Writer’s Tips, December Edition – Books, Blogging and Writing Tips, Scams

Welcome to my December curated Writer’s Tips. In this edition, once again blogger Hugh Roberts has another in-depth post on tips for bloggers – Seven things that scare bloggers. Author Ruth Harris writes about The importance of writing first lines for our books. A.C. Flory has some Amazon news for authors. Promoting your book later, after a launch, by Book Buzz, and Printing Scams on Amazon – authors beware by The Kindlepreneur, Anne R. Allen on Critiquing 101 – Ten Best Tips.

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Hugh Roberts with helpful tips for bloggers

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Ruth Harris at the blog of Anne R. Allen on tips for writing best first lines in books

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A.C Flory has an informative post about what Amazon is up to with author’s books not showing up

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Five Ways to Promote your book again after a launch, by Book Buzz

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Amazon Printing Press and Pricing Scams – what authors need to know by The Kindlepreneur

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Anne R. Allen with 10 Tips to being a good critiquer

©DGKaye2022

Grief the Real Talk – D.G. Kaye in her First Introductory #Podcast

I finally did it! I’ve put up my first #podcast on anchor.fm, and Spotify, and Soundcloud. I’ve had pre-written episodes ready for over two months now, but had to spend some time learning some recording ropes on the anchor platform. I’m no novice when it comes to sharing my thoughts and experiences, but recording was a whole ‘nother experience.

Because I’m quite the amateur when it comes to recording, I am SO not well-versed in the editing part of recording. Editing, yes, this is the part when while recording and a blip comes out of my mouth that I don’t wish to share with the universe. This could be anything from a missed word, a missed pronounciation, a ding notification coming in from nearby computer, or anything. As it turns out, I attempted for hours to record from my laptop, but it just wasn’t working with interruptions. So I went to my phone and did the recording there. I was concerned the sound wouldn’t be that great, but was pleasantly surprised that the quality sounded just like my laptop’s recorder – despite my never liking the sound of my own voice. Okay, maybe not radio quality, but pretty acceptable, I think.

I hope you will take under eight minutes, when you have some minutes, to listen to my podcast. I’d be interested in comments about suggestions, or your opinions on how you felt about episode one, the context, and what you thought about the quality of sound.

Also, I wasted another few hours trying to do a simple thing like try and load the video to Youtube. At first it was because I had to convert the file to an acceptable form for Youtube, that entailed another hour or so looking for a good file converter. Then, for no valid reason it still wouldn’t download. I wasted more hours Googling the problem, to no avail. No solutions or helpful videos, wasted hours of my time. What I did see in support groups were angry people at Youtube’s changed downloader, giving them all the same grief, but no solutions. So if any of you Youtubers here have any ideas why it kept telling me ‘process abandoned’ while in the creating video download stage, I’d welcome your thoughts. The video is in the correct format, it’s under the fifteen minute mark and has all the right speeds, so I’m baffled.

Thanks for listening.

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Episode One – Introduction to Grief – The Real Talk

On Anchor.FM

On Soundcloud

https://on.soundcloud.com/74Uik

Voila! Update! Finally got it on Youtube!

Grief the Real Talk

©DGKaye2022

#Writers Tips – August Edition – #Prologues, Annoying #Book Quirks, New Platform for Author’s Books

Welcome to August Writer’s Tips. In this edition, Harmony Kent is at the Story Empire and is helping us recognize if a prologue for our books is necessary, John Howell also writes for the Story Empire and shares a great list of what turns off readers in a book, Stevie Turner recommended this site, Shepherd, where we authors can share our books and list comparable authors to our books.

