Tag: tiny tuesday

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. 😲

Tiny Tuesday!

Remember I mentioned that a Mystery Dog tried to make an art project of my purse. I didn’t see it until I’d already run errands with it last week, and then when I put in on the passenger seat next to me, there it was, looking like this.


I couldn’t have made the best of it, because number one, I at least TRY to look put together when I leave the house. That front part also holds my car and house keys. Wouldn’t want to risk losing them. The purse is going to be repurposed for its leather in a project Lynne is planning.

Today, I had three errands to run. All three of them took me in the same block as a Ross store, so I decided to dash in and check out the purses. Nothing really excited me, but I did get one. (And promptly forgot to do the third errand.)


I’ll try to leave it inaccessible to little purse-eating hellions.

While transferring things from old to new purses, I was looking at these tiny bags.


Top left is my wee elephant bag. I’ve moved it out of circulation for now. Top right is a wee bag Lynne included among my 2021&22 Christmas presents. I keep loose change in it, mostly quarters that I use at an area car wash I visit during the season known as The Pollening. The bottom wee bag has tissues in it–the kind that come in little packs. Because even if I never had kids or grandkids, if you’re a woman of a certain age, tissues in your purse are mandatory. This bag came from one of Tom’s sisters during Christmas 2021 and depicts a scene from White Christmas with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye lip-syncing in drag as the Haynes Sisters (the sister singing act in the movie). By all accounts, audiences loved the scene and the country survived.

Tiny Tuesday!

I mentioned that I’ll be sending my parents’ grandchildren some of my mother’s Christmas decorations. I haven’t done the Christmas bin reorganizing yet, but I’ve made a few tentative steps toward other things I plan to send them. I’d wanted to find photos that would go along with those things, which was a good opportunity to grab an activity from the Tiny Pleasures book.

After going through Mother’s photo albums, then the two boxes of her loose photos that are nicely divided, I sort of found what I was looking for. Or at least something I can make work. Ironically, everything I found was in my own photo albums from when the grandkids were all pre-teens. I should have had faith in myself and my camera obsession and checked my archives first.

It’s always fun to reminisce, so I’m proud of myself for not going through ALL those photos or being tempted by my other photo albums so I can get back to work on the Neverending Saga. On that project, I have a goal I want to meet before June 12. We’ll see. I’ve never written any of these books as slowly as this one, and I’m not sure what that means.

Tiny Tuesday!

Tom took this week as a vacation, and yesterday and today, Lindsey has been here helping organize and purge all the things in what Tom calls “the shed” and I call “onsite storage,” because it sounds nicer than “shed.” It had a lot of stuff that belonged to the previous owner, and after eight years, that’s now been absorbed into our things or properly disposed of.

Onsite storage (it needs a new name; I’ll check out various British estates for one) also contains all our yard tools, lawnmower, and edger; grilling stuff; and any hardware or tools related to the million things a home or three seems to always need. But it also holds sentimentally precious things: mementos of my parents and of Tom and me, and the biggest space taker, our Christmas ornaments and decorations. By organizing and cleaning that room, we’re able to move a lot of things out of our inside closets and off our shelves. All the stuff inside stays organized, but if there’s room out there, and these aren’t things we often access, there’s no reason for them to take space for things we do keep at hand (books, sewing and craft supplies, DVDs and music, games and puzzles, and office supplies, for example).

When I was consolidating some of Tom’s mementos from three different boxes into a single bin, I spotted that brass seal and decided I wanted him to move to one of the curio cabinets. When Tom saw him on the table, he offered full disclosure: The seal was a gift from a woman he once dated when he was a cook at TGI Friday’s. She was a waitress. Honestly, this makes it even better as far as I’m concerned. I like that he held on to things from the years before he met me.

Lindsey’s job will be finished today, I think, but I’ll still have the Christmas stuff to cull, reorganize, and relabel. I’m sure I’ll be donating some of it. We’ve donated a lot of stuff already. Having found lots of little treasures through the years at thrift stores and antique stores, I know that damn near anything can find an appreciative buyer. It’s why eBay and Amazon sellers exist.

Tiny Tuesday!

It may be Tiny Tuesday, but I packed getting a lot of stuff done today–just the business of living and taking care of a couple of issues I’ve been putting off. So busy that by the time I got home, I needed to start dinner and get dogs in and out between rain showers.

Found this young lady a couple of weeks back on deep discount at Ross. So interesting to me, because I’d just written a new character whose description matches her. (That box she’s placed in front of was a cool gift from Lynne long ago.) She’s Mattel, and not as tall as Barbie. She’s a teen, and the character I wrote is 18, so it works.

Tiny Tuesday!


Today, I pay tribute to the typewriter, with this wee one photographed next to a nickel so you can see that it’s Barbie-sized.

In fact, I used it once for a Photo Friday shot in October 2011.

It’s possible my first experience with a typewriter was going to work some nights with my father at the ROTC building where he taught military history in South Carolina. I’ve probably mentioned before that most of the equipment that had him there during off-hours was in the basement. I was in fourth or fifth grade, and those were pre-available copier days, so there were mimeograph machines, that used stencils, and ditto machines (properly called “spirit duplicators”), the machines that print purple and everybody sniffed the “spirits” (ink) when they were fresh off the machine.

Daddy would set me up at a desk with a manual typewriter. Who knows what missives I was composing, but it kept me occupied, other than the times I requested his assistance in stomping on the palmetto bugs that crossed my sight line. South Carolina is The Palmetto State, after all, and it’s the favored tree of those females-can-fly, males-are-dumb bugs otherwise known as tree roaches, often featured in stories on this blog.

