A bit of Thursday

The good stuff: Tom worked a half-day so that he and I could go into the old ‘hood to see our friend Larry and get haircuts. Spending time with Larry is always fun and full of conversations about a random range of topics. Somewhere in the middle of it, he dropped the information that his partner has for years been a collector of Barbies. I had no idea. It sounds like the collection is one I’d be likely to drool over, so I hope to see at least some of it one day and promise not to drool on anything.

Afterward, we picked up dinner-to-go from one of our favorite restaurants and were home in time to feed the very aggrieved dogs who were sure they’d been abandoned (as if Debby isn’t here for them when needed).

The eh stuff: Not a lot of writing got done, but while I thought about writing, I did some coloring. It’s unfinished, and at some point, I got very frustrated with the pens I was using and slapped on a bunch of star stickers to cover up some of the coloring that displeased me. I don’t like that either. I’ll take a couple of days away from that activity before I decide what to do to fix it.

In any case, even that ended the day on a much higher note than how I started it, dealing with the frustrations of canceling a website I’m tired of overpaying for and no longer using. Technology…. I understand exactly how this woman feels.


Photo © My Computer Works®

Brunch

Tom and I had a great time cooking, eating, and socializing today with Rhonda, Lindsey, and Timothy. (Debby wasn’t able to join, so Jack and even Delta hung out with her and Stewie for a bit, and we sent her a plate of goodies and dessert.) Lots of cooking happened, like some Millennium Falcon waffles from Tom.

Pretty sure Pepper was hoping for a handout.

We also had pancakes from Rhonda and a quiche from Lindsey. I baked Jim’s popular egg casserole, and we had lots of fresh fruit and bacon. It was good to be together and catch up, because it’s been way too long.

Also, we were celebrating Lindsey’s birthday, so of course there was cake!

She got the unicorn decoration to keep. I didn’t want any chocolate frosting staining those hooves, and if you’ve been around a while, you might recognize the unicorn’s “platform” from several stories about the lime slice coasters through the years.

Happy Caturday!


I don’t have cats, but in solidarity with those who do, I thought I’d dedicate part of today’s post to cats. Mainly because Debby gave me this cool Haunted Cat Tarot deck for Christmas. Any particular card you’d like to see?

When I took her to an appointment earlier in the week, I took this coloring book with me.

I’d already torn a page out of it at some point, and I decided to color that one. But I wasn’t sure how to color it, so I looked up various wild cats and found this one to inspire me.

Here’s how it turned out.

What I do have is dogs. The other day, after a frantic round of digging, which she isn’t supposed to do, Delta apparently found somebody’s last marble.

It’s all cleaned up and put with the other marbles now.


Meanwhile, Anime had dental surgery yesterday morning, and she’s had a miserable two days. She started drinking water again sometime around noon today, and this evening, she took some meatballs (canned dog food rolled around her regular meds and her pain med). She’s finally stopped dripping blood from her mouth and is overall a lot more comfortable tonight. Through it all, she’s been very sweet and stoic, so clearly it wasn’t her last marble Delta found.


The tree has been stripped and all the ornaments and decorations have been put away.

Except we have to find the bin that has the box that my vintage Holt Howard angel goes in. Meanwhile, I posed her with an appropriate old Southern novel that I haven’t read in decades and probably should read again.

Sometimes when I get really busy, I forget to eat. When tonight’s light meal of a BLT, half an apple, and some potato chips seemed ridiculously good, it occurred to me that I’d only eaten yogurt with the water and coffee I drank today. It was a good sandwich, though.

random hump day post

Managing a day when Mercury goes into retrograde…

When I woke up and was about to take a shower, I noticed for who-knows-how-many times that a button was missing off my pajama pants. (I have a tendency to call procrastination “don’t sweat the small stuff.”) This time, I did something about it before my shower.

I found this coloring book recently, and as it was within my sight, I looked through it.

Most of the pages are pretty detailed, and this one appealed to me. It makes me think of my fictional Texas town, Coventry.

Then I was all NO! You need to get ready to write. So I grabbed the yellow book that has all the notes for the first chapters of the seventh book. And that’s the CD I ordered and will be listening to next of various artists performing John Prine’s songs.

I had to make a decision. Start writing, in which I would get lost for the day and into the night, or do some of the holiday things that need to be done soon (mostly mailing things out).

I spent a few hours in the kitchen pre-cooking tonight’s dinner and prepping the dough for cheese straws, some of which will be shipped.

Little dough balls for the cheese straws for Tom later to season with pepper and form into larger dough balls for pressing through the cookie presser.

They look like this pre-baked.

And then like this.

Sometime during the day I ran a shopping errand and an impulse item I grabbed was this little metal tray.

So that I could make the dining room table more festive and NOT a catchall place for the stuff I’m trying to get done.

I filled the tray with unshelled pecans, and I usually put those with Hersheys Miniatures as a snack for anyone who’ll sit with me and shell pecans. Since I had no Miniatures, I dropped in Kisses. (Shelling pecans is a zen activity in that it relaxes me and makes me reminisce about good times when I was growing up.)

There are picks and nutcrackers in that cup. That beautiful maple bowl is one made by Tom’s father and gifted to us. The table runner is a gift from Lynne (the reverse side has a fall theme).


Added an older dish to the other end of the table.

For the time being, it has the favorite candies of Tom, Tim, and Debby in it. This will change at Christmas.

