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Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

Feeling a little like this today as Old House Syndrome continues to unfold. Today: rim joist work continues

From the tv show Murphy Brown (1980s) - Eldin the house painter, who’s been painting the house for years, wearinf paint spattered white overalls and a bright blue buttoned down shirt. Murphy in an ivory long sleeved blouse with a long floppy bow neck (very 80s). Murphy looks distraught.

November 13, 2025 at 5:47 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

#DiaDeMuertos #Seattle Huehca Omeyocan performance.

Stage with a large sign overhead reading Huehca Omeyocan. On the stage you can see 4 figures dressed in large feathered headdresses and brightly colored traditional dress. One wears a skull mask and carries a shield. Another carries a decorative sword. They are dancing and singing. Though you can’t see him there is a drummer wearing a jaguar mask.

November 4, 2025 at 6:25 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

Chalk art creates on the floor with a small metal guitar structure in the center. The chalk art depicts skeletons in a circle. The center of the circle is a sprinkling of marigolds around the guitar. The next circle out is red. The outermost circle is a royal blue and a sea blue

A Dia de Muertos altar. It is very colorful and too full of objects to name them all, but there are decorative skulls, a vase of lilies, candles, foods, marigolds, photos of loved ones, a Mexican flag, a row of little skeleton figurines playing musical instruments, a black and silver sombrero, bright colors table cloths, and the whole thing is topped by a large dark blue decorative skull with pink flower eyes.

A Día de Muertos altar. Covered in burlap. Large drums to either side. Candles, marigolds, decorative skulls, small Aztec style statues, and food offerings

A skeleton about 8’ tall dressed in a skirt and blouse. It has wings that span about twice its height. One wing is monarch. The other wind is a collage of smaller butterflies that people have decorated. The skeleton-butterfly lifts its arms and a bitterly rests in its right hand.

November 4, 2025 at 6:20 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

From last weekend’s Día de Muertos celebration at the Seattle Center.

Archway covered in orange marigolds framing a bark walkway lined on side by twinkle lights and symbolic graves decorated for the Día de los Muertos celebration and lit by candles.

A bark walkway lined on either side by twinkle lights and symbolic graves decorated for the Día de los Muertos celebration, lit by candles.

November 4, 2025 at 6:05 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

Crocheted up a new frog hat.

Light green yarn crocheted into a cap with two eyes sticking up on top (eyes are green around the outside with white corneas and black irises.)

November 1, 2025 at 5:02 AM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

Lake walk to clear the interstitial cobwebs. #Seattle #LakeWashington

Autum leaves, mostly brown cover the ground. Several large trees with green and yellow leaves around the grounds. The lake in the distance looks white from reflected light. And a shrub looks lit by fairy light in the middle distance.

Cloudy sky with a sliver of blue near the horizon. Green and red-orange brambles along the bottom of the photo foreground. The middle line of the photo is of silver-grey water and a clump of long, thin, green-black water grasses. To the right side is a blanched grey tree with long bare limbs jutting out over the water to the middle of the photo.

A portal. Grey gravel walkway with a faded red, brown, and mossy wooden fence on the left, bushes on both sides rising up and forming an arched tunnel over the pathway. Green grass seen at the far end of the tunnel.

October 29, 2025 at 8:39 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

The beauty of dried scarlet runner beans. #garden #gardening 🌱

A silver colored bowl holding a couple handfuls of large beans. The beans are a pink-purple with dark purple freckles along the edges and a very dark purple in the centers

September 26, 2025 at 8:36 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

Every year I plant a couple things that don’t like the maritime PNW but are things I love from the South. It’s wistful, stubborn… but then something pops up… usually not well, but it shows up. And 🌱💚😆

This year? I give you the world’s tiniest watermelon (tasty) & cantaloupe (not tasty)!

Two fruits with a measuring tape laid out below them on a wooden table. The dark green sphere to the left is a 2” nearly perfectly round watermelon. The pale blue-green 3” sphere to the right is a cantaloupe.

Tiny watermelon cut in half and sitting on a bamboo cutting board. There are a few lime wedges at the top of the picture that look like they could take the watermelon in a fight. The watermelon has a dark green circle of ring around the perimeter of each slice followed by a creamy white/green circle of rind with a dark pink/orange center of juicy goodness with more seeds than something this size should probably have. This lovely little gem is surprisingly tasty.

What passes itself off as a cantaloupe sliced into 2 wedges and a half of the fruit, sitting on a bamboo cutting board. There are outer rind is dark green followed by a pale green and white bit of rind/fruit, centered with what really ought to be the heart of the fruit but is really just the color orange filled with juicy seeds. It is inedible.

