Rose Anderson's Blog, page 5
December 10, 2015
Man’s Best Friend
Today I offer another interesting (and updated) post done for the A to Z Challenge. Several months ago, I came upon an old hand-crafted pottery dish at the flea market. I bought it for Día de los Muertos, our Day of the Dead tribute to the many friends and family who have passed away. Because of my research for this blog, I knew what it was the instant I saw it— a pair of xolos!
The dish sports two dog heads across from one another –one white and the other is the orangey color of the clay. I am by no means an expert on pre-Columbian art, but my dish looks old to me. I have it packed away for next October so I won’t go unwrap it all to take a picture for today’s post. The ancient dish shown here is similar enough to suffice. That said, mine is more of a dish with two heads, no stripes, and much shorter legs. I sure hope my flea market treasure is a reproduction and not an ancient piece potted from a burial. All sorts of tourist junk shows up online so it surprises me that I’m unable to find another like it.
X for Xolo the Xoloitzcuintli dog
(pronounced Sholo- eets- queently or just Sholo for short)
A documentary on PBS first introduced me to this dog called Xolo. I found the broadcast on youtube and originally added the clip to this post when it first went up. Alas, the video has been removed. Anyway… the portion of the program that caught my eye concerned a visit to a rural village in Mexico where an older woman with rheumatism demonstrated how she applies Xolo puppies to her arthritic joints. Yes, she applied puppies like heat packs.
If you’ve never heard of the rare Xolo, the dog is also called the Mexican hairless. I’d heard of the Mexican hairless before, but up until that program I thought hairless was a nickname for a short-haired chihuahua. The Xolo is actually an ancient hairless breed, one of the oldest on the planet, and it’s also the official dog of Mexico. Recognized by kennel clubs around the world, the Xolo comes in three sizes that range in weight from 10 to 60 pounds. They are bare overall with wrinkly faces. The small amount of hair they do have is seen on the end of their tails and on the top of their heads standing straight up like a Mohawk hairdo. Because hairlessness is a genetic mutation, litters often include furred puppies.
That’s one ancient pup
Some 3000 years ago, the Aztecs named the Xolo for Xolotl, their god of lightning and death. That seems like a pretty intense association for a dog, but it was believed the dog not only possessed healing properties for the body, it healed the spirit too. Having dogs in my life, I believe that’s exactly what dogs do. :)
The Xolo was obviously a popular dog among pre-Columbian civilizations. Undoubtedly this high standing is the reason they were frequently buried with the dead. I’ve read this was done in the belief that they 
would help the soul safely navigate the underworld and find its way home. I’m happy to say statues in the thousands have been found in burial sites throughout Mexico, suggesting pottery Xolos were ritually placed in burials and tombs to symbolically serve the same purpose. Infinitely better than burying the family pet.
Hairless heating pads?
Dogs generally have a body temperature between 99° and 102°, so Xolos aren’t any warmer than furred dogs. Their bare skin contact just feels hot to the touch. That’s why the woman was pressing puppies to her knee. :D
More~
Artist Frida Kahlo put Xolos in many of her paintings and photographs. Sometimes you have to look for them, but they’re almost always there.
There was a time when cards and letters exclusively told friends and family you cared. Vintage holiday postcards and greeting cards were often beautifully done things. That and the sentiment behind them were the reason so many were kept as keepsakes. From now until January, I’ll share vintage holiday postcards for you to enjoy.
Scroll down to see previous vintage postcards and learn how postcards became popular greetings to send, what is cost to send them, and about the big changes made after WWI.
Subscribe to get them in your inbox!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥New!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Buy on Amazon!
♥♥♥ My Other Book News ♥♥♥
Four 5-star reviews of The Changeling!
♥My other recent release has shining stars too!
Entice Me – a multi-author collection. It’s a steal for 99¢. My story is Heart of Stone
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Words Worth M
entioning for December
“It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.” ~Aeschylus
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Today is Author R. Ann Siracusa’s blog day
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/
Authors and Industry representatives all month long.
Romance Books ‘4’ Us
The December contest is on! Prizes often include $100 in gift cards for Amazon/B&N, ebooks, print books, audiobooks, additional gift cards, and non-book items. http://www.romancebooks4us.com/
December 9, 2015
Above and Below
With my busy December on at full steam ahead, I’m reposting interesting blog posts written over the past 12 months. It’s a way of taking stock of what I’ve been up to this year outside of my professional writings. Just in case you haven’t noticed, (lol) my early morning blogging is a stream of consciousness sort of thing. Sometimes I surprise myself! This head of mine is filled with all kinds of obscure things. Case in point: December’s Geminid meteor shower occurs this coming Sunday and Monday. Looking to the skies, the higher the constellation Gemini climbs, the more meteors you’re likely to see. A bonus to this celestial event is the waxing crescent moon. With an almost moonless sky, viewing the typically bright Geminids should be a good show.