Harmony Kent with Part 5 in her informative series about Writing Prologues and Backstory

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John Howell lets us know what things about books annoy readers

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How does it work? – Shepherd

Authors pick their 5 favorite books around a topic, theme, or mood they are passionate about, along with why they recommend each of those books. Then, we feature the author and one of their books alongside that list

https://shepherd.com/

https://forauthors.shepherd.com/

©DGKaye2022

Epic Fail – Dystopia

I lost the whole last Friday. And so did much of Canada. I woke up and began looking through emails – to no avail because once again, no internet. So I turned on the TV to watch the news, only to find blackness on the screen. I thought, not again! Since I moved here I’ve never had so many internet issues since I stupidly left Bell Canada and joined the Rogers network and EVERYTHING – phone, TV, internet is connected by their shit wifi. I tried all my usual unplug, plug in tricks with my devices, which sometimes alleviates the problem. Again – to no avail. At that point, I hadn’t yet checked my mobile phone, which of course always works even when wifi is down because it picks up off the Rogers network cell towers when home wifi is down. But this time I had a dead phone!

At the same moment I began getting curious as to what the hell was going on, my friend Marsha knocked on my door. She came to inform me that Rogers network was down in the whole of Canada! In Canada we have only two giant conglomorate networks that monopolize the country – Rogers with a majority of customers and Bell Canada. And despite the various knock-off carriers that run off these two networks, that’s it. We had no communication to the outside world. Right away I suspected cyber tampering. Plus, I had recently heard on our news that we can expect some cyber attacks, adding that Canada isn’t protected properly with infrastructure to ward them all off. What else could possibly wipe out a whole network in one country?

I asked Marsha how she found out. She told me she knew her neighbor was connected to Bell. She knocked on her door and asked her to call security at our gatehouse and see WTH was going on, and found out. From 5am til wee hours of Saturday morning we were communicationless to the outside world.

I needed to make a few calls Friday to set things ready for my company I had coming Sunday to visit my husband’s grave and come back for lunch. So I got dressed and went up to the 10th floor where I used to live, to knock on a few old neighbor’s doors to see if anyone was on the Bell network. No luck! We were all mystified. I then went down to the convenience store in our building to ask the owner if he had any communications working. He told me his store could only take cash, and even though there was an ATM in his store, the banking system was also shut down, no debit cards, and for many businesses, not even credit cards because of no authorization. Imagine a whole banking system relying on one network!

I decided to go up to the lobby, knowing well there would be people there wondering what was going on. There I saw our building’s cleaners, Simon and Evangeline wiping down the windows. I asked if either of them were on Bell network, and thankfully Evangeline was, and she offered me to use her phone.

During that time, Marsha had gone out searching for wifi, as her daughter calls her every morning and she worried her daughter would worry about her. Marsha heard on the radio that our Starbucks cafes were on the Bell network. I had hoped to get to a Starbucks to send some texts, but one thing led to another as I was cleaning up my place for the weekend. I had the radio on, waiting for reports, as did everyone else, and nothing. Every commercial break announcers could tell us nothing, other than Rogers says they are working on the problem. They also informed that stores could only take cash, some closed, and the chaos at the airport just added to the already madness. People with their boarding passes on phones couldn’t board. All comms were down, and Lord knows how the air traffic controllers were managing. I was grateful to not be on a plane. They also warned not to take any road trips because if a car breaks down, there was no calling for help. AND EVEN 911 emergency line was NO SERVICE. I shuddered at the thought of how many needed an ambulance and died because of this event! It was a dominoe effect of chaos.

After 4pm, I went over to Marsha’s and hung pictures for her, since we were both home and nothing to do. Then she came over to my place and we played Dominoes. We kept checking our phones hoping for them to work, but no dice.

By 8pm, Marsha suggested we drive over to Starbucks to use their wifi to check in with people. Starbucks up the street was a sardine can, full of people, and younger ones hogging all the wifi with their laptops. There were plenty of people, like us, standing outside Starbucks hoping to pick up wifi, to no avail. There were just too many trying to do the same. So we drove to another Starbucks, and again, we couldn’t even get connected.

Finally, I saw a girl walking and texting, I asked her if she could connect and told me it was wonky, but our national pharmacy chain, across the way, Shoppers Drug Mart, was on the Bell Network. By this time it was 10pm, it seemed many didn’t know about this available wifi, and it only took me 10 minutes to connect and I began sending out texts. What a nightmare!

