Boxing Day

And now, mail resumes, banks re-open, people go back to work, and I’m grateful for another Christmas with my family. In many countries, this is Boxing Day, and I don’t mean it’s a time when we put on gloves and solve all our differences with combat. The day after Christmas is a day when some […]

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

I woke up this morning and sprang from my bed, with thoughts of a busy day rife in my head. Now on with the coffee pot, on with my blog; fill the bird feeders and also the dog. Quick, to the kitchen I go in a hurry; from counter to stove top I scoot and […]

Buz and the Star

Buz the Fox   You see, it might have happened this way: once upon a time, about two thousand years ago, some foxes dwelt in the hill country and plains around Bethlehem. I hate to tell you this, but it was their custom to follow, at a discreet distance, the flocks of sheep that shepherds […]

That First Hello

We’ve all heard, “First impressions are lasting impressions.” A writer works hard to create a good first impression when you, the reader, crack open her book. Below are beginning sentences from each of my cozies, which, hopefully, create a good first impression. Moonlight Can Be Murder: My car’s headlights cut a yellow swath through the […]

Night and the Animals

Backyard bushes, green and flowering in warm weather, become gray, drab sprigs in the winter. The birds don’t mind. When moonlight silvers the yard, they crowd deep into the thick twigs, twittering and chirping, discussing the day’s happenings, content to be hidden by darkness and their stubbly cover. A few wild, forest creatures slip into […]

Music

Sometimes when things start to get me down, broken water pipe, stopped up drain, etc., I go to the piano and play the old songs. I mean the really old songs, “I Was Seeing Nellie Home”, “Darling Nellie Gray”, “Mocking Bird Hill”, “The Tennessee Waltz”; then, the not quite so old songs, “Til I Waltz  Again […]