Growing Older, Maybe not so Gracefully by Nancy M Bell

 

The cover of the Ontario offering for the Canadian Historical Mysteries Collection from BWL Publishing to be released November 2024

To find out more please click on the cover

I recently came across some old pictures. I look at the girl in those photos and I wonder who she is. It's almost like she's a different person and not a younger me, which is absurd. But I realize how much I have changed as I grow older. Maiden, Mother, Matriarch, Crone. I don't mind growing older, I just feel like I've somehow lost a bit of connection with the younger me.

I used to believe I could do anything I put my mind to. Anything. As I've grown older and managed to break myself a few times in pursuit of following the credo I could do anything I put my mind to, I have learned that such beliefs need to be tempered with caution.

Caution??? A word my younger self didn't even have in her vocabulary. I scaled cliffs above the town of Minden in the Kawarthas of Ontario,  I rode all the rough horses I could get my hands on, if something was walking the knife edge of danger I was there. (I said I was young, not that I was smart, okay?) I liked the bad boys, you know the ones I mean, the wild ones, not a mean bone in them but good fun with no strings attached. I attempted a waterski jump with heavy wooden skies weighted down with metal strapped to me feet on Davis Lake. Just let me say that venture didn't end well and was a one off. I used to hitch up the horse trailer and go where I needed to without a worry. Embark on road trips without worrying about the weather. I can remember running out in the pouring rain of a thunder and lightening storm in the big back field behind my childhood home.

The me of today? Hell, I worry about the roads being icy, or a ton of what ifs that never happen. I imagine part of that comes from the long periods of convalescence I've endured after breaking a pelvis and mucking up my spine and a few nerve endings in one incident, and then another long period of waiting for a crushed tibia plateau injury to heal complete with metal plate and seven screws. I wonder if that taught me caution or if it just served to put a bag over the head of the younger me. I'm not sure about the caution, but I'm determined to reconnect with the younger me who threw her head back and embraced the storms.

I refuse to be a boring old Crone. I have learned to be more blunt and speak what's on my mind. It came to me in my fifties (I think) that a lot of people didn't seem to care if what they said was hurtful to me and why the hell was I being careful about what I said to them? I don't go out of my way to be mean or hurtful but I am more apt to say what's on my mind. That's something my younger self would NEVER do. I always did my best to be invisible and escape notice. 

So, I'm not sure that I'm growing older gracefully, but darn it I am getting older. So I've decided to be the best Crone I can. 

1960s Sprucedale ON at Aunt Lottie's

Me on the right, my sister on the left 

Gramma Lois Pritchard, Aunt Rotha and Aunt Lottie Hines 

May 1977

   

Glastonbury Tor

2000s Surrey International Writers Conference

1980s Uxbridge Fair

early 1970s at Davis lake

 

October - New Book - What I'm doing now by Janet Lane Walters #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Mystery - new #Fantasy - old #Regencies - new

 

Here is the cover for October's release - The Horror Writer's Demise. Having fun researching the mny things I need to know. Probably not a cozy like The Mrs. Miller's books but more of a mystery and developing romance. The heroine is about 30 and has a five year old son and a mother who watches the child. The hero is a widower with a five year old son and who owns a house that was divided into two living areas. Even though four years has passed since his wife's death, he has clung to memories. As for her, the father of her son left without marriage and has successfully vanished. She has passed the regret stage and has entered the thank heavens he's gone. At this poing there are two more ideas floating for stories here. The Historical author's Snuff Boxes and The erotic writer's Nightgowns. I;m sure more will come.

I'm also looking at some Regencies I was working on when Gemstones was written. They were shoved away since other things came into being and were found with the great cleaning of writer's file cabinet. One has six chapters written. The second has a long working synopsis done and the third just an idea. Looks like I'll be busy.

I am finishing up the last of a fantasy series story though I have no idea what I'll do with it but being the writer I am since there are fifteen chapters rough drafted, I must finish this. Then I'll decide if and when Keltoi will appear.

My Places

   https://twitter.com/JanetL717

 https://www.facebook.com/janet.l.walters.3?v=wall&story_f

bid=113639528680724

 http://bookswelove.net/

 http://wwweclecticwriter.blogspot.com

https://www.pinterest.com/shadyl717/

 

Buy Mark My Places

 

https://bookswelove.net/walters-janet-lane/

So there's a bit of work ahead and I'm slowly gathering the words to put all together.

