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May 2021 in Photos

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A crystal ball on a golden stand representing the Three Fates sits on top of two red leather bound books against a red background. The word May appears in the top left.

Time feels so elastic these days. I suppose that’s for obvious reasons (Covid), and that the days tend to blur into one another. I spent the month continuing to indulge my love of reading, continuing to do my Mind-Stilling practice, and starting to look at other habits I wanted to encourage.

I read a post by Mel Robbins where she was talking about the reasons why it’s so hard to change your life and basically it’s because your mind loves what it knows, it can predict outcomes based on doing what feels familiar. Your mind will fight against anything it doesn’t know and will trick you into believing that thinking about doing something is the same as doing it. So the way to combat this is to start acting like the person you want to become. When your mind sees you taking that action, that action becomes what your mind knows.

So, while I feel like my life has already undergone some major behind-the-scenes changes this year, I still have a ways to go. I decided one way I could start changing my mindset was to get dressed, put on makeup, and put on jewelry. Since I really never leave the house anymore, I really wasn’t doing any of those things. So, making a concerted effort to do it not only makes me feel better, but it starts changing my mindset about me being worth taking the time to do it. It actually is kind of surprising the difference it makes.

I also am trying to get back in the habit of painting my nails. This one was one of my favorites, Essie’s After Sex.

Bloodmilk Jewels

I’ve been enamored with Bloodmilk Jewels for a long time, but for whatever reason this month I become utterly obsessed. I keep thinking I’d like one of their pieces for my birthday this year, since it’s a milestone birthday. But, how on earth am I going to narrow it down to just one piece? They’re all so good.

My current carry stones – (clockwise from top left) black moonstone, celestite, dumortierite, and k-2. The K-2 is for migraine relief and peace, Black Moonstone is for protection and concentration, Celestite is for peace and relaxation, and Dumortierite is for staying true to one’s self.

At the end of the month, I got a promotion at work. My boss had been talking about making some changes the past couple of weeks, but I was really surprised when he announced it to the team that he was putting me into a new role. I’m nervous but also excited about it.

If you’re not watching The Nevers on HBO, you should be. I have loved every episode so far. It’s a little The Alienist, a little Penny Dreadful, a little Carnival Row, with some steampunk thrown in for good measure.

I’ll share what I’ve been reading this month in my next post.

April 2021 in Photos

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In April, my month was heavily influenced by reading A Court of Silver Flames. (My monthly marker photo even shows the three copies I ended up with at one point because two of them arrived heavily damaged. Le sigh.) But, at the beginning of the month, I set some goals for myself that I thought really aligned with my goals for the year as well as being inspired by this book.

One of the things that was a big takeaway for me was the Mind-Stilling practice that the characters learned. I decided that it was finally time to start that daily meditation practice I keep talking about but never do. I actually love that they call it Mind-Stilling, because that’s exactly what meditation is. And after a few sessions, I could see the difference it was having on my anxiety. Allowing me to be calm in the storm.

A while back, Eric set up a meditation space for me in our closet under the stairs. It’s the perfect space to settle in with no distractions and just focus on your breathing. One of these days I’ll get around to sharing photos of that space in its entirety, but for now you can see the chakra painting I did along with my mala beads, a meditation bowl, and candle. The salt lamps we actually have throughout the house.

Another change we made is that we started eating at the table on the weekends. We’ve gotten into such a habit of eating in front of the tv. And we realized the other day that one of the things we’ve both been missing since the start of the pandemic was our Friday night dates where we go out to eat and have the time to focus on each other and just talk. So, we decided that on Saturday and Sunday nights, we’ll sit at the table and focus on enjoying each other’s company. Case in point was Easter dinner.

Eric made a delicious quinoa salad with cucumbers and red peppers and olives. we also had Moroccan lamb meatballs with fresh tomato slices, pitas, and fresh ziziki sauce he made. We even opened a bottle of wine with dinner, which was lovely.

I also made Cassata cake, which is our traditional cake for Easter. It’s basically pound cake, with rum and cannoli filling between the layers, and a whipped cream frosting. So yummy. The only difference this year was that instead of regular mini chocolate chips, Eric found some espresso chocolate chips so I used those. They gave it a little extra kick.

We also celebrated our fifteen year wedding anniversary this month, which seems crazy.

March 2021 in Photos

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March started off kind of rocky, but even through all the challenges I kept reminding myself that there is a place for hope and possibilities. I realized too, that I’d kind of been going through the motions the last couple of months, so for some reason, March seemed like I suddenly woke up and started to get back on track. (Like, I still had Christmas cards sitting on my desk that needed to be dealt with.) I started refocusing on taking care of myself again. which in turn actually makes me feel better.

I painted my nails even. This is an old favorite, Sephora by OPI’s Metro Chic (above) and another favorite, Urban Decay Addiction (below).

It has a ton of sparkle to catch the light.

Along with taking better care of myself, I also am trying to get back in the habit of weekly guidance. I like to pull a tarot card, some crystals, and an oil to give me an intuitive selection for the week to come. This one was all about shifting your energy through gratitude and recognition of even the smallest blessings, removing obstacles and opening pathways, and creating a space for creativity and productivity.

