Tag: Houndstooth

Three of three


This is the last of the fantastic quilts that Lynne completed for me. The T-shirt quilt includes family history, history with Lynne and me, history with Tom and me, places I’ve been, jobs I’ve had, musicians I love, my university (and Tom’s), organizations with whom we’e volunteered–I’m over the moon about it (ha, just realized that’s an inside joke).


The backing fabric is stars. When Lynne was putting this together in her quilting workshop, people seemed puzzled by that, and she said, “She will understand. Stars are our thing.” They are indeed, and she didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d just written stars into an emotional conversation between two of my characters. Serendipity.

Since Lynne’s room is the red truck room, it seemed like a good place for the quilt. I used the University of Alabama bedspread from my sister, and then put the quilt on top.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER BEFORE I POST MORE PHOTOS: If you are a person inclined to buy me gifts, Houndstooth Hall has now reached saturation point with red truck stuff and tins. That means if something comes in, something has to go out. Please don’t force that choice on me. I love all the things Tom and I have found together or have come to us as gifts. That’s why they’re here. I want them to remain.


Another look at the quilt. I think we got those quilted shams after the Harvey flood when Tom, the dogs, and I lived in the back room (office) while the rest of the house was under renovation. It was Christmas time, and we went with red on our bedding because it made a few discomforts a little more festive. Several people said we’d drive each other crazy. We didn’t. We took each day as it came, appreciated the work crew who was helping us put our home back together, and had no idea we were getting good training for quarantine life a few years later.

A few details.

We had tins stacked on top of the bookcases in that room. We found some reclaimed wood shelving online so we could better display them.

Some of the small tins are in a display case we bought so they could be a little closer to eye level.

The Buc-ee’s mints tin gets a little lost.


That wall with red truck art.


It’s a little sharky in there, too. (Those two Jaws tins are Lynne’s.)

Your room’s ready for your next visit with Minute, Lynne! Thank you for making it so full of color and memories and fun.

Tree of life (and friendship)

Last March on one of the days Lynne was visiting, she, Tom, and I ran a bunch of errands. One of those was to Joann Fabric and Crafts on 10 West. I’d never been to that location. Lynne said it was a good one, and she was definitely right. I can’t even remember what all I bought there, and who knows what I’ll do with some of the fabrics, but I’ll have them when I need them!

She’d been doing a lot of quilting at that time for friends and family, and she said she’d messed up something and was looking for a replacement fabric with colors drawing from her memory. (This was also the time she picked up the fabric she used as a small border on my mother’s family quilt that I posted a couple of weeks ago. But I digress.)

Turns out she was working on a quilt for my birthday, which she knew was going to be late, and on her recent visit, she brought me the finished quilt. It’s a smaller quilt, the perfect size to curl up with on a bed or chair when I’m reading or watching movies on my laptop. And it’s GORGEOUS!

I’ve been holding off photographing it until we picked up a product she recommended, Shout’s® ColorCatcher® Dye Trapping Sheet, to use when we washed it for the first time. That product is a little miracle because if any color runs, it goes to the sheet and not on the rest of the fabric.

Here’s the front of the quilt.


The center panel is a magical tree in colors, both flat and shiny, that I love.

Here’s a detail photo.

The back of the quilt is the fabric she picked out that day while we were shopping, and it is indeed a great match for the color borders around the tree.

Detail of the borders.

I’m always so awed by everything Lynne sews and creates and by her color palettes. It’s the best birthday friendship quilt I can imagine. Thank you, Lynne! All these wonderful gifts, and I’m STILL not finished with the chapters you’re waiting to read.

Doggy snaps

One of the reasons Lynne came to visit Houndstooth Hall recently was because it was the first part of more traveling, and when she travels, we often get to keep Minute. During that time, Pepper needed a place to stay for only one night, so it was slumber party time!


Photo by Tom.


Photo by Rhonda.


Photo by Tom.


Photo by Rhonda.

Apparently, they take “slumber” seriously. No time for prank calling, having pillow fights, coloring, painting each other’s nails, listening to their favorite records, running through the sprinkler, or watching Disney movies. Good thing we’ve got lots of beds all over the house.