Guesting at the Museum, by J.C. Kavanagh

 

Click here for purchase options for this award-winning series.
https://www.bookswelove.net/kavanagh-j-c/

In last month's blog, I told you I'd be representing my township in a Simcoe County exhibition for local authors. Led by students at the local college in Barrie, (Georgian College), and in collaboration with the Simcoe County Museum, the exhibit featured famous and wanna-be famous authors who reside or were former residents within the County. According to Katherine Nelson, a student spearheading the exhibition, the "project is centred around the rich literary history of the county, aiming to spotlight prominent authors who have contributed significantly to its cultural landscape."

The exhibit showcased 16 authors, one from each township/town within Simcoe County. The setting for my Twisted Climb series is in New Tecumseth, while the dream world and un-world is fictionalized in areas around Tiny, Midland, Penetanguishene, and further north, Manitoulin Island. The legends and traditions of the Anishinaabe tribes, particularly the Ojibwe people, play a major role in the final book of the series, A Bright Darkness. 

Visitors were encouraged to leave a sticky-note with the name of their favourite book.
The Twisted Climb was on the wall!

One of the showcase authors was the Canadian legend, Margaret Atwood. I wasn't aware she lived in Alliston for a period of time and that her daughter, Eleanor, was born there. 

A bit of Simcoe County trivia: 

Established:  First in 1798 as the Home District and in1843, re-named Simcoe District in honour of the Lieutenant-Governor's father, Captain John Simcoe

Population of Simcoe County: 352,000 (2021)

Area: 4,819 square kilometres (1,861 sq. miles)

Location: central part of southern Ontario, Canada. The Niagara Escarpment mountains form the

                 western portion of the County. Bodies of water include Lake Simcoe, Georgian Bay and Lake

                 Huron

Features: Wasaga Beach, the longest freshwater beach in the world (14 kilometres or 8.7 miles), and

                Minesing Wetlands, classified by the Ministry of Environment as "one of the most diverse,

                undisturbed wetland tracts in Canada"

Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada

If you haven't read the Twisted Climb trilogy, I hope this blog arouses your curiosity. 

In the meantime, stay safe and don't forget to tell the ones you love, that you love them! 

J.C. Kavanagh, author of
The Twisted Climb - A Bright Darkness (Book 3) Best Young Adult Book FINALIST at Critters Readers Poll 2022
and
The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2) voted BEST YA Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll and Best YA Book FINALIST at The Word Guild, Canada
AND
The Twisted Climb,
voted BEST YA Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll
Voted Best Local Author, Simcoe County, Ontario, 2021
Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart
Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh
www.amazon.com/author/jckavanagh
Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)
Instagram @authorjckavanagh

My Stroll Through the 1918 Sears Catalogue

                                          Please click this link for book and author information

While researching 1918 fashion for my historical-novel-in-progress, I stumbled upon a 1918 Sears, Roebuck and Company catalogue, which someone had uploaded on the internet. The catalogue's 1,676 pages provided a treasure trove of details about that year in time and brought back memories of catalogue browsing in my younger days.  

In Canada, where I grew up, the Eaton's mail-order catalogue was a mainstay in middle class homes from the early twentieth century until the catalogue expired in 1976. My cousin, who lived in the countryside, ordered all her back-to-school clothes from the thick fall/winter catalogue. My aunt in the city made ordering and returning catalogue items into a hobby. Her husband joked that the Eaton's delivery truck made a daily beeline to their street. Catalogues were the forerunner of today's online shopping although they couldn't offer one-day service. 

I don't recall purchasing many catalogue goods, but I enjoyed flipping through the pages to see what was available. A common joke of the time was that little boys--and not so little ones--spent hours studying the ads for women's underwear. I expect boys living 100 years ago were equally intrigued by the 1918 catalogue's not-so-demure ladies modelling corsets. Prices for these complex articles of clothing ranged from $1.85 to $3.98 for Sear's finest corsets. Corsets for children and teenage girls started at 98 cents.

