Tag: Houndstooth

Scenes from our Friday celebrations

Here are a few photos from Friday, when we celebrated Thanksgiving late and Lynne’s birthday early.


Tim, Debby, and Lynne


Dessert table with some of Lynne’s gifts, plus at one point or another, homemade chocolate chip cookies, brownies, birthday cake, rum balls, bourbon balls, Kahlúa balls, pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, cheese straws, sausage and cheese balls, and the cream cheese crack dip.


Tim, Debby, Tom, and Lynne


Closer look at Lynne’s birthday cake with unicorns and rainbow candles.

Don’t know if I got a photo with all the food on the feast table. Here I see: dressing, fried okra, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, broccoli, and turkey breast.

And from this angle: squash casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, a basket of rolls, and field peas with snaps.


Tim, Debby, Lynne, and me

After dinner, gift opening and birthday song singing and cake eating for Lynne (her birthday is this coming Monday)!

Because of some of the foods we cook, dishes we use, and conversations we share, there are a lot of memories on this, my favorite of holidays. Last year all of our Christmas decorations were up by Thanksgiving. This year, Tom and I will probably be handling that next weekend.

We do have one Christmas tradition already in process. Lynne took about fifty photos from which I chose the family Christmas photo. The gratifying thing is that only a few days ago when I was talking to another friend on her birthday, she said she was looking forward to the Christmas card/letter/photo I’ll send in December. I always hope people like hearing from us. I love getting cards, letters, and photos from our friends and family. As soon as the photo’s printed, I’ll tackle the Christmas and holiday cards to send out.

Today (Saturday), Tom and Lynne watched the Alabama-Auburn football game (while I only watched the score in the writing sanctuary). Tom’s and my alma mater, Alabama, won the game. It never matters what both teams’ records look like going into the game, ANYTHING can happen in the fierce Iron Bowl rivalry. Of course I always want Alabama to win, but we have so many people in both our families who went to Auburn or are big Auburn fans, that however it turns out, I’m happy for the ones who get to celebrate.

Also, there were lots and lots of conversations during the days Lynne was here about the Neverending Saga. I have officially begun the seventh novel (while Lynne reread the sixth). Soon, I’ll probably be back to posting playlists of what I listen to while I write. I found something online I meant to save so I could share it when I talked on here about the series, but I can’t find it now.

The dogs were a lively, cute, exasperating, always lurking for a handout or something tasty to drop to the floor, and very welcome part of the weekend. I thought I shot a photo of Minute sleeping on the hearth in front of the fire, but apparently I didn’t. Tom got this shot of Delta and Jack sharing Eva’s favorite dog bed.

I caught Anime and Delta on the run outside.


Pollock very much enjoyed having Tim with him at Thanksgiving.


A very fluffy Stewie, having just been brushed by Debby.


Eva being held by Tom next to the food table–after the food has been cleared, alas.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’ll be sharing more Saturday about the Thanksgiving celebration we’ll have tomorrow. But I did manage to get a photo of Lynne’s chocolate chip cookies. Delicious.

While Lynne was with her other family today, along with some food prep for tomorrow, I washed, dried, and ran a hem around fabric I got last week at Jo-Ann’s, turning it into a Thanksgiving tablecloth. Crafty!

Someone’s in the kitchen

Today, my MacBook came home to me (cha-ching!), but I feel like I’ve been in the kitchen since yesterday, and I’m just now getting the Mac back in business.

Here’s a recap.

Lynne got here Tuesday afternoon for a visit until Saturday. She’s spending Thanksgiving day with her kids/grandkids from the other side of their family on Thursday, so we’ll have the Houndstooth Hall Thanksgiving dinner with her on Friday, which will also be her early birthday celebration. =)

The dinner I prepared for Tuesday night was a hearty homemade soup that simmered most of the day to go with cornbread.

