My husband and I drove up to Colorado Springs to visit my brother, since he took the whole week off. Our son is “holding down the fort” back home. (It’s so nice not having to board our puppy, Cocoa. It makes our trips a lot easier for me. When our children were young and we took family vacations, I would worry about leaving our dog, Sprite at a kennel. Of course, I worry about a lot of things…)
Getting back to the purpose of my entry: I hope you all are spending your holidays just the way you would like to spend them, be it grilling, sleeping, going to firework shows, relaxing, or reading.
Happy Fourth of July!
Rob Jarrad says
Lucky son. I’d love that duty (which for me is not a duty but a priviledge! I always dog sat for my folks when they went somewhere and couldn’t take a dog. I loved it. I didn’t want to go where they went so much as I just wanted to take care of the dog. No vacationer, me.
Hope you and all have a safe and happy 4th.
Rob Jarrad
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Rob, I know that he certainly doesn’t mind it – he loves having the alone time with little Cocoa! And I think that he’s the same as you are in terms of not necessarily wanting to go anywhere when he’s taking a break.
michelle says
I just started reading The Snowman Killer, good for a hot day read, finished the first and second book and just started the third and last so far. They are short read only 106 to 120 pages. Very good if you like snow storms and cold weather, which I love. Hope someone else enjoys them the author is Wendy Meadows.
michelle
Rob Jarrad says
I have to tell everyone about a mystery series I dearly love and have always loved this author’s work. Emily Brightwell writes a Victorian Mystery series involving a housekeeper for a Scotland Yard Inspector Gerald Witherspoon. The series has a delightful cast of characters that you get comfortable with from the get go and the newest that will be out in October of this year is called Mrs.Jeffries and the Three Wise Women. Emily is on her Thirty sixth or so book and they just keep getting better.
Another Victorian and Edwardian mysteries set in those eras is Robin Paige’s (Bill and Susan Albert) series beginning with Death at Bishop’s Keep and ending with Death on the Lizard. I believe they stopped writing that series in order to pursue other works so the few books they wrote in that series is the last you’ll see of Lord Charles and Lady Kate Sheridan. I loved them all.
Victoria Thompson writes about a couple in New York City at the century’s turn involving a nurse-midwife and a policeman that eventually get married and solve mysteries together. I really enjoy that series as well and for the last of my offerings, Nobody can beat Anne Perry for her two series and other works set first in the Victorian era and some in the first and second world wars as well as her Holiday novellas involving secondary characters introduced in her Thomas and Charlotte Pitt and William and Hester Monk series.
Try one at your local library to see if you like it and order the whole series. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. The Anne Perry books, however are excellent but i believe they are considered too dark to be cozies. But very enjoyable never the less.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Rob, thanks for the recommendations!
PamB says
Happy 4th to you. ?? Hope you have an enjoyable week and get to squeeze in a couple of hours reading.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
PamB, no reading time so far this week unfortunately (well, maybe a few minutes squeezed in here and there!)
Karen says
Happy Independence Day! Small world. I live in Colorado Springs. Of course, CO is “south” to me, since I’m from WI. I hope you have a good visit to my town.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Karen, it is a small world after all, as you say. We actually lived in Colorado Springs before, so we know how wonderful a town it is to live in.
MJ says
Hope everyone is enjoying July 4th holiday. The weather is perfect in my town. 🙂
You’re shopping/cooking/eating plans are probably done for the day, but thought I’d share this scrumptious looking and very EASY (and cool) pie recipe from the Today Show. YUM! There’s a LOT of summer and hot weather left!
————————————
Red, White and Blueberry Pie
Crust:
1½ cups crushed vanilla wafer cookies (about 20)
6 tablespoons butter, melted
Filling:
One 3-ounce box instant vanilla pudding
1 cup milk
One 21-ounce can strawberry pie filling
Topping:
Whipped cream or frozen whipped topping, thawed
Fresh blueberries
For the crust:
Pulse the cookies in your food processor until they are
finely ground. Add the melted butter and pulse until it’s
all combined. Remove the mixture and pat into a pie plate.
Make sure you pat it up the sides as well as across the bottom.
Freeze it for about an hour before filling.
For the filling:
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry vanilla pudding
mix and milk, then let sit for about 2 minutes. Whisk in the
strawberry pie filling until they are just combined. Remove the
crust from the freezer and pour in the strawberry pudding mixture.
