Tag: dogs

Tiny Tuesday!

Yesterday morning I stepped outside just after daybreak and looked toward the tall trees on the other side of our back fence. First, I noticed the dance of tiny hummingbirds in and out of the top branches. Then I saw one of my favorite sites: a tiny sliver of the moon. This one’s a waning crescent moon, which makes me think of fall (a welcome prospect).

I mentally began composing a poem to that moon, but when I came inside, there were dogs to feed, meds to be given and taken, and the busy-ness of the day at hand. By late afternoon today, hopefully I can remember my thoughts from yesterday morning and get that poem on paper. If not, maybe I have a moon collection of magnetic poetry to dip into.

ETA: Though I wished him a happy one in messages, today’s Jim’s birthday, and I will always happily celebrate him. I love you, Jim! ❤️

Mission: Accomplished

Examples of what I was working with.


Lots of rust stains and tears in the white fabric.

Smaller squares pulled apart and fraying, many with rips in the fabric.

First step was to sew down the 38 squares I’d cut to cover the white.

I counted around 50 small squares that needed tears mended and to be resewn together. I also sewed seams around the edges of the quilt to stop any more fraying on the border, and mended a lot of tears on the border and on the quilt back.

Finished repairs last night!

Ironed it this morning and put it back on the sofa. Hopefully, the dogs are old enough now that they’ll use it for sleeping and not in games of destruction. No one’s on the sofa now because they’re too keyed up after a couple of hours of plumbers in the backyard.

This chewed up spool that’s in one of my thread boxes is from my dog Hamlet, who was with me from 1978 to 1985. I won’t be the one who throws it away.

Tiny Tuesday!

I’ve been working on the dog quilt today while I listened to my Jimmy Buffett iTunes collection after a bit of errand running and bill paying. I think I began trying to repair/mend/enhance this quilt around August 18, and with luck, it’ll be finished Wednesday morning. It cracks me up that I’m doing this for a quilt the dogs use so they can get on the office sofa. As much time, energy, and even a little blood that I’ve put into it, you’d think it’s a family heirloom and not some cheap quilt I bought many years ago at Garden Ridge Pottery or a similar store.

While I was thinking about that this afternoon, I remembered a post that showed up in my feed on Instagram the other day.

Some of the answers were wonderful. “My grandfather was a carpenter. I have his hammer!” “I have an old prayer book in ancient Aramaic that belonged to my grandfather.” “I have the lantern used by my great GREAT grandmother when she was a slave. It is cherished by my family and protected.” “I have my grandmother’s bread board and sugar spoon I use daily.” At last look, there were 3,890 answers (I didn’t read them all!).

I do have photographs of all my grandparents, possibly some great-grandparents and other ancestors.

I remembered immediately some things I have from my paternal grandparents.


This bell and slate belonged to my father’s father. The ring, which isn’t gold, maybe another metal dipped in brass, was in a trunk that belonged to my father’s mother and held some of her things. That grandmother died when my father was around 19, so we never knew her. But when my grandfather died in the mid-1960s, the trunk was given to my sister. She still has it and some of the things that were in it. Maybe because I didn’t get a trunk, she let me take the ring.

My mother was the youngest of twelve children. Her mother died when my brother was two, and her father died when David was ten, Debby was seven, and I was two. We lived in Colorado then, and she couldn’t afford to go home to her father’s funeral (Debby remembers this broke Mother’s heart). Mother would have been twelfth in line and possibly not even present to get many mementos of things that had belonged to her parents. I think David and Debby may have some dishes, but I can’t be sure of that.

When I took pictures of the above items today, I racked my brain for anything I might have that had belonged to my maternal grandparents. I began writing this post thinking I had nothing. Maybe my mother nudged me, because I finally remembered that I do, in fact, have something that belonged to her mother.


This is my grandmother’s wooden butter mold. Butter molds were used to shape and mark churned butter before it hardened.


This is the stamp, probably hand-carved, that marked the butter. I know it was my grandmother’s, but it’s possible it was even my great-grandmother’s, as these molds began being used in the U.S. in the nineteenth century. I’m so glad I remembered it was in a glass-front cabinet in my dining room.

Do you have anything that belonged to your grandparents or great-grandparents?

By the way, all those items were photographed on that dog quilt. =)

Saturday stuff


Today I spent time outside with the dogs and got rid of a couple of dead plants. We got them through winter, but the drought finally took them. 🙁


While I was watching the next-to-last season of “Suits,” I started working on patching the dog quilt that’s so tattered. (Happy International Dog Day!) There’s a white rectangle, stained with rust stains probably from what it was stored with when we flooded, I don’t know, as well as having worn and torn spots. I’m going to cover that entire white rectangle with plaids and prints. I estimate it will take around 36 new squares to cover it. I got the four corners done today (three squares each), so that leaves 24 more to sew on.


Here’s a green plaid square that I sewed on today. Jim said he remembers when this fabric used to be a pair of my PJ pants. I keep fabric like this to use for doll clothes, but it’s coming in handy for this quilt restoration.

