Tag: houston

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.

Photo Friday, No. 864

Current Photo Friday theme: Stair

Likely part of the walkway to the graves of the Sharp family, including Estelle Boughton Sharp, widow of Houston oilman Walter B. Sharp. Born in 1873, died in 1965, she was a renowned philanthropist who, as the cemetery notes, “devoted her wealth and talents to social welfare and world peace.” Good footsteps to follow in.

I took this photo in July 2010 when we went to Glenwood Cemetery with Jim while he visited.

Mid-week roundup

Still really having to take it easy. We had some brief power flickers today because of storms, but fortunately no outage. I think Tom said there are about 75,000 in the area without power post-storm.

So far this week, I’ve watched this DVD I bought sometime last year, the reboot of Sex and The City, ten episodes total. The second season of this starts streaming tomorrow, I think, though I don’t have whatever it streams on, as far as I know. I’d rather wait until the next DVD drops. Waiting between episodes of something usually means I forget about it.

Also read this book by ‘Nathan Burgoine on my iPad. I hadn’t realized this was an addition to ‘Nathan’s Little Village series, all of which I have and either read or will read. It was interesting to find two of his stories that Tim and I edited for Cleis Press anthologies fit nicely into this collection, too. (It was also kind of him to mention Tim and me as the editors who gave him his first YES. He’s published a lot since those days!) I was happy my eyes were willing to read, and this was an engaging way to ease back into doing so.

I might have to wait a while to tackle this one, a 1971 offering from James Michener. It’s around 750 pages; that’s a lot of commitment. One of my characters needed something to read back in ’71, and I chose this for her. I figured I can’t know if it engages her unless I attempt it myself. (I know what I’m getting into, having read Michener in the past, though it’s been decades.) It was either this or one of the Russian writers, but the timing was good for this one, and I think the Russians might exhaust me. Will be reading this one in hardcover.

Still not writing the new last chapter for my own sixth novel in the Neverending Saga, but I’ve done a little revising on earlier chapters. Even eyes need to take baby steps.

Tiny Tuesday!

My post-op appointment with the ophthalmologist went well today. Healing appears to be on schedule, and I was given updated after-care instructions. I also was given a little kit that included these sunglasses.

For me, these were a game-changer on the ride home because of the tinted lenses on the sides and the ridge on the top edge for my peripheral vision. AT LAST all the motion, light, and shadows weren’t startling and overwhelming me. Anyone who’s been driving me (Tom, Lynne), who I kept telling, “It’s not you, it’s me!” it really wasn’t your driving.

Caveat for driving in Houston: It’s always good to anticipate the batshit shenanigans of bad drivers, as well as to avoid expressing your anger at other drivers in visible ways. Not every tale about Texas is a tall tale. 😲

World Bee Day!

If you’re on Instagram, you know that sometimes posts will appear in your feed from accounts you don’t follow. Somehow the app’s algorithm has determined the account might interest you. Last year, this happened to me with the account of a woman who lives in Eastern Tennessee in the Appalachian region. (This is also the region where I grew up in Alabama.) Her name is Carmen, and this is her website, which also provides the link to her Instagram account.

I don’t know what Instagram was “thinking,” but in this case, it worked! I’ve learned so much about bees that I find fascinating. When I was a child, a few doors down from us in post housing, another child around my age was named Honeybee, and her name and some of what I’ve learned about bees have found their way into the Neverending Saga.

Fortunately on World Bee Day and every day, Debby has created a part of our property that welcomes bees and butterflies. You know if these creatures depended on me for flora, they’d be disappointed. She and I were running errands the other day, and when stopped at a light, we spotted another Mini Mural I hadn’t seen before, this one on the corner of Hollister and Tidwell.

Jesse de Leon, Houston

It’s not a great shot with my iPhone, but I offer it today in honor of the bee, who does so much to provide beauty and food to our planet. You can learn more about the danger to bees, and how we can help them survive–because our survival is connected to theirs–at this website.

Photo Friday, No. 854

Current Photo Friday theme: Life

A hashtag I frequently use on Instagram is #artislife, and one of the things I love about Houston is the abundance of art: in museums, in galleries, in graffiti, on train cars that pass by, and in many varieties of public art. I haven’t been to a museum since 2019, so a lot of my art appreciation has become drive-by.

This was a day when traffic light timing gave me a chance to shoot with my phone. The artist is Joy Matheson, and she’s done several mini murals throughout Houston. NASA is such a big part of Houston’s history (how many times have you heard or said the line, “Houston, we have a problem?”).

Art is one of life’s gifts.