Tag: meal

Button Sunday

Today is National Chinese Takeout Day.


This button available on Redbubble.

Here are a few takeout/restaurant buttons (most from my personal collection).


Vintage Burger King button.


Vintage McDonald’s button.


Popcorn used to be my takeout snack from Target, but they don’t have machines anymore.


I don’t remember what restaurant advertised with this button or campaign. Maybe Lynne does. Same applies to this one. Maybe the Omelet Shoppe?


Vintage Arby’s button. Ironic, since I never ate their roast beef sandwiches.


Guessing somebody grabbed this button for me back when the peach shake was introduced by Chick-fil-A in 1995.


Vintage button from Morrison’s Cafeteria chain, which originated in Alabama, expanded throughout the Southeast, and now is closed down. Though I eventually overcame a childhood fear of cafeterias and ate at Morrison’s, Picadilly, and Luby’s, these days meals I don’t cook are only takeout, not dine-out, for me. And the single item that still comes home to me on a regular basis is liquid…

Do you have a favorite kind of takeout or a favorite Chinese takeout menu item? My default is cashew chicken, though I’ve been known to choose sweet and sour chicken, too.

Button Sunday


October 22 is National Nut Day, created to encourage healthier snack options.


My favorites are pecans, cashews, walnuts, almonds, and pistachios. Other than in peanut butter, I like peanuts best when I can eat them roasted from the shell. My college roommate used to bring back bags of peanuts after a weekend working in her parents’ grocery store and roast them for us as a snack to eat throughout the week. As a kid, I liked boiled peanuts (a snack discovered by a Yankee character traveling through the South in the Neverending Saga). I probably still would like them, but since I no longer drive rural Southern roads, I don’t get opportunities to buy them.

Showing support for the home team in tonight’s game by eating a few of these later.

What are your favorites?

Watermelon sugar


Today is National Watermelon Day! Lindsey has grown some sprouts from seeds and given a couple to Debby, the plant person of Houndstooth Hall.

Today, I am the RELAX person at Houndstooth Hall, so a bit of watermelon and some cherries fit right in with my plan: drink water and start training my eyes to read with the new bifocals while delving into this 2016 biography of Randy Newman that I’ve had on the shelf since February of ’22.

It’s like my third rendezvous with watermelon this week. This one on Sunday:

And this brunch on either Monday or Tuesday of watermelon, veggies with ranch dip, hummus with pita chips, and walnuts.

I wonder if I can read and listen to Harry Styles at the same time.

MIA characters

The theme from my main go-to-for-info person since surgery is BE PATIENT. Healing takes time, probably longer than I expect.

I explained to Tom and my friendship support team that I think I had to work so hard at mentally preparing myself for surgery (I’ve never had surgery in my life), then the post-op on Tuesday, that a crash was bound to come: fatigue, anxiety, etc. More than a couple of people in my life are on their own challenging health journeys now, all worse than anything I’m experiencing, but like everyone else, I can only attempt to manage the progression, narrative, and outcome of my own life. I need to give myself permission to feel what I feel and deal with it as I can.

Plus I’m always grateful for the good and the miraculous. Today is the due date of one of our nieces; soon we’ll have a new life to celebrate! (ETA to add correction: The due date is JULY 14. We’d been accidentally misinformed.)

I think I did too much yesterday; I put together a good lunch, and I wanted real food cooked at home so I did a full meal at dinner. I was on my feet a lot.

I’ve probably shared the story before of one of my uncles, who was I don’t know how old, much older than I am now, who had a leg amputated. When they took him home from the hospital, he was alone for a bit. When his family members returned, they found him sitting on the floor vacuuming. My mother had a hysterectomy in her early forties, and the day after coming home, she cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner for us all and my brother’s girlfriend who we met for the first time that day (a petite girl who would later marry my brother and eventually give birth to a nine pound, nine ounce baby boy).

That’s the kind of stock I think I have to live up to, and I DON’T. =) So today, I was less ambitious and rested more, and there were lots of good leftovers in the fridge that Tom could use for his meal. I just put together one of my favorite kind of plates.


My simple dinner of half an apple, a few chips, hummus with carrots and celery, and a few slices of salami and pepperoni.

Tom had to run errands on his way home from work tonight and surprised me with my fave snack for later: Target popcorn!

I’m keeping up here, and also keeping up in my day planner, but anything that asks for too much from my eyes doesn’t happen. I so, SO much want to finish this last chapter of Book Six, but no way can I stare at the monitor long enough to write. I miss watching my characters come to life and deliver surprises.

But again: patience.

Thursday & productivity

I woke up with the determination to finish the chapter I’m working on. It’s taking TOO long. I started with water and a brunch board so I could eat while I read what I have so far.


Cheese crisps, hummus, celery and carrot sticks, Genoa salami, and mild cheddar cheese. With water.


Little emblems nearby to inspire me. These would make sense if you could read the chapter.

A pause here to discuss music. I began this chapter last month, and the next artist was Stevie Nicks. Up front, let me say that I still enjoy Stevie Nicks’s music, but this became a bit of overkill.


Stevie Nicks: 3 CD “Enchanted” box set; “The Other Side of the Mirror”; “Street Angel”; “In Your Dreams”; “Trouble in Shangri La”; “Time Space: The Best of Stevie Nicks.” These don’t include the Stevie I have on vinyl.

