The Cozy Mystery List Blog

Cozy Mystery (and Other Favorite) Books, Movies, and TV

If You Missed Miss Marple Last Night…Go Check Your Local PBS Listings

I should ‘a, would ‘a… told you to not miss the first installment of the PBS showings of the new Miss Marple shows. I sure hope that no one missed them last night. I have not actually watched the first installment yet, but anything with Geraldine McEwan is OK by me! (That is if you don’t count the Mulberry series!)

You may wonder why I am writing my blog about a show that I haven’t seen yet… The answer is easy. If your local PBS station is anything like mine, they will rerun the show some time this week, so if you missed it, you can catch it when they re-air the very same Mystery! show.

I have, however, seen all eight of the previous Geraldine McEwan outings as Miss Marple. And, since each episode is like a stand-alone movie, we are actually going to be getting four new Miss Marple "movies" this season.  What a treat!

I’m going to keep this blog very short, since I want to write a TV & Movies blog/article about the series. I’ll try to post it either tonight or early tomorrow… but in the mean time… go check your local PBS schedules for the first Miss Marple (Towards Zero)! 

What was I Thinking?!?

Well, yesterday was a day of revamping several of my pages on the site. If you happened to look at any of the holiday pages before… I extend my apologies! I felt a classic case of V-8: "What was I thinking?" 

One of the comments I recently received referenced an author who can be found on my Easter page. After a rather extended time looking to see where I had put her (Joanne Harris), when I clicked on the main holiday page… and then clicked on the Easter page… I literally found myself mumbling out loud… almost as if I had never seen the pages before… "What the heck are these?"

By "these," I meant… these graphics… As much as I liked them over a year ago, they certainly didn’t belong here now. The graphics were easy enough to get rid of… just one delete key click, and they disappeared. But then I was left with the spacing between the books in the right column.

This, of course, meant that I was either going to have to go "behind the scenes" and fix the problem myself, or I was going to have to wait until my husband got up from his Saturday afternoon nap. "Behind the scenes" is about as technical as my jargon is going to get… suffice it to say that I have to go to a "display-split-coded-page" (or something like that) and then try to find the "<br> " type of symbol that all of the book covers had between them, right behind the scenes, somewhere "inside of" the computer, which to me means the screen, not the actual computer!

It only took me a little over an hour, but when my husband came out of the room from his refreshing nap, I was able to smile proudly… as if I were a five year old child bringing dandelion flowers to my mother… and show him the fruits of my efforts.

Now, I am proud to invite you to visit "my dandelions," which can be found on any one of the Holiday pages. (And please note how nicely spaced the books to the right are…)

Some Cozies are Simply Cozier than Others!

It takes place at night… OR… on a bright, sunny morning.
It occurs in New York City, bustling with activity… OR… a quaint English village.
The main character is a hip, young man with a beautiful young wife and one child… OR… a nice "older" teacher, getting ready to retire.
It involves a sleek Corvette… OR… an umbrella/cane.

Hmmm… If you’re a reader of cozy mysteries, I don’t need to tell you the correct answers!

I am embarrassed to admit this, but I just started my FIRST Miss Emily D. Seeton novel! Yes, I know that they are almost as classic as the Miss Marple books. Yes, I have almost all of the Miss Seeton novels waiting in my bookshelf… along with many other wonderful cozy novels…. all of them seemingly there just to gather dust now that I am spending all of the time at my computer… rather than reading my favorite cozy mysteries!   ("More Reading/Less Typing" ought to be my new mantra!)

Getting back to the purpose of today’s blog:

The Miss Seeton’s series of books has been written by three different authors. Heron Carvic began the series in 1968, with Hampton Charles taking over during 1990, followed by Sarah J. Mason (aka Hamilton Crane) in 1991, with her last book (or should that be "his" for Hamilton?!?) published in 1999.

Miss Emily D. Seeton is a retired British teacher, although in the novel I am reading, she hasn’t quite decided to retire… at least she hasn’t by page 49! So far, "Picture Miss Seeton" has all of the things you would expect from a Cozy Mystery… all of the above correct answers come into play, but, alas, I haven’t met up with a cat yet… just egg-laying chickens…

I am really excited about starting this new cozy series, although I know it’s not new at all. Sometimes, when I start to read a book that has this much promise, I actually feel like "I’m home again"… It’s a difficult feeling to describe, but I am guessing that other cozy mystery readers have a sensation similar to my "I’m home again" feeling when they start reading a new author’s book that looks like it is really going to deliver the COZY that we all want so much!

"Once is Not Enough" … for Me!

As much as I enjoy this website, I have to admit that sometimes, it bogs me down! My husband is the "expert" in the technical things, and as the expert, he thinks that I will be an expert after he has explained a method of doing something…. once.

Hmmm…. That reminds me of a title of a book that I read years ago…. "Once is not Enough" (by Jacqueline Susann…. in the days before I knew just how much better a cozy mystery would have been!)

I asked my husband if he could go ahead and "program my website" so that I could start posting other people’s blogs on my blog page… When I asked him for his help… I worded it very carefully… lest he get the impression that I actually wanted him to show me how to do it, so that I could do it (alone) in the future. Somewhere between my question and his walking toward me, a misunderstanding occurred! As he approached me, I started thinking…. I bet he misunderstood me… He actually thinks I want to learn how to do this! All I want is for him to do it, and then show me the easy steps I have to take when I want to use the function.

Anyway… It took several times of him saying things like: "Remember what I told you a minute ago…" and "Okay, let’s see if you can try that again…" and, the very best: "So, now you know how to do this…" Right!!!!!!

I don’t want to sound as bad as this reads…. While I am proofreading this, I am thinking… Hmmm… she takes him for granted! I guess that I do… because he does so very much for me, as well as for our two children. But maybe, since we are aware of how wonderful he is, and how he is always willing to drop whatever he is working on so that he can help us with what we need, we don’t actually take him for granted. Maybe, and that’s a big MAYBE, he knows how grateful we are that he is who he is. (I certainly hope so!)  

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