I always find it interesting when old or historical books cite prices that are stunningly lower than today's costs. On the next revision of my historical novel, I'll look for ways to insert a few 1918 prices into the story. While the earlier drafts mentioned corsets and petticoats, my catalogue stroll reminded me that people wore more underwear a century ago because houses were colder than they are today. The 1918 Sears catalogue featured twenty-eight pages of long underwear ads for women, men, and children. A note explained that wool underwear had become scarce because the Government required woolen mills to prioritize supply to soldiers and sailors fighting the Great War. Most civilians would have to make do with cotton underwear.

The one-piece long-sleeved undershirt and underpants garment was called a union suit in 1918. Long underwear was originally designed to liberate women from corsets, petticoats, and stockings. Perhaps I'll have my protagonist wear a pair of long johns under her housedress to stay warm in her chilly home. Catalogue ads for coal kitchen stoves, called ranges, promoted their side benefit of warming the room in winter. Customers could purchase ranges fueled by hard coal, soft coal, wood, coke, corn cob, and/or gas. No kindling required. They'd start the stove with a lit piece of paper that might be a page from last season's catalogue. Old catalogue pages also served as toilet paper and little girls cut out pictures of the models for paper dolls--the original Barbies.

All of these details would add period interest to a historical story and the 1918 catalogue offered many more. Women's muffs and collarettes made from the fur of China goat, raccoon, opossum, muskrat, marmot, and weasel. Ostrich plumes for hats. Seventeen pages of pocket watches, watch chains, and watch fobs. Collar boxes with round forms inside to keep the shape of men's shirt collars. Wool robes for riding in open-top buggies and cars.  

The catalogue also sold War Savings stamps to "support our boys at the front," official war pictures taken by the US government of trenches, gas attacks, and war ruins for ten cents each, and rubber face masks, presumably to improve complexion. The catalogue states, with surprising candor, "The usefulness of rubber masks has been exaggerated. We make no specific claims for these articles, but we offer them for women desiring them." They also offered a washable rubber night strap to reduce double chins for the bargain price of forty-nine cents. 

If you're interested in your own stroll through 1918 daily life check out  Sears, Roebuck and Co., Chicago: Originators of the Guarantee that stands the test in the Scales of Justice.

            

              

To Freeze or Not to Freeze, That is the Question by Karla Stover

 

https://bookswelove.net/stover-karla/

BY THE SAME AUTHOR:    Available through BWL Publishing

Parlor Girls

Wynter's Way

Murder, When One Isn't Enough

A Line to Murder.

Golly Mosses, as if I don’t have enough to worry about, now it’s my jeans! No longer can they be tossed in the washing machine with other like-minded (so to speak and dare I say ) rough-and-tumble, manly items. No, now they have moved into the realm of one’s unmentionables and require TLC. Yes, those faded, distressed, ladder-ripped (professionally done, of course,) jeans, which are worn by those who want to show that they are an angry, societal non-conformist, and who knew so many were so irked, are actually quite fragile. So delicate, in fact, that people have been avoiding the washing machine altogether and are, instead, making use of the freezer.

 Blame this peculiar attempt to eliminate odor-causing bacteria on Levi Strauss & Co., “which has long warned customers that washing machines can fade denim’s indigo hue and cause shrinkage. For some time, the brand advised consumers to place jeans in a freezer whenever they began to smell.”

For a zoophilist (otherwise known as a person who loves animals) this practice is actually cruel and unusual punishment. Though the practice does stun and temporarily immobilize bacteria, once the denim comes out of the freezer, the little germs warm up and go on with their lives. And think about this: “most of the bacteria found on worn jeans comes from our bodies, particularly skin cells and sweat.” Not what I want keeping company with my frozen foods.

However, should you want to try consider some fun options for your jeans, here’s what others do:

1.         1.  They try and “create a unique pattern in the natural faded and creased areas " by wearing them in salt water at the beach.

       2. They wear them while bathing, hoping for a good shrink-to-fit.

3.        3.  They only wash their jeans twice a year and spot clean as necessary.

       So, let’s look at what the experts have to say. 1. The "denim laundry" has already done what is necessary to create “an authentic or worn look.” 2. They are already prewashed and preshrunk. 3. The jury is out on the semi-annual wash. As to freezing, it just doesn’t work. 

       However, if you think a good washing is an anathema, try leaving your jeans outside in direct sunlight for a day or two, spraying them with a mixture of one part vodka to nine parts water, turning them every few hours and letting them dry naturally. To which I say, “oh, for gosh sakes!”