Is Wednesday really a day…

…when one can get over a hump? Time will tell.

The “Be Positive” coloring and writing journal that Lynne gave me–May of 22?–that I use for coloring and speculating about what I’m writing or should be writing and the inspirations and challenges involved. Today, after I wrote next to the page I’d colored, I closed the book and laughed at that name…be positive. Gotta say what I wrote today in the journal is maybe one of the least positive things I think/feel. The words I almost never say out loud because they would likely be misunderstood or else prompt advice or guidance that I’m not looking for. That’s not my Aries resistance to being directed or told what to do. It’s only that this Aries knows herself–myself–too well to pretend I’m looking for answers from outside when the answers within have been hard won.

On the other hand, the drawing I colored is pretty and untroubled.

Plus I have written today, and every bit of writing nourishes the Muse who in turn nourishes my creative drive.

While writing, I listened to really good music all the way around, meaning of course, music I like/enjoy/admire/feel.

Kicked off with Brighter: A Duncan Sheik Collection from Duncan Sheik, and great liner notes from James Hunter (from Rolling Stone magazine). Certain parts of Hunter’s notes resonate with me, and the music is good to listen to, write to, think to.

Tom and I were on a road trip many years ago when we stopped somewhere and bought a bunch of CDs so we could hear music we didn’t know, and that’s when we got Shinedown’s The Sound of Madness. I used to hear it a lot because I uploaded it to my iTunes library, but after my main iTunes computer stopped working early in the pandemic, the only songs that will play on my iTunes are ones I’ve actually purchased from Apple. We still need to either get that Mac fixed or figure out what we can grab from its backup drive. That task has been “on the list” since the world reopened in 2021.

Finally, The Best of Simon & Garfunkel. No explanation needed, right? WAY BACK when I was given my first record player, a Simon & Garfunkel album was one of the first three I received, probably for a birthday. They never get old, and their song “The Boxer” still does battle with Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” as my favorite song of all time. There’s a nod to the duo in the first novel in the Neverending Saga.


Shared before but always happy to show Becky’s First Record Player. There were times it felt like the only thing teenage Becky could count on. In the current novel in progress, a character has just received her first record player and a collection of 45s. Lucky little nine-year-old. I was a few years older when I got mine.

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.

Incremental progress…

…is still progress. When it comes to writing, I’ll take it. I have a first chapter draft finally, after several false starts. This has been my accompaniment.


Lou Reed, New York and Walk On The Wild Side, The Best of Lou Reed.


And this two-song “CD Single” of The Rembrandts. The back side might remind you who they are if you were alive in the Nineties and have forgotten.


Yup, the theme song from the TV show “Friends,” or “I’ll Be There For You.” I think I got this to use on a video we made for the place I worked from ’92 to ’96. Memories…

Then I moved on to these.

R.E.M.: Murmur; Out Of Time; Automatic For The People; and Monster.

There’ll be more R.E.M. to come before I continue in the “R” section of my CD binders. None of this music has been really connected to what I’m writing (except that this novel does begin with a sort of who’s who among a group of friends, I guess).

Different time, completely different kind of music. That’s fine. I’m a little partial to “Nightswimming” from Automatic For The People because if I recall correctly, Timothy referenced it in Three Fortunes in One Cookie. THERE’S a blast from the past.

all things must pass

George Harrison died on November 29, 2001. Today, I’ve chosen to listen to all of his songs from my CD version of his 1970 album All Things Must Pass. The three-disk album Riley gave me all those years ago when it was released was drowned in our Harvey flood; I replaced it quickly because not to have this collection from my “favorite” Beatle was unthinkable.

I got the 50th Anniversary vinyl when it was released in 2021, and I’ve never removed its shrink wrap. For some reason, I want it to remain intact. Maybe I’m sure that one day, a copy of the original will come back into my life. I don’t know. Whatever format it’s in, these remain some of the most meaningful, sometimes haunting, songs of my life.

I have the CD version of the 50th Anniversary recordings, too.

I miss George Harrison. I miss Riley.

Someone’s in the kitchen

Today, my MacBook came home to me (cha-ching!), but I feel like I’ve been in the kitchen since yesterday, and I’m just now getting the Mac back in business.

Here’s a recap.

Lynne got here Tuesday afternoon for a visit until Saturday. She’s spending Thanksgiving day with her kids/grandkids from the other side of their family on Thursday, so we’ll have the Houndstooth Hall Thanksgiving dinner with her on Friday, which will also be her early birthday celebration. =)

The dinner I prepared for Tuesday night was a hearty homemade soup that simmered most of the day to go with cornbread.

One of the chapters I wrote in the sixth book of the Neverending Saga has two characters sharing a lot of confidences while they have a pre-Christmas baking day together. Maybe that’s what made Lynne and me decide to have a full-on baking day like we haven’t had in a long time. Tuesday night, while I took on dog watching/feeding duty, she and Tom went to the grocery store to get all the supplies I didn’t have or she hadn’t brought with her. After they got back, she and I began shelling pecans from her friend’s pecan trees.

