Betsy Snow White Bibliophile

Tag: 2020

  • On The Second Day of Blogmas:

    On The Second Day of Blogmas:

    What is your strangest Holiday tradition? Mine is that for the last several years (I seriously don’t know how many.) I have been carving stamps to print my own holiday cards. I can remember doing a Yule Log, Snowflakes, Ornaments, Cookies, Mistletoe and I am sure there are a couple more. I try not to reuse or repeat a design.

    This year I carved two stamps to create my cards. I wanted to be able to easily use multiple colors. I am not going to spoil my card since they haven’t gone out in the mail yet, but I am really excited about them. I am mailing out 85+ cards this year. Once they are in the world I will reveal the design here.

    Do you send out Holiday Cards? Do you like to receive them? Is there a particular design you prefer?

  • On The First Day of Blogmas:

    On The First Day of Blogmas:

    Happy December!! The year is almost over. The holidays are upon us. I am looking super festive today while working from home.

    Picture of me wearing a green sweater with a red undershirt, a red and green jingle bell headband, christmas tree earrings, green eyeshadow and red lipstick.

    It is the first day of Sockmas for me on Instagram so if you are interested you can check out all the socky goodness over there.

    Today I wanted to share my Holiday trees for 2020 which went up this past weekend. In my foyer is a 9ft pencil tree with blue and white lights which is holding our “special” ornaments which are a mixture of our collectibles and the various ornaments we have gotten from ugly ornament exchanges over the last couple of years. This year my little sister surprised me with two new Muppet ornaments from Hallmark one of which is from my birth year! (1981)

    In the living room is my Pink and Glitter tree, inspired by the song “Pink and Glitter” by Tori Amos. I ordered my incredibly bright pink tree from Michaels. Some of the ornaments I owned and some came from Target. The owl tree topper was found at Joann’s. I am madly in love with this silly tree.

    I hope you enjoyed my tree tour! See you tomorrow!

  • November Finally Ends…

    November Finally Ends…

    I had such great hopes for November. I would roller skate. I was going to write a poem a day. I had just started a new job and I was learning my new position well.

    And then I was diagnosed with Covid-19. I spent a little over two weeks in quarantine and 10 days in complete isolation. Covid made me so tired some days that I would barely move. I lost and regained my sense of smell and taste. It was an unusual time and other than watching an inordinate amount of tv and movies on my laptop and reading a couple of books I did not accomplish anything during this time. I wrote a couple of poems for school, but none just for me. It was not my most productive time.

    And now November is over and December is about to begin. On December 1st I am going to begin Blogmas. I have a couple of weird challenges for December that I am planning to participate in on Instagram and then I want to share the best of December here.

    Here’s to a better December than November. See you Dec 1!

  • Covid Chronicles: Diagnosis, Shock and Early Symptoms

    Covid Chronicles: Diagnosis, Shock and Early Symptoms

    I tested positive for Covid-19.

    On Wednesday I woke up with what seemed to be sinus drainage, typical for this time of year and not at all unusual for me. By Thursday it was falling into my chest and I had a wet sinus drainage cough, which is again not unusual, but because of the current issues I was sent home to contact my pcp. She thought all signs pointed to sinusitis, but ordered me a Covid test because it is basically required if you report a cough.

    So… Friday late morning I went to a drive thru testing facility for my pcp where they tickled my brain with a swab (this is what it felt like, weird but not painful). I was notified by my pcp that I had tested positive for Covid late on Friday night.

    I cried quite a bit and immediately went about contacting work, family and friends that I had tested positive. I also shut myself up in our master bedroom away from my husband and our pets. Seth went Saturday morning to get tested as well, and he was negative which made my full quarantine even more necessary.

    So, today is technically day 4 since my diagnosis, but day 7 since my first “symptom” began. I still have a bit of a cough. I have also lost my sense of smell and taste. I took a bath with a witchbaby bathbomb which I know smelled amazing and I couldn’t smell anything. That is disheartening to say the least. Especially knowing that it may never come back.

    I am in quarantine for at least 10 days, possibly more. Right now it seems like I have a mild case and I am hoping it stays that way. I am resting, a lot. And I am watching too many Christmas Movies because they make me feel better.

  • Witch Walk 2020

    Witch Walk 2020

    On Halloween around the stroke of Noon, witches descended upon Goodale Park in Columbus Ohio in order to make merry and celebrate the Day. After grabbing a group picture we began walking down High Street in the Short North wishing a Happy Halloween to all we encountered. We stopped at Prologue Bookstore for some of our witchy companions to purchase tomes, and then at Roaming Goat Coffee to get a Mocha Latte for myself. We continued across the street to Rocket Fizz for old fashioned candy and novelties (I bought a racing possum!). We passed a salon where we waved to a fellow witch who was giving a blow out to a client.

    We stopped to grab a bite at The Eagle where I ordered a Grilled Cheese that features three kinds of cheese and apples, yum! It came out in the shape of a heart. Aww! Next a trip to Torso where I purchased a mask that says “Witch Please”, a gorgeous rhinestone mask and a bracelet that matched my witchy garb. A quick run back to prologue and then we made a stop at Bakersfield for a Margarita and a $3 shot of Hornitos.

    We witches can make a day of it!! Happy Haunting my friends until next year!

  • Friday night Karaoke and Cocktails.

    Friday night Karaoke and Cocktails.

    Yesterday was my last day on my current job, and it was a stressful last week, so Seth and I went down to Newark last night after work to meet up with my mom and sister for some dinner and Karaoke.