Hump Day


Last weekend, one of my industrious activities was altering the sleeves on a couple of shirts. In the process, I ran out of thread on a spool. It’s been YEARS since that happened. Those are my bifocals pictured with the sewing stuff. Since the surgery, they’ve actually been useful to me for the first time since I got that prescription…last July. Progress.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night. I tried to take a nap after meds and breakfast and eye drops and all the things. Nap wasn’t happening. So I kicked into gear and started doing things that I had no idea I intended to do.


First, I began to gather things for donation. These were my first items–some pristine stuffed animals, Houston Rockets souvenirs, lots and lots of throw pillows (none that were sewn for me, but including four I once sewed for myself), a couple of gently used quilted bedspreads and pillow shams, other bed linens, a beautiful shower curtain we haven’t used for years, some clothing, and all my old VHS tapes (if those Disney movies are worth something, then I hope someone with more energy than I have grabs them from one of the Goodwill stores and eBays the crap out of them). I’m sure there was more, because by the time I had it all gathered for Tom to load in the car after work, both dining tables were covered. The items have been donated!

We started a redo in the large guest bedroom (aka Lynne’s room), but it’ll be a few days before I can share photos because it’s a work in progress. Naturally, I failed to take before photos of anything, but I may have some old ones that’ll work.

I turned a brutal eye on the second guest room, or since 2020, the Writing Sanctuary (which at different times has been called the Butterfly Room, the Winnie the Pooh Room, and maybe the Quilt Room; I can’t keep up).

Here’s an example of how the bed can look in here when I’m full-on writing and otherwise multitasking. This is from mid-May.

That’s the collaged sketchbook I keep my completed coloring pages in, my wee CD player, the CD binder I’m STILL in (it’s like the freaking 1974 of CD binders), my day planner, Patti Smith’s book that I often use as a prompt when I’m writing in my day planner, the binder that I keep up with my bills in. So… that day, I was writing, listening to music, coloring, paying bills, and journaling. Behind it all, against the wall, is a little crate where I keep a bunch of the books I use for blogging ideas. Keep those books in the back of your mind while I move on.

I didn’t take a photo of the cabinet in here. The big box of CDs that won’t fit in binders was on it. A lot of medical stuff post-surgery. But other than all that extra stuff, the top part usually looked like this.

Some doll muses, a little bit of Dennis Wilson and Beach Boys stuff, Beatles-related stuff, and up top, a shadowbox with mementos of our late friend Steve and photos of him.

I was ready for some order and some change. Below, I’ll share a photo of the shadowbox (reminder: Winnie the Pooh and Piglet were our thing–on the top of the cabinet, not pictured here, there’s usually a stuffed version of both that Steve kept in the hospital with him, plus a Pooh bear Lynne made that I’d given to our late friend John). Those are now in a cabinet with the other stuffed animals because after I donated some, I had room for them. It’ll be better to keep them dust-free.


The shadowbox has been this way since… 1992? ’93? Shiny fabric lining the back was wrapped around the amethyst crystal hanging in there (upper right), a gift from Steve to me one Christmas, put together by one of his RNs, Billie, from a metaphysical shop she owned, and secured into a bag tied with gold cord that I don’t think is visible in this photo. It also contained a dried rose that’s hanging in here toward the middle. Next to the amethyst crystal is a quartz crystal that Steve kept around his neck most of the time. A tiny mirror has fallen behind the Pooh scene I cut out of a greeting card. I never asked, but maybe there was a time before I met him when he and his friends did bumps off that mirror. It was the ’70s, it was the ’80s, and everyone was young and beautiful and life was a party until AIDS crashed it.

So now you need to remember those writing prompt books and this shadow box, while I show you this.


A lovely little pillow I bought sometime in the ’90s, cross-stitched with a scene featuring Winnie, Tigger, and Piglet. After the turn of the century, a young dog with a penchant for destroying linens and other fabric items chewed up part of this pillow. Could have been Margot; could have been Guinness. I well remember their team and individual exploits. Anyway, it’s been on top of that cabinet, too, and today I took it apart.


It became part of the redone shadowbox. Still contains the shiny fabric against the back, the two crystals, the dried rose, and now you can see the mirror. I also put Steve’s Armchair Conductor baton in there. He used to listen to classical music on one of my little boomboxes I took him and direct an imaginary orchestra with that baton in the hospital. Steve was a graduate student in music, a band director, and a conductor.


