C. (Comment, never msg).’s Comments (group member since Jan 30, 2014)

C. (Comment, never msg).’s comments from the Gentle SPECTRUMS group.

We should copy the last paragraphs. We were talking about a lot more. You aren't much of a mystery buff if you don't recall that you know my province! Next, you probably know which city is our nation's capital, which province that is in. Same province that has Niagara Falls and Toronto. Then when you think about it, you probably also know the name of our famously French province. That's three. Famous skiing locations? That is two more provinces. Home of "Anne Of Green Gables"? That makes five. We're no region: we are the world's second biggest country. Q;-)=

My home city is the source of Winnie-The-Poo. Look at the name. The Winnipeg Mint makes your coin money as well as most other countries', which my parents can see from their house. My city also invented the 9-1-1 emergency phone number! We are not an obscure place not worth knowing. Here's your chance to catch up. :) Try to name those few I hinted at. Whatever you don't know, go to my Canadian review page with the map. You will see the rest. I did the same for your country: after looking up Iowa and Oregon, I won't forget them again. :-) The "Hallowe'en" movie is freaky. I'll leave you and your son to it. I play the theme song at Hallowe'en and even that is spooky enough. I think I watched three of them and they were all I could take.

We all speak with the spirit world any time, of course but I love books, fictional and not, about people who communicate much more obviously with them. I have heard a spirit twice (Love: one occasion very loudly and undeniably)! I had a very strong meeting with a loved-one inside a vision (Thumbelina). I sat up from it immediately, aware of what it was. The rest of my life has held the same weak awareness as others. I sense energies and get impressions decently but not standing there and talking, like these books you mention! So I adore that ease of communication in books; except if they add a vampire. Then I'm out! [GRIN]

I have never read and don't recall seeing "Peter Pan" myself. Good on you to read it. There are tons of classics I'll be later at than you.

The layout if awful because it enhances other people's movements, which we used to put in the background and check as we wanted. But I said above that you get to groups just using the "community" menu. Look forward to continuing our conversation that was left off in your "Seeds Of Yesterday" book review. If you want to just copy & paste the last paragraph here, if that's easier, I'm good with that. Don't want to miss it because they were long, personal chats on various subjects; not to mention my 48-state efforts! I hope you find naming our 10 few provinces a breeze. However if that proves hard; times that by 5 and you know what I achieved!

A black bear walked through our property! I haven't seen one in two years. I enjoy a careful glimpse, with its stop brief, then going back into the forest. However I took inventory of our kitties and couldn't find Angel! So I freaked out, even if bears don't go after cats. I found that she was in our library building the whole time. When I collected her Mom, Marigold and Sister, Petal from our library; she had been hiding. Phew! Now I can think about what a nice young, handsome bear that was. A privilege to behold! They are probably nearer more regularly than we see but we saw this one. I said "Bear!" so Ron could enjoy the glimpse too and get the bird feeders off of their pole. He hadn't done it for the night and bears would go for them. That is why they are put away while bears are awake from hibernation (April to October).

That was my comfort with Thumbelina and I was urged to feel the same about Love. Seemingly born with a heart defect that suddenly blew on July 31, 2014 (keep me strong *that* day); I am urged to believe good care brought him 4 years into adulthood. Instead of the heart stopping in infancy. I was an equally good Mother to him so a sensitivity about longevity interferes less with time. I wondered why you said "they". I heard of a 28 year-old cat; I have not had one yet! Other than Love and one precious girl in my young childhood, there was no other death. Every other is still with me! McCartney at 16 is our next eldest, going strong. Thank you for remembering Thumbelina's birthday with me!!!!

I would never live anywhere but in my home and native land. In fact I am an hour from the city in which I was born and raised. However there is one province I would be willing to live in because there is so much that is special about it. I'll save mentioning provinces until after you get a chance to name our easy ten. :) Before Love died of course and rests here, I was tempted to move there. Neighbours were so noisy and dogs barked to such an extreme daily degree that it ruined our life for two years. I even looked up a property I wanted, for a good price. My job doesn't matter but Ron's does and he would be a hard sell. Before Love died. Now, I can't. I'm not ready to be separated from what remains of his physical self for some time. I'm unworried about distance from family because both brothers could afford to visit as much as they liked and my parents could stay for as long visits as they liked. That house would have offered space!

Pre-house buying and large cat family, Ron & I used to vacation all around our province annually and fly on a more adventurous trip every two or three years. Couldn't afford it like many people but have gone places a great deal more than others. Including ours, I have stood upon six countries. Our ties are about loving Canada, not unwillingness to move within it or visit other places.

Are your copies up for trade? I know there is a such things as some novels in this genre that I delight in. I may groan about them but my house is full of them. Picture-sharing activity to come. LOL.

