Wishing everyone out there a Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and Happy Kwanzaa. May the blessings of the season be upon you whatever you celebrate.
I don’t know about you, but I like to leave just the lights on my tree for a few days before adding the ornaments.
Until next time.
Today is the winter solstice. The peak time of darkness for the Northern Hemisphere in all of 2016. It was supposed to be the darkest in quite a while, due to a lunar eclipse. I was awake at 0353 Arizona time and it was drizzling. Thanks to the cloud cover, it wasn’t very dark and I missed the eclipse.
I know the day’s important for those who celebrate nature-based religions. In ancient times, cattle were slaughtered so they didn’t have to be fed over the coming winter. For those who like their libations- the solstice meant that wine and beer had fermented long enough and could now be drunk (hence Merry Christmas).
For me, it means the dogmeister and I will eventually be out walking during Arizona’s amazing sunrises.
And I’ll start to encounter coyotes and owls, maybe a raccoon or two, jackrabbits and quail.
But first, we have to get through the cold weather and slippery frost on the grass in the park, frozen puddles on the sidewalks, and the eventual removal of bright Christmas lights that line the streets.
Which is why the solstice is so special. It’s a magic time between the crispness of winter when all is dark and quiet with an inconstant moon watching over us, and the decorations of the holidays shoving back the night with cheerful bursts of light and inflatable creatures.
Until next time.
I have 2 drawers of socks. Okay, I actually have 3, but the hubbinator doesn’t know that. You see, I buy socks for every holiday. My children buy me socks for holidays and movies and TV shows. My hubby buys me socks.
And people give me socks.
Apparently, I’m where socks go when they go missing from the dryer.
Okay, not really. I’ve got singlets that make eccentric pairs when I’m not working and only my children will laugh at me.
I love socks. They don’t judge like jeans.
But let’s be frank. There are winter socks and summer socks. Winter socks are fluffy and thick, sometimes made of wool and other times with those gripper things on the bottom to keep from sliding (although sliding on the tile is fun).
They tend to go in the big drawer because they are puffy.
The anklets and smaller sets go in the shallow drawer.
And the overflow goes in the drawer behind the cabinet where hubby never ventures. Alas, this means I’m sorting the socks as he tries to pile them all inside the shallow drawer.
I understand there are those of you out there who don’t have seasonal socks. I think you might be aliens.
Because it can’t be me. But I won’t complain about sorting the socks, because it’s better than doing the laundry:D.
Until next time
So, the hubbinator called to let me know that yahoo had been hacked. Again, and that I needed to change my email password. Again.
photo by Johanna Goodyear
Which is all fine and dandy until the screen switches to a new page and you have to remember your old password. Um, I have a computer for that. And what’s more, Apple suggests this obscure mix of numbers and letters that I didn’t create. So…
So, I’ve found that the easiest way to change my password is to tell the log-in screen that I forgot the password and go through the hoops and jumps to reset the dang thing.
Now, that’s done and it’s stored on my computer I can promptly forget it until the next hack.
Until next time
One of my favorite escapes is reading cozy mysteries. Most of my friends find this weird as I love most science based shows, so why go amatuer for a detective series. Probably because there’s so many cop/forensic shows on TV. And while I watch a few, I’m a little burned out on them.
Growing up my favorite mysteries were written by M. M. Kaye, Elizabeth Peters, Charlotte MacLeod, Agatha Christie (big fan of Ms. Marple, not so much Poirot), plus their assorted pseudonyms.
You may detect a pattern here.
Yep, I like a little romance in my mysteries. I also prefer female sleuths.
And while most of my favorites no longer produce new books (usually because of mortality issues), I have found some new ones: Jenna Bennett, KT Roberts, Lizz Lund, Cindy Bell, H.Y .Hanna, and Lois Winston. Oddly enough, there’s still a flavor of romance but now many of the books are coupled with food/recipes or crafts and always pretty unique characters.
If you have a favorite cozy mystery author, let me know about them in the comments section. I’m always looking for new authors.
Until next time.
We all know the law: Things in Motion tend to stay in motion, things at rest tend to stay at rest. But do you think it applies to people, too?
I was reading an article in the Romance Writers Report that postulated that very idea.
And I will say I know this applies to my writing. If I write every day, the story stays fresh and I can slip out of reality and into the make believe world easier and faster.
It also means that binge watching Netflix is a result not of laziness but of this law.
Still, it is the holiday season. And I have stuff to do, so I plan to see if reducing my Netflix watching to an hour a day and filling it up with the hundreds of little tasks that need to be done, if doing those annoying little tasks makes it easier to do more, or just makes me exhausted.
I’m leaning toward exhausted, but am prepared to be surprised by the results.
In any case, I hope to have some items checked off my to-do list.
Until next time.
It’s that time of year again. You know what I’m talking about. December is not just about the holidays, but about the cookies.
Now, I don’t know what it’s like at your house but since I’m the head baker at mine, I’m also head of Quality Assurance. Which means I have to eat the raw cookie dough to make sure the baked cookies will come out alright.
I know. It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it.
Of course, it isn’t without its risks. I mean, we all know about the Salmonella scare that says under no circumstances are we to eat raw eggs. And we all know that any baker worth their salt ignores such a rule. Because, um, yum.
But a weird thing happened yesterday while making the hubbinator chocolate chip cookies. I actually slipped and ate a cooked one.
The dough really does taste different than the end product. Very weird. Which leads me to the question: Do you prefer your cookies raw or baked?
To me, the only one that tastes the same is sugar cookies. And I’m a bit like a Dr. Suess book on that one. I will eat them from a bowl, or lick the spoon, or dipped in sugar, or with some milk. Well you get the picture.
Until next time.
Happy baking and tasting:D
I posted this 6 years ago not long after my great uncle died. Given that today is December 7th, I thought I’d post it again.
My great uncle was there the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. This is his story in his own words.
I attended a workshop a few months ago and asked the expert on how to make money as an author. I was told to stop writing and start teaching.
I think my brain got whiplash from such talk.
Teachers don’t make much money. Then it clicked. Self-pubbing is the new gold rush, and those who are getting rich aren’t doing so publishing books, but showing others how to do it. Much like the storekeepers who sold shovels, gold pans, and supplies to the miners got rich.
© Ti_to_tito | Dreamstime Stock Photos
I am not a people person. That might be why I kill so many of them off in my books. So why would I want to spend time teaching others to write?
I would rather be writing, purging those voices in my head and traveling to places currently out of reach. But I know many authors jumping on the course bandwagon. I just won’t be one of them.
Until next time.
As I put up our Christmas decorations, each one bring back a memory. So thanks to the magic of youtube, here are some commercials that I remember from years past.
I certainly felt this way after Thanksgiving:
Getting up for work everyday:
Who remembers this one?
And this classic one:
And just because it’s that kind of day:
Notice I didn’t break out the Hallmark commercials. Those I’m saving for another day.
Until next time
Linda Andrews 