Laura Benedict's Blog, page 2

On The Porch and a Killer Review

 

–I swear I swept before I took this pic. Obviously need to step up the sweeping skills.

 

 

Finally. It’s officially fall. Or autumn. I like the sound of autumn, though I feel like a pretentious twat when I use the word instead of fall. I read once that you should do your major spring cleaning in fall, instead of in spring. The logic is that your house is full of summer dust and pollen and stuff that floats through open windows or gets tracked in, and you don’t want it trapped inside with you...

A Hopeful Day and a Mini Review

–Shelves stocked with hopes for a way better year

 

 

I declared Saturday, September 19th a Hopeful Day. I spent most of it organizing gardening equipment (read: putting it away properly since it’s been lying about/used all season) in the garage, in hopes that it will all be ready for spring. That spring will come in 2021, and new life will grow, and fear will have withered away. In hopes of lovely fall days full of brisk outdoor walks, I hied myself to TJMaxx and purchased a couple of long-slee...

Horses, Monsters, and Cats, Oh My! Plus a Sunday Writer Interview

 

Happy Sunday, y’all!

Today is my first Sunday Writer Interview. (Reviews will be back next week.) If you’re familiar with my intrepid, multi-genre writing career, then you know I wrote a sweet cozy mystery for Carolyn Haines’s Trouble Cat Mysteries series. SMALL TOWN TROUBLE was super fun to write, and I did a Valentine’s short story as well. It’s great to be able to stretch one’s writing skills.

I’m in awe of the writers who have kept the series books coming. Today I’ve got Susan Y. Tanner he...

BEATING ABOUT THE BUSH in the Sunday Review and Columbo Too

 

–The last Gerbera

 

Here’s a secret that’s not a secret. I’m old-ish. I was a teenager in the 1970s, which was both an amazing and horrible time to be a teenager. Many of us were very confused about many things, and we smoked and drank many things we shouldn’t have. (I swear I would still smoke cigarettes if they didn’t make my clothes and breath smell, and put me at risk for cancer. Of course now I would only do it outside, like I did in high school in the designated SMOKING AREA.) Often we h...

ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE: A Sunday Review Plus a Thing What I Made

–Bird on a Bough, my COVID-19 stitching

 

Today’s review is a longish one of a new favorite book, so I won’t preamble long! Hope you’re looking forward to a good week. I have a Zoom interview I’m excited about recording on Friday, and I’ll put up the link when it’s available. And I’m thrilled to tell you that I’m recording an audio of one of my most recent short stories right here at home. It’s a big experiment, and it’s going great. (No weird accents. I promise.) Now I just have to remember no...

Serial Killers Scare the Heck Out of Me, and A Sunday Book Review or Three

The Knockout roses are always a little shabby, but this mantis doesn’t seem to mind.(Though obviously she doesn’t like her photo taken, i.e. why you get a view of her backside.) I’m hoping that she’s been feasting on the occasional Japanese beetles that show up to eat them. We haven’t had much damage because I go outside in the late afternoons and crush them between the leather fingers of my garden gloves if I find them in the blooms. Grisly, but remarkably effective!

 

As I write this, I’m desp...

It’s That Get Back to Work Time of Year, and a Sunday Review: The Paper Daughters of Chinatown

These zinnias are the first flowers I’ve ever grown from seeds planted directly in the garden. Next year I will plant lots more. Definitely my favorite garden bouquet bloom.

 

I was thinking this morning about how much of my life has revolved around an American academic schedule: 9 months of school, including various holidays, plus 3 months off in the summer. It started when I was 5 years old and continued until the end of my 5 year college plan. There were precious few years after college in wh...

Real Life, My Dears

Frog Smiling in My Garden

When I last posted here on the blog back in February, the world was a very different place. COVID-19 appeared under various other names, and was only just being recognized as a possible global threat. Now, most of us are wearing masks, and haven’t been to a gathering of more than a few people in nearly six months. So many have died. So many have lost their jobs. Our children struggle to learn, and teachers to teach. So much more has happened, but you don’t need an updat...

THE STRANGER INSIDE 2.0 IS HERE (And Mama Couldn’t Be Prouder)

SHE’S HERE! I want to break out into the old Stevie Wonder song,Isn’t She Lovely.Since you can’t hear me anyway, I guess I can, yes?

This book shot was the first one I took in my remodeled home office. It’s still empty of course, except for the wall hangings. I think my new baby looks amazing with the backdrop of one of my favorite paintings, recently rescued from my parents’ basement. It’s called The Eye, and was painted in 1974, I believe. Creepy, but beautiful.

I think I’ll steal “Creepy,...

Anticipation!

Sylvie is suspicious of that pile of books

Hey, welcome to the very last week of February. This one includes a Bonus Day, which is kind of cool. I feel like February 29th should be a holiday since it only comes every four years, right? Maybe take a long, deep breath before March and the tumble of gray, windy days that lead to spring. Stay inside this Saturday and read, or clean out the bird feeders? Okay, let’s skip the whole deep breathing/bird feeder cleaning thing. Bird flu. Bacteria....