One of the chapters I wrote in the sixth book of the Neverending Saga has two characters sharing a lot of confidences while they have a pre-Christmas baking day together. Maybe that’s what made Lynne and me decide to have a full-on baking day like we haven’t had in a long time. Tuesday night, while I took on dog watching/feeding duty, she and Tom went to the grocery store to get all the supplies I didn’t have or she hadn’t brought with her. After they got back, she and I began shelling pecans from her friend’s pecan trees.

Today, Tom worked from home, so as soon as I got up, I put together Jim’s delicious egg casserole for breakfast and added fresh cut fruit on the side.

After breakfast, the real work began. While Tom worked in the home office, Lynne and I shelled more pecans, enough to use for rum balls, bourbon balls, and Kahlúa balls. This was our first venture into Kahlúa balls. They all taste very good. =)

While I was rolling out the rum, etc. balls, Lynne made two servings of crack dip, one for the Hall and one to take with her tomorrow. It’s basic: cream cheese, chopped green onions, chopped pastrami, and dry Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix blended together. No one knows why it’s so addictive. It just is.

I grated enough cheese for two batches of sausage cheese balls. These are also highly addictive. We both rolled them out, and now there’s one container for the Hall and one she’ll take tomorrow.

Oh! I forgot she also made a gazillion deviled eggs. One to take with her with sweet pickles, and one for the Hall with dill pickles.

Stacked here in the fridge, our deviled eggs on the bottom left, and above that, her many containers of sausage and cheese balls and deviled eggs that will go with her. I can’t remember what’s in the dish middle/top, but those are the Hall’s sausage balls under it, and on the right, that’s the turkey thawing for Friday’s meal.

Okay, it was driving me crazy. That Corning Ware bowl contains leftover chicken I chopped for us to use to make chicken salad sandwiches when we all ate lunches at different times. We also still have leftover soup and cornbread. So probably no cooking until Friday. (I’m sure there’ll be photos of that, too–can you tell Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday?)

We haven’t had these in so long, and in the ’70s and ’80s, they were a constant treat: a brownie recipe created by Lynne’s Uncle Austin, and they will melt in your mouth.

Another one of Lynne’s specialties is chocolate chip cookies, and she made a batch for us and a batch to take with her tomorrow, and I don’t seem to have a photo of those.

Finally, I grated (in the food processor) enough cheese/baking mix/margarine mixture to make three batches of cheese straws, which we halved–one for the Hall, one for her to take tomorrow. Lynne and Tom, who was by then off of work, rolled them into doughs and seasoned them with red pepper (hotter for Lynne’s batch, a little milder for ours, because I don’t like too much heat). Because the batches contained a variety of cheese brands and margarines (usually, I use butter, but the actual recipe from Lynne’s sister calls for margarine, so we did that this time), they were different colors and textures. They all taste great, though!

We put in about a dozen hours of kitchen time, and while Lynne handles most of the baking, I handle most of the clean-up. It’s a good thing I actually like washing dishes, because there were a lot of bowls and pans used, washed, and reused throughout the day. Even the dogs are worn out; I can hear them snoring all over the Hall. It’s about to be lights out for me, too. A good day hopefully gives me a good night’s sleep.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Tiny Tuesday!

The kilt looks are finally completed, with some shirt exchanges once I sewed a new shirt. Now all the dolls are wearing belts I made, and I made and added their chains and sporrans (note the houndstooth), some embellished with their emblems. If you didn’t care about any of this to start with, I’ll put only one doll here and the rest behind a cut to save real estate on your monitor. If you do look at them all, thanks. I learned a lot of new things and spent my time on this project mentally plotting the rest of the Neverending Saga. That also gave me the opportunity to make good changes to the sixth book before diving into the seventh.


The Mogul

Continue reading “Tiny Tuesday!”

Caught in the act!


Anime, caught in the act!


Of stopping to smell the roses.

My laptop is at Apple getting some battery care. So I’m using my old HP laptop. It’s a challenge to go back to Windows from Mac (Macs were actually part of my “origin story”; I used one of those little ones even before the first PCs I ever used).


Like this.

