Saturdays are my day to write the next week’s blog posts. So, Saturdays on my blog are all about easy … and funny. I adore bulldogs; full blooded English bulldogs, “pit” bulldogs, French Bulldogs, mix and match bulldogs. If I ‘hit the lotto’ as Grandpa used to say, I’d have a rescue home for all the bulldogs; my obsession runs deep, y’all. Some day I’ll write about my spoiled rotten bulldog and hound mix, and the most precious angel English/French mix bulldog ever that I lost

I never really thought about creating a bucket list before this year. I have wanted to visit Great Britain and Ireland since I was a child, but it was never on a bucket list. Then I planned a 50th birthday trip with my mom in 2020 and … covid. I hesitate to even discuss that birthday trip, it depresses me a year later, but it is a trip on my bucket list. I live in coastal Georgia; I grew up in Northeast Ohio. I love and miss the turning of the leaves and the crisp sweater wea

The Secrets of Seaforth House, by Angela Cassidy, is the first in the Abbey Mackenzie series. Ms. Cassidy is a first-time author that used her time wisely during the numerous U.K. lockdowns. The Secrets of Seaforth House is set in Scotland, in a little seaside town just north of Edinburgh. The story starts with Abbey Mackenzie being made redundant from her job as team leader for the fraud division of a bank. Depressed, her friends drag her along on a weekend trip to Seaforth.

It is officially FALL y’all!! My favorite time of year has arrived. Time to get the silk maple leaves and faux pumpkins from the attic, buy some mums and pansies, and light the pumpkin pie scented candles. It is also time for soups to return to my monthly menu. I make soup all year round but really, 100 degrees and a heat index of 103 is just not weather for soup eating. I make most of my soup recipes in Fall and Winter and, this year I am starting with Cheeseburger Soup. (Im

A fellow writer on Twitter asked what everyone was doing Saturday. My response was, “if I can get my @ss motivated, I will be writing a week’s blog posts, choosing my Sunday read, and cleaning my house.” His response was, maybe try music as motivation. I laughed and said good idea, though I didn’t actually follow through, (nor did I get much done!) but his suggestion did give me an idea. Music is a great motivator. Oh, not in the sense of get a job, or study hard but in the m

On Sundays, I like to write about things I, or other people do, for relaxation, hobbies. I’ve mentioned before that my main hobby is needlework. I make crazy quilts, I sew, (usually home décor items), I hand embroider. Before I started writing full time, I would pick up my stitching at least three or four nights a week, now I haven’t touched it in a month. Funny thing is, I had more free time when I worked part time! How can that be? When I worked for someone else, I had desi

I slept late this morning and have nothing of even remote worth to write so ...

I often refer to my garden as a potager (pot a ghay) instead of a vegetable or kitchen garden. Some think I’m being pretentious but that’s not me, I just like being precise with language and there are differences in a traditional American vegetable garden and a French style potager. In America, we tend to plow up a chunk of land and plant in rows. It is often sited far from the house. A potager is in raised beds and those beds are often in geometric shapes that form an overa

My Sunday read, Thursday review for this week was Hundred Dollar Bill, by Sherry Morris. It will leave you with a smile, but it did take me awhile to get there mostly because the author chooses to introduce numerous characters in the opening chapter and it isn't clear just who the main character will be. However, the vignettes with all of the characters are so enjoyable and the characters so interesting I found I didn't care. This book is labeled a 1940’s Romantic Suspense. I

I used to leave my house and work 40+ hours a week. There are only three of us in the household, but I still found it impossible to keep the house clean, the take-out off the table, or the cupboards full; and I worked in a grocery store, y’all. When I decided to write full-time, I thought meals would be easier but I’m pretty sure I work more hours per week now that I’m at home. So, I decided to make a menu. At first, I did this weekly, based upon the store’s sales. This work

Talk to a bunch of writers and take a poll on most asked questions. In the top five will be “how do you think up these stories?” For me, it starts with ‘what if’. For instance, I had relatives visiting from up north and we went on a ghost walk. While on the tour I heard someone say, I think that building is where that murder happened last month. Well, my imagination started working and I thought, what if someone can see dead people, or hear them? And that person owns a ghost

While I don’t consider myself old or even middle aged, the 20 and 30 somethings in my life have no problem telling me I’m old. This is usually declared when I display ignorance of pop culture. One of the 20 somethings recently told me the way to get more blog/social media views is to look up what is trending and write about that topic. Well, he’s a smart kid so I looked up Google Trends. Here is where I shall proudly don my “old woman’ cap. The number one trend is Taylor Swi

Last week I mentioned that one of my hobbies is crazy quilting, but I didn’t explain what that entails. So today, a short history lesson. Crazy quilting is commonly thought to have begun as a ‘craze’ in the late Victorian period after an exhibition at the World’s Fair in Philadelphia displayed traditional English textile needlework and the often asymmetrical styling of Japanese art. The two were ‘married and the crazy quilt era began. Crazy Quilting, or CQ, starts with patc

Last Sunday I mentioned my hobby was crazy quilting. I’m not sure if it qualifies as a hobby or simply an obsession with fresh produce, but I am also a keen gardener. Living in Coastal Georgia, the best time to grow a wide variety of vegetables is from August to the following February. While northern gardeners are putting their plots to sleep, I and my Southern kin are turning over beds, adding lime and fertilizer and planning the cold weather crops. I start my plants from se

Once A Man Indulges by Tony Kelsey was my Sunday Read/Thursday Review pick last week. I have never read a Neo-Noir novel nor anything by Tony Kelsey but he is very nice on Twitter, and his book looked interesting because I am a fan of old movies, radio dramas, and Mike Hammer. Kelsey drops you into the gritty noir world with finesse. It’s set in Denver and the falling snow, overcoats and hats, matchbooks, jazz clubs, old Dodge cars; you feel like you are walking the slushy st