September 20, 2025 at 5:31 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

View of the elm tree lit up in the morning’s sun.

Close up picture through the branches of an elm tree looking at the trunk and limbs. The trunk and limbs are a red brown and the light of sunrise makes that orangy-red pop. The light yellow-green leaves have likewise lit up with the morning glow.

September 18, 2025 at 1:03 AM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

Scenes from the South (brief trip) -

Green hillside covered with deciduous trees. Billboard - black with Big white print - reads “Jesus or Hell” and in smaller print “The Choice is Yours”

White square plate of food: top left is grape salad (purple grapes covered in a creamy white sweet sauce and brown sugar); to right are glazed sliced carrots; bottom right is what is called strawberry pretzel salad, because if you call it salad it is healthy, right? But it is really a square of strawberries in gelatin with fluffy sweet white cream cheese something and a sweetened & buttered crushed pretzel crust… and… I swear it’s not a dessert. ;)
Oh, bottom left is broccoli and nuts with (you guessed it) some sweet glaze; center left is a pale orange scoop of pimento cheese heaven; and middle of plate is a beige scoop of chicken salad. All this on lettuce leaves.

In case you were wondering, the sign is still the same at this Cracker Barrel. 😏 It looks like every CB: brown building with a brown awning held up by brown posts over a porch full of rocking chairs for sale.

It’s night. Photo taken through a window. There’s a beige and white-grey one story building with large windows on darn near very side and every window filled with a huge liquor poster. Neon letters along the top of the store read (in yellow letters) “Old South” (and in larger red letters) “Package Store,” which if you haven’t figured it out means liquor store.

September 13, 2025 at 8:17 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

Went to see the Victory Verticals - specially made pianos shipped to WWII combat zones for troop morale.

Steinway couldn’t make pianos using raw materials and switched to making parts for Waco CG-4A troop transport gliders. Then the U.S. commissioned Steinway to produce these pianos. /1

A grey corrugated metal Quonset hut with a small upright piano painted army fatigue green / olive drab in front. Next to the piano is a vertical sign with a lot of small type telling about the Victory Verticals (the pianos flown to war in WWII.)

Closer shot of the olive drab upright piano and a simple wooden chair painted the same color. The piano and chair are in front of the grey corrugated metal of the Quonset hut.

September 7, 2025 at 8:07 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

JAMming w/ Grapes (with seeds): After stemming and washing the grapes, pop the skins off one by one and separate them…

Next time someone gifts you homemade grape jam, know that they think you are worth their time and effort. 💚💜 🌱

2 pots and a bowl on a wooden table. On the left a pot of dark purple grape skins. In the middle a bowl of grapes. On the right a pot of light green grape pulp (translucent green orbs with pink/brown seeds inside)

August 30, 2025 at 6:46 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

August is harvesting, canning, cooking, freezing, drying, and prepping for the Fall garden. It’s Put ‘Em Up Month!

One grape vine delivered today (3 big bowls). Another needs @ a week. The question is whether we make “the usual” or try some new recipes. 🌱 #garden #gardening #harvest #recipes

Wooden table top with ripe red tomatoes, green tomatillos, green beans, purple “Royal burgundy”beans, green and purple “Rattlesnake beans” and a large bowl of purple grapes on green stems.

August 29, 2025 at 6:14 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

Oh my gosh. I found Underwood Deviled Ham… in a store. Haven’t seen this in forever.

A grocery shelf with three stacked cans of Underwood Deviled Ham and some picante sauce. The underwood can is white with a red devil with an arrow-tipped tail and carrying a pitchfork — the devil is inside a black circle rhat includes the word Underwood. The can also carries the dubious claim “premium quality.”

August 23, 2025 at 4:52 AM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

Tomato Pie 🥧 - homegrown Brandywine tomatoes, fresh basil, mozzarella (with a smidge of cheddar) cheese, in an avocado pie dough crust

Next time I’ll use a shallower pie dish, but the extra crust at the top is tasty. #baking #tomatoes #HeirloomTomatoes #pie

Clear pie dish containing a tomato pie: a light yellow-green crust, layered with tomato, cheese and basil leaves.

August 17, 2025 at 10:09 PM

Debookie

@debookie.bsky.social

Marigold tomatoes look like yellow eyeballs with red irises. This is a French heirloom tomato with some sweetness. #tomatoes #garden #gardening #heirlooms #HeirloomTomatoes 🌱