After the white rectangle is covered, I’ll begin repairing the squares on the rest of the quilt that are no longer stitched down, or are frayed and may need replacing.

The final season, of “Suits” is not on Netflix. Fortunately, it’s on another streaming service that Tom subscribes to, so I should be able to finish it. No big deal.

When I ran out of episodes and took breaks from quilt repair, I continued to re-read the sixth book in the Neverending Saga. And I realized I missed a huge opportunity to write a good chapter. So… guess I’ll be editing it more than I expected. Which is cool. Mercury retrograde is a great time to finish it and not a great time to start writing the seventh.

one of the best hounds of them all

Tim posted this to his Instagram account today.


My comment:

I thought I’d share a few of those photos. I know how many of you have lost your own best companions. It’s a sad group to be part of, but the endings can never be as powerful as the time we get to share with our beloved dogs, cats, and other animal friends.

Pixie, Christmas 2011

Continue reading “one of the best hounds of them all”

Tiny Tuesday!

Today was a day of being close with friends when we said a hard goodbye. Not my place to share this publicly yet, but I wanted to mark the date.

Interestingly, a winged visitor joined us in the early evening as we sat outside (a rare opportunity this summer; shade and a breeze made it possible). I had hoped that distant cry heralded an arrival, and then a very large crow landed in the tallest tree just outside the back of our property. Some say crows are bad omens. Not to me. I think they bring a little magic and sometimes a message. I felt like he confirmed my choice to begin the next book with my “crow” character.

I want to do more thinking and reflecting–timely, as Mercury goes retrograde mid-afternoon tomorrow (thanks, Pat!). For me, Mercury retrograde provides an opportunity to pause. It also reminds me to make sure my actions are aligned with my intentions. Of course, any of us can do this any time. Mercury just makes me mindful of it.

Adding a couple of tiny reminders of a love that made me laugh.

Fire and rain

I’m determined not to obsessively check weather updates over the next few days, but it’s hard. Hurricane Hilary seems pretty nasty and could bring flooding along the south Pacific coast and also to several western states that normally don’t deal with this kind of weather event. It could also exacerbate the excessive heat the southwest and midwest are experiencing, AND ultimately contribute to the wildfire issues the northwest coast is grappling with. We’ve just seen how hurricane-spawned winds can impact an area as it did with Hawaii.

Since I’m still not ready to jump into writing the seventh book of the Neverending Saga, I’m continuing my binge watching of “Suits.” I spent a goodly portion of my adult life working with and for attorneys in many settings: family and probate, corporate, environmental, commercial real estate, and financial. Still, I can’t say how accurate “Suits” is in matters of law–I’m watching for the characters, narrative arcs, and witty banter. It’s been a good diversion throughout August.

Watching television always comes with a sense of guilt for me. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because many years of my adult life were spent without even owning a TV. I was never one of those people who turns on a TV as soon as I got home or woke up or settled down for the night. I watched sitcoms in the Nineties so I could join in “water cooler” conversations at work. I’ve rarely been able to adhere to a weekly schedule to watch shows, so streaming services are ideal for me. There are some shows Tom and I have watched together in the evenings. “Downton Abbey,” “Yellowstone,” “The Crown,” and “Bridgerton” come to mind in most recent years, and also a few comedy series, but even with all those, I tend to watch them either when the entire series has completed or at least when a season is complete. In years past, I did that with “Absolutely Fabulous,” “Sex and the City,” and “West Wing.”

Maybe to offset guilt, when I’m watching shows solo, I often multitask by doing something creative at the same time. This morning, I washed a quilt we throw over the sofa in the office and call “the dog quilt,” since it’s mostly to protect the sofa from the dogs. It has lots of worn places and dog-gnawed places, so I’ve brought out the plaid and patterned cotton fabric to begin cutting squares to start patching those spots today while I watch “Suits.”

The mending doesn’t have to be pretty–the dogs won’t care. This will give the quilt a few more years of use, which is better than letting it end up in a landfill.

In the season of “Suits” I’m watching now, a new character showed up and I kept wondering why I immediately liked him and felt like I knew him. Finally I looked him up and realized the actor, Dulé Hill, played Charlie Young on “West Wing” and was one of my favorite characters.

Another character showed up played by an actor who isn’t familiar to me, Scott Lawrence. I looked him up, and he’s been in lots of movies and TV shows, some of which I’m familiar with but never watched.

In researching him, I discovered that a LOT of people think this actor could portray Barack Obama. I see the similarities, but to me, he looks more like one of my Action Figure Obamas–this one:

That’s the 2007 candidate Obama manufactured by Jailbreak Toys®. I prefer the 2018 Factry© President Obama (also manufactured and distributed by Jailbreak Toys®). His hair, like many presidents, shows how the responsibilities and gravity of the office aged him.