Conversely, did you ever wonder what the sky sees when it looks down on us? Most people can name a few things off the top of their head: The Great Wall of China, the pyramids, the Nasca Lines. There’s a lot more to be seen from the sky. A lot of mystery too. Here’s (an updated bit) I wrote about geoglyphs a few years ago...
White Horse of Uffington.
A geoglyph is a large drawing cut into the ground. Called Hill Figures in Britain, an estimated 57 of these artworks are scattered throughout the UK, but not all are ancient works. The most recent is the Folkestone Horse created in 2003. Horses seem to be a popular theme. In Wiltshire alone, there were eight chalky horses (two have since disappeared). Aberdeenshire has a horse was cut into quartz, and the Red Horses of Warwickshire were were cut into the red loam. One of the largest and most famous geoglyph is the Cerne Abbas Giant in Britain. Some say he’s a huge fertility symbol, others just call him the Rude Man. Look him up. I’m guessing fertility symbol.
Gouged into the rolling English hillside near the village of Uffington in Oxfordshire, is one of the most famous geoglyphs in the world — the White Horse of Uffington. Experts determine the horse was created around 3000 years ago during the Bronze Age or early Iron Age; the time of Stonehenge.
Most people see a stylized horse on the run when they consider the white chalk outline, but some feel the original head structure and curvature of the legs represent a large cat…a lion or cougar perhaps. That it’s a horse is a long held notion. Early references from the local Abbingdon Abbey in 1072 AD, refer to the hillside as Mons Albi Equi or White Equine Hill. Given the age of the artwork, it’s all speculation. I see both.
Like the Cerne Abbas Giant, the White Horse of Uffington was created by carving through turf to reveal the white chalk underneath the soil. Since open spaces like this soon fill in with plants and soil, many of the figures scattered across the UK are slowly being covered. The Uffington hillside and the White Horse require regular maintenance to keep it looking its best. To those who know things like this, it’s estimated it would only take 150 years to cover over completely. It makes me wonder what other images are hidden in the grass. Researching this prehistoric artwork, I’m struck by the fact there has been an unbroken chain of people tending it for the last 3000 years. That’s amazing all by itself!
An interesting clip (with enchanting music) showing all the Hillside Horses in Great Britain, both old and new ~
More~
Figures of all sorts are found worldwide both ancient and modern, and curiously, all were designed to be seen from above. When I think of geoglyphs, the enigmatic Nazca Lines in Peru come to mind — lines and pictures so old no one alive knows their purpose. A surprising number of countries have them. Seen from the air, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan have an array of wheel shaped etc. They’re referred to as the Works of the Old Men. No one knows who made the enormous Marree Man in the Australian outback, or the Blythe Intaglios in the Colorado Desert. The oldest geoglyph yet discovered may be found in Zyuratkul Mountains in Russia– estimated at 4000 years old. The ancient Palpa Lines created 1000 years before Nasca are a mystery too.
And add to these those other famous, yet mysterious, earthworks: The Great Serpent Mound of Ohio, the giant earthworks in northern Kazakhstan. Then we have crop circles and who knows how all that started. Here’s Google Earth so you can see all of these and the rest. You can look them up on youtube as well. Have fun!
http://www.google.com/earth/index.html
25 Of The Most Bizarre And Unique Finds On Google Earth
There was a time when cards and letters exclusively told friends and family you cared. Vintage holiday postcards and greeting cards were often beautifully done things. That and the sentiment behind them were the reason so many were kept as keepsakes. From now until January, I’ll share vintage holiday postcards for you to enjoy.
Scroll down to see previous vintage postcards and learn how postcards became popular greetings to send, what is cost to send them, and about the big changes made after WWI.
Subscribe to get them in your inbox!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥New!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥Buy on Amazon!
♥♥♥ My Other Book News ♥♥♥
Four 5-star reviews of The Changeling!
♥My other recent release has shining stars too!