Yesterday Goodreads all of a sudden changed to the new view you must have been referring to about two week ago. I dislike it too. It is true that groups aren't on the screen; I used the "community" menu and hope the rest of our group cares to. Secondly, instead of focusing on updating my own business as it should, I get a tiny corner and it is other people's updates that blaze across the viewing space. I see no way to change that except to bring it down to the lowest possible choices: top friends only and review updates only. If there is a place asking for our input, we need to say these displays are not what we want.

The day after Canada day is highly special in a personal way. Today, July 2nd, thirty-four years ago, a cat dear to our family was born! She physically lived twenty-one of those years. We promised her, in an engraving, to remember her lifetime throughout all of our larger ones and we do. I am sharing this because telling people about this wonderful family member means people are still hearing of her, longer than her biology could have continued. Physical limits cannot interfere with our love nor new people's acquaintance of dear souls. Twenty-eight is the longest-lived cat I have heard of, so here is her name still spoken well after. Happy birthday to you, Thumbelina!

On the subject of where I am from: it is Manitoba and this is July 1st. HAPPY CANADA DAY! from our country on its one-hundred-and-forty-ninth birthday!

Ah yes, two girls from whom I haven't heard in ages. They won at this time two years ago. Nina is a sweet friend who must have graduated as a doctor recently. I hope to hear from her. It's been a year. Rest assured, I will send out the call for everyone and sundry to "show me their stash" again! I love seeing where people keep their books, how many they have, how messy: I just love it. And would love reactions to mine too, piles I that I have to say have worsened since the photos I took.

Rain joined my first year of Ethereal. We enjoyed writing several times. I haven't heard from her since she was in hospital with infections 1 1/2 year ago. Probably no longer blogging. She comes from a Wicca family and sent me healing Reiki energy as soon as Lovey died, a fact I still can't believe, to look at his face in pictures. Such a key part of our family. Actually, we lost him two weeks after I wrote the last post above! July 31, 2014, buried August 1, 2014. Rain unbelievably got us through his funeral. She picked us off the ground at our worst, making us calm through unimaginable pain. I will forever be grateful to her for that. She loves helping people and surely helped me. She spoke of a kitten she lost (my Love nearly turned 4) and how she felt she had failed him; a horrible regret I had pondered before we figured out he had had a heart failure. A God-send person all around.

I think it is spiders and insects who are rightfully scared: most humans have a habit of killing them on sight. Eek! Other than mosquitoes, which will not shoo away and sending woodticks down the drain, I don't. I would try to get them on a piece of paper and flip them outsider the door. However if you didn't know what kind your spider was, with biting ones a possibility in Florida; no doubt it was scary to drive away wondering where it is!

Thankfully I have succeeded at getting many wonderful portraits. That's why I had my own greeting card company! I should show you my PDF catalogue one of these days. It was my outlet to publish some of my words (with my own pictures) in a small way, years before I would finally think about what to write as a novel. :) As I mentioned in yesterday's e-mail, I'm shy about asking for money, even when completely warranted and fair; so I made a terrible salesperson. Presenting myself to stores sucked, so I just have whatever's let of my stock to sell friends/family and the odd new interested party from home.

I stopped creating new cards (and no longer have my print manufacturer) since I left the city, so there are none of Marigold and the cute faces of the kitties that were born here! However the existing cards features several of McCartney, Spirit, and my former dear cat who looked like Spirit: our precious Thumbelina. I did succeed at getting nice shots of several friends' dogs, horses, and other animals too. My company was called "Riedel Cards". They had a neat feature I created, which I thought filled a hole in everything out there in stores. They aren't blank notes, nor do they ruin the front of the pictures with the name of a holiday across the front. They are "Unseasoned Greetings", as I trademarked them so you can use my verses and portraits for whatever you wanted. Think of it as "blank, without being blank". An awesome idea, if only I didn't live in a community that was dollar store-minded. Mine are gorgeous 5x7 portrait quality cards at $4.00. :) As a future author, I like to think my verses were much better quality than what was out there too. LOL!

Nice to see your assessments of these, especially having seen Bailey Cates around a lot and being a fan of "Cleo Coyle's" haunted bookshop series. It is frustrating to fans of adult ghost fare that the coffee one, without the paranormal, is focused on much more than the few haunted bookshop novels. Without the mystical elements, I don't know if these authors's humour and style would be enough to amuse me. They are a husband & wife, also called "Alice Kimberly". It's helpful to say you love the coffee shop series but the sadness or grimness has me wondering. If it were a deceased animal, you know I couldn't hack it. Human bodies? They are so frequent and "plastic" in books, as you called it, that they cause no flinch. It's like Pierce Brosnan said: "The blood in 'James Bond' isn't very real". I would have to risk a spoiler and know how sad or disturbing you mean before I would venture that series. But we fans would rather see more of the "Alice Kimberly" ghost book shop!