Midway through the month we also finally put the house back to “normal”. After Christmas, we left out our winter things and then came Valentine’s Day. So, even my house felt like it got a fresh new start.

I’m still reading a ton and enjoying it. I’ll do a separate post of my March reads, but you can take a look at my February reads in the meantime. My TBR list seems to be getting out of hand. I accept recs though!

Anyway, March seemed to be a month of shifting and opening, and it felt good to be moving forward again.

February 2021 in Photos

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I’m not gonna lie. February was rough, y’all.

Ramses started acting like he didn’t feel well right at the beginning of the month. At first I thought maybe I was imagining it because we’d just gone through similar symptoms with Thut. Unfortunately, he was in much worse shape than Thut was. I suspect that they both started showing symptoms around the same time, but Thut’s were more pronounced, so it’s possible Ramses had been steadily declining in the two weeks we were giving Thut antibiotics. Basically, they both had urinary tract infections with crystals that were causing a blockage. Because Ramses was so much worse, he had to spend several days at the vet with a catheter, IV fluids, and lots of antibiotics and pain meds. I was so relieved when we were able to bring him home. (I’m sure the vet techs were relieved because he decided to be ornery and kept trying to bite them.)

Eric and I suspect that their food was the culprit to both of them having issues simultaneously. We switched their food to a new prescription food the vet recommended and hopefully that will keep them both healthy. Definitely not a good start to the month.

I wrote in my journal that my February tarot card made so much more sense now because it talked about short term loss and hitting hard times. There was also a piece about feeling the reality of possible loss. And what we went through with the boys, along with some family news, it all suddenly seemed to come clear. But, I wrote in my journal that we have to focus on moving forward and pushing up out of the winter ground towards spring.

I painted my nails Romeo and Joliet by OPI and I was definitely digging that dark, sexy vibe. Work was difficult, the weather was getting colder, and was spending a lot of time curled up with a book under a quilt (or two) in the evenings.

On Valentine’s Day it was 18 degrees Fahrenheit and it snowed, which is so rare in Texas. That evening, the roads iced over, which affected our Valentine’s Day dinner delivery plans. In the middle of the night they started rolling blackouts to try to manage the load on the power grid. We had rolling blackouts throughout the day. I worked off my laptop when I could, and off my phone when I couldn’t, since it was a work day. We tried to do things like shower and make food in the half hour times when the power was on. Around 5:30 the power came back on and we heated up some French Onion soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches. The power went back out at 6pm and then never came back on. We had candles and quilts but it got pretty damn cold in the house. The internet eventually went out and when we went to bed we layered blankets and quilts on the bed and once our body heat warmed up the bed we could sleep.

The strangest thing about that day though was the robins. Ramses demanded the blinds be opened at one point because something caught his attention outside. I opened the blinds to see a huge flock of robins. They were flying in the trees, sitting on our fence, eating the berries in our holly tree. There must have been thirty to forty of them. I’ve never in my life seen such a thing. And for robins, which are typically a harbinger of spring, to appear in those numbers on basically the coldest day we’ve had in forever, was mind-blowing. Butt apparently this is a thing they do – their “winter behavior” (I’ve lived in Texas for over 40 years and never seen this) is to flock like this and go where they can find berries, since it is too cold for insects and worms. And apparently they can withstand super cold temps by fluffing up their feathers which makes them appear fat – which they did!

On Tuesday, it was 8 degrees that morning. Still no power and it was just getting colder and colder in our house. We were supposed to get more snow and the colder it got the more concerned I got for the boys and Eric. We finally decided to bail out, but with no power anywhere around us and the roads slick with ice, we weren’t sure where to go. The city had set up warming shelters, but Covid plus the cats made me rule that out. We finally called Eric’s parents and they had power and let us come stay with them. We packed up the boys and headed out on icy roads, but hopefully towards light and warmth.

We ended up spending the rest of the week with them. The boys seemed to do ok, Eric and I were both able to work, and we were able to spend some time with family. The other half of the message from that February tarot card was that even when things seem hopeless and you feel so alone in the world, there are people there to support you. I didn’t even remember it said that until I went back to look at it recently.

My “office” for the week was the wet bar. We were able to go home on Friday. The power was back on and luckily, no pipes had burst in the cold, and we had no damage. We lost everything in our refrigerator and freezer, but other than that, everything seemed ok.

We were all so grateful to be home. And I was grateful to be reunited with my stitching too.

February was way more eventful than I really wanted it to be, but we seemed to weather it well and we are warm and safe, the boys are healthy, and our house is undamaged. So much to be grateful for.

January 2021 in Photos

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One of my favorite traditions on New Year’s Day is to watch the Rose Parade. Due to Covid, they instead aired a non-parade parade. Basically, it was a behind the scenes look at past parades. Eric and I did have our traditional meal of lasagna for dinner and we spent the day watching Stargate SG-1.

I enjoyed every last bit of my vacation too. It was so nice to be able to read, and spend time working on projects I wanted to work on, and settling in to watch Stargate SG-1 in the evenings with Eric. I’m really grateful for having taken two weeks off. Of course, going back to work after a long holiday/vacation is not my favorite.