I realized Stevie was actually dragging my keyboard around, so there were times I didn’t listen to music at all while I wrote in May. I finally completed the Stevie playlist with relief. I did light her candle with my day’s intentions so she’d still feel like a part of things. The Notorious RBG wasn’t judging me, so neither should you, when I moved on.


Nirvana: “Unplugged In New York”; One Republic, “Human”; Oasis: “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” I have so much One Republic I could have listened to if I’d wanted to blue tooth my iTunes, but it was bedtime, I was tired, and no, I didn’t finish the chapter.


But I made good progress, so that’s a win, and I didn’t even stop to color so I could plot, though I did have these recent acquisitions at the ready. Coloring will definitely happen on pages from these, because they show a number of style and fashion icons and brands, including MY FAVORITE BEATLE. My favorite Beatle is not my musician character’s favorite Beatle, but I understand why and am okay with that. HIS favorite Beatle’s Wings song is included in this chapter. It’s closer to the end than I am.


Note to Lynne: I watch this video with a huge lump in my throat so please remember and watch it when you’re reading the road chapters in Book 6 (so close to being finished!).

Little flashback

Back in March, the day before my birthday, Tom and I had several errands to run. In and among them, we were in stores where I was looking for a bowl that pours. Lynne has one, and back in the Nineties, when I’d bake a lot of cakes for her to decorate, I never used her fancy mixers. I just wanted a hand mixer and a good bowl, because I’m old school that way. (Also, I once broke one of her good mixing bowls, and after that, I preferred using her plastic pouring bowl.)

We weren’t having any success, but our errands took us through our old ‘hood, where one of the shopping centers in Montrose has a Sur La Table. I was having no luck finding a bowl there, either, but Tom spotted one. I liked it immediately, and only after we took it to the counter did we find out it was on sale. SCORE!


A batter bowl, they call it, and porcelain, not plastic, but exactly the size I was looking for. I really like the style, and I’ve used it three times already. Today, I used it to make a birthday cake for Rhonda. The fourth is her birthday (“May the fourth be with her!”), but we’ll be celebrating it tomorrow night. Can’t wait for us all to be together to have some sheer enjoyment after a challenging week.

Midweek and Macbeth

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…”

Part of a passage from Macbeth that I had to memorize in twelfth grade and can still recite from memory. It kept crossing my mind today. I’ve had a brutal week for insomnia, and last night was the worst. So that by this evening, when I cooked dinner, I was on a frustrated version of autopilot, and it didn’t help that I was trying a new recipe for the entrée and also a different way to cook my side dish.

The meal turned out well, despite it all.

I have never really understood the intricacies of my current phone’s camera, but this shot makes me feel like I’m either very tall or a bird equipped with a tracking camera. (I hope I’m a crow or a raven.) The entrée was a pasta dish with kale cooked with caramelized onions, garlic, and diced tomatoes, then mixed with al dente whole wheat spaghetti and topped with toasted walnuts and parmesan cheese. The side dish was eggplant. Added a tossed garden salad and a piece of toasted garlic bread.

Sadly, though everything tasted good, I was so tired that I ate only a small portion of the pasta, a couple of slices of eggplant, and about a third of my piece of bread, though I forced myself to finish my salad. There will be tasty leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

Afterward, Tom cleaned up the kitchen, and I took a long shower, then lay very still listening to music and thinking about my work in progress. Now I’ve taken medication (over the counter; nothing exciting) and hope to get a full night’s rest. Tune in tomorrow for more about Macbeth and to see whether I slept or if I’ve become a full-on zombie.

Button Sunday

Pay no attention to that silly button. With few exceptions, I like eating vegetables.

April 23 is National Asparagus Day. Asparagus is full of vitamins and minerals, rich in antioxidants, and high in protein and fiber. What’s not to love?


I just happen to have fresh asparagus. Some of this will be part of Sunday night’s dinner. =)


P.S. I know I’ve shared this collection on here before, but Portrait: The Music of Dan Fogelberg is the four-disk collection I’ve been listening to while I write. VERY little writing because it hurts my eyes to look at the computer too much. I’ve found that by not straining too much, I can watch TV. So over the past two or three weeks, Tom and I finally caught up to the paused Season 5 of “Yellowstone” (it resumes in the summer) and watched the second season of “Bridgerton.” I’m glad we waited on “Bridgerton” so that I wouldn’t still be thinking of intrigues and characters from the first season. Ultimately, this one was satisfying, as evidenced by the way we watched the last four shows at two a night because I NEEDED TO KNOW how things would be resolved!

As promised…


Here are the ingredients for Thursday’s fantastic salad. I’ve shared this on here many years ago. It was taught to me by my college roommates (I love seeing my recipe card written in Debbie’s handwriting). The closest salad that might be familiar to some people is tabbouleh, also spelled tabouleh, tabbouli, tabouli, or taboulah, but this one I make was taught to me as sof-sof (also sometimes spelled sufsoof). Parsley (that will be wrapped in leaves of iceberg lettuce and chopped), lemon juice, a tablespoon of oil, salt and pepper to taste, cracked wheat (soaked for at least an hour; you’d find it in most grocery stores as bulgur wheat), and tomatoes and green onions. It is truly one of the most refreshing salads you can eat. Though I guess it’s a little labor intensive with the chopping, the scent of parsley being pulled from the stem is divine.

Ready to serve.

Served it up tonight with some long grain and wild rice and baked salmon.

Bonus: Using the lemon peels to grate lemon zest for future use.