Well, I know a few of you out there are interested in writing your own stories and novels — we’ve occasionally talked about that — and I’d be interested in hearing where all of you are with that. Have you made progress?
One reason I ask, is I thought it might be useful to do some […]

Did you used to take those magazine Romance IQ tests and Personality Quizzes when you were younger? I think I faithfully filled them out once or twice, but the questions themselves were so odd, so alternate universe. Now days we have blog tags and My Space quizzes, and the questions are all so nutty, but […]

She’s not cool, but spinster sleuth Jane Marple remains one of my favorite mystery mavens. So I was very pleased to find AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MISS MARPLE GIFT SET under the Christmas Tree.
This is a three disc set starring Joan Hickson, who I consider to be the quintessential Miss M. The episodes include The Body in […]

Yes, it’s time for mistletoe and holly. And today I am taking a day off to send Christmas cards.
That’s just one of several things I have planned for the next week. When you’re your own boss there’s a tendency to forget to…stop. Ever. So, since one of the things I always dreamed of when I was working […]

While my esteemed lord and webmaster has many fine qualities, gift-buying is not one of them. It’s not so much the dollars and cents thing — well, actually it is that too, but he prefers to think of it as dollars and “sense.” I have a tendency to pull out all the stops on the […]

Did I mention I lost 25 pounds since the last time we talked about my diet?
Well, I did. And I did it by sticking pretty closely to the Protein Power diet. The Protein Power diet is the only regimen I’ve managed to stick to, and even that’s not what you would call easy because as […]

I almost feel like I’m cheating to admit this, but I do almost all my Christmas shopping online. No Black Fridays for me. No Black Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and especially no PITCH-BLACK-HEART-OF-DARKNESS-ARE-YOU-INSANE? Christmas Eves.
Granted…been there, done that…and I ain’t going back no more, no more.
It started a few years ago — I would receive […]

That’s what I was thinking of Monday morning as I struggled my way upstream at Costco, braving the currents and the other poor fish caught in the next-to-last-minute Thanksgiving rush.
It’s already starting. The snipping and snarling, the tight smiles and underbreath comments, the musical jangle of ramming carts as they hurtle towards the aisles of chocolates and […]

          Happy Halloween to one and all! 
Since I know you’re all going to be madly busy getting ready for the evening’s festivities, I thought we’d just do a little fun quicky post this morning. Answer if you’ve got time, and if not, we’ll see you next week.
1 ) Do you remember your first Halloween costume?
I was […]

On returning home after the summer holiday there is always a slight chill in the morning air, telling us that autumn is on its way. On the grouse moors the guns and beaters have been stalking through the heather since ‘the glorious twelfth’ of August and in City restaurants the small birds, so eagerly awaited, […]