70 more makes 10,000 We are nearing 10,000!

We are nearing 10,000! Here is to good living! I have much more to blog, during this up and down, very hectic time. May all of us have peace and joy in the coming months and approaching holidays. Book signings have gone well, and there are several readings planned. Then, I will concentrate on blogging and writing, including the second book of The Bathory Chronicles. A bountiful harvest to all!

Very near to 10,000 viewers! Some book Previews

From my books, below: Tigress; A Story of Jack the Ripper Who was the infamous Jack, or was it Jacqueline? Was it a group of Jacks? Jack, or Jacqueline, went into the box again, never to pop up again in any one form. The legend fascinated me for some time, until I felt compelled to write about it, only with a twist. In my story, we hear the other side, Jack’s side, only Jack isn’t exactly Jack. Walk with me again through the 19th century streets of Whitechapel. Feel beneath your fingers the crushed velour of The Yellow Wallpaper, and listen to the empty cradles rock against the sounds of shiny knives sharpening, and run, run quickly. There is a tigress afoot, and she seeks revenge, for her, and for her lost children. I hope you enjoy the story, and feel free to comment on this blog or on Amazon.com. The Bathory Chronicles; Part I Travel back in time to the 17th century with the most infamous and most misunderstood lady of all time. Have lattes with Attila the Hun, and be a flower girl at the marriage of Vlad Tepes and Boadicea. What gift to you buy for that bridal shower, and where is the couple registered? Part I of the Bathory Chronicles follows Erzebet, aka, Liz, and her Fey family as they time travel from century to century to help their mortal , clueless friends and family. Part I takes them to a Midwestern Mississippi river town called Rogues Island, where Liz connects with an old love and rediscovers key players from her earlier, more sinister self as Countess Erzebet Bathory, The Blood Countess

Stupidly Easy Peanut Noodles

Stupidly Easy Peanut Noodles

Doll Museum: 19th c Folk Dolls

Doll Museum: 19th c Folk Dolls: Our next post or two will dwell on folk dolls of the 19th century. As writings by writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries show, c...

Original Tip #7; A Good Library of How To Books and #8 Pioneer Crafts

Another Monday,and the rain beats down on our roof as though it would break right through and drown us all. Below are two more of the original tips. When time was my own, I loved browsing how-to books. I found many self-help books interesting, even if they couldn't help me. Dr. Laura's were always the most fun, and there was one about business called When Smart People Fail that gave anyone looking for a job a lot of insight. I love our local botanical center for many reasons, but one is that they have a great library, displayed in a comfortable setting. The books are all on plants and gardening, and are lovely in their own right. What a great place to research this topic, all in one place, where you can sit in style and take notes. I learned a lot about pioneer crafts by making dolls. G. Stanley Hall's 1897 classic A Study of Dolls gives lots of insight into pioneer and urban crafts, and into the creativity of children. Innovative children he studied made dolls out of all types of found objects, including old shoes, rags, and even meat! Corncob and corn husk crafts have origins in Native American and European culture, cf my post on Corn Dollies. Wendy Lavitt's American Folk Dolls is another good source. 7.Invest in a good library on how to books and books on going green; don’t over look free government publications and consumer reports. Many books and magazines on these subjects can also be found at library sales, and library cafes, where they cost as little as a dime. You can also recycle your old magazines by bringing back the ones you have read and do not need any more. 8. As a family hobby, review pioneer crafts including soap making and butter making. Try making jam or jelly and using canning jars. If you are lucky and have your mother’s or grandmothers’ glass fridge containers nad storage boxes, check to see if they are lead free and use them. Martha Stewart's book have great ideas, as do Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House Books. Local museums and national parts have kits and publications on this topic as well. The Scouts for both genders have plenty of tips for crafts and how-two projects in their manuals and various brochures on earning badges. Joining Scouts or any similar organization is still the best way to learn self reliant crafts and folk arts.

Holiday Stuff and Green Olive Salad; It's never too Early to Plan!

Thanks to the over 1300 folks who have visited us. I will have some quick holiday recipes and ideas to post, soon. My easieast tip is using prunings from holly and evergreens to decorate simple packages wrapped in brown paper saved from packing materials and grocery bags. They are tied with twine, raffia, or recycled ribbon, and are very Victorian and woodsy in origin.