Enough playing around. Tom just brought me the clean, dry, folded quilt. Time to start cutting fabric then sewing to the accompaniment of characters who can give me a refreshing break from the ones who live in my head without paying me a dime, despite the wealth several of them enjoy.

A day of baseball

Photos from my Wednesday, when I was the guest, along with Lindsey and Rhonda, of Lindsey’s father at an Astros baseball game! (Tom went with them to a game a long time ago, and it was my turn this time.)

I’ll start with some souvenirs.


Another cup! Doesn’t say “Minute Maid Park,” but it does say Astros!


Lindsey bought a couple of these little hats that were then filled with ice cream. She and her dad shared one, and I took a couple of spoonfuls from Rhonda’s, and then she gave me her hat after she finished her ice cream. I took the second photo with an official league-sized baseball to show its scale.


Took this one of Astros number 30 player, right fielder Kyle Tucker, at bat.


Yesterday, every fan at the game received a free replica Kyle Tucker 2022 World Champions ring.


Back at RubinSmo Manor after the game, Pepper stopped playing for a few seconds to admire it.


While foster cat Tofu hung out next to me taking it all in.


This isn’t my ticket; our tickets were on Lindsey’s dad’s phone. It was likely the ticket of one of several guys sitting in our row. We were seated in front of the press box, and at the end of the seventh inning stretch, members of the media tossed bags of peanuts into our area. Rhonda just missed snagging a bag when a guy taller than us grabbed it. At the end of the game, he turned to me and said, “I feel like I stole these peanuts from y’all,” and gave me the bag, which I in turn gave to Rhonda, whereupon Lindsey’s dad said, “Give them to Tom since he couldn’t come to the game!” That’s exactly what Rhonda did when Tom came to pick me up at their place later. Thank you, stranger, for the peanuts and maybe the ticket. More good baseball vibes.


This little fan sat in front of us with her grandparents and mother and was SO good the entire game.

These are some photos Lindsey took of the day.

Going to what in the pandemic would be called a “super spreader event” was something I did because I was almost always masked, Lindsey and Rhonda were masked as well in highly trafficked areas and inside our Uber rides, and all my companions were considerate of my concerns and in helping me be comfortable. Lindsey and Rhonda invited me to join them at this game around the beginning of July. They knew I’d planned to go to a baseball game (albeit in Chicago to see the Cubs play) with Lynne in 2020 before the pandemic put an end to all travel plans.

Like people all over the world, I was bummed that all the things I intended to do in 2020 never came to be, plus I lost my job, and of course, since then, I’ve had to face the fact that chronic anxiety became part of the new pandemic/post-pandemic me. There are several reasons I’m not able to travel these days, only minimally related to my health, and my family and friends outside of Houston are understanding about that. The way friends like Lindsey, Rhonda, Lynne, and Amy, and family like Tom, Tim, and Debby, help me navigate and adjust to how to “do” life, going places and seeing people in ways that make that easier, gives me a quality of life I wouldn’t have without them.

Once again, as I described in yesterday’s post, baseball has come to have wonderful associations for me. I’ve woven my new respect for the game into the lives of a couple of my characters in the work in progress, and “Papa Smo,” as Lindsey and Rhonda call Lindsey’s dad, told me great baseball trivia during the game in the name of “research.” Lynne, who has been a huge baseball fan her whole life, is glad to have me come on board and like Lindsey, Rhonda, and Tom, is always happy to help me understand the game better.

These are great memories that will carry me through the coming days when I monitor my health for any signs of Covid exposure because while, as they say, “the pandemic is over,” the virus hasn’t gone away and is having a bit of a summer resurgence, though fortunately most people are not as sick, or not getting as sick (thanks to their immunity from either having had Covid or because of vaccinations) or being hospitalized as much. This, too, is just part of anxiety and something I work to manage. Such realities are one reason writing and creating and having interactions via this blog and my Instagram account are so helpful to me. Thank you for reading here and commenting or emailing about posts; you all lift my spirits.

Saturday summary


An attempt to order new glasses didn’t work earlier this week (though I did pick up other stuff I needed or wanted), but today, I had greater success! Hopefully will have new glasses in about a week, and the headaches I get after I read and edit on or off the computer will go away. I’ve downloaded a couple of ebooks I’m looking forward to reading at some point.

It’s weird to realize I haven’t worn eye makeup since the beginning of June. I haven’t driven at night in more months than I can remember. I haven’t driven myself in any direction too far from our neighborhood since surgery, probably a half-dozen times. Debby doesn’t drive, so Tom and Tim have picked up slack, and Tim has been without a car twice during that time.


Requires a lot of logistics, especially since all the dogs except Pixie have needed varying degrees of vet care (even if just annual checkups) or grooming services. And Debby, Tom, and I have all had routine doctor appointments in addition to all my eye appointments.

Finished editing and printing the third book in the saga, and am well along in the same process for the fourth. While all that’s happening, my brain is busy looking forward to writing the seventh book.

Eva says your glasses size can match your courage or your face. Guess which she chose…