Tag: family

Sunday Sundries

The planets aligned last week (literally!). These are some of the things that happened as a result.

I went on a mending spree.

Repaired the decorative top of this soapstone box I featured last Sunday.


This ornament was already damaged when I bought it last December, but the parts were there and just needed to be glued. However, it was so fragile that even though I was able to attach the broken piece, in doing so, part of the front disintegrated in my hands and wasn’t fixable. Solution: glue a couple of gold, flowery sequins in place on the bottom right. Tom said I made a country music guitar fancy.

The first photo I posted in 2024 (i.e., last year) was of this Christmas ornament, which has always been special to me.

When I removed all the ornaments from the tree a few days after posting that photo, it was the only one I dropped. Not only was it broken in several places, so was my heart. I couldn’t throw it away. I had an idea for it and bought what I needed, but somehow it sat waiting over a year for repair and a new way to shine. Finally, last week, I put it all together.


Repaired with glue as best it could be and hanging in its own shadow box, surrounded by glistening snowflakes. Not lost; only changed; still loved.

For several years, I’ve had fifteen wooden, unpainted cigar boxes that once had a purpose they no longer served. I always wondered if I’d eventually do something crafty with them.


Yep. Paint and an old piece of my jewelry repurposed a wooden cigar box into a fairy box filled with goodies for Debby in a late celebration of her February birthday.

 

 

Paint and embellishments (including a star, the one remaining earring of a pair) repurposed a wooden cigar box into a steampunk box filled with goodies for Lindsey in a late celebration of her January birthday.

More craftiness will be shared in the coming days.

Sunday Sundries


I don’t think I’ve ever featured this book on here before, though I see it’s in a shot of a group of journals and other books I took in June of 2021, so it’s been around a while. The Magic of Mindset is a journal, by Johanna Wright, to be written in, so if I had filled in any of the pages (I haven’t), it’s likely what I wrote would be too private to share.


That’s still true with the page I’m featuring, where under the title “Expect Resistance,” a girl meeting a dragon says, “Oh, hi.” The text on the accompanying page says, “RESISTANCE is A NORMAL PART OF THE PROCESS. LIST all of the REASONS WHY IT FEELS impossible TO LET GO OF YOUR OLD MINDSET AND MOVE OUT OF the stuck PLACE.

Those little items on the plate are like small talismans (crystal ball held in cupped palms; a wee dachshund carved of wood; a soapstone container, lid off, to show a variety of tiny stones; a small river rock in the shape of a heart; a sunflower incense burner holding a stick of sandalwood incense) that are either from or reference people, all a part of my history, who at one time or another were a force that could either subdue my voice or inspire and encourage it.

Relationships are complicated, and more than once, I’ve allowed them to block the flow of my creative energy. This time, I want to face that dragon and make a choice truer to myself.

This week’s theme may be arriving organically on each new day.

Sunday Sundries


Photo of a much-loved novel; a gift (the ball with swirly paint) from the person who got me reading Tom Robbins; mushrooms and a butterfly that connect me to the book’s cover; the “magic” star, because there’s always something magical in Tom Robbins’s writing; and that lovely gold book pin because books are magic, too, and will forever link me to the writers who create them and impact my life.

I mentioned how on my recently-joined social media account, I’d been doing a book-cover challenge, posting a photo a day of a book that impacted me, but NO WORDS or EXPLANATIONS. Just the cover. On February 7, I posted the cover of Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins (his first novel from 1971). Yesterday, I found out Tom Robbins died on February 9. I’ve decided to reread all his books in order. I’m not really sure yet what my week’s theme will be, but I arranged those items because they made me feel connected to the novel/its cover/Tom Robbins.

Mindful Monday

Online, I found these “mindfulness” tattoos people have gotten.


mairaegito on Instagram


rachainsworth on Instagram


missmegstattoo on Instagram


matt.holistic_ink on Instagram


tinytattoos_feathertouch on Instagram

Like a couple of these, many tattoos were of words only: “Let Go” “Be In This Moment” “Be Still” “Be Here Now” “Breathe.” Keeping with this week’s theme, even when only words are used, I see them as symbolic reminders to be mindful.


tattoo gift of Rhonda, 2014

My only tattoo is this one for Aaron, to show he continues to be part of me, the nephew I love beyond death and separation. The tattoo reminds me to cherish what I have in the moment: family, pure love, laughter, and unity, and to try not to be overwhelmed by things not of this moment, whether the past or the unknown future.

