and trash

Some days in rescue are harder than others, and yesterday and today were tough ones. I won’t go into detail because I don’t want to break hearts plus I have shed enough tears myself.

While I worked my job today, I also sporadically colored to give myself a space to breathe and escape to the world inside my imagination, where there are characters who have accompanied me for decades. I’d started coloring something last month because it reminded me of dialogue from a fictional, fated meeting that I once wrote and sometimes mentally revise.

Tom had gone to a baby shower for a friend, so when the magic hour came that I knew there’d be no new email for a while, I dashed out of the house. I don’t ever want to go to the Galleria–I’m not a shopper–but there used to be a certain merchant there who I visited when I was looking for something very specific (specific silver charms, in case I sound mysterious, which I don’t mean to be).

He is not there anymore, and I walked the Galleria looking for someone similar, but the merchandise I saw just made me feel sad. It’s a Kardashian-Trump world, with everything too flashy, too trashy, and not remotely for me.

I came home mostly empty handed and finished this.

I wondered if I should work the phrase more specifically into my dialogue. Then I wondered if it came from some other book or movie or song, so I Googled it.

Ugh. Kanye tweeted it on his one-year anniversary to Kim. It probably isn’t even original to him, but still, you can’t escape the Kardashians ever. I’m staying home from now on with my characters.

Angelic Saturday

It was a true joy to put all these out again. Last year we began the summer sharing a beach vacation with Tom’s side of our family, and many new angels were colored while we waited out Tropical Storm Cindy inside. Then of course, we ended the summer with the floods of Harvey, so I never was able to see any of the new angels displayed until this year. Those, and the ones from old friends, some of you my readers here, and other family members, helped make this Christmas so special. Tom counted seventy angels who have been colored and painted and glittered and accessorized since the early 1990s. I love them all.

THERE ARE STILL MORE BOOKS if you want to email your address to becky@beckycochrane.com. I’m always happy to send an angel for you to color and send back to become part of this band of beauty.

Button Sunday


I’ve had these buttons for quite a while but was waiting for the right time to share them–and as it happened, that magical day falls on a Sunday.

First of all, it’s astonishing that I’m able to get out of Houston for an overnight trip to Austin, probably the Texas city I’m most disposed to like because I have a fondness for college towns, plus it’s the capital where one of the most colorful legislatures imaginable has entertained and appalled the state since the dawn of time. (See: Molly Ivins.)

I was here for the closing event of the Texas Book Festival, a discussion and presentation by Pete Souza. Souza was the Chief Official White House Photographer for President Obama and the Director of the White House Photo Office. He was also an Official White House Photographer for President Reagan.

I’ve featured a few of his photographs on my blog through the years because I was a devoted follower of his White House account on Flickr during President Obama’s eight years in office. I knew I’d miss him acutely after January 2017, but then he showed up on Instagram, where his account became an interesting point/counter point between events and attitudes of the current administration and the previous one. Almost immediately he was lauded for his ability to “throw shade,” a then-unfamiliar term to Souza but one at which he excels.

For almost two years he has provided not only a look back and a unique perspective on the present, but he and his Instagram followers make me feel hopeful about the future. Almost daily, I find myself disgusted, horrified, or ashamed because of this White House–and sadly, a majority of Congress, and Souza’s Instagram account is by turns funny, poignant, and healing.

Those are also the words I’d used to describe his presentation tonight. To be in a filled venue for one night with people who see things much the same way I do was a huge boost to my spirit. And the stories Pete Souza told from his intimate perspective of Barack Obama from his days in the Senate to his two terms in the White House–increased my respect and gratitude for such a leader and his family beyond anything I could have expected. President Obama’s interaction with the American people–whether children, our troops, anguished parents, excited voters–and with other leaders around the world speak so much to his character, grace, and intelligence.

But as Pete Souza has taught me, it’s not enough to look back. It’s not enough to look at current events through any lens but our own hearts and minds. WE MUST VOTE. Amidst all the noise and lies and diversions and ugliness, there is still goodness, still hope, still belief in the real American dream, not the one being distorted beyond recognition under coded language that is part of the worst of us.

Vote, and please vote for the best among us from the best within you.

And while you’re at it, get the new book:

and the first one:

Monte Monday

So back in August in this post, I shared a little bit of something I was doing for Marika’s birthday. I have never met her dog Monte, but I’ve seen pictures of him, and I love his long face. I was paging through several coloring books one night, looking for something to color, and came to a drawing that made me say, “Monte!” It isn’t of course just like Monte, but I used his colors. He’s a good dog who shares a mutual love with Marika that deserves to be celebrated. One day I hope to meet him!

Here’s the finished page. Im glad to hear it’s found its way to Marika and she likes it. Again, happy belated from Houndstooth Hall, Marika!

Day Off

Though it may sound like a lie, I basically haven’t had a day off from my job since 2014. Even on the vacations I’ve taken, my computer is with me. I already work from home, so it doesn’t matter where home is. Have Internet, can work–seven days a week. Recently we hired another person to work with me in records, so there are three of us now. It’s a huge help in taking pressure off of me, and in time, I know I’ll have real days off. For now, we call Wednesdays and Thursdays my days off (even though Thursdays I’m up before dawn getting ready to shoot photos at our transports–but that’s the volunteer part of my work, so I still count it as a day off). ANYWAY, I usually end up working at least part of those days, so what I have right now are blocks of hours off on more days of the week, and that helps!

As a result, I’m beginning to see progress in my to-do list for getting our home back in order. There is light at the end of the tunnel with the recovery, and it’s possible by the end of October, that will be complete, my office and craft room will be fully functional, and life will have some normalcy again. I’m not sure what normalcy is, honestly. But I know that one of the reasons my energy remains depleted, despite the fact that my workload is slowly being divided among three of us, that my home is slowly emerging, and that I fiercely protect my right to sleep undisturbed, is that I have so little creative time. My brain is always teeming with ideas, and I just need periods of uninterrupted time when I’m not exhausted to make those ideas reality.

Last night Tim sent me a link to an old interview with Aerosmith’s guitarist Joe Perry, which I watched first thing this morning, and something he said in that interview was like a sign that I’m on the right track with one of the projects in my brain. The nice thing about this point in my life as a writer is that I genuinely want to write only for my own pleasure. I’ve taken away the pressure of “would this sell,” “would people read this,” “would my editor want this,” and what I want to work on is only for my own satisfaction. So before I fall asleep at night, I give myself time to think of the novel I want to write, working out scenes and exploring my characters’ psyches. Over the past few months, I’ve struggled with how to make one of my weaker characters one who I’m better satisfied with, and an idea has played at the edges of my brain, and the Joe Perry interview gave me a “yes, you are on the right track” moment. Affirmation can come from anywhere, but it’s not surprising that Tim was its catalyst, because even when he doesn’t realize it, he’s always a source of inspiration.

I left the house this morning with a list of errands, one of those being to buy Joe Perry’s memoir, which is a few years old. I was lucky enough to find it, along with Keith Richards’s, which my brother recommended that I read when it came out ten years ago, and now finally I will. Along with those, I bought some art supplies and other things I needed to take care of a couple of dear friends’ birthdays. So though I ended up spending the rest of my “day off” working, I’m set up for more creative activities here at home during my Becky time.

A Toxic Twin, a Glimmer Twin, more books to indulge my crystal love, canvases, sketch books–It’s all good!