Everyone we’d seen and spoken to that day couldn’t help wondering if this was Russian tampering. How one monopoly network goes totally off the grid was puzzling. I can’t help but wonder if Bell Canada will be next. Were we sabotaged? Was this to show us what they can do? When we STILL have no answers from Rogers and the government has called in the CEO this week for talks, I am suspicious we aren’t being told the truth. Just how fragile are our systems with their vulnerabilites to attack? Not sure we’ll ever get the truth, but two things for sure: Canada better step up our protections, and I am moving back to Bell!

©DGKaye2022

What’s Up With #Scammers who Prey on #SocialMedia

As many of you know, I lost my husband just over a year ago. For me and my grief, it may as well be yesterday because the excrutiating pain of missing the love of your life doesn’t go away. I thought I’d just post this reminder because it’s truly astounding that predators lurk everywhere seeking out vulnerable people.

Since my husband’s passing, and much of it spent in Covid seclusion at the worst time of one’s life, I had turned to joining some online grief groups. I felt it may be a place I can be with like-minded people and those who’ve walked the walk, those who know how painful grief is, and that they may be places of comfortable harbor for me sometimes. But sadly, the amount of men who wangle their way into these groups hoping to seek out the vulnerable, seems to be ever-growing.

Personally speaking, these groups do not help me at all, yet, I continue to pop in for some words of solace. But because I consider myself a great Facebook ‘FBI’ profiler, I always click on the pages of those stalkers who continually message or leave messages in replies to my comments. Almost all of them seem to have lonely pages with barely a post, as though they specifically joined FB to lurk and lure.

I get many requests, compliments, and sweet nothings from plenty of lunatics on FB, but these grief pages top the charts with lurkers. These places are like a magnet for loveless losers to prey. How many times on the news are we warned about scammers, yet, so many still get caught in this web. It’s up to us all to do our due diligence and check out first, who we think we are friending and allowing into our personal circles. And I might add, the people who run these delicate group pages should also be more diligent when screening applicants who join these groups. It only takes me a moment to figure out many profiles are bogus, bots or that they have ill intentions. Why can’t a moderator do the same?

I’m a moderator in four different FB groups, and every time I get a request from someone who wants to join one of my groups, I take the time to visit the applicant’s page and schmooze around to see what they post, what they do, their ‘about’ page, and decide if they fit into my group. If all the prerequisites aren’t met, I don’t admit them.

Fakebook social media
Image by ijmaki from Pixabay

It’s not hard to figure out how these lurkers find us. They join groups with vulnerable people and try to befriend them with sweet words. If you’re like me, and have all your posts on your FB page, only visible to ‘friends only’ (and you should), this is your first barrier of defense. They cannot roam on your page or see personal posts, but they can still message you, and these messages predominantly go to FB spam messages and sit there until we delete or accept if we don’t reply to their scammy comments on a post we left comment on. I think I have hundreds in mine over the years, I don’t even look anymore, other than when someone approaches me on a group page and then checking my spam messages to find them there too.

When people start leaving you messages in comments to a statement you made in a group that have no relevance to the comment you made, be suspicious. When you poured your grieving heart out in a statement and get a reply from a guy telling you how beautiful you are and asking you to please accept his friendship so he can message you privately, that’s just wrong. And just don’t allow these types of lurkers into your private space.

I may be grieving. I may be sentimental. But I’m no dummy. As many writers spend most of their waking life on the internet mingling in social media, we know well about lurkers, losers, hackers and scammers. But for the many who are not internet savvy. Pay attention to how you allow people into your digital life.

©DGKaye2022

Writer’s Tips, April Edition – Book Blurbs, Trailers, BookBub, Canva, Formatting, More!

Welcome to my first post of the year of my collaborated Writer’s Tips. I’ve collected and saved a few of these posts as I came across them while I was away, and I know many of you will find something helpful here for writing, publishing, and/or marketing. From advice on writing the blurb, through some wonderful Canva tutorials to publshing updates and more, there’s something helpful for all writers here.