Sunday Sundries: Time


Just so you know, none of these watches work, and that’s fine. I’m sure most of the ones on the left have a story, but I either don’t know or remember those stories. From left to right on the rolling pin, they are my mother’s Mickey Mouse watch, and four of her “old lady” watches, at least a couple of which likely came from my father. Number six with the blue face has no numbers or hands and is more of a cuff bracelet, so I don’t know if it was ever really a watch.

The next five are my wristwatches. The first is one I bought in NYC at Macy’s when the one to its right (a gift from Tom) stopped working. Why buy a replacement battery when I could get a watch at a famous department store? Timmy went with me and picked it out. Those were my last two new watches before cell phones made them obsolete. The two to the right were my “old lady” watches, I guess, when I taught or worked in the corporate world. And that’s my Mickey Mouse graduate school watch finishing the row.

There’s a symmetry/balance in that row of Mother’s watches and mine.

The three in the shadowbox hang in the writing sanctuary now: the Spiro Agnew watch I got when he was still Nixon’s vice president; my bicentennial watch I received as a gift in 1976 from the woman and her husband who would later become my first mother-in-law (and stepfather-in-law); and my Red Ribbon watch I got in the first half of the 1990s when I was an AIDS caregiver and activist.

On the table, on the right, is a musical-themed brooch that also contains a once-functional watch, and to its left, a pendant watch on a chain (possibly a gift from my first husband? Or maybe Tom? I don’t know!). I once had another beautiful pendant watch given to me by a sweet boyfriend circa the eighth grade. A couple of years later, I had to change clothes before band practice in the women’s restroom at a different school. I set the watch on a sink and forgot it. It was probably less than ten minutes later when I raced back to the restroom, but it had been taken, and no one ever turned it in.

Over the next few days, we’ll see how I address this week’s theme: Time. Maybe I’ll tease you with some excerpts from the Neverending Saga.

I’ve heard it’s not “cool” to like Coldplay, but I always have, so I leave you with their song “Clocks,” the lyrics of which could easily have been written by one of my characters to his muse, his love, his obsession.

The lights go out and I can’t be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought me down upon my knees
Oh, I beg, I beg and plead
Singin’ come out of things unsaid
Shoot an apple off my head
And a trouble that can’t be named
A tiger’s waiting to be tamed, singin’
You are…You are
Confusion that never stops
Closing walls and ticking clocks
Gonna come back and take you home
I could not stop that you now know
Singin’ come out upon my seas
Cursed missed opportunities
Am I a part of the cure
Or am I part of the disease? Singin’
You are…You are…You are
You are…You are…You are
And nothing else compares
Oh, no, nothing else compares
And nothing else compares
You are…You are
Home, home, where I wanted to go
Home, home, where I wanted to go
Home, home, where I wanted to go
Home, home, where I wanted to go

More inspirations

I’m glad I chose inspirations as this week’s theme on my most recent Sunday Sundries post because I feel like doing so has reminded me all week of people I know personally, along with so much music and other art, that have inspired me throughout my life. There’s a lot in the world I’m shutting out right now, or trying to, but I never want to be closed off from what inspires me.

Yesterday, while running a multitude of errands, I needed to go to Michael’s to look for something jewelry-related. They didn’t have it, but I did find something else that made me happy. Pictured are inexpensive, plastic steampunk-style buttons. I don’t need them as buttons and can probably clip off the backs of those that have them. I want them to use in art collages on canvas. This has been an idea that’s percolated for a couple of years after I found a Southwestern artist on Instagram whose work I admired. I shared her stuff with Lynne, and at that point, the two of us began talking about and gathering little items and objects for possible multimedia future projects.

Here, for example, are some smaller charms that I began buying as I found them.

Let me tell you, these things were relatively expensive compared to the buttons. The cost alone made me hesitate to get started without a clear vision. I wanted the chance to experiment without feeling like I’d wasted money.

After I bought the buttons, I came home with steampunk on my mind, set the buttons in front of me, and opened this coloring book. I’m not sure what it is about steampunk design, costume, and art that intrigues me. I don’t believe I’ve ever watched any of the movies or TV shows that I think it’s been used in (with the exception of one episode of “Gilmore Girls”).


Here’s what I colored.

Below are containers with more of the items I’ve accumulated through the years with an eye toward this project, some from Lynne and some from my mother-in-law from her craft supplies.***


These are reproduction vintage papers Debby gave me either for a birthday or Christmas one year. I’d like to find a way to use them, too, in this project.