Entice Me – a multi-author collection. It’s a steal for 99¢. My story is Heart of Stone
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Words Worth Mentioning for December
“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”
~Golda Meir
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Today is Author Melissa Keir’s blog day
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/
Authors and Industry representatives all month long.
Romance Books ‘4’ Us
The December contest is on! Prizes often include $100 in gift cards for Amazon/B&N, ebooks, print books, audiobooks, additional gift cards, and non-book items. http://www.romancebooks4us.com/
December 8, 2015
Icy Inspiration
While my creative focus goes off to do other December things, I’ll be reposting interesting blog posts I’ve written over the past 12 months. It’s a way of taking stock of what I’ve been up to this year outside of crafting novels and organizing anthologies. Just in case you haven’t notice, lol, my early morning blogging is a stream of consciousness sort of thing. Sometimes I surprise myself! This head of mine is filled with all kinds of obscure things.
As December and 2015 come to a close, I’ll also post all the things that made me smile this year. There’s nothing better than ending a year on a smile and I know you’ll smile too. No matter the maelstrom of ideological war, extremist behaviors across the board here and abroad, and shades of world sadness I can’t begin to describe, taking a moment to smile puts power in your hands…the power to say humanity is so much more than all of that. Smiles and laughter are found in all cultures. They remind us how alike we are and that alone proves there is room aplenty for solutions and possibilities. Our thoughts are our reality and thinking up can change the world. I truly believe that.
I did say I’m a stream of consciousness blogger. :)
The following (with updated commentary) comes from the A to Z Challenge I took part in early last spring. It’s a timely post.
I for Ice Harvesting
Ice is one of those common things we just don’t think about, (unless we’re in a hurry and have to scrape it off our car windows or ice sends us sliding into a ditch on a winter’s day.) Ice as we’ve come to know it in cube form is a relatively recent creation, but ice use goes back a long way. History is filled with stories of emperors and kings sending servants into the mountains to gather up ice and snow to be used for desserts and drinks. Some things are just better served cold. Before modern refrigeration came on the scene, we employed ice houses and cold spring houses to keep our foods fresh.
I for Icy Inspiration
In the early years of the United States, many wealthy Americans had ice houses where blocks of winter ice cut from frozen ponds were stored. Written in the household accounts of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are references to these structures on the grounds. At this point in history ice was a regional luxury. I’m not sure how cold Virginia winters get for these two famous men to have ice in their ice houses. Perhaps they had it shipped in from the northern states. New England winters, however, were cold enough for lakes and ponds to freeze over several feet thick. This ice was cut, packed in sawdust for insulation, and stashed in ice houses where it would last well into the summer months.
In Massachusetts in 1805, wealthy merchant Frederic Tudor was enjoying a family picnic which included ice cream. The story goes he joked with his brother about how people in the sweltering West Indies would give anything for ice cream and cold drinks. That idea resonated with Frederick. Thirty years later Frederick would be known as the Ice King who made a business of shipping ice to people living in the warmer climes of Cuba, Calcutta, South America, and China, as well as to the hotter cities in the union such as Charleston and New Orleans. There’s even an account of ice being shipped from Massachusetts to England’s Queen Victoria. He’s credited with the first large scale commercial ice industry in the United States. Needless to say, Frederick Tudor became a very wealthy man. And it began as a whimsical comment made over a dish of ice cream!
Free for the Taking
Harvesting natural ice became a prosperous business in New England during the 19th
century. It wasn’t all used for cold drinks and frozen treats either. Restaurants, hospitals, dairies, breweries, markets, and meat and fish packers needed ice too, so business boomed. One of Tudor’s ice harvesting foreman by the name of Nathaniel Wyeth developed specialized plows and saws to improve the harvesting of ice. Ledgers show the 
Boston winter of 1879-80 saw a whopping 600,000 tons of ice harvested. That translated to 381,000 tons sold and consumed world wide. The Tudor Ice Company wasn’t the only one harvesting and selling. Ice was a global business now and the product was basically free for the taking each winter. An estimated 5,000,000 to 5,250,000 tons of ice was consumed in the United States in 1879-80 alone. By 1900, the ice harvest brought in more than 10,000,000 tons a year.
In 1856, the average household had an icebox. (Funny how words linger. As a child I had older relatives refer to the refrigerator as the icebox.)
Ice cost 50⊄ for 100 pounds in 1923. By 1930, Frigidaire synthesized Freon and opened the door to modern refrigeration. Shortly after, the refrigerator brought an end to the ice harvesting era.
More~
Ice Harvest and trade ~ A surprisingly good wiki with lots of references.