From Mac to HP: different command keys, different screen, different keyboard and mouse (I never use my touch pads no matter what make of laptop I use; I plug in a full size keyboard and a real mouse–except on the Mac, they’re wireless). See Becky relearn!

A good Saturday

I might have resolution to a situation that’s cost me a lot of peace of mind for almost three years, and I’m not mad about that. =)

Tom didn’t have his volunteer gig, so he did some light yard work (and put out the flag for Veterans Day), and I didn’t do any housework. Dinner was a joint effort, and other than that, it was just a day to chill with the hounds.

Tom put together another of the beautiful wooden puzzles he received last Christmas. This one is “Dachshund.”


How cute is s/he?


Meanwhile, I made a big mess of the writing sanctuary NOT writing but working on my ongoing doll kilt project. I learned so much as I went along with the kilts I made that I’m going back to fix things (though not my mistake in putting the openings on the wrong side) and also adding embellishments. I’ll share when my six-pack of kilt-wearing character dolls are ready for their closeups.

Tiny Tuesday!

This morning, I was checking to see if I had a couple of miniature charms. As I opened and shut some two dozen plastic containers, I realized craft organization works best when you don’t make a mystery of it. Out came the label maker! (And on the way, I better organized as well as purged a few things that found their way into my supplies and that I’m sure I’ll never use.)

No more wasting time on searches!

And I did find miniature charms that worked for what I wanted.

Love and peace, and if trick or treating is part of your evening, have a fun, safe night!

Threads and notions

Friday night, Tom and I ran out to do some errands, including a trip to Jo-Ann’s so I could pick up a few things. I’d been creating a doll kilt pattern, and I realized if I planned to do many kilts, I’d need more snaps. I’m also using hooks, eyes, and loops, but I had plenty of those.

Later, as I sewed, I needed black thread and couldn’t find any. I couldn’t understand this; I have a lot of thread, and it should have included black. Today, I started a list of other stuff I might need from the craft store, but I again questioned how I couldn’t have black thread. I decided to check Lindsey’s Aunt Gwen’s sewing case, because I knew it had some thread–but no black. Then I decided to reorganize all my thread so I could add other missing colors to my shopping list. That’s when I realized that looking at my thread in the sewing/craft room illuminated by sunlight rather than ceiling fan lights changed everything. I ended up having six spools of black thread that I’d seen as dark green, navy blues, and dark grays last night. It still gave me the incentive to better organize my thread cases, this time, red to purple in the order of the rainbow, then the other colors like whites, tans and browns, pinks, grays, and BLACKS.

I moved the spools that have almost no thread on them to Aunt Gwen’s case so I can use them first when I need those colors.

I never get rid of wooden spools, and I took the one that had been gnawed on forty years ago by my dog Hamlet, wrote his name on it, and put it in the curio cabinet where mementos (and ashes) of our dogs are.

I’m glad I explored Aunt Gwen’s sewing supplies again. Remember how we went to Jo-Ann’s for snaps? These are the snaps I got there.

The card of nickel snaps was $6.99 and the card of black snaps was $3.99.

Then today, I found all these snaps from Aunt Gwen in her case. D’oh!

I don’t know what decade Aunt Gwen bought her snaps, but it must have been the years when people sewed because they had to and not because it’s a hobby. The nickel snaps were still more expensive–they were twenty cents a card!–but the black snaps were only ten cents a card. I guess I’ll be set for a while. From now on, when I go thrifting or antiquing, I’m looking for old snaps.

Aunt Gwen also had cards with hooks, eyes, and loops, so I’m definitely good on those.

And now: Ta da! Below is my first attempt at a kilt, with new fabric I got when Lynne was here; from today’s shopping, some new black suede strapping I wove into a belt, and I added a kilt accessory I found amid my jewelry making supplies, a crafting charm flower petal pendant, along with Mattel’s shirt, socks, and shoes.

If you’re curious, nope! He’s wearing nothing under that kilt. =) I don’t plan to make underwear for my kilt-wearing dolls, but I am going to use Mattel’s socks as a pattern to make more of those in different colors.

Fun times at Houndstooth Hall!