D.L. Finn at the Story Empire on Writing the Blurb Source:

WRITING BOOK BLURBS | Story Empire

Creating an Instagram story, How to Edit PDF docs in Canva, and how to Creat Page Turn Animation by Natalie Ducey Smith

How to edit PDF documents in Canva

Page turn animation in Canva

The Bookdesigner on making Book Trailers

Four ways the publishing business is changing on Amazon

7 Steps to formatting your books by Deborah Jay

Jan Sikes shares some great Marketing with BookBub Ads info

Great Punctuation Guide by The Bookdesigner

©DGKaye2022

#Series: Let’s Have a Look – Diving Deep Into Components of A Book Review -Quichotte by Salman Rushdie

Welcome back to my ‘Let’s Have a Look’ series. Where I post on a topic or incidence I come across that triggers a need to share and/or respond from me.

 

So in this post, my curiosity was sparked one night as I was checking out an author’s book when I saw him interviewed on TV – Salman Rushdie, to be precise. Well, when something catches my ear, I like to have a look around Amazon for their books, and if the blurb grabs me, I then go right to reviews (See! That’s how important reviews are ) which always give me a better insight as to what to expect from the book.

 

Sure, reviews are opinions, but when you read quite a few, you get a general consensus and better feel of what the book is really about, a better assessment to learn whether or not the book is a good fit for us. Now, there’s always going to be the odd, usually unjustified low star review for a mostly 4 and 5 star rated book, that’s inevitable, just ask an author. But often, those reviews will stick out like a sore thumb among all the golden reviews because often, when that happens, a reader doesn’t care for the genre (of which they should have checked first, again, that’s what real reviews are for) or they may be disgruntled at the seller in actuality because they weren’t happy with their delivery. Or quite possibly, some just won’t always like our books, our writing styles, our subject matter – you get the drift. Reviews are personal and yet, when the majority of them are either high stars or low stars among scattered opposites, that’s generally a good indicator of the happiness factor of the book.

 

So I digress (as usual), but what I was initially getting at is, before I buy a book, I don’t just want to read the author’s blurb, I want to get a feel for what others got out of the book, what they liked or loved or didn’t, to help boost my decision to want to read that book.

 

I love reading reviews, they tell me what I want to know about a book and often help my decision to either read or not read, regardless if it’s free or not. I have enough books on my Kindle right now to last me the rest of my life, lol. I don’t need to fatten it up with books I’ll probably never read when everything on there are all books I want to read.

 

So anyway, digressing again, from reading reviews, I sometimes come along a review that I find so refreshingly honest and somewhat more is not less, and quirky, but nonetheless, an insight or two not usually repeated in other reviews making it all the more genuine. So I thought it would be fun to highlight one of these interesting comments I came across that caught my interest. It was what prompted me to write this post while checking out Rushdie’s books, of which I’m familiar about his writings, but have yet to read one of his books. And after reading several reviews for one particular book I was looking at, I came across this one:

 

This almost sounds like something I’d write, because I find Rushdie’s books so deep sometimes I get lost. I can so relate, especially the highlighted parts I’ll discuss after  ‘Erb’s’ review for Salman Rushdie’s novel, Quichotte.

 

 

Blurb:

 

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE

 

Quichotte is a love story of profound tenderness and humanity from a great storyteller at his brilliant best. Wise, beautifully written, as heartbreaking as it is wildly comic, its characters unforgettable, its plot dazzlingly suspenseful, it illuminates our corrupt times where fact is so often indiscernible from fiction.

Quichotte, an aging travelling salesman obsessed with TV, is on a quest for love. Unfortunately, his daily diet of reality TV, sitcoms, films and soaps has distorted his ability to separate fantasy from reality. He wishes an imaginary son, Sancho, into existence, while obsessively writing love letters to a celebrity he knows only through his screen. Together the two innocents set off across America in Quichotte’s trusty Chevy Cruze to find her and convince her of his love.

Quichotte’s story is told by Sam DuChamp, a mediocre spy novelist in the midst of a midlife crisis, and as the stories of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine, we are taken on a wild, picaresque journey through a familiar country on the edge of moral and spiritual collapse.

 

 

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2019

Vine Customer Review of Free Product

“In 1989, I tried to read Satanic Verses, and while years later I sort of got through it, it was at such a low level of comprehension that I should be embarrassed to even use the word “read” in this context.

