Author: Becky

Tiny Tuesday!

When Tom and I took a walk through the neighborhood last week–on Day 6, when we talked to some actual utility workers in person–I found this dart without a point on the ground and picked it up. As far as Googled photos goes, I think this is a safety dart that’s part of a child’s toy set. I’ve tried in vain to develop a poem out of it, but the Muse is silent on the matter.

I even took out my 300 More Writing Prompts book in case it suggested something I could connect to the dart. No luck. However, I responded to the below prompt, a response I’ll keep private. Feel free to use your imagination as to how you’d answer this question for yourself:

You just won $100,000,000 in the lottery, what does your first day being a multi-millionaire look like?

Mindful Monday

When I can’t sleep because my mind is racing too fast over too many things, I think of it as the Hamster Wheel of Insomnia. I know whereof I speak, because I used to lie in the dark and listen to my hamster Dini running on his wheel next to my bed back in the 1980s.

When I was looking for a meme for today, I stumbled over one on The Post, a faculty and staff email newsletter from Niagara University, and it made me laugh. I didn’t expect this particular Eagles song to serve as an example for being mindful.

I’ll try to remember not to let the sound of my brain on its hamster wheel drive me crazy and, you know, take it easy.


Thank you, Jackson Browne, (the late) Glenn Frey, Eagles, and Niagara University for starting my work week with humor. I do hope it’ll be a real work week, because I very much miss my characters and want to lose–or find–myself writing. Also, I’ve said it before, but the titles of all the books in the Neverending Saga are Jackson Browne song titles.

Sunday Sundries


The wind didn’t turn our patio table over. Tom removed the umbrella and put it in the Lean To, then turned over the patio so Beryl wouldn’t flip and possibly break it. We’ll be spending time cleaning up all the different patios and sidewalks over the next week or so. Tom’s work schedule should get back to normal. Houston will hopefully start also being more normal, and OH HOW I HOPE EVERYONE SOON HAS POWER. The temps will be higher in the coming week than they have been.


As for me, I’m still working to manage my anxiety, and along with hopefully getting back to my own characters and world of the imagination, I intend to continue reading Mary Stewart, though not one or more a day as I have been. I’ll try to savor them. I might even finish up with my two absolute favorites (not pictured here) that were in my original Coping Skills Toolbox, meaning I’ve already reread them once since 2020. But they are my favorites, so…

Beryl: Day 7


Sunday, and larger trucks from GMB, the West Virginia company, began pulling into our neighborhood in the morning. We could hear them behind us and all around us. Then we saw this:


Notice that cherry picker on the other side of our back fence? Notice that now-brown tree limb that was tangled in our lines has fallen to the ground and the power lines are beginning to look normal?


Tom dragged that bad boy across the backyard, through the gate, and to the debris pile on our curb.


To keep myself from going crazy hoping and waiting and wishing for electricity, I kept reading my Mary Stewart book.

Finally, our power was restored at around 2:20 PM. I finished my book and, along with Tom, spent the day trying to get our house in some kind of order. The return of electricity comes with a dash of paranoia. Other customers have had power restored over the past few days only to lose it anywhere from two to 24 hours later. It’s hard to feel secure.

In addition, it’s thundering. It’s going to be a while before thunder stops sounding more ominous than normal. To help keep my anxiety in check, other than reading and cleaning, I began updating and revising this website throughout the day. If you’re reading this, you know I’ve tried to add something to all the days. I’ll try to compose a Sunday Sundries post after the fact, along with a Mindful Monday post, and that should give me some record of how this week has been.

Mostly, it’s been a long seven days… Thank you to people from all over the country who’ve texted, messaged, and called us. It really helps to know friends and family are thinking of us and wishing us well. I’ll also be replying to the comments left here while I wasn’t able to be online.

Beryl: Day 6

[Original post on this date: Back in May when we lost power, it was restored on the sixth day. I remember hoping we’d never be without power for six days again.

Be careful what you wish for, right? Because we have no power and it’s just about to become seven days. ]


Another strong contender for a Mary Stewart favorite, this book has so many things I love that I even forced Tom to sit and listen to me elaborate on them. It also has one of the most touching epilogues I’ve ever read in a novel.

A circus in Vienna, a horse with a great backstory, and a strong leading man with a smart, interesting wife. I remember Greg and I once discussing how easy it would be to rewrite this using the Internet in place of the movie reel that kicks things off.

The novel is much more appealing than everyone’s debris piles. Tom and I took a walk around the neighborhood today and he got some photos with his phone that will probably end up on this website one day. His photos are ALSO better than debris piles.

One street over, we saw some power guys from a company in West Virginia that travels throughout the country to help with disaster recovery. When we talked to them, they’d already checked out the tangled tree at our fence line and it was on their list. This is the first contact we’ve had with anyone about repairs. We’re reluctant to feel hopeful, though, because some repair dates in our area are as far out as the nineteenth.

Beryl: Day 5

[Original post on this date: Another day, another thunderstorm. Another day of scared dogs.

Another day of no power. Maybe, they say, they’ll have it down to “only” 80,000 customers without power by Sunday.]

Since I’m posting after the fact, I may have been messing up which Mary Stewart novels I read in what order. It doesn’t matter, really, because the point is, they’re helping regulate my mood and stopping me from constantly fretting over missing my own characters and writing.


The Moon-Spinners is among my favorites. No telling how many times I’ve read it. It was made into a movie with Haley Mills, which I’ve never seen, and I’m quite happy about that because it sounds like a terrible adaptation.

Beryl: Day 4

[Original post on this date. Still no power. A thunderstorm cooled things off a little, but near 7 pm, it’s steamy.]


So much litter from the trees covering the yard. You may not be able to see it, but a falling tree limb was caught on one of the power lines, and Beryl’s winds did a nice job of twisting it up in a second line and then letting it rest on yet more lines. We think that’s the point when we lost power. When that transformer blows, it usually takes out five houses. Originally, that was the case, and most of our neighbors still had power.

But on Tuesday (the second day), wind or rain continued the chaos and our neighbors lost power, too. None of us had any idea when we might get help.

Nice title on today’s comfort read.

I enjoyed it with popcorn. Grateful for a gas oven/stovetop, because I prefer my popcorn made the old-fashioned way in any case.

Beryl: Day 3

[Original post on this date. Remain without power. Will add more to Beryl posts when power is restored.]


Today’s first comfort read from Mary Stewart was Rose Cottage. I’m sure I read this one, though it was like reading it for the first time. There was a sort of twist to it that reminds me of an important plot point in the Neverending Saga. I let the readers know pretty quickly (second novel) what most of the characters don’t know. Mary Stewart saves hers for the very end after teasing the readers with suspense.

Speaking of cottages, I dragged some big tree limbs and a lot of other branches off of Debby’s patio. As a result, she’s starting to make Fairy Cottage look a little more normal.

The daily showers are bringing the temperatures down a little. That’s more helpful than you can imagine unless you’ve experienced Houston in July.


My second comfort read was the Mary Stewart novel that used to be Debby’s favorite (may still be), Touch Not The Cat. A big storm figures into this novel, too. Timely.