***An entire section of this post vanished when it was published. I mentioned how Lynne and I have through the years gone antiquing and thrifting, sometimes together, sometimes solo. I used the fun of those times not between two friends in the Neverending Saga, but with a couple doing that as they’re falling in love. Their shared enthusiasm leads them to new people, to gifts they give to each other, as part of the stories they imagine, and on spontaneous adventures.

Storytelling and inspiration

I can’t believe it’s been almost three years since I went to the fantastic Houston indie bookstore Kaboom Books. It may have been where I picked up this Joni Mitchell book.

Long before I lost a ton of albums in the Harvey flood, I had other albums that were water damaged from a leaking pipe in one of my graduate school-era houses. I’m not sure if I lost my Joni Mitchell albums then, or if I gave them away during one of several purges (I moved a LOT as a grad student, and purges were helpful). I had roommates over different times who were Joni fans, and very often, if I met someone who was passionate about an artist, I’d give them my vinyl.

Sidebar: My friend Ed was a huge fan of the band Chicago, and I had almost all of their albums on vinyl collected over many years. It was a pleasure to give him those albums, and it was even before he once let me drag him from church to help my brother move an insanely heavy sofa bed up some stairs and inside my new apartment, thereby giving me something to sleep on. A couple of years later, both Ed and his brother Joe were two of Tom’s groomsmen in our wedding (where my brother walked me down the aisle–I wonder if David and Ed remembered that damn sofa bed, which was so heavy that I left it in the apartment when I moved out!). The same year Tom and I married, Joe married my friend Susan, who I’d met when we both worked at the same horrible law firm during one of my grad school breaks (I introduced Susan and Joe, and they’re still going strong!). I wonder if Ed still has those Chicago albums. =)


Back to the subject of Joni. I don’t own any of her music now, but I stream her whenever I’m in the mood. The above two pages from the book got me into a deep dive of her relationship with James Taylor (the song “Blue,” lyrics shown here, is allegedly about him, and the sketch is also–allegedly!–of him).

All the relationships among the musicians of Laurel Canyon in the ’60s and ’70s are a frequent research topic because they include many of my favorite artists (and several of Joni Mitchell’s lovers). If I could get my head out of the terrible places current news takes me and write, I’m stalled in the middle of a chapter set in 1975, wherein a couple of good friends are trying to keep another friend away from that Laurel Canyon scene. It amuses me to write against my fascination with that time and those artists to keep myself from throwing my character to the wolves… or coyotes… “Coyote” is one of my personal favorite Joni Mitchell songs, one that’s allegedly about her relationship with the late playwright/actor/director/ screenwriter/author Sam Shepard.

Author Paul Lisicky, a writer whose work I always enjoy, and a contributor to our (as in Timothy J. Lambert and my) January 2014 anthology (11 years!) Foolish Hearts: New Gay Fiction, has a new book coming out, Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell (on sale February 25, 2025). I’m looking forward to reading this. As Harper Collins describes it, A guide to life that is part memoir, part biography, and part homage, Song So Wild and Blue is a joy for devoted Joni enthusiasts, budding writers, and artists of all stripes.

Musicians and writers and artists–they inspire me, and I’m still hopeful they’re the best antidote to the things that are currently overwhelming my voice and state of mind.

Gray Thursday


Just my legs in the mirror’s reflection as I waited for my post-op exam, where all looked good. Did have something put on the wound which is still burning a little three hours later, but that’s all right. I’m very grateful for my entire medical team from my primary care doc to the specialists and nurses, PAs, and NPs who always take good care of me.


I have a long way to go to finish the beginning of the first coloring pages in the “Mountain Jewels” section of The Magical Unicorn Society Official Coloring Book. This group of unicorns is gray (of course!), each with distinct mane, tail, hoof, and horn colors in red, green, blue, and purple.

Tom’s working from home at his desk next to mine in the office. Though I usually don’t sit in the office when he’s working, the range of music his phone is streaming is excellent, so I’m working quietly next to him. I took that photo mainly so I could show that I’m FINALLY having my first coffee in nine days because I finished my antibiotic (doesn’t get along with coffee) yesterday. We still have snow melting outside, but I craved cold coffee.

I’ll add the finished coloring pages to this post later.

We have dogs all around us.


Like the princess and the pea, Anime rests on four layers of blankets/beds.


The smol dog Eva hogs the heater.


Jack and Delta: Uneasy are the heads that claim the daybed against interlopers.


As promised, below are the newly completed pages from this book. Excerpts from the book include this info: Mountain Jewel unicorns are known for their short tempers and gruff personalities… [They are] wary creatures who don’t often trust humans… Found in some of the harshest environments on Earth, [they] can survive high altitudes and cold temperatures…and are fiercely loyal to each other.