 

So a few years after that and I was offered this review copy of Rushdie’s new book, and I decided I’m a smart person now, and very well read, and I can certainly appreciate Salman Rushdie’s obvious writing skills as who I am today.

 

The answer remains “no, I can not.” That’s entirely my fault – my interests are nonfiction or fairly straightforward fiction as opposed to experimental or stylistic fiction like Rushdie has generally been known for. No doubt one of his books would prepare me for his style in a slightly more accessible way but I haven’t read it. I probably should give “Joseph Anton” a try.

 

So this reminded me of Marlon James “A Brief History of Seven Killings” that was hugely praised and award winning and that I totally couldn’t connect with no matter how hard I tried. In a similar vein with this book, I tried to start at the beginning, then I tried to start in the middle, and I tried to jump around and I couldn’t figure out what was going on, or even what I was supposed to be thinking.

 

Look – I did not give it any sort of truly honest effort. I gave up. It was too hard, too detailed, too stylized – it demanded an investment from the reader that I am simply not prepared to give. So if you think I sound like you, then you’re probably not going to be the audience for this book.

 

But – if you’re ANGRY at me, and you think I’m a big joke and an uneducated lazy rube – THEN maybe the book IS for you, because you’re the type of reader who will go into Rushdie with your eyes wide open in a way that I didn’t.

 

So I tried, I failed, maybe I’ll try again one day, but this book’s just not for me.

 

I’m giving it four stars because OBVIOUSLY he can write at a supreme quality – I would say every sentence went through ten drafts. Any oblique meaning on his part is totally intentional – he wants this to be an off-kilter Don Quitote experience…so it’s no accident. It IS well-done, but it is NOT for casual readers or the hoi polloi like me.”

 

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My Summation:

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Now that’s what I call honest, with good explanation about why it wasn’t for them, not that it was a bad book, but not their type of read. Praise was given to the author and a 4 star rating, despite. All round, I think this was a great review. It told me what I wanted to know about the readability factor. And I, like this reviewer, don’t have the appreciation for ‘too detailed, too stylized’, may be brilliant prose from a brilliant writer, but I like meat and heart, analyzing characters and the thrill of a page turner and not having to work so hard to find the meaning.
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So, what do you all look for before purchasing a book by an author you haven’t read before?
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Leave a Review
©DGKaye2021
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The Clearing – Updates – Moving, Grief and Loss

It’s been awhile since I popped into my own blog to chat. But, holy crap, it’s the middle of June and I feel like I’ve been living within a cyclone since last Christmas, without stopping to take a breath. First, late last fall my worries about my husband’s health, in and out of hospitals for various things, yet nobody realizing the real culprit – cancer. Then the diagnosis, then my husband lives, barely, another 5 weeks. Heck, I didn’t even have the official diagnosis back before a doctor introduced herself during one of my hospital visits, alerting me she’s a ‘palliative’ doctor. Palliative??? Right in that moment was when the numbness struck me. I’m still numb in many ways.

 

I knew my husband had something bad happening to him before the edict was read, but I wouldn’t even let my mind visit the thought that he was going to die. I couldn’t. The minute I’d allow myself to go ‘there’, I knew I could never pull myself out of that black hole of fear. I had to stay strong for him, give him hope – even when he knew there wasn’t any, I thought I would keep the positive thoughts and chat going. I never shed a tear because I knew if I did I may never stop. And I certainly wasn’t showing any fear to my husband. I ate it up. I didn’t even feel, and still don’t, that I was living in my own body. Like some invisible hydraulic system is towing me along to keep going and keep doing. Don’t stop.

I haven’t stopped all year. In his final week, bedridden, my beloved husband could no longer walk or talk. The reality of what was to come was top of my mind, yet, I kept pushing it away and kept doing. I knew I was on limited time and I didn’t want to spend one minute away from my husband, but I had to go buy a plot for him. For us. I also didn’t want him to know where I was going, even though he knew I never left his side unless he was asleep. He knew where I was going.