Throughout the day, I worked on addressing Christmas cards. I’ve been sending them out in groups every other day. Now I have a few more and a package ready to go out, as well as contents for seven packages that I’ll box and ship tomorrow.

And…no writing got done, but a lot of other things did, and we had a good home-cooked meal, so it was time well spent.

Button Sunday

Today is National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day. I’m not sure I’ve ever known anyone who eats anchovies on pizza. They were part of an ex-boyfriend’s homemade Caesar salad dressing, and they didn’t bother me, so it wasn’t anchovies that broke us up. =)

What’s your favorite pizza AND do you feel passionate enough about no pineapple on pizza to wonder why there’s not a National Pizza with the Works Except Pineapple Day? (For all I know, there could be.)

Today is my nephew Daniel’s birthday, and if he were here, I’d make him any kind of pizza he wanted. EVEN if he wanted anchovies or pineapple. Happy birthday, Daniel!

Button Sunday

Today is National Chinese Takeout Day.


This button available on Redbubble.

Here are a few takeout/restaurant buttons (most from my personal collection).


Vintage Burger King button.


Vintage McDonald’s button.


Popcorn used to be my takeout snack from Target, but they don’t have machines anymore.


I don’t remember what restaurant advertised with this button or campaign. Maybe Lynne does. Same applies to this one. Maybe the Omelet Shoppe?


Vintage Arby’s button. Ironic, since I never ate their roast beef sandwiches.


Guessing somebody grabbed this button for me back when the peach shake was introduced by Chick-fil-A in 1995.


Vintage button from Morrison’s Cafeteria chain, which originated in Alabama, expanded throughout the Southeast, and now is closed down. Though I eventually overcame a childhood fear of cafeterias and ate at Morrison’s, Picadilly, and Luby’s, these days meals I don’t cook are only takeout, not dine-out, for me. And the single item that still comes home to me on a regular basis is liquid…

Do you have a favorite kind of takeout or a favorite Chinese takeout menu item? My default is cashew chicken, though I’ve been known to choose sweet and sour chicken, too.

Button Sunday


October 22 is National Nut Day, created to encourage healthier snack options.


My favorites are pecans, cashews, walnuts, almonds, and pistachios. Other than in peanut butter, I like peanuts best when I can eat them roasted from the shell. My college roommate used to bring back bags of peanuts after a weekend working in her parents’ grocery store and roast them for us as a snack to eat throughout the week. As a kid, I liked boiled peanuts (a snack discovered by a Yankee character traveling through the South in the Neverending Saga). I probably still would like them, but since I no longer drive rural Southern roads, I don’t get opportunities to buy them.

Showing support for the home team in tonight’s game by eating a few of these later.

What are your favorites?

Watermelon sugar


Today is National Watermelon Day! Lindsey has grown some sprouts from seeds and given a couple to Debby, the plant person of Houndstooth Hall.

Today, I am the RELAX person at Houndstooth Hall, so a bit of watermelon and some cherries fit right in with my plan: drink water and start training my eyes to read with the new bifocals while delving into this 2016 biography of Randy Newman that I’ve had on the shelf since February of ’22.

It’s like my third rendezvous with watermelon this week. This one on Sunday:

And this brunch on either Monday or Tuesday of watermelon, veggies with ranch dip, hummus with pita chips, and walnuts.

I wonder if I can read and listen to Harry Styles at the same time.

MIA characters

The theme from my main go-to-for-info person since surgery is BE PATIENT. Healing takes time, probably longer than I expect.

I explained to Tom and my friendship support team that I think I had to work so hard at mentally preparing myself for surgery (I’ve never had surgery in my life), then the post-op on Tuesday, that a crash was bound to come: fatigue, anxiety, etc. More than a couple of people in my life are on their own challenging health journeys now, all worse than anything I’m experiencing, but like everyone else, I can only attempt to manage the progression, narrative, and outcome of my own life. I need to give myself permission to feel what I feel and deal with it as I can.

Plus I’m always grateful for the good and the miraculous. Today is the due date of one of our nieces; soon we’ll have a new life to celebrate! (ETA to add correction: The due date is JULY 14. We’d been accidentally misinformed.)

I think I did too much yesterday; I put together a good lunch, and I wanted real food cooked at home so I did a full meal at dinner. I was on my feet a lot.

I’ve probably shared the story before of one of my uncles, who was I don’t know how old, much older than I am now, who had a leg amputated. When they took him home from the hospital, he was alone for a bit. When his family members returned, they found him sitting on the floor vacuuming. My mother had a hysterectomy in her early forties, and the day after coming home, she cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner for us all and my brother’s girlfriend who we met for the first time that day (a petite girl who would later marry my brother and eventually give birth to a nine pound, nine ounce baby boy).

That’s the kind of stock I think I have to live up to, and I DON’T. =) So today, I was less ambitious and rested more, and there were lots of good leftovers in the fridge that Tom could use for his meal. I just put together one of my favorite kind of plates.


My simple dinner of half an apple, a few chips, hummus with carrots and celery, and a few slices of salami and pepperoni.

Tom had to run errands on his way home from work tonight and surprised me with my fave snack for later: Target popcorn!

I’m keeping up here, and also keeping up in my day planner, but anything that asks for too much from my eyes doesn’t happen. I so, SO much want to finish this last chapter of Book Six, but no way can I stare at the monitor long enough to write. I miss watching my characters come to life and deliver surprises.

But again: patience.