Photo Friday, No. 733

Current Photo Friday theme: Looking Back at 2020

This challenge will run for two weeks. This week, I decided to show you some of what I’ve done in 2020 since being laid off and quarantining at home due to the COVID pandemic.


(If you click here, you can see a larger version of this photo with more of the details.)

I have used dolls (represented by two Monster High dolls eating pizza here, my rock and roll dude and his baseball-loving girlfriend, and Summer, my Top Model) as muses, inspiration, and entertainment. Along with the small guitars, they evoke characters in my novels.

I finished a novel and began another. I finished three–maybe four?–pieces of art and sent them out. I have colored in coloring books.

I’ve eaten lots of popcorn and drunk Starbucks (but not as much as I used to).

I’ve continued to fill a Moleskine with little bits of memorabilia I find, and started another Moleskine for the same kinds of things from years dating back to 2008 (during my organize and purge efforts, which are ongoing).

I’ve blogged, Instagrammed, and even ventured back to Twitter a bit to find new authors, new thinkers, new voices for social justice, new animal advocates, and new people to make me laugh.

In the background, you see the laptop where I’ve written and the shelves that contain some of my most important tools: aromatherapy, stones, and soft candlelight.

This room and the space it has given me to think and create has been my sanctuary since March.

Next week, I’ll offer a different perspective of this year. Thank you for reading, commenting, and sticking with me. You are part of my journey whether you read silently or comment.

A little midweek pop art

My Peter Max posters have probably not hung on the walls of any house I’ve lived in since I was maybe sixteen. That’s a f**king long time, way too long for me to do the math. They’ve gone with me stored in a box or a bin for decades, and they are not in great shape. That only makes me love them more. We’re a little worn, my posters and I, but still vibrant.

Today, I framed them. They must be handled carefully, In fact, the bottom one below is in two pieces.

Tom hung them in the room where I write these days. I am so happy to be able to look up at them. You can take the girl out of her hippie years, but you can never take the hippie out of the girl.

Sad sunflower

Back on November 22 Button Sunday, I mentioned a young musician named Bobby, whose music as Wizard Brain I’ve bought and listen to when I write. I also said I’d bought a print of a sketch he did. I call it Sad Sunflower, though Tom says he has more of a neutral face. As I just said to his creator, he now has time on his side and the stars overhead. I love him, and he’s a great addition to the Houndstooth Hall sunflowers.

Sleigh bells ring…


Longtime readers may remember that each year I order a Wallace silver-plated sleigh bell for the holiday season. When I mentioned it to Tom, he said, “Do you really WANT to remember 2020?”

Sure I do. It has shone a light on many things. Yes, that includes plenty I’d rather not exist, but knowledge is power. This year has been a teacher of ways to appreciate many good things, too, if I can see challenges as opportunities.

Happy 50th Anniversary, sleigh bells. I’ve added you to our homes since 1992. You have been there for many family celebrations and sorrows. You’ve brightened Christmases with friends who are still here to celebrate with us again one day, and friends who are gone but never forgotten.

Thank you for being shiny and for ringing in each new year with us.

Happy Thanksgiving from the US

Dinner scenes.


Table without food.


Cornbread dressing, Cornish hens, mac and cheese, blend of black-eyed peas and purple hull peas, broccoli, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, cranberry sauce, Tom and Tim had wine, we had water, and Debby brought her own tea. I think that’s the menu.


Me, Tim, Debby, Tom
Tim had to help me figure out how to use my own camera because I have pandemic brain. Also, lives may have been threatened in the taking of a group shot. But aren’t threats a traditional family Thanksgiving activity?

Button Sunday

Sometimes I post #foodgrams on Instagram. But during the month of October, I haven’t, because instead I’ve been posting photos of the Eleventh Earl of Houndstooth, Lord Cuttlebone. I try not to post more than one or two things a day there (it’s where a lot of dog photos and coloring photos go, too).

Lucky blog readers, because here are a few of the October meals of Houndstooth Hall that I randomly shot so I could remember that I do actually cook. Some of our takeout meals are also included. We don’t eat at restaurants during The Time of Corona.


Chili! Unlike Texans, I include kidney beans in my chili. I used to never eat chili until Timmy told me that sour cream is a great topping for it. I will do anything to find a way to eat more sour cream. Then after Harvey, Lynne taught us the trick of putting it over Fritos. So I either serve it with cornbread, or in this case, Fritos. Frito pie! This was a dinner and a couple of lunches for Tom and me.


Country-fried steak with rice and gravy, squash, salad, and corn on the cob. Normally that meal wouldn’t have corn on the cob, but it was eat it or watch it go bad.


This is baked hen, cornbread dressing, leftover rice from a prior meal, green beans, and salad. There was lots of hen left, and it went into chicken and dumplings, chicken sandwiches, and there’s still some in the freezer for what will probably be the next pot of chicken and dumplings.


This is a takeout breakfast burrito from Tacos A Go Go. I’ll eat this for dinner when Tom is in the mood for Mexican food, because I can order it non-spicy. This has eggs, cheese, potatoes, refried beans, and spinach.