I spent some time in January working on transferring over some old journals into Day One. It takes a bit of time, but I like having them all in there. And it’s weird to look back at entries from 2005 when Eric and I were engaged and planning our wedding.

January always seems like a time for fresh starts, but also for clearing things out and organizing. My craft closet was making me seriously crazy. I had finished stitching pieces I needed to measure for framing and put away. I had leftover fabric and batting from a quilt I made in September, random gift bags from gifts that needed to be dealt with, and so on. It took me awhile, but I felt so much better when it was done.

Late in the month, Thutmose had to go in to the vet for an infection and was on antibiotics and pain meds for about ten days. I was much relieved when he started to feel better.

Eric asked me to make a King Cake this year. He typically brings one home from the grocery store, but when he requested one homemade I couldn’t say no. This is only the second time I’ve made one, but it was delicious.

I also took one of my fave polishes for a spin too – The World is Not Enough (from the James Bond Collection) by OPI. All in all, not a bad start to the year.

December 2020 in Photos

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I’ll be honest, December started off as kind of a hard month. Normally, I have guild holiday parties to attend, along with our own annual holiday party we usually throw. But, Covid put the kibosh on that. Typically, the time between Thanksgiving and the first weekend in December is a flurry of trying to get the house decorated, food baked, and invites sent out. With no deadline to meet for our party though, we weren’t in any rush to decorate the house. And I’ll be honest, a part of me kind of felt like it was silly to do it because no one else was going to see it. But, Eric loves Christmas and I love having the house decorated, especially our Christmas trees. So, I decided that even if no one else sees it and we’re not having our party – we really needed this.

Eric even put his trains out for this first time since we got the boys. And thankfully, they mostly ignored them. Although occasionally Thut would knock it completely off the track as he settled into a nap on the tree skirt making it look like a scene from The Fugitive.

Since we weren’t having our annual holiday party, but still wanted to enjoy some delicious treats, we came up with a list of what we really wanted. I tried to spread it out over the holidays so we weren’t completely overloaded with desserts.

I made peppermint bark, which I don’t think I’ve made in several years. I make it with dark chocolate because Eric honestly hates white chocolate.

I made spiced nuts too. It’s an old Martha Stewart recipe and they are my favorite, so I always want to make them.

The fruitcake I made last year? the year before? was so good that Eric suggested I make that too.

It basically has brandy, nuts (I used pecans, I think), dried cranberries, and golden raisins in it. Delicious.

Eric also requested Italian S cookies. This was my first time making them and they turned out really good. Of course after I made them he informed me his mom doesn’t make them in this shape. shrug They were still yummy.

For Christmas Eve dinner, I typically make some sort of special dessert. I found a recipe for tiramisu that is made with pound cake instead of ladyfingers. Since finding ladyfingers has always been my block for making tiramisu, this sounded like a good option. I made the pound cake a day ahead.

Eric made espresso for me in his Moka pot. When I was ready to assemble.

I’ll be brutally honest. It wasn’t good. It had a couple of problems. It called for cocoa powder sprinkled over the top. I used wayyyy too much, and since it was unsweetened it was super bitter. The second problem was that the cake didn’t soak up the espresso. The third issue was the filling/topping. It didn’t have the texture I was expecting and we both felt the cake to filling ratio was a bit off.

After tasting it, we doctored it up a little bit. We poked holes into the top and poured more espresso in. That helped a good bit. The other thing we did was make more of the filling/topping and added more of that on top. It still didn’t have the right consistency, but it toned down that unsweetened cocoa powder a good bit. Not sure I will be making this particular recipe again, but I might experiment with a different recipe.

Christmas Eve dinner was otherwise delicious and we even had wine for the first time in what seems forever. We haven’t spent Christmas Eve/Christmas Day with family in several years, so pandemic aside, we enjoyed our time together and just the two of us celebrating.

One of the things that made me insanely happy in December was continuing my love affair with reading. The new book in one of my favorite series is scheduled for release in February of next year, but when they revealed the cover for it I was a bit heartbroken because they’d done away with the beautiful covers I’d come to know and love. Thus began my quest to track down and own the first four books in the series with the original covers. I had originally read these as library books, but I wanted to add them to my own collection. So, I hunted down the first book, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and read it in December. And I fell in love with this series all over again. I’ll talk more about these books in a separate post, but suffice it to say many late nights were spent with my head in this book.

The big thing that happened in December was that I revealed something I’d been working on for the past year. I charted an antique sampler and released the pattern to members of my guild as part a gift for our twentieth anniversary celebration. It was so much work and it taught me a lot, and I admit it was hard to keep it a secret. Such a huge relief though to release Sarah out into the world and I look forward to seeing her come to life with other stitchers’ needles.

While December really brought home the impact Covid was having on our usual routines and celebrations, there was a lot of goodness to be embraced. Eric and I both took time off of work and enjoyed our time together. If 2020 taught me anything it’s that Eric and I are in this together and when you take away external distractions, it gave us the opportunity to focus on what matters.