Puzzle People

You've seen them. They sit there for hours on end, fingering the edge of a piece of cardboard and oblivious to the world around them. Or perhaps they're sitting in a busy airport, pen in hand and inking letters into a black and white grid.

Puzzle people. They're a unique breed of determined, methodical individuals who know that sticking with something all the way to the end nets a grand reward. Oftentimes, jigsaw puzzlers start with the easy part, assembling the framework, then they work inward either by shape or color recognition or image alignment. Be forewarned though, looking at the box may be considered cheating by some serious puzzlers.

DIDJA KNOW: Jigsaw puzzles of the same size and series from the same manufacturer often have identical cuts and piece shapes.

In today's high tech world, assembling a jigsaw puzzle (or a crossword puzzle or a Suduko) may seem archaic and unimportant, but the activity has diehard enthusiasts and now the medical community is onboard singing the praises of puzzles.

DIDJA KNOW: Working on a puzzle stimulates your brain. Some say it may even ward off Alzheimer's, a memory impairing disease.

I'm one of them. A puzzler, I mean, though I probably have my share of memory issues. There's nothing I like better than seeing how something fits together. I've never been much of a take-aparter, but I dearly love putting together a puzzle. I couldn't imagine starting my day without a Sudoku number puzzle. I usually tackle the crossword puzzle for lunch. In the evenings, I engage my brain with whodunits in books or on TV.


At a mystery conference I once roomed with a woman who loved doing Sudoko puzzles on a handheld device, and she was always trying to best her former times. That's serious puzzling.

With aging relatives, I've been in and out of nursing homes over the last three years. I can recognize a puzzle person on sight. And the cool thing is, they recognize me right back. No introductions are necessary. You just slip into a chair and pick up a puzzle piece and you share in a wonderful fellowship.

If only everything in life were so easy!

Maggie Toussaint
Death, Island Style coming in February

PS ARE YOU A PUZZLER? Be sure and leave a comment about the kind of puzzles you enjoy or tell me if your relatives enjoy puzzles. I'd love to hear from you!

Droopy Drawers is a hot topic

no droopy drawers here!

I heard the term "droopy drawers news" over the weekend, and it sparked a fun memory. Way back when, probably in the stone ages, I knew someone who called another person "Annabel Droopy Drawers." (For those not from the south, "Drawers" is the refined expression for the modest underpants of my childhood and earlier.)

a droopy drawers face

 I always thought the expression meant that Ann didn't have enough padding to fill out her drawers, but now I have reason to doubt that as the sole interpretation. In the context of "droopy drawers" news, I believe the term is also used to indicate sadness. (And in hindsight, this gal didn't always have a sunny outlook.)

Certainly if I had droopy drawers, I'd be sad. Nothing worse than elastic failure, but I suppose in this day and age of ladies wearing slacks most of the time, having your underpants fall off isn't so much to be feared. However droopy drawers under slacks would certainly be an annoyance and that would make me sad and maybe a bit crazy. (Trust me, I won't even allow a tag under my clothes. This sort of undergarment irritant would make me as neurotic as TV detective Monk.)

this is a good way to get
droopy drawers

The Urban Dictionary cites these definitions of droopy drawers. 1) a woman with excessively limp buttocks; 2) a person who has a load of sand and other oceanic debris in their drawers; and 3) pulling someone else's pants down to cause embarassment. (wow - I thought this last one used to be called pantsing. Shows how out of touch I am!)

We've all seen these droopy drawers

Imagine my surprise to find there are droopy drawers laws in Florida and even my home state of Georgia that relate to anti-sagging. Fortunately for senior citizens, this isn't a law against aging, but a protest over those lowslung pants that mostly teenage boys wear. BTW, how do they keep those pants up? I worry that placing a cell phone in my pants pocket will make them too heavy to stay up, and my pants are firmly in place. I would hate to have really low pants like that and sneeze. Yikes!

According to a Wikipedia entry, sagging pants as a wardrobe choice is believed to have originated from the prison system, where prisoners weren't allowed to have belts for fear they'd hurt themselves or others. Once hip hop artists popularized the fad, it has since become a statement of independence and freedom. Who'd a thunk?

My suggestion to fight droopy drawers moods?
Get out and get going.
The dog and fella are kinda nice too

I think the term "droopy drawers" is an older experession, hailing from my parent's generation or earlier. I found a list of nearly 2,000 cliches online assembled by Steve Lautenschlager, and the word "droopy" was not found in the entire list. I guess there isn't a category for a walking cliche.

Hopefully, all of us are gearing up for family and fellowship with the advent of the holidays, so put away your "droopy drawers" faces and start getting into the holiday spirit!

Maggie Toussaint

ps - do you have a cliche you overuse? do you say things like an apple a day keeps the doctor away, the early bird gets the worm, or the pot calling the kettle black? I'd love to hear your take on cliches today.

From Gobbles to Gifts - Advent is here

We have many unbreakables on our tree.
This practice is a holdover from having toddlers
 and pets climbing our tree.

Every year, the first time I hear Christmas music in stores catches me by surprise. "Already?" I think to myself. But Christmas is big business, so of course they play it up.

We've barely got Thanksgiving boxed up, and we're inundated with sales fliers. Deals abound everywhere. Need sweaters, boots, or a party outfit? How about stuff for hunting or boating?One of the three dozen or so sales inserts from the Saturday paper will direct you to a bargain.

Anything you can't find locally is just a click away on the internet. Easy, right? Only if you're made of money. Most of us are pinching pennies, trying to stretch what we have to make it last.

Usually I start hyperventilating about now. There are Christmas cards to find and address. Letters to write. Cookies to bake. Trees to decorate. Christmas sweaters tucked away in my closet-where'd I put those things? Invitations to consider. Visits to schedule. And of course, gifts to buy.