Ice trade odds and ends.
Old traditions
Enjoy this last video clip. Have a smile on me.
There was a time when cards and letters exclusively told friends and family you cared. Vintage holiday postcards and greeting cards were often beautifully done things. That and the sentiment behind them were the reason so many were kept as keepsakes. From now until January, I’ll share vintage holiday postcards for you to enjoy.
Scroll down to see previous vintage postcards and learn how postcards became popular greetings to send, what is cost to send them, and about the big changes made after WWI.
Subscribe to get them in your inbox!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥New!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
http://www.amazon.com/Exquisite-Christmas-Romance-Authors-Holiday-ebook/dp/B018F4ACSC/
♥♥♥♥♥ My Other Book News ♥♥♥♥♥
Four 5-star reviews of The Changeling!
♥My other recent release has shining stars too!
Entice Me – a multi-author collection. It’s a steal for 99¢.
My story is Heart of Stone
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Words Worth M
entioning for December
“It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.”
~John Burroughs
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/
Authors and Industry representatives all month long.
Romance Books ‘4’ Us
The December contest is on! Prizes often include $100 in gift cards for Amazon/B&N, ebooks, print books, audiobooks, additional gift cards, and non-book items. http://www.romancebooks4us.com/
December 7, 2015
So Frosty! #MondayBlogs
I have a busy busy day today and so much to do!
As my creative focus goes off to do other things this month, I’ll be taking stock of the past year. One way is assessing interesting posts I’ve written from the past 12 months and putting up the best. In the days to come you’ll see more favorites, as well as some gift ideas to share, some recipes I like, and of course, more vintage postcards. As December and 2015 come to a close, I’ll post all the things that made me smile this year.
I looked out my window this morning and the barn roof was so covered in frost, it looked like it snowed just there. It made me remember a frosty post I’d done earlier in the spring. The following post came from my participation in the month-long A to Z Challenge this past April. It’s a long one!
Recycling the letter F ~ F for Frost Fair
Climatologists will tell you we’re in a state of global warming. I won’t get on my soap box and go into the minds who believe the 1% who say “no, it’s a hoax” rather than accept the 99% who say “yes, the data is sound”. I won’t linger on the fuel industry money involved in hyping that 1% and nay-saying the 99% either. I will only say it really makes me angry because it wastes time to fix things before it’s too late. This is my world too. You’d have to be missing a few marbles not to notice the extremes in weather the last few years — from massive hurricanes to drought to the icy polar vortex and everything in between, something’s up. Some say we have another ice age on the way.
Been there, done that. The Summer that Never was
In 1815, the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia brought about significant climate change. The ash rose into the sky and caused global temperatures to drop 33º (0.53ºC). The cooler climate came with disastrous effects on many levels. From 1816 to 1818 summer temperatures never even made it to 40º. Famine struck when crops failed and livestock died. Diseases like cholera and typhus reached epidemic proportions. Seeding the upper atmosphere with sun-blocking ash added another layer of problems. But the planet’s weather had been acting up for years before that volcano blew.
The Little Ice Age ~ a Perfect Storm (figuratively speaking)
NASA defines the Little Ice Age as a cold period between 1200 and 1850. There were three particularly cold spates back then –one in 1650, again in 1770, and the last in 1850, with intervals of slight warming between. Scientists, climatologists, and historians debate the cause of the Little Ice Age because there was a lot going on at the time and chances are it all factored in somehow. Perhaps they made a perfect storm of contributions.
Various Scientific Opinions on Contributors:
1. This severe change had to do with the weakening of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean — a current that drives warm water from the tropical mid-Atlantic to Europe’s western coastline. Weak Gulf Stream = severe weather.
2. Orbital forcing added to the temperature problem. Orbital forcing has to do with changes in the tilt of the Earth’s axis and overall shape of the orbit around the sun. The sun regulates the earth’s temperatures. Orbital forcing = changes to how the sun hits the planet.
3. Some believe different solar activity played a role. Levels of carbon-14 and beryllium-10 isotopes in trees/wood from this time show low solar activity and a “prolonged sunspot minimum”. Weaker influence on behalf of the sun = cooler times.
4. Volcanic activity. There were at least 8 substantial eruptions during this time. That’s a lot of ash. Ash in the upper atmosphere = sunlight blocked from hitting the earth’s surface.
