Tag: random

Elf on a Delta

Recently someone cracked me up on Instagram by reposting something similar to this post I found on Twitter:

I won’t get into the history of how Elf on a Shelf came about and why people argue over it; it’s all easy to find thanks to Google.

Tom has an elf that he got when he was a wee child. Elf and Delta cooperated with this pose.

There’s no controversy surrounding Elf on a Delta:

Does not spy on anyone. In fact, he won’t even tell me where the lizard I was trying to help out of the house fled to yesterday. I figure I’ll probably wake up some morning to find that lizard side-eyeing me from my pillow.****

Does not report to Santa. They haven’t spoken since that one Thanksgiving sometime in the 1980s. Don’t all families have a story like that?

Is not a tradition. Some holidays, he doesn’t even show up to hang out on the tree. No one notices, and he doesn’t care. He has his own rich inner life and does not crave attention.

Will not be writing a tell-all. Knows that writing is labor-intensive and holds no promise of readership or rewards. Prefers to do Elf things.

Supports others’ decisions. Napping? Phone alerts and rings turned off? Just one more episode of what you’re binge-watching on Netflix? Spending the day in your PJs? Eating popcorn for dinner? Putting off the lawn-mowing for another day? Talking to your dog, cat, bird, ferret, vanishing lizard, or imaginary friends and ignoring your email? Elf on a Delta says treat yourself.

****ETA: Tom has saved the lizard, who is now living happily outside as lizards should. It’s an Elfin Christmas miracle!

More odds and ends from social media

December 4 is one of the tough days for me. Instead of getting into that, I’ll do another post of scraps I’ve saved from social media over the past few weeks and want off my phone. Who can say what speaks to whom, but maybe you’ll find something funny or helpful here.


The problem for me with counting sheep if I have insomnia is that I’d start giving them all names and coming up with stories for them. It would annoy my human characters.

Continue reading “More odds and ends from social media”

Saturday Silliness

Seriously, I rarely go looking for dolls, but sometimes it seems like they come looking for me. Like when this guy showed up unsummoned in my email. I took one look at the blonde mess on his head and decided he needed me. (You know he had an agenda when he dressed in that houndstooth vest and New Wave tie–how does that not scream, “SAVE ME!” to me specifically?)

I’ll put the rest of this foolishness behind a cut so you can see what I spent a bit of time doing when I was also managing serious dogsitting/relocating while workers were on the property.

Continue reading “Saturday Silliness”

Photo Friday, No. 781

Current Photo Friday theme: Sacred

A random collection of items from throughout my home, these aren’t all the cultural objects that are at Houndstooth Hall. They symbolize: birth, death, sacrifice, worship, religion, nature, animal totems, angels, magic, myth, music, art, the cosmos.

Many of them, along with those not pictured, represent what I hold most sacred: their givers, who have been my friends and family throughout my life.

Revisit, Review, Repeat

There is something about Book 5 in the Neverending Saga that isn’t working for me. I decided to go back and scrutinize some things about the previous two books to see if I could find the reason there. I can never, ever read any of my own manuscripts, even if I’ve read them a dozen times, without making changes.

It’s exhausting to have an editor’s brain lacking an off switch.

Lady, kiss that frog


Harking back to Peter Gabriel’s Us album, one of the songs is “Kiss That Frog.” I always wonder, though, does no one tell a frog he’s great just being a frog? Princes are frequently highly overrated, I think.

This is another illustration from my old 1981 calendar that I colored while writing and wrestling with a headache today. I think Frog is very handsome and has a winning smile.

What a week

This week was a little crazy. I’m not even sure why. I did have to get a new phone after I launched my previous one on the river to ruin, and that was the same day I also had my car in for its regular maintenance.

Let’s see. We voted. We went over to RubinSmo Manor for an hour or so for a photo shoot and got to meet Honey the foster kitty, see Pepper, and hug Lindsey and Rhonda for the first time in SO LONG–especially Lindsey, because we have been able to see Rhonda two or three times since we last saw Lindsey.

ETA: I forgot the tornado warnings and the power outage. That sucked up some of the time I’d normally be productive.

I’ve been out of the house running errands more frequently than usual this week. But none of this seems like a lot, and I don’t watch TV unless Tom and I watch something while we eat dinner. So other than cooking, housecleaning, and spending time outside (the weather is so nice) with dogs, I guess most of my time has gone to this art project I’ve embarked on and writing. I sure don’t get more than six hours of sleep a night, so who knows where all the hours go.

Today while I was working on stuff I had an overwhelming urge to listen to Peter Gabriel’s album Us. There used to be a record store next to the bookstore where I was an assistant manager, and I was in there browsing one day when they played a song. It sounded so much like Dennis Wilson or a song he’d have written or sung that I remember walking to the cash wrap in a daze and asking, “WHAT OR WHO IS THAT YOU’RE PLAYING?” It was Peter Gabriel, and the song was “Washing of the Water,” which I’ll include below. A moving song, and I can understand why it caught my attention and still gets to me.

Another noteworthy thing about the album is the song “Fourteen Black Paintings,” which he wrote about Mark Rothko’s paintings installed in Houston’s Rothko Chapel. They are among my favorite works of art, and Mark Rothko is one of my favorite painters in the world. Just some Becky trivia there. =)