I witnessed my husband living between two worlds in his last days. Before he lost his voice, he’d wake at night several times to tell me he loved me. Other nights I’d wake to him calling out, raising his arms, eyes closed, to his dead sister Grace and his dead daughter Sue.

Unfortunately, I’ve had enough experience with being around death to know all the steps that lead to the finality. The on call palliative doc had come around the day before George died and told me ‘the most he had left was a week’, I looked him in the eye and told him my husband won’t live another 24 hours. There’s no glory in being right.

I lay beside him when his eyes opened that next morning and held his hand for dear life as I listened to his own life fade within. From silence to gurgling. I just lay there telling him I loved him as I do 100 times a day, still. And then I cried. And quite honestly, I haven’t really stopped.

In the deepest moments of unbearable grief, I had to make funeral arrangements. A funeral in Covid where we were restricted to 15 in the funeral home service, where there would have been hundreds.

All I wanted and still want to do is bury my head in my pillow and stay in bed for an undetermined amount of time. There is where I feel closest to him. The banner from over his coffin ‘Beloved Puppy’, rests now upon his pillow, as does the stuffed puppy he bought me one Valentine’s Day, who holds a stuffed heart from its mouth saying, ‘Puppy Love’. There is my solace. His slippers remain at his side of the bed.

But solace is in short supply as my marathon of life and death continues. There were weeks of paperwork, lawyers, banks, investment advisor, insurance, and the government papers I had to contend with to close off a life. And just for something else to add to the mix, I had to do the income taxes. Yes, who in the world with a broken heart continues to go, go, go, carrying overwhelming grief, while having to use their brain, then adds a move into the mix?

The move. Last fall before we knew of my husband’s demise, we were talking about moving, downsizing, somewhere else, getting ready for us to purchase a place in Mexico next winter (so was the plan). But God had other plans and moving was put on the back burner. And in my sane brain, I knew someday I’d have to move on my own because I don’t need a huge condo, nor do I want to pay that huge rent. But I also knew with my grieving and adjusting to a different life, that moving was not prime on my mind at this stage. All I want to do is exhale from what I’ve been living all year. So, I went down to the management office to ask the girls if my husband’s name needs to be taken off the lease. Before I could stop myself, the words seemed to pop out of my mouth – because they weren’t in my head, “Do you have any one bedrooms available?”

That was in April, one week after my husband passed. The agent told me that as a matter of fact, she had one coming up in July. A few days later, she took me for a looksee and told me all they’re going to do to it. I made a great bargain with her regarding me keeping my SS appliances and them having to move them, among a few other goodies, and suddenly, I was signing a new lease. That’s how the moving thing happened. I wasn’t looking, but I’m pretty sure my husband had some divine intervention in it. It’s safe here, lovely grounds, nice people and tons of amenities and close to every highway. I’m pretty sure my husband wanted me to stay in familiar territory. And July seemed ideal, enough time to get ready. NOT!

We have moved several times in our wonderful life together, yet, somehow, we still had too much stuff. If I had had time, I would have taken proper time to sell things for the value they’re worth, I would have set up an Ebay page, along with some others. But let’s be real, that left me two months to first clear the clutter that isn’t going to fit, before packing can begin. It’s insane here. I have some good friends and only one family member who pop by a few times a week to lend a hand. I have access to my new place so I had a bit of work done in there (besides what the management has done). I have many things on ads, and I get pinged lots, which of course is distracting when I’m in the packing zone. I’m moving a week earlier than planned, and my BFF who lives in England has been waiting to get here before I move so she can at least help with the transition. But that’s looking like she won’t get here til first week July, as we’re crossing fingers my province drops the 14 day quarantine in a hotel rule if one has been double vaxed on July 5th. Oye! So much going on!

So now you are updated. I know my posts have been far and few between since my husband became terminal, but I’m doing my best. This Friday I will have my monthly contribution for WATWB, and if I squeeze out any spare time, I may have a Sunday Book Review. As moving begins Thursday, with official movers on Saturday, and the fallout of unpacking to deal with after, don’t expect much from me next week. But hopefullly, once I move and catch my breath then exhale, I hope to be back in blogland more regularly.

 

grief quote

 

©DGKaye2021