5. Thermohaline Circulation may have played a role. Also called the great ocean conveyor belt, this circulation system maintains the various densities of the seas. Too much fresh water (as in glaciers and polar ice melting) disrupts the salinity of the sea water and as a result, the temperatures are affected. Affect the temperature of the water = effect the weather systems worldwide.
The Frost Fairs. Making the best of a cold situation.
While the Little Ice age was underway, the River Thames would freeze over for two months each winter. With solid ice expanding the acreage of London, entrepreneurs quickly made the best of the temporary space.
It was the winter of 1607-08 that Londoners found the ice so thick on the Thames it not only allowed passage from here to there, people started setting up camp on it. Peddlers of all sorts moved out on the sturdy ice from fruit-sellers to shoemakers, to barbershops and pubs. With all this open “ground” they even held soccer and bowling matches. 
During what was called the Great Winter of 1683-84, even the seas of southern Britain were frozen solid to two miles out from shore. It was here where the most famous frost fair was held ~ The Blanket Fair. English writer John Evelyn described the icy phenomena in extensive detail (gotta love old English spellings):
Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other staires to and fro, as in the streetes, sliding with skeetes, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and interludes, cookes, tipling and other lewd places, so that it seemed a bacchanalian triumph or carnival on the water, whilst it was a severe judgement on the land, the trees not onely splitting as if lightning-struck, but men and cattle perishing in divers[e] places, and the very seas so lock’d up with ice, that no vessels could stir out or come in.
By the 1800s the climate began to warm. The frost fairs continued. Needless to say, some lost their lives on the thinner ice.
Much More~
Frost Fair Happenings
Very interesting – from the BBC
When winter really was winter: the last of the London Frost Fairs
Witch hunts too?
Plants tell an icy tale
Galileo’s sunspots
There was a time when cards and letters exclusively told friends and family you cared. Vintage holiday postcards and greeting cards were often beautifully done things. That and the sentiment behind them were the reason so many were kept as keepsakes. From now until January, I’ll share vintage holiday postcards for you to enjoy.
← Here’s a full-color lithograph from 1903. Check out the boy’s spats and the girl’s button-down shoes and ermine muff. Cute. I imagine Santa shaking his tree angrily and shouting get off the cow catcher, kids!!
Scroll down to see previous vintage postcards and learn
how postcards became popular greetings to send, what is cost to send them,
and
about the big changes made after WWI.
Subscribe to get them in your inbox!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥New!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
http://www.amazon.com/Exquisite-Christmas-Romance-Authors-Holiday-ebook/dp/B018F4ACSC/
♥♥♥♥♥ My Other Book News ♥♥♥♥♥
Four 5-star reviews of The Changeling!
♥My other recent release has shining stars too!
Entice Me – a multi-author collection. It’s a steal for 99¢.
My story is Heart of Stone
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Words Worth M
entioning for December
“If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.”
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Today’s guest ~ Sandra Edwards.
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/
Authors and Industry representatives all month long.
Romance Books ‘4’ Us
The December contest is on! Prizes often include $100 in gift cards for Amazon/B&N, ebooks, print books, audiobooks, additional gift cards, and non-book items. http://www.romancebooks4us.com/
December 5, 2015
Just a Postcard
There was a time when cards and letters exclusively told friends and family you cared. Vintage holiday postcards and greeting cards were often beautifully done things. That and the sentiment behind them were the reason so many were kept as keepsakes. From now until January, I’ll share vintage holiday postcards for you to enjoy.
← Here’s a full-color lithograph from 1903. Check out the boy’s spats and the girl’s button-down shoes and ermine muff. Cute. I imagine Santa shaking his tree angrily and shouting get off the cow catcher, kids!!
Scroll down to see previous vintage postcards and learn
how postcards became popular greetings to send, what is cost to send them,
and
about the big changes made after WWI.
Subscribe to get them in your inbox!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥New!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
http://www.amazon.com/Exquisite-Christmas-Romance-Authors-Holiday-ebook/dp/B018F4ACSC/
♥♥♥♥♥ My Other Book News ♥♥♥♥♥
Four 5-star reviews of The Changeling!
♥My other recent release has shining stars too!
Entice Me – a multi-author collection. It’s a steal for 99¢.
My story is Heart of Stone
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Words Worth Mentioning for December
“Whenever you are creating beauty around you, you are restoring your own soul.”
~Alice Walker
Today is Author Paris Brandon’s blog day.
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/
Authors and Industry representatives all month long.