I made a great olive salad last night from what we had on hand; one can black olives, half a bottle green, stuffed olives, one TBSP. olive oil, one TBSP. olive juice from the green olives, about 1/4th chopped onion, a dash of paprika or pepper, a dash of cilantro, a dash of lime juice. Drizzle with oregano and chives. I also added cut up grape tomatoes and cucumber, but carrots, black beans, or other, similar vegetables would be good. Mix all and chill. Serve cold. If you chop everything into tinier peices, you can have a tapenade.

Enjoy, and more later.

Original Tip # 6; Eat Home-Save Money

Eat home; pay attention to leftovers and casseroles. Recipes are cheap over the Internet, and are in all kinds of magazines with recipes, including The Radish, which is given away. Look for heirloom recipes your parents had, even grandparents and great grandparents, and practice and be creative. The American Women’s Cook Book, The magazines like Everyday Food, PBS cooking shows, Mr. Food, Martha Stewart, and Julia Child are great sources to look. The Discovery Shop and thrift stores are wonderful places to look for vintage and antique cook books, so are yard sales and antique stores, library book sales, book stores and book store chains, catalogs. Many of these are on sale before they are even out of print, including Edward R. Hamilton Books and Amazon and Alibris. I love The White House Cookbook; my edition goes to Kennedy's administration. There are lots of tips, bits of history, and doable recipes. I spent only $3.00 on mine at my favorite indoor flea market. Reprints are nearlt $30.00. Lately, I've gotten good at looking at what is in the fridge and cooking with it. I can do lots with baked eggs and a ramekin. I make all kinds of pasta sauces with bottled sauce, wine, added chopped vegetables, basic white sauce with cheese metled in, canned clams, ground meat, any kind. My husband is great with all types of salads. He makes a mean tradtional French dressing. I'm good with simple buttermilk, sour cream, chives, a bit of may, all blended. I add salsa or tabasco to make it a Southwestern dressing. We find we spend more time together this way, though I admit I hate doing dishes and love going out on busy nights. I've gotten very Zen about doing the dishes, though, and can have dishwasher emptied and loaded in 4 mins. I still prefer washing by hand, and sometimes air drying big pots. I use the dishwasher on plants. Does anyone out there have cooking stories or recipes you would like to share with our readers? I would welcome a guest blogger on this subject. I have not been able to write quite as much; I had my first book signing on my metal doll book last week, and two more signings coming up. My short novela Tigress, based on Jack the Ripper, is also on Kindle, now, and I've been preparing other books for Kindle as well. But,we have had terrible sadness and turmoil. Our beautiful Emma, pictured here, died of feline kidney failure. I can't come to terms with that. My mother's death certificate read the same, though we really had no diagnosis given to us for her sudden death. Poor little Emmie was brave, and endured daily IVs of fluids. She seemed to get better, then weakened. She died in her sleep, in my arms. I had gotten intot he habit of waking up at night to check on her. She had been sleeping on our tub, with a fleece bed at one end, then was too weak to do even that. So, I would pick her up, wrap her in our favorite blanket with a Ceciley Barker fiary on it, and hold her. I feel asleep holding her, and she fell asleep into eternity at about 4:30 am July 22nd. I had to go to work after that. One week later was our wedding anniversary. Then, I had family disasters to deal with as well. I miss my little Emmie, and will never forget her. She was very smart, related to the original Hatfields by a former owner, and fierce as a little tiger. She loved her toys, and stuffed mice; we called them her dolls, and their last name was Mouse. Some spoke French, like Mme. Marionette Toinette Mouse and Mme. Le Pomplemousse. We were over the top for her. We stumbled on two tiny kittens, a girl, Bangles, and a boy, Tuxedo. They now live with us. They are full of energy. I've never had kittens. Emmie was only my third cat; our other two littel boys were elderly when we got them. One passed away in His sleep at 21, the other died quietly at home at nearly 24. They were our Daxie and Opie, and we inherited them. My mother worried for them, and wanted to pay their vet bills, but we paid them. She was cat phobic her whole life. All you had to say was "cat" at the table during an argument, and she would leave. No one knows where this phobia came from. Only she wrote in her memoirs that she had recuuring nightmares of being chased by cats and cows, even though she had a cat as a little girl. Go figure. So, now, we soldier on. Times are uncertain for everyone. That's all we can do.