    We started at Elliott’s Woodfired Grill where we all got different woodfired pizzas. I got a roasted red pepper with goat cheese. Seth got the Mama Dre which had pepperoni, sausage, and ham. Mom had the spicy italian and Traci got the chicken bacon and ranch. They were all delicious. We kept trading pieces.

    Roasted red pepper and goat cheese pizza.

    Then we headed back to The Bootlegger for Karaoke. This time I started with a Blackberry and Sage Gimlet, which was delicious. Then I had the Sronefruit Sangria. I started the night singing Sin Wagon by The Chicks followed by Doctor Jones by Aqua, Wig in a Box from Hedwig, Cry Little Sister from The Lost Boys and finally The Warrior by Scandal. I also sang a duet with my sister of Wonderboy by Tenacious D.

    It was a super fun night. We laughed a lot and just generally had a great time.

  • Thoughts on Halloween Season 2020

    Thoughts on Halloween Season 2020

    This year it is hard to find my full Halloween spirit. Halloween is my favorite holiday, but I am just not feeling the spooky spirit as much this year as in years past. I know there are a lot of reasons that it is harder this year: pandemic, about to start a new job, water heater replacement suddenly, oh and did I mention a pandemic.

    Yesterday my manager wandered over and told me that she saw someobe who was challenging my place as queen of Halloween at work because she was wearing a Halloween dress, with leggings and socks; I was wearing a pair of jeans and a goldenrod blazer. It made me think about how I have not been wearing a lot of my Halloween stuff this year. It seriously hadn’t occurred to me until she brought it up.

    I am going to try to find my Halloween happy this week and next. I have a Halloween party on Saturday that I am pulling together a costume for which is getting me into the spirit a bit. I am also going to be pulling together looks for a couple of witchy meetups and Halloween shows, so I predict the spirit beginning to show itself soon.

    I really hope so. I miss casually spooky me. 🖤👻💀🕷🦇🎃🔮

  • Magical Days, Madrigal Nights – Final Weekend

    Magical Days, Madrigal Nights – Final Weekend

    Saturday was the final day of the Ohio Renaissance Festival’s Magical Days, Madrigal Nights and it was an absolutely magical day. For this final adventure it was just me and my friend, fellow wench and lady gang member, Susan.

    We arrived about 3:30 and almost immediately ran into friends who were attending for the first time this year (I managed 4 out of 5 somehow). We arranged some custom pieces from the glass artist, recruited several new wenches with any luck, sat and spoke to friends, sang a bit, conferred with witches and ended singing incredibly anachronistic songs at the pub sing in the Three Fools. It was a beautiful end to the season that wasn’t, but also kinda was. Here’s a health to the Company…

  • Friday Night Karaoke in Newark

    Friday Night Karaoke in Newark

    My little sister, Traci, texted me at work yesterday afternoon to see if I would like to come down to do Karaoke at The Bootlegger in Newark. I love Karaoke so I headed that way after work.

    The Bootlegger is a nice bar located in the building underneath the Crystal Ballroom (where I used to perform occassionally in my teens with Encore Productions). It has a gin joint feel in the best possible way, which they encourage with a large portrait of Al Capone.

    We both started the night with an Apple Butter Mule which was Crown Apple, butterscotch schnapps, and ginger beer with a caramel rim. It was delicious, and something I will have to try replicating at home. We also tried their Barrel Cider which was very good as well.

    I started my Karaoke night with We Belong by Pat Benetar, then Traci and I dueted with Tribute by Tenacious D. I followed that with Brand New Key by Melanie. Traci did a song by Miranda Lambert that I don’t know the name of. I finished the night with Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi.

    Overall it was an amazing night! Thanks for the invite, Traci. I needed that.

  • A Haunting…or not

    This past weekend we went to stay in a cabin in Hocking Hills to celebrate my brother-in-law’s fortieth birthday. From the outside it looked just like a normal two-story house, but inside it had an amazing spiral staircase leading to the upper floor and beautiful wood beams over the kitchen. Outside on the property there was a frog pond, an old smoke house that was blocked off and an old well up close to the road. There was also a family cemetery further back on the property, which we would explore later in the day.

    My nieces, nephew and mother and father-in-law arrived a couple hours after Seth and I. I had already explored a bit and found a cicada shell and a pretty yellow maple leaf, so when the kids arrived I showed them the spots we had explored so far. Spotting the well the girls wanted to investigate so we wandered over and looked in. I jokingly shouted hello into the shaft and a head appeared in the space below as if peaking out to say hello.

    I jumped back so fast. And the girls looked at me with wide eyes. I asked if it looked like someone was in there to them too and they nodded. We sped walked back into the cabin and told everyone that we had absolutely been freaked out by what appeared to be a face in the well.

    My sister-in-law said that we could all go out in a bit and investigate since it had obviously freaked me out. And I was freaked out. Perhaps I have watched too many horror movies and read too many scary stories, but I was legitimately scared of that well.

    Later, Seth, my sister-in-law, nieces, and my father-in-law set out to hike up to the cemetery and before we left they investigated the well. My lovely scientific husband worked out that the well had water so still that the reflections went weird. It was our own faces we had seen in the well. I was the well witch. I am the well witch. 👻

    The rest of the weekend was relaxing, other than the fact that I have been suffering from poison sumac for over a week and it somehow just keeps getting worse. It started as a tiny patch on my right arm, and now it is all over my arm, on my stomach, a little on my left arm and a little on my knee. It is driving me insane and just keeps spreading. I am going to call my doctor tomorrow to see if I should go in to get it checked out. It itches, but it also hurts! The well witch is displeased.