Today, Tom worked from home, so as soon as I got up, I put together Jim’s delicious egg casserole for breakfast and added fresh cut fruit on the side.

After breakfast, the real work began. While Tom worked in the home office, Lynne and I shelled more pecans, enough to use for rum balls, bourbon balls, and KahlĂșa balls. This was our first venture into KahlĂșa balls. They all taste very good. =)

While I was rolling out the rum, etc. balls, Lynne made two servings of crack dip, one for the Hall and one to take with her tomorrow. It’s basic: cream cheese, chopped green onions, chopped pastrami, and dry Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix blended together. No one knows why it’s so addictive. It just is.

I grated enough cheese for two batches of sausage cheese balls. These are also highly addictive. We both rolled them out, and now there’s one container for the Hall and one she’ll take tomorrow.

Oh! I forgot she also made a gazillion deviled eggs. One to take with her with sweet pickles, and one for the Hall with dill pickles.

Stacked here in the fridge, our deviled eggs on the bottom left, and above that, her many containers of sausage and cheese balls and deviled eggs that will go with her. I can’t remember what’s in the dish middle/top, but those are the Hall’s sausage balls under it, and on the right, that’s the turkey thawing for Friday’s meal.

Okay, it was driving me crazy. That Corning Ware bowl contains leftover chicken I chopped for us to use to make chicken salad sandwiches when we all ate lunches at different times. We also still have leftover soup and cornbread. So probably no cooking until Friday. (I’m sure there’ll be photos of that, too–can you tell Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday?)

We haven’t had these in so long, and in the ’70s and ’80s, they were a constant treat: a brownie recipe created by Lynne’s Uncle Austin, and they will melt in your mouth.

Another one of Lynne’s specialties is chocolate chip cookies, and she made a batch for us and a batch to take with her tomorrow, and I don’t seem to have a photo of those.

Finally, I grated (in the food processor) enough cheese/baking mix/margarine mixture to make three batches of cheese straws, which we halved–one for the Hall, one for her to take tomorrow. Lynne and Tom, who was by then off of work, rolled them into doughs and seasoned them with red pepper (hotter for Lynne’s batch, a little milder for ours, because I don’t like too much heat). Because the batches contained a variety of cheese brands and margarines (usually, I use butter, but the actual recipe from Lynne’s sister calls for margarine, so we did that this time), they were different colors and textures. They all taste great, though!

We put in about a dozen hours of kitchen time, and while Lynne handles most of the baking, I handle most of the clean-up. It’s a good thing I actually like washing dishes, because there were a lot of bowls and pans used, washed, and reused throughout the day. Even the dogs are worn out; I can hear them snoring all over the Hall. It’s about to be lights out for me, too. A good day hopefully gives me a good night’s sleep.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

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.

Now and then

Love the newly released Beatles song and video “Now and Then” as well as the video of how it came to be made partially thanks to new technology that Peter Jackson worked with when he updated the Let It Be movie with his The Beatles: Get Back film. Tom was kind enough to watch that with me last year (has it been that long?), putting up with my bouts of tears and occasional commentary during, as well as prolonged reminiscing afterward.

It’s been fun sharing online comments about the new song with a few people who are either musicians or love music, in general, and love the Beatles in particular. The Beatles weren’t around for my whole life, but I was around for their many incarnations. It’s truly a gift from those Liverpool lads to have them visually and musically provide the world another song. We can thank Yoko for sharing the tapes for the two songs with all four Beatles released in the 1990s, then to her and Peter Jackson for this third one.

Good job, Paul and Ringo and, posthumously, John and George. Beatles4ever still sounds true–and the love you made is still felt around the world.

Runner up

I had a post planned for today, and when I ran errands, I was even in a location where I could have gotten what I needed to complete the post. AND I FORGOT. It’s because I was happy about something I unexpectedly found there and let myself get distracted.

However, I picked up some fabric, too, because even though the writing will now move forward on the Neverending Saga, I always want a “thinking” activity between bouts of writing. Sometimes it’s coloring or painting, sometimes it’s writing other things (songs or poetry), and sometimes, like with the quilt mending I completed earlier this month, it can be sewing.


I already had some prints I wanted to use to make shirts and other apparel for Mattel Ken etc. dolls that I thought could work for the decade I’ve been writing.

Since not all my characters are groovy or trendy, I also picked up some solid cottons today for other shirts. These will all need to be washed and ironed before I can use them.

I cut out the first shirt, determined to follow the instructions, because back when I was sewing a lot, shirts were often a challenge (shown here: the fabric I chose, shirt front panels and collar, shirt back with yoke, and sleeves with cuffs).


Isn’t it ironic? Ken looks like the iron is holding him up (in a criminal way). But really, the wee ironing board I borrowed from Tim is doing that (in a helping him stand way). The shirt back is done, the collar’s attached, and now I need to sew in the sleeves and add their cuffs, finish the front, hem everything, and sew on snaps and (decorative) buttons. Tomorrow’s soon enough for all that.


This doll really does represent one of the characters in the saga. Not one of my favorites, but an important part of the story nonetheless. Playing with dolls: fueling my imagination since I was nine years old.

ETA: Here’s the finished shirt.