Beneath that is a picture that was also on the top shelf with Langston Hughes’s “Poem”:

I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There’s nothing more to say
The poem ends,
Soft as it began–
I loved my friend.

Below that is a photo of Riley playing guitar. The poem was true of Steve in 1992. It became true of Riley in 2008.


So now there’s a corner, and on the other wall is the drawing I bought in 2010 from Gilbert Ruiz, a Houston artist, that makes me think of the novel I’ve yet to write about a ghost. The story contains elements of teenage Becky and includes characters inspired by My First Boyfriend and Riley, and borrows from a terrible thing that happened in our little Alabama town. That shadow box also contains strands of love beads from the ones Lynne and I strung all one summer.


Steve’s two 8×10 photos and a photo of Riley playing piano have joined the Family and Friends Gallery in the hall (of Houndstooth Hall).


I think you’re caught up to the redo of the little place where I had that mess of books. Now it’s just my various eReaders and the CD player I use for my playlist when I write. Tidier, right?


Those books moved to the top shelf that used to be all Steve stuff. They join some journals that had been on a tavern table in the dining room, my day planner, the Patti Smith book, my manifestation dude, sitting next to little herbal bags that were also from Steve and from Billie back in the day, and the “Sisters are forever” art given to me by Debby.

Next shelf down are more muses: Dennis Wilson, Beach Boys things, and four of my character dolls.

Bottom shelf are my Beatles things.

You have no idea what a mess those shelves were. Maybe now that my space feels so much clearer and uncluttered, my brain will follow suit and help me write again? When Lynne was here, she sat in this room as I read chapters aloud to her that she hadn’t previously read. She liked them. She said I NEED TO FINISH THE BOOK.

Pop vibe

Yesterday, they were able to fit me in to see my ophthalmologist for a second post-op consult, and he talked me through my concerns after an eye exam. Anxiety is a nasty little companion, and I’m really grateful to my healthcare providers for their understanding. Healing proceeds.

I’m able to stream shows on my laptop, with brightness lowered and without eyestrain, so I finished the rest of the episodes for the second season of “Dickinson” on Wednesday and Thursday (a character who should be sinister but is fun returned from the first season). Yesterday after the doctor visit, I finished the final season of “Grace and Frankie” which I’d started last year before I got distracted. Earlier today, I watched a documentary called “Inventing David Geffen” from 2012. Now and then, I get reinforcement for directions I take in the Neverending Saga, and this was one of those times.

Sometime in the last week, I was researching the pop artist Peter Max (I have two of his posters from my teen years hanging in the writing sanctuary) when I stumbled across one of his works called “The Different Drummer.” Online, it’s described as a “groundbreaking poster for a hip clothing store on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan frequented by hippies and rock stars at the height of the counterculture zeitgeist in the ’60s. This rare and vintage poster exemplifies this era of the artist’s work where his colorful and euphoric subjects explore fantastical worlds.”

I’m all about drummers and hip clothing stores, so now one of those posters belongs to me. Bottom right in this photo.

ETA ON 6/27: Got to move the “Three Guitars” painting where I wanted it originally thanks to the changes.

Monday: Mood

In honor of Memorial Day, this is my 1996 photograph of Glenna Goodacre’s Vietnam Women’s Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Goodacre, who died in April 2020 from the aftereffects of a brain injury, had an illustrious career as a sculptor and painter. A good article about her in the New York Times includes this:

While she was best known for her Vietnam and Irish memorials, she said those pieces, with their serious subject matters, were exceptions to her larger body of work. “I am a very positive person, so most of my work tends to be upbeat, if not downright happy… I don’t do morosely philosophical pieces like some artists. It’s just not in me.”

I’m a pacifist, not inclined to glorify war, but I’m also the descendant of people involved in many U.S. conflicts, including the American Revolution, and the daughter of an Army veteran who saw combat in WWII and served through the Korean and Vietnam wars. I recognize the sacrifices of service members and their families especially on Memorial Day, which commemorates those who gave their lives.

In keeping with the theme of my photo, I researched women who died in service to the U.S.

Ninety percent of women who served in Vietnam were volunteer nurses. Eight American military women were killed in the Vietnam War. Fifty-nine civilian women were killed in the Vietnam War.