Romance Books ‘4’ Us
The December contest is on! Prizes often include $100 in gift cards for Amazon/B&N, ebooks, print books, audiobooks, additional gift cards, and non-book items. http://www.romancebooks4us.com/
December 4, 2015
My Blog Day on #RB4U & more
It’s the 4th of the month and my blog day at Romance Books ‘4’ Us. Today’s post is about collecting those precious memories from elders. Come see!
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2015/12/a-collection-of-sparks-by-rose-anderson.html
And, to wrap up the year, here are my other 4th of the month RB4U posts for 2015. Most are informative, some followed a theme for that month, and one or two are short stories and character interviews. I hope you enjoy.
November October September August July June
May (I missed April) March February January
There was a time when cards and letters exclusively told friends and family you cared. Vintage holiday postcards and greeting cards were often beautifully done things. That and the sentiment behind them were the reason so many were kept as keepsakes. From now until January, I’ll share vintage holiday postcards for you to enjoy.
Scroll down to see previous vintage postcards and learn how postcards became popular greetings to send, what is cost to send them, and about the big changes made after WWI. Subscribe to get them in your inbox!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥New!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
http://www.amazon.com/Exquisite-Christmas-Romance-Authors-Holiday-ebook/dp/B018F4ACSC/
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ My Other Book News ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Four 5-star reviews of The Changeling!
♥My other recent release has shining stars too!
Entice Me – a multi-author collection. It’s a steal for 99¢.
My story is Heart of Stone
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Words Worth Mentioning for December
“He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.”
~Raymond Hull
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/
Authors and Industry representatives all month long and me today!
Romance Books ‘4’ Us
The December contest is on! Prizes often include $100 in gift cards for Amazon/B&N, ebooks, print books, audiobooks, additional gift cards, and non-book items. http://www.romancebooks4us.com/
December 3, 2015
The Bard’s flair for word-bending
Today I’m offering a little something from the Bard. I’ve mentioned before that Shakespeare and I go way back. Not that far back. I’m not that old.
;)
My love of Shakespeare began my freshman year in high school. Compelled by the spelling of my last name, my English teacher sat me right next to the scale model of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. Beside this model sat a stack of corresponding books I could read if I finished my work before the bell rang. I’ve always been a very fast reader with quick comprehension of the written word. Needless to say, the Bard and I had lots of time together. Take a gander at these two snippets and you’ll see what tickled my mind:
“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Being purged, a
fire sparkling in lovers eyes. Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall and a preserving sweet.”
“No sooner met but they looked; No sooner looked but they loved; No sooner loved but they sighed; No sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy.”
Lovely.
Though people love the screen adaptations of the Bard’s works, many dislike reading Shakespeare because the old language and word-bending can be difficult to interpret. Understanding what he was getting at never gave me trouble, despite the fact he often made up words out of thin air. To understand his mind, you have to take the scene as a whole. Once you do that, it all makes beautiful, poetic sense. Shakespeare adherents claim nearly 2000 never-seen-before words came out of that brilliant mind of his and he often tweaked words. This tweaking consisted of taking nouns and making verbs out of them.
We wouldn’t have these words today if not for his imagination:
academe * accused * addiction * advertising * amazement * arouse * assassination * backing * bandit * bedroom * beached * besmirch * birthplace * blanket * bloodstained *barefaced * blushing * bet * bump * buzzer * caked * cater * champion * circumstantial * cold-blooded *compromise *courtship *countless *critic *dauntless* dawn* deafening *discontent *dishearten* drugged* dwindle *epileptic* equivocal *elbow *excitement *exposure eyeball *fashionable *fixture* flawed* frugal* generous* gloomy *gossip *green-eyed *gust *hint* hobnob *hurried *impede* impartial* invulnerable* jaded* label *lackluster* laughable *lonely *lower *luggage *lustrous *madcap *majestic *marketable*mimic *monumental *moonbeam *mountaineer *negotiate *noiseless *obscene *obsequiously *ode *Olympian *outbreak *panders* pedant *premeditated *puking *radiance *rant *remorseless *savagery *scuffle *secure *skim milk *sparkling *submerge *summit *swagger *torture *tranquil *undress *unreal *varied *vaulting *worthless *zany* gnarled* grovel*
I’ve used these words in my life and in my writing. Word lover that I am, I fully appreciate his genius. Not having them would mean a little less color to our language.
Today’s cute card is post-WWI. You can tell by the large colorless border.
