It’s thirty-seven degrees, raining, and the last Saturday in November. Yesterday, after Dawn told me she had all the autumn and Thanksgiving things put away at her house, I decided to do the same. It didn’t take long…just a couple of cornucopias and two gourd turkeys. Next will be digging into boxes in the garage for Christmas decorations. The weather today sets the stage for doing just that. Putting on a Christmas CD and having a pot of hot Folgers at hand will help get me in the mood for decorating.
Each Thanksgiving or Christmas I stir up cranberry cheese bread. This time I added a handful of chopped pecans. This is a funny ritual because none of the family is fond of it except me. But it is very good with coffee and helps when I’m trying to figure out how to get Darcy out of the scrape she’s about to find herself in.
Before every holiday, I bake yeast bread too. No bread machine for me. I just stir it up the old-fashioned way from a fail-safe recipe my sister Helen gave me, years ago. Sara helped with it this year. She really gave it a good kneading and had fun pounding that dough. It rose nicely. As well as the rolls, there was enough dough for a couple of loaves. We were eating dinner when Dawn said, “Do I smell your bread?”
I had forgotten the loaves were still in the oven. They were very nicely browned, let me tell you. But, you know what? That bread makes tasty toast.
Yesterday I got my cozy mysteries ready to go to the Thompson House in Tahlequah. Last year was the first time I placed my books in their Victorian Christmas craft fair. The books did well and I’m invited back this year (at least, my books are.) I’m wondering how Moonlight Can Be Murder will do. Ned’s house is patterned after the Thompson House. Will anybody notice the resemblance?
The cover looks Christmas-y and that’s on purpose because the whole story takes place in the month of December and finishes on Christmas Eve with Ned and her friends singing carols and lighting candles in church. But what happens between December 1 and December 25? Ah, that is the mystery!
Here is another portion of the latest Moonlight Can Be Murder review. I like that review!
Widowed Nettie “Ned” McNeill has left her Atlanta home at the invitation of her elderly uncle who has just been released from prison after serving a 40-year sentence for murder. When she arrives in her hometown, she finds him dying from a gunshot wound, but he manages to whisper a single word–rose.
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