Women who served and died in other U.S. military efforts:

Since the attack on America on September 11, 2001, a total of 152 women deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, and Syria lost their lives in service to America.

In Desert Shield and Desert Storm, although women did not serve in units whose mission involved direct combat with the enemy, some women were subjected to combat. Five Army women were killed in action.

There were some 120,000 women in the United States who were on active duty during the Korean War. Most of the women who served in Korea were nurses. Females also served in support units in Japan and other Far East countries during the war. In all, eighteen women were killed during that conflict.

During World War II, as many as 543 women serving with the armed forces died in war-related incidents, including 16 nurses who were killed by enemy fire.

One hundred and eleven Army Nurses died overseas, and 186 died stateside, all while serving the country in World War I.

Although no nurses were killed in combat in the Spanish-American War, 153 died from diseases during the war (including one, Clara Maass, who perished from yellow fever after volunteering to undergo Army experiments on that disease).

Historians estimate that as many as 1,000 women may have disguised themselves as men and served in the Confederate and Union armies in the American Civil War. Some historical records verify the fact that over sixty women were either wounded or killed at various battles during the war.

There are no records from the American Revolution for women who might have died while in service to the colonies, either near battlefields as camp followers or disguised as males who fought, or serving as spies or informants for the Continental Army. Though women were sometimes killed in battle-related incidents, fatalities were not statistically broken down by men, women, or children.

It’s also notable that many Native American women served the military in various capacities including combat in the Revolution and the War of 1812. My limited search found no records of fatalities. In the past, I’ve done research on the Buffalo Soldiers, Black Americans who fought and died in the American Indian, Spanish–American, Philippine–American, Mexican Border, and World Wars, but Native women in combat on behalf of the U.S. was new information for me.

We recently removed the two light posts we once used at Houndstooth Hall to display the flag on holidays. Tom was able to put our flag in a holder left above our widows by the Hall’s former owner, who was retired military. This is Tom’s Instagram photo, taken today.

Saturday thoughts

Our washing machine became possessed last night just before we went to bed. It turned itself on. Then the control panel wouldn’t light up. Tom unplugged it with a prudent “I’ll think about it tomorrow” attitude (though he also did a little research online and hoped he knew the problem). So far, we haven’t washed a load, but he does seem to have found the magic process to exorcise the demon. Fingers crossed.

While he was away volunteering today, I continued the manic need to organize and purge stuff. The end result is a much better organized cabinet in the writing sanctuary; many things put away after MY having that “I’ll think about it tomorrow” attitude for a few months; and a lot more reorganizing and labeling in my corner of the office.


You’ll have to take my word for it that my desk drawers are cleared of unnecessary stuff, those shelves are arranged much better, and that little green caddy, still loaded with office supplies, lost a lot of useless things and what’s left is better organized.


My little “fun” table where I blend essential oils, do a lot of my intentions rituals and random other things, all while overlooked by Superman, Darth Vader, and Batman, not to mention two Yankees and Cubs baseball fans, is cleared of random stuff and ready for whatever’s next…clearing crystals, looking at oracle cards, or enjoying breathing/meditating time.

In that first photo, maybe you noticed Aerosmith’s Joe Perry watching you from the wall on the upper left. One of the things Tom has been doing is moving photos (so far more than 25,000) from older, still working computers (I have one more that requires a consultant before we’ll know if those photos can be recovered). Today, he focused on my old HP laptop. I’m not sure it’s been turned on since 2017, unless David used it when he visited. The wallpaper on it was a great shot from my former job. It’s a nice photo, but three years after being laid off, I’ve long-since moved on. Tom decided to be funny and create a new wallpaper from among the laptop’s photo files, which apparently included a scan of the Joe Perry photo (I mean, why WOULDN’T IT? It’s Joe Perry!).

This is what greeted me the next time I glanced at the laptop.

Probably Tom’s just glad when one of my musical crushes is still on the planet. (RIP DW, TP, EVH, SRV, JL, GH, DF, and TH).

This week, sadly, we lost another legend. Tina Turner overcame one challenge after another and never seemed to lose her zest for living, her hope and optimism, her strength, and a phenomenal magic unparalleled by any performer in my lifetime. The tributes being paid her by her peers and her fans from every spectrum show the kind of impact she had. She truly was simply the best.