Roast beef with potatoes and carrots (all cooked in the crock pot with a can of cream of onion soup that adds flavor and makes a gravy), salad, yeast rolls, and zucchini. Tim belongs to a food delivery service where they deliver all the ingredients in a kit for food preparation. Anytime his meals come with squash, zucchini, or cucumbers, he gives those to us because he doesn’t eat them. This zucchini was sautéd and delicious. Thanks, Tim!


Takeout cheeseburger and fries from Little Bitty Burger Barn.


Homemade Tex Mex. Chips and queso, and tortillas loaded with refried beans, taco-seasoned ground pork, and black olives topped with lettuce, tomato, and sour cream. That pork was another donation from Tim. He doesn’t eat pork and forgot to order ground turkey in place of it in one of his meal kits.


NOTHING goes to waste at the Hall. This is a big pot of soup made in the crockpot from leftovers. I keep a gallon zipper bag in the freezer, and every bit of leftovers goes into it until there’s enough for soup. This served not only Tom and me for a couple of days’ dinners and lunches, but I also sent soup and cornbread to Tim and Debby. Offhand, I think this contains these leftovers: roast, tomato meat sauce (from a spaghetti meal), rice, Rice R Roni, carrots, potatoes, navy beans, green beans, corn, black-eyed peas, stewed tomatoes, and kale.


Tomato meat sauce over bowtie pasta with garlic bread and salad. This is not the meat sauce that went in the soup. This actually was all devoured by Tom and me for dinner and lunches over a few days.


Another time we had takeout, this time from Chipotle. Most of their stuff is too spicy for me, but I can control that on a salad like this one. This has a mix of lettuces, spinach, corn salsa, pinto beans, and steak strips, topped with sour cream and shredded cheese.


This is a brunch tray I made for myself to eat while I was writing. I was using up the rest of a bag of broken potato chips; usually I’d have Triscuits instead. Then there’s hummus, celery, cucumbers (from Tim’s meal kit!), apple slices, a tangerine, and sharp cheddar cheese slices.


Homemade fish feast! Okay, the fish filets are Gorton’s, but other than that, this is all homemade: fries, hushpuppies, coleslaw, and corn on the cob (once again, had to use that corn before it went bad). I was STUFFED after this.

These are just a few of the meals we’ve eaten, and though they seem to have a lot of meat, we actually have reduced our meat consumption. We don’t have meat at every meal, and the meat we do eat is usually spread over several meals, so we’re eating it in smaller quantities.

Less meat is part of an overall effort to be mindful of climate change and ways we can help, along with: recycling, keeping our energy-efficient cars in good condition and using them efficiently, and little or no air travel. We also replaced all our windows with energy efficient windows, keep our thermostat set correctly, have energy-efficient appliances and lightbulbs, and are conservative with our water use. We donate clothes and household items to keep them out of landfills. We’re trying!

Tarnish

There’s an edit at the end of this post.

Tonight I actually DID watch something on TV, The Way I See It. It’s a documentary about the work of Pete Souza, former Chief Official White House Photographer for U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama (also he was a former director of the White House Photography Office).

It was so good. I knew I was in trouble when I began crying over photographs taken during the Reagan years. No way would I have made it dry-eyed through the Obama years. So while I watched, I polished some of our silver plate items. I think it’s pretty obvious which are polished and which are not.

There are also more tarnished pieces than are shown here, but hopefully I’ll finish the project this weekend. They can’t go back into the cases in the small dining area until I also remove and wash everything else in there and clean the dust off the shelves. Ugh. Does anyone enjoy dusting?

Meanwhile, I’m working on a short story and the third of my four-novel set. All this activity is a manifestation of pandemic and election season stress. May my writing be like the pile on the left and not the pile on the right. =)

ETA on 10/18: Not perfect, but better. My advice is don’t wait two to three years between polishing.

Fourth Quarter


My NON-writing project for the rest of the year is undertaking this behemoth. That box o’ elephants has a few years worth of mementos that need to go in my scrap books. (My scrap books used to be photo albums/scrap books, but I stopped getting printed photos, and boy, a flood and three computer losses later, that was a bad choice.)

Most of the stuff on the desk goes into Moleskines/journals.

There will be purging, organizing, and completing these piles before the end of the year. I enjoy organizing and having the time to do it.

But writing comes first, so back to it. Current national events have frozen me for days. I’m disconnecting for a while to get a character out of limbo.

In and out

Remember that time on September 8 when I told you the washing machine died?

I have no idea how old our water cooler was. I know we had it in 2001 at The Compound, but that’s about as far back as I can track it. So it was twenty years old or more.

It died.

Hey, new cooler. You have quite the record to beat.

Last week, I recycled another pile (eightish inches this time) of documents from my former job.

At some point around March 10.180 or whatever it is, I colored this.

I personally cannot do everything, but I’ve so far made it through this psychologically hellish week, SO I DID THAT.