There was a time when cards and letters exclusively told friends and family you cared. Vintage holiday postcards and greeting cards were often beautifully done things. That and the sentiment behind them were the reason so many were kept as keepsakes. From now until January, I’ll share a vintage holiday postcard for you to enjoy.
Scroll down to see previous vintage postcards and read how postcards became popular greetings to send and what is cost to send them, and about the changes made to the images after WWI. Subscribe to get them in your inbox!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥New!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
http://www.amazon.com/Exquisite-Christmas-Romance-Authors-Holiday-ebook/dp/B018F4ACSC/
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ My Other Book News ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Four 5-star reviews of The Changeling!
♥My other recent release has shining stars too!
Entice Me – a multi-author collection. It’s a steal for 99¢.
My story is Heart of Stone
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Words Worth Mentioning for December
“Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all life really means.”
~Robert Louis Stevenson
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/
Authors and Industry representatives all month long!
Romance Books ‘4’ Us
The December contest is on! Prizes often include $100 in gift cards for Amazon/B&N, ebooks, print books, audiobooks, additional gift cards, and non-book items. http://www.romancebooks4us.com/
December 2, 2015
More than Little Bits ‘o Junk
My husband will be starting his “quest” soon. That’s what he calls Christmas shopping for me. As he’s described it on more than one occasion: “the gifts have to be unusual because you’re an unusual person.”
Hmm…
Yeah, I admit I’m an odd one, but I’m a relatively easy person to give gifts to because I appreciate history and love little old things–things like Cracker Jack prizes, Heinz pickle pins, Oscar Meyer wiener whistles, bottle stoppers, and assorted bits like that. You just can’t go wrong with little things from yesteryear. That antiques lived lives before they came into mine is one of the things I love best about them. You can almost feel the history on some pieces. That’s why I write.
;)
I was a collector of small antiques and collectibles long before I met my husband. My interest in old things began at age 5 when I received a birthday package with a wind-up tin duck from 1930 and a Civil War era hand-carved wood decoy with crazy offset hobnail eyes. (I was into ducks back then, imprinting like a duckling on a Chicago TV show that had a weekly visit from a duck named Chelveston ) These gifts came from a great uncle in California who owned an antique store that supplied Hollywood movie sets.
Every once in a while my uncle would send some little this or that he thought I might like. The little things he sent were often broken. That sounds so strange to say. Why would an uncle send a kid broken things? But he and I were cut from the same cloth. Just because he couldn’t sell that Victorian bronze cherub broken off its inkwell base didn’t mean the artistry of the cherub was any less. He sent it to me because he knew I’d see that too. And I did. My husband understands this about me too. In fact, he’s been the largest contributor to my collection of small things —38 years worth. He calls them little bits of junk. I think of them as little bits of love. I offer proof:
On one quest, my husband found an antique rubber crow decoy. It sits atop my living room curtains. I couldn’t begin explain why, but I put little hats on it as whimsy strikes me. Thinking my crow’s wardrobe selection too small, my daughter made an assortment of styles for every season and then some. My favorites are the viking helmet and sombrero. Sometimes the crow wears a derby and a mustache.
lol I guess I am unusual.
:D
On a keepsake theme, there was a time when cards and letters exclusively told friends and family you cared. Vintage holiday postcards and greeting cards are often beautifully done things and I think the fact so many were kept as keepsakes says it all. From now until January, I’ll put a vintage holiday postcard up for you to enjoy.
I just love the spats the girls are wearing.
:)
Scroll down to see previous vintage postcards and read how postcards became popular greetings to send and what is cost to send them, and about the changes made to the images after WWI. Subscribe to get them in your inbox!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥New Release!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
http://www.amazon.com/Exquisite-Christmas-Romance-Authors-Holiday-ebook/dp/B018F4ACSC/
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ My Other Book News ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Four 5-star reviews of The Changeling!
♥My other recent release has shining stars too!
Entice Me – a multi-author collection. It’s a steal for 99¢.
My story is Heart of Stone
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Words Worth M
entioning for December
“It isn’t the size of the gift that matters, but the size of the heart that gives it.”
~Eileen Elias Freeman
Today is Author Krista Ames’ blog day.
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/
Authors and Industry representatives all month long!
Romance Books ‘4’ Us
The December contest is on! Prizes often include $100 in gift cards for Amazon/B&N, ebooks, print books, audiobooks, additional gift cards, and non-book items. http://www.romancebooks4us.com/
December 1, 2015
A Romantic Soul with Romantic Odds & Ends
As a romantic soul, I absolutely adore old love tokens. I have several varieties of them in my collection of odds and ends. One of my favorites is a gold ring thimble. At first glance it’s just a sewing tool made out of gold, but it’s more than just an ordinary gold thimble. When you cut the base off this particular kind of thimble, it gave you a wedding ring. 