Celebration

Tomorrow (May 26) is Timothy’s birthday, and because he, as well as Rhonda and Lindsey, have other commitments for the weekend, we all agreed that they’d join Tom, Debby, and me tonight for a birthday dinner. My part was making a salad, cleaning broccoli for steaming, and buttering the rolls before they went in the oven. Tom did all the cooking and baking for the main course of beef stroganoff. I baked a lemon cake with lemon frosting. It wasn’t pretty, but it was tasty.

A few snaps from a fun night of family, friends, and dogs. (When shown with his cake, Tim is mostly looking down at Pepper, who brings enthusiasm to every occasion.)

Happy birthday (a bit early), Timothy!

Belated Hump Day

Yesterday, Lindsey finished the Lean To (that’s my new name for the “shed,” aka “onsite storage” space). Below is supposed to be my next job, but I’m avoiding it.


Fifteen bins of Christmas decorations and ornaments that require reorganization and some purging. Tom and I made this a major effort a few years back, but these things have a tendency to increase, and some of them are not stored as efficiently as they could be. Also, there are some things of Mother’s I plan to send to some of her grandchildren. They should have a chance to decide whether there’s anything they want, and if not, they can donate it. My feelings won’t be hurt.

Instead of that, today, I worked on reorganizing the craft shelves in the office and getting them in order. There were things to purge from those, too, but mostly we have the room now to put some of that into the Lean To or on the Hall’s closet shelves. Plus everything is labeled now, so I can find what I’m looking for!


Top shelf is fabric for doll clothes. Beneath that, sketch books and coloring books! (And I just added four more. Ridiculous.) Next shelf has my cases of 45 records (undamaged by 2017 flood!) and the albums I either replaced or could save in 2017. Quite a far cry from the hundreds I once had. The shelf below that has to do with writing: the 1990s drafts of the books I’m working on now; the Moleskines that are filled with thoughts and souvenirs; and my Magnetic Poetry collection. The bottom shelf has a couple of bins of mementos (one says Lynne, because she’s the only one who might want any of that if I kick off), and that’s the Christmas box I keep inside the house all year, with all the info I need for Christmas cards, plus tape, pens, gift tags, etc. Things that I require before we start decorating at the holidays.


Those are coloring supplies, craft papers, and stamps and stencils on the top shelf, along with something I got I think my 2022 birthday, from Rhonda and Lindsey. I need to share it on here sometime. It’s very Zen. Yes, the inside of the door from the part of Mother’s china cabinet (we saved the hutch top) that was too damaged to keep post-flood remains on full display: her 1996 Clinton-Gore bumper sticker. Next shelf is all my sewing stuff. It had been here originally, then I used that shelf for albums, and I missed looking over and seeing my sewing machine. So much of that was organized for me after the Harvey flood by Lindsey that I barely had to do anything but add some labels. Next shelf down is all kinds of crafting supplies, newly labeled, which is so helpful for me. I also consolidated supplies from a bunch of little containers into that red, green, and blue “tackle box.” I once used that for painting supplies, and I’ll never forget seeing it float through the backyard during the flood. It got cleaned up and put in the Lean To, and this is the first time in almost six years I’m using it again. The green cubby on the bottom shelf has a lot of the stuff I used for collages (I’m about to be doing more of those) and the elephant print cubby has more fabrics. I finally purged the rest of the fabrics from the Lean To, and now everything for sewing is inside the office/craft room.


The last set of shelves has all kinds of paint supplies on the top shelf: paints, brushes, palettes of many varieties, canvases of several sizes, varnishes and finishes, and a bucket of bottle caps! Next shelf down is household files that I use all the time, and accessibility is so much easier than the file cabinets that were flooded and put on the curb. (We lost a lot of paperwork from the bottom drawers.) Next shelf down is Aunt Gwen’s sewing case, EMPTY containers should they be needed, a bag of the items I use for space clearing and energy work, and a box with stones, rocks, and pebbles I use as needed to replenish Aaron’s Garden or to put in the column candle holders in the writing sanctuary when the candles are gone and I put tea light candles in them. Bottom shelf is all empty containers, should any new supplies need them or to be used elsewhere, as needed, in the Hall.

That’s it!

When everything in the Lean To is back in place, I’ll share photos. Tom forbade photos before the work was done because it looked like a large and sloppy family of hoarding raccoons might be living there.