Thank you! That means the world, to hear the wishes returned to us! I need to pose with McCartney in a few good pictures but got a good variety of him and the others, in and out, that day.

Yes, Phyllis A. Whitney, June Wetherell, and other authors nearly as long-lived sure would have seen a lot of shifts in their century. Our elder loved-ones and animals wouldn't be with us all those years but those we care about who are young, would be. If I don't get around to being a human Mother, I like knowing I have a nice and nephew to enjoy and come after me, even if they are in Toronto.

"Plastic" and "sanitized" are astute words that I had not thought of, to describe why the genre called "cozy mystery" is not my top choice. I find the writing and plotting quality if often as watered-down as the sexual and suspenseful content. With several excellent exceptions on both sides, as my blog article said. Light topics or humorous approaches can come from great writers.

I've seen a lot of Bailey Cates and the covers indeed suggest your typical water-down, sanitized "cozy mystery". Your word is valuable, that these ones aren't!

Over-watering should be never be an in a ground and not bad in pot/basket/box with a well-ventilated bottom. Anyway it's fun to talk gardening and I'll do more of it soon. Today is McCartney Hendrix's sixteenth birthday!

June 13 is a day to take pictures of our cats today, wherever I can find them walking around in decent backgrounds. Then taking pictures with our cats when Ron is home. My parents already mailed him a humorous card. Happy sixteenth birthday to our dear boy, McCartney today!

Yeah. I have loathed win 7 for the reasons I expected. It came with this computer when we bought it, which is why I knew *software I use regularly* would become obsolete. Things there is no newer version of, or which would be difficult to download and search with only dial-up internet (in case people wonder what the deal is). It was a fight to turn it to XP, older software and get the computer working. We kept it working as long as we could. There are new, let's call them 'features' to win 7 that have me gnashing teeth too, like their stupid security for not letting me access all the folders I wish on my own computer! Anyway enough of that. I wanted to clarify it was not a preference thing but the dawn of a change I dreaded. People using only the programs microsoft comes with wouldn't notice. So sympathy might be a leap. Just know I'm relieved this is working in general and that I'm back.

Didn't expect everyone would notice the disadvantages, if they don't use PCs the same way we do. Just wanting sympathy that I knew it would be a headache and do already finding myself loathing win 7 as expected! LOL! Sympathy that I went through something I have dreaded. Still trying to make the thing work to my specifications and finding it a wrestling-match. *I* am interested in win 8 etc myself, to see if enough people complained about the things I have in mind and that Uncle Bill did away with those! You have nothing to regret. Windows will be around and around, easily attainable. Damn Bill. LOL!

I am here: arrived somewhere that is a port in the storm for me! The day was coming that I would have to change from windows XP to windows 7. I wanted a few more things settled before I did and the reason to keep it going as long as we could, is because many programs we use do not work on win 7. It is a stubborn thing. However things got so riled up on our personal computer that I had to make the change. Our PC would not work unless we did, after the wrangling I did with freezing problems, possibly from a virus. It happens that getting windows 7 to work because the hopeful step! I am back, without the warning of the change I would have given if I could have.

Shortcuts are all gone but my files are fine. I will find a way to replace the software that has become obsolete on this picky program. Not easy on dial-up internet and win 7 takes getting use to but I am here. We kept XP lasting longer than we hoped. To arrive at one place that is familiar despite those changes and obsoletions we will be circumventing / overcoming in the next days.... feels good. Good evening, everyone!

:)

I am certainly in harmony with a girl on a gothic kick! I knew you were open-minded because you are a real reader. I have seen in your Goodreads statistics that you have finished some years, many more books than me. Phyllis is a risk for those who don't consider that she started publishing in the 1940s and in fact, that she was born in 1903! I wasn't joking that she lived to age 104 though, so she had time to get modern. I love 1970s novels, although several of my favourites of hers are from 1949-1960.

The other risk is to people who judge a book by a cheesy cover. She is a person who likes to have a little bit of romance in her novels, as many authors do. I prefer her ouevres where she focuses more strongly on other story aspects but she blended those things well enough that I didn't mind. But the covers: oy vey! I think they would do her a disservice because they make her oeuvres look like.... well... Harlequen romances. LOL! She is romantic suspense at times, straight up mystery at times, and you bet that many are gothic. You are someone who will see the skill beyond flimsy covers. There's a reason she left us more than 100 books, despite starting at age 40!

Lyn published much more modernly but started in her 40s too. Unfortunately she died of cancer fairly recently so we only have 10 of her wonderful books. I have spares of two of her novels at least, if you didn't mind finding a copy of "The Xibalba Murders". Her Toronto antiquities shop is a series. That first was special to me, because Ron & I have been to the Chitzen Itza Mayan pyramid sites in Cancún! The e-mail I just sent promises to expand my list for you personally when you're through with the existing one. There are a great deal more to show you when you're done scouring this one. :)