I do enjoy looking at the keys on the tiny typewriter (it’s a pencil sharpener) because the letters have no similarity to an actual typewriter. Or so I thought until I began coloring this vintage typewriter from a recently-acquired coloring book.

When I began researching vintage typewriters, I found many versions that differed from modern typewriter key placement. It blew my mind. I filled in the letters on this drawing using some of those vintage keys and some modern ones, making it one of a kind.

Tiny Tuesday!

I realized at some point that I didn’t read any books during April. Not sure how that happened, unless it’s from keeping my eyes from getting fatigued. Did receive a book for my birthday, and it’s next on the list. This also arrived yesterday, so I’ve indulged myself in reading a few of the poems I loved as a high school senior. I volunteered to give Debby a refresher course, but she declined. She said she’s engrossed by a series about shape shifters.

Tom and I remembered we hadn’t watched the most recent season of The Crown, so it’s become our dinnertime viewing, and we’re now through the third episode. This particular episode made me sad to the point of tears. It’s hard to watch things when you know how painfully they will unfold.

Here’s the Neverending Saga playlist for my past few writing sessions.


Natalie Merchant’s Tiger Lily; George Michael’s Patience and the two-CD set Ladies and Gentlemen, The Best of George Michael; Bette Midler’s Experience The Divine: Greatest Hits and Bette of Roses; Robert Miles’s Dreamland; and Joni Mitchell’s Joni Mitchell: Hits. A good mix to write to.

Here’s your Jack update. Today, he went to his vet and got a little more hydration with Sub Q fluids, a special variety of dog food for gastro issues, and a lot of praise for being a good boy. He’s still eating some of the boiled chicken we have for him, but he also has a hearty appetite for the new kibble. It may take a few more days before he’s back to himself, but everything’s looking up, and his antibiotics and anti-nausea meds seem to be helping.

Because he’s been stoic through all of this, tonight, Jack got to wear “The [tiny] Crown.” If you think it looks a little more suited to a princess, he doesn’t care. He says if Harry Styles can make any fashion his own, so can he.


We are amused, and we concur.

Tiny Tuesday!

April 18, the anniversary of my father’s death, never gets past me. I always remember both of my parents’ birth dates on the day of, but most years, I overlook the date that my mother died until sometime after the fact. I think because that anniversary is on the first day of the month (June 1), and I rarely notice month changes in general. I do remember infinite details about both those days, in 1985 and 2008, but I agree with the concept that time is a great healer; even the saddest memories are much softer and always tempered by the better ones.


Because it’s Tiny Tuesday, I woke up with the idea of sharing this lacquer cigarette box, a gift to my father from the chief of police where he was last deployed in Korea before he retired. It’s been packed away for a while, and I’ve decided to display it with my other boxes.


A look inside. On the left is a compartment for holding a pack of cigarettes, maybe even some of the smaller cigar brands. That’s a cigarette lighter with a University of Alabama emblem I was given when I was in college, and since Daddy and I both graduated from there, this seems like a good place for it. On the right is an ashtray in pristine condition, so I know it was never used.


Inside the top is hand lettering to show the names of the giver and my father.

I wish one of his grandchildren or great-grandchildren would want this memento, but to date, none of them seem to have my sentimental (possible hoarding?) tendency. But as long as I’m around, this piece of my father’s history has a home.

Tiny Tuesday!

Below are the works that have been my playlist “from the box” for what I’ve been listening to when I can write and revise. Hopefully, I’ll be back at that full time after eye surgery in early summer, but I’m always grateful for the time I get to spend with my fiction and its characters.


First up, The Civil Wars and their CD Barton Hollow. This is the 2011 release from duo Joy Williams and John Paul White. They’re no longer working together, and they have what is to me a fascinating story that’s far more closely aligned with the novel Daisy Jones & The Six than any of the other band/artist parallels people try to draw. (Also, I’ve gotten info on how the streaming series strays from the book, and I think I’ll just stop with the book. Sometimes Hollywood makes questionable choices for more drama–understandable, but they sacrificed things that made me really like the book and respect the characters.) This link is to a 2013 interview with Joy Williams. There’s a mix of tension and magic as she describes The Civil Wars that makes me think of characters in the Neverending Saga, though not the ones people might expect. I think I need to order The Civil Wars’ second CD.

Second, Elvis Costello and The Imposters’ A Boy Named If. I need to give this CD more undistracted listening time. I’m always happy hearing Elvis Costello, whichever of his styles he dips into and on his many collaborations.

Third, Frank Enea’s Makeshift Days. Full disclosure: Frank Enea is related to someone I know personally, which was my impetus for getting this CD in 2003. I’m glad I did, because I enjoy the music, and his vocals are pleasingly reminiscent of Mick Jagger while remaining all his own.


Because of what I’m writing at the moment, these two CDs from the box hit at exactly the right time. The Jazz Divas features songs from Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, and Billie Holiday, among others. Legends!

Most recently is Ella Fitzerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book, a two-disk set that is perfection.

Here’s my tiny tribute to all the fantastic vocalists who brought us blues and soul. The power of those pipes!

Tiny Tuesday!

I don’t know why I’m how I am. I know there are women who want their spouses/partners to give them jewelry and trips and cars for their birthday. I’m not one.

When Lynne was visiting recently, we went to Buchanan’s, a favorite nursery in the Heights, so Lynne could buy botanicals for her yard. I always like going there because of the fun things I find, like little Rocky a few years back, who keeps vigil over Houndstooth Hall.

This time was no exception. I spotted a new friend among many other items and walked it over to Tom, telling him this was what I wanted for my birthday.

We know I can’t use him as a planter, because I’m more deadly than a great white shark to indoor plants. Even if I find nothing to put inside him, he’s still a delight.

Or maybe….