Cover and refrigerate the pie at least 4 hours and up to 2 days.
Remove the pie from the fridge and garnish with a little whipped
cream and some fresh blueberries.
For picture go to this site:
http://www.today.com/recipes/red-white-blueberry-pie-recipe-t113154
NOTE:
One could use a variety of combinations. The crust could be made with differing ‘crumbs’……graham crackers, lemon cookies, shortbread cookies, oreos, etc.
The vanilla pudding could be substituted with a lemon pudding, white chocolate pudding, tapioca pudding, cream cheese pudding, or strawberry pudding (found only at Walmart). Any of several fruit pie fillings could be used……..peach (with blueberries on top), cherry, blueberry.
(Hmmm……think lemon cookie crumbs, lemon pudding, and blueberry pie filling (although not necessary, perhaps some strawberries or peaches on top.)
Danna - cozy mystery list says
MJ, thanks for sharing the recipe! It isn’t something I’ll be trying today (as you guessed, we’ve already prepared what we’re doing for the 4th itself) but it certainly looks worth trying out some other time!
Sharon S says
Thank you, Danna. Hope you’re having a great time in Colorado Springs. This is a great list, and I wish I had thought about it sooner. (I’ve been busy going through my TBR list, and I never gave it a thought.) I have read Murder On Parade by Donald Bain a few summers ago, and it is a great one. I recommend it highly.
Happy Independence Day!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Sharon, we’re definitely having a good vacation so far!
Kathy M says
Happy 4th to you as well. Up here in Massachusetts the weather is perfect for anything one wants to do. Have a safe 4th!!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Kathy, the weather here is nicer than back home – my husband says it is over 100 degrees right now! That’s pretty rough grilling weather. There’s a lot of things to be said of living somewhere a little bit cooler than that.
Ellen Byron says
Happy 4th! Love Colorado Springs. I had a play done there and was able to stay with relatives who had moved to CS from NY for the weather.
Having a low-key holiday here, but we can see fireworks from our backyard (we’re on a hill), so we’ll do that later. That pie recipe looks delicious, MJ! Thank you for sharing it.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Ellen, I hope you’ve been joying your low-key holiday. I wouldn’t necessarily call this “low-key” personally – visiting family is always a little stressful, after all. But we’re having a good time regardless!
Ruth Anne Buterbaugh says
Thanks so much for mentioning the Mrs. Pollifax series the other day! It reminded me that my mother had read some of those books a good number of years ago and had enjoyed them, so I decided to read the series. Our local library system has all of the books which will enable me to read them in order. Already finished The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax and will pick up The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax tomorrow. I’m so happy to have found your blog and to find new cozy mystery writers, like Rita Lakin and her Gladdy Gold series. Thanks again! Enjoy your time in Colorado!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Ruth, I’m glad that we were able to connect you to not only Mrs. Pollifax but other great series from the past for you to enjoy today!
Susy says
Hope everyone had a great Fourth. As we have done for several years now, we flew to Phoenix for the holiday. Unlike other years, we went a little early and actually flew back on the Fourth after hosting a family reunion. It was great to see family members I had not seen in a few years, but I still don’t know how we got hooked into hosting when we only live there a few weeks out of the year and the rest call it home.
I did get a chance to go to nine used bookstore in the Phoenix area and Tucson, so my TBR list continues to grow. I did get a chance to read my first Leann Sweeney on the flight back, so now I have to add the rest of here books to my wish list and ultimately to my TBR bookcases.
Thanks to Danna and this website, I have a long list of authors to try when I get the opportunity to buy books on the cheap (annual VNSA book sale in Phoenix). Retirement better come soon or I won’t ever be able to read all of my TBR books.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Susy, that sure sounds like a good holiday! Though I’ll agree I’m not sure how you end up hosting a family gathering when you don’t even live in town. It’s also always nice to be able to sweep a different town’s used bookstores – personally I don’t have a lot of luck at the local ones unless I intentionally stop going for a while.
Susy says
Danna, My local used bookstore closed and I have found that if I go to the others within a 50 mile radius more than once a year, I find very little. The ones I go to in Arizona seem to have a pretty high turn rate so I can go at least twice per year, though it is best if the visits are fall and spring.