Tag: tiny tuesday

Tiny Tuesday!

From The Tiny Book of Tiny Pleasures:

They say hearing is the last sense we lose before we shuffle off this mortal coil, but I’ve often wondered if it might instead be scent. Or maybe scent just has the most power to help us recall our personal histories. I appreciate all the scents mentioned above: rosemary, peppermint, lemon, eucalyptus, thyme, jasmine, and lavender.

I recently had to restock some of my essential oils before they ran out; among them, lemon grass, lime, and spearmint.


I picked these three specifically to show because they are some of the ones I bought at Wild Earth Herbs, which has been closed since sometime in 2005. The scents are just as potent and wonderful in the bottle as ever. My replacements are from a different dealer, of course. I probably won’t use these in blends, but will use them individually in a diffuser so we can share a fragrant goodbye.

I wasn’t surprised by how lovely they still smell. The Titanic sank in 1912. On board was a chemist with vials of essential oils he planned to use to create fragrances. He survived the disaster, but his oils were lost. In 1985, on one of the expeditions to the sunken ship, his case was found and brought to the surface. After 73 years, the oils still held their scent. I was able to smell them at an exhibit of Titanic artifacts in 2002, ninety years after they landed on the ocean floor.

Amazing.

Tiny Tuesday!

Where to begin…

I suppose January/February of last year? When I was haunting a local antique mall and being fascinated by porcelain miniatures of buildings in Prague. They were a wonderful inspiration for my writing, and I snatched up their full stock before (1) the pandemic hit in earnest, and I isolated at home, and (2) I no longer had the disposable income, having been laid off, to indulge myself in such a way.

I posted a few of the little buildings. A friend subsequently told me she blew right past those posts because she had no interest in them. That’s fine. I recently looked at my stats for the first time in years and was surprised by how many people read this random, meandering blog. “They” say write the book you want to read. I guess I write the blog I want to read, and I appreciate everyone else who reads here and am always interested in receiving comments.

I was in Walgreen’s the other day (I seem to be going there more often) when I spotted these coloring books.

They have drawings to color on both front and back sides of each sheet. I prefer single-sided drawings, because I pull them to save in a sketch book. Since these were only a dollar, I bought two of each so I’d be able to take advantage of every drawing.


In “Cities of the World,” there was Prague! I have a miniature that resembles the building on the left. Even if it’s not exact, I’ve located the information for my little porcelain building. It’s one of the buildings of the Prague City Insurance Company at Starom?stské nám?stí 932/6, Old Town, 110 00 Prague 1, Czech Republic.

If you’ve been willing to stick with me through this post, below is a gift from me to you from the second novel in the Neverending Saga. The Director is remembering a time after he’d been in an accident and was slowly recovering. As for The Artist…

Prague City Insurance

He was still in the wheelchair then, but an aide went with him to assist him, and [the artist] was indefatigable as she made sure he missed out on nothing. He loved Prague’s architecture and people and shops. When she worked, he went with her to her warehouse of a studio. The radio was always turned low to classical music, and when he wasn’t watching her paint, he read or paged through the art books she stacked up for him. Each night after dinner and a few passionate hours in his hotel suite, she left him in the care of his aide.

© Becky Cochrane

This is why I’m intrigued by Prague and my miniature buildings…the reason for research…why I love what I do. My blog isn’t for everyone. My novels aren’t, either. Approval, understanding, interested readers, enthusiasm–these are all lovely. But my love of research and where it takes me, and my love of story and characters: They are a gift to me from myself.

I don’t know if this is true of everyone who creates.

Tiny Tuesday!

We lost a LOT of botanicals during the big freeze, including many potted plants more than twenty-five years old. I have a hard enough time growing things, without this insane climate chipping away at our efforts.

I already showed you that we’d cleaned out Aaron’s garden, and we–meaning mostly Tom–have been trying to take care of the various beds around the house to clean them up and prune things until we have the time and inclination to find more plants for our pots.

In case you don’t remember, this is the book that kicked off Tiny Tuesdays however long ago that was.

And I spotted this page in it.

While I don’t have an actual flower garden, I have been casting a critical eye on one of the beds next to our house where heavenly bamboo grows. It’s not actual bamboo, but the nandina shrub, and people just call it heavenly bamboo. (Not so heavenly if you’re a human, cat, dog, or bird who ingests the toxic berries. Or maybe a little TOO CLOSE to heavenly. Hmmm.)

So I started cleaning it out and pruning, and when things got beyond my reach, Tom did his part to finish. I didn’t take before photos of how overgrown these were, or how the bed was covered with last year’s leaves. But once it was pruned and cleaned out, we moved a couple of the ferns that survived the freeze to join the nandina.


The larger bush had actually been covering most of that window and is now cut down to merely brush the sill.


Another angle. Maybe we’ll put some potted flowers in there, too, later. We’ll see what can take the sun there.

On the other side of the house are the little trellises where my ruellia vines grow. They were a HUGE mess after the freeze, as well as because of other invasive vines that were choking them out. Once again, I failed to take a before picture, but thanks to Tom, they are much tidier now, although the trellises themselves may not last another couple of seasons. The vines will be safe; we can always get new trellises. I hope they bloom again this year, but they may need more recovery time. The flowers are favorites of bees and hummingbirds.


Our fence, on the right, looked just like the one on the left only three years ago when it replaced the old fence after the Harvey flood. Our neighbor replaced hers in the last few months. The sun and climate are so brutal here.

Here are some of the leaves and cuttings that Tom and I cleared out, in the only lawn bags approved by the city of Houston. If you put the wrong bags on the curb, they won’t pick them up and will slap stickers on them to let you know you need the environmentally friendly bags. This means everyone driving or walking by KNOWS YOUR SHAME.

Stay tuned as we continue to reclaim our yard and flowerbeds and replenish our pots.

Tiny Tuesday!

As I catalog and store my dolls and their fashions, I decided to take another look at my Top Models. Longtime readers will recognize the original twelve muses.

Barbie Top Models Abby, Tanya, and Barbie; Summer Top Models Summer (the first!), Susannah, Lacy, and Rita; Nikki Top Models Tamala and Faizah; and Teresa Top Models Kikki, Jessica, and Meggie (formerly Maggie, but name changed because of a conflict with a different “Maggie” doll)

Summer was the first Model Muse body sculpt I bought. I needed a redhead for a 2008 photo shoot to promote my novel A Coventry Wedding. She kicked off a passion for these dolls and helped inspire the first season of Runway Monday, also in 2008.

To prove my devotion to the Model Muses, these twelve dolls were later joined by an additional fifty-nine Model Muse body sculpts from the many Basic Barbie collections and other dolls created by Mattel.

Tiny dolls: big collection. Lots of inspiration and imagination thanks to them.

Tiny Tuesday!

We have lots of friends in Houston still without power. So far, our power has stayed on, and we do have cold water, but no hot water in the house. The weather will get worse before it gets better, so we are hoping we can keep power.

Other than writing, I’ve been working hard at organizing my doll collection. A lot has been accomplished on that front, but I’m still not finished. Tom has been moving dolls around for days.

These three Kawasaki Ninja cycles make me want to PLAY. But it’s work time.

Tiny Tuesday!

A lovely page to color from Jenny Lawson’s* book You Are Here:

“It’s a magic lamp. It’s a sorcerer’s hat. It’s a time machine and a songbird and a treasure chest. It’s a weapon and a weight. And also you can type with it.”

Such a small machine to hold infinite thought and imagination.

*I can not recommend her blog enough, especially if you deal with depression and social anxiety and like humor.