The writer in me wonders why the base wasn’t cut free. Was it a lost love, an untimely death, a hopeful yet unfulfilled wish, or just a better ring allowed the thimble to remain intact? I’ll have to write it into a story one day.
:D
On a theme, there was a time when cards and letters exclusively told friends and family you cared. Vintage holiday postcards and greeting cards are often beautifully done things and I think the fact so many were kept as keepsakes says it all. From now until January, I’ll put a vintage holiday postcard up for you to enjoy.
Scroll down to see previous vintage postcards and read
how postcards became popular greetings to send and what is cost to send them,
and
about the changes made to the images after WWI. Subscribe to get them in your inbox!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥New Release!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
http://www.amazon.com/Exquisite-Christmas-Romance-Authors-Holiday-ebook/dp/B018F4ACSC/
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ My Other Book News ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Four 5-star reviews of The Changeling!
♥My other recent release has shining stars too!
Entice Me – a multi-author collection. It’s a steal for 99¢.
My story is Heart of Stone
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Words Worth Mentioning for December
“A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.”
~Donna Roberts
Today is Author Nicole Morgan’s blog day.
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/
Authors and Industry representatives all month long!
Romance Books ‘4’ Us
The December contest starts soon. Prizes often include $100 in gift cards for Amazon/B&N, ebooks, print books, audiobooks, additional gift cards, and non-book items. http://www.romancebooks4us.com/
November 30, 2015
Now you see it now you don’t. #Mondayblogs
As I mentioned yesterday, postcards are ephemera, that is, they are transitory things. Ephemera. I love that word. From the Greek it means lasting a day. To me it evokes those now you see it now you don’t kind of things like crystal-winged mayflies, toadstools in the lawn after it rains, diamond dewdrops on spiderwebs, and sky-spanning rainbows. Postcards are like that. They’re meant to tell someone you’re in their thoughts in that moment. They’re meant to make you smile. They were never meant to keep forever, yet people kept them as treasures until the day they died.
As the saying goes~ you can’t take it with you.
Hubby and I stumble across such keepsakes in our travels and treasure hunts all the time. People kept them because they held meaning. I collect them because to me they’re tokens of love and affection. The precious sentiment surrounds them even if I never knew the people involved. Who doesn’t love love?
Of all the cards we have to date, the brightest boldest images are found on vintage cards from Germany. Postcards were printed across Europe and the US, but the Germans excelled at lithography, in fact, it was a German invention. Because their colors were so lively and vibrant, and the images so clever, people tended to keep this ephemera and were hungry for more.
Needless to say, WWI brought changes to the postcard industry. After the war, Germany’s devastated print shops never regained their world-class footing. The impact of the war brought changes to other postcard printers as well. There were now shortages of ink. You can tell at a glance what postcard comes from this time after WWI. There will be a rather thick colorless border around the picture to save ink. See it in the card above.
Postcards lost some of their popularity when the world moved on. The telephone changed the way people said, I’m thinking of you. Cards and letters from the past are tangible snapshots of history. The sad thing today is people send email and rarely sit down with pen and paper to craft a letter. Treasure hunters of the future won’t find many ephemeral snapshots of our history. That’s sad.
Scroll down to see previous vintage Thanksgiving postcards and read the how postcards became popular greetings to send. Subscribe to get them in your inbox!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥New Release Today!♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Exquisite Quills, my international readers/writers group brings you 21 charming holiday stories and even more delicious recipes.
http://www.amazon.com/Exquisite-Christmas-Romance-Authors-Holiday-ebook/dp/B018F4ACSC/
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ My Other Book News ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Four 5-star reviews of The Changeling!
♥My other recent release has shining stars too!
Entice Me – a multi-author collection. It’s a steal for 99¢.
My story is Heart of Stone
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Words worth mentioning for November
“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.” ~Voltaire
Today is Author Suzanne Rock’s blog day.
http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/
Authors and Industry representatives all month long!
Romance Books ‘4’ Us
The December contest starts soon. Prizes often include $100 in gift cards for Amazon/B&N, ebooks, print books, audiobooks, additional gift cards, and non-book items. http://www.romancebooks4us.com/
From my family to you and yours, have a safe and happy day.