Angels are a special favorite of mine.

I don't know what this says about me, but my gift-giving list shrinks each year. I buy for my family, of course, for my choir, and my best friends. One of my favorite events of the season is our First Coast Romance Writers holiday party where we have a blind ornament exchange.

The name for the swap is politically incorrect, but basically, when its your turn you select a wrapped package or "steal" from someone else. Once an item is stolen three times, its frozen and that person gets to take it home. Some years the hot item is a sparkly Cinderella stilleto, other years it's an angel or a purse. The catch is that the gift can't cost more than five dollars. I'm just bursting with the need to tell someone what my gift is, but I don't want to spoil the surprise. All I'll say is that he started life as a key chain fob. Now he's being repurposed as the stuff of our dreams.

This tree is from Christmas past.
 I haven't dragged everything down from the attic yet
 this year. Maybe in a week or so.

Let's talk decorating for a minute. Two of my neighbors are ready to go. One home has soft blue lights on a fence and multi-colored lights on the house. Another neighbor has bright red lights wrap candy cane style up the trunk of her palm trees. Lots of bows and swags on the house lights over there. I wonder if they'll adopt me or at least my yard.

Each year we discuss the pros and cons of decorating more than our tree. This year we'll put white lights on the fence because we have a daughter and her family visiting. We don't want to appear to be deadbeats.

Question: who do you decorate for? Yourself? Your family? Your community? Or do you enjoy looking at everyone else's decorations? I love riding around and seeing what others have done to their homes and yards - do you?



Happy Advent, everyone!

Maggie Toussaint
coming in 2012: Death, Island Style and Murder in the Buff

What's in your ... refrigerator?

A friend of mine is known for coming over to my house, sticking her head in my refrigerator, and asking in a high-pitched voice, "What do you eat? There's nothing here."

My refrigerator is usually fairly empty, but hers was always chock full of stuff. I didn't feel slighted by her comment, as we cook to suit here with minimal leftovers. Fresh meat comes home and goes in the freezer until we need it. Fruit and veges go quickly, so those don't linger about either.

Was she talking about all the sauces, pickles and juices? Not sure, but I have a fridge door of condiments. So, sure there's room in my refrigerator. I don't think its any big deal. Maybe its because I had daughters instead of sons - perhaps less food overall came and went over the transom.

Anyway, to get to the point of the blog, recently I came across someone who said they didn't store their syrup in the fridge, that they used the "ghetto" way of storing it on the pantry shelf. It got me to wondering how many jars of things don't say "refrigerate after opening."

Mini-quiz for the brave: are these things in your fridge or on your shelves: mustard, jelly/jam, syrup, soy sauce, worchestershire sauce, catsup, opened soda pops, pitchers of tea, pitchers of water. Feel free to add anything that you don't refrigerate on a routine basis that the rest of us might.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Maggie Toussaint

ps I'm part of the http://ebooks99cents.wordpress.com/ where there are new 99 cent ebooks listed daily. I'm on the menu for Wednesday. Check us out.

pss I'm also part of a charity cookbook which was recently reduced for gift-giving. Its in both electronic ($6.99) and trade paperback ($14.99) formats. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Sunshine-Baking-Memories/dp/0987725637

In High Cotton

By Maggie Toussaint

On a recent trip to the North Carolina shore, I enjoyed seeing the snowy whiteness of field upon field of ripe cotton. The plants appeared to be about knee-high, with generous mounds of fluff at the end of each stem.

I live in coastal Georgia, and history tells us that cotton used to be a big cash crop around here. To my knowledge, there’s not a single field of cotton grown in my county now, but apparently, cotton is a Big Deal in North Carolina.

These days, cotton havesting and processing at mills are done by machines.

There are many uses for cotton – clothing, medical gauze, bandages, towels, baby diapers, sheets, drapes, book covers, toys,shoes, glove liners, just to name a few.

In late fall the plants are tall, yielding the phrase High Cotton. The Urban Dictionary has three definitions for the phrase: well off in terms of happiness or wealth, having a lot of money, and coming into very good circumstances.

Fun cotton facts:

Fragments of cotton fabric dating back to 5,000 B.C. have been excavated from Mexico and Pakistan.

Wikipedia estimates 25 million tons of cotton are grown annually.

This wad of raw cotton was on the side of the road.
I think it looks a bit like a dragon or the
Loch Ness monster

China grows the most cotton.

The U.S. exports the most cotton.

During the late medieval period, Europeans believed imported cotton grew on plant-borne sheep.

About ¾ of an acre will yield 500 pounds (1 bale) of cotton.

Samples from cotton bales are tested and categorized into 14 grades of cotton based on color, fiber length, micronaire, strength, and other properties.

Harvested cotton is cleaned, combed, graded, spun, packaged, and shipped out without ever being touched by human hands.

Raw cotton and first drafts



On the left, smooth cotton from my vitamins.
To the right is my lumpy roadside cotton.
Big difference in appearance & texture.

Because I’m also wrapping up a first draft, I was struck by the similarity of a raw manuscript and fresh off the bush cotton. Both need a good bit of cleaning, combing, and grading before they’re ready for public consumption. Some cotton/manuscripts don’t make the grade. A high quality product has a special sheen and luster that is immediately apparent.
Here’s hoping we’re all in high cotton for the forseeable future. Hey, anybody seen my manuscript comb?


Maggie Toussaint
DEATH, ISLAND STYLE coming Feb 2012
http://www.maggietoussaint.com/

Mysteries: crimes of passion, opportunity, or premeditation?

Whodunit is often-asked as readers settle into a murder mystery, but the challenge to figuring out whodunit is to first identify why the murder occurred. What reason did someone have to commit the murder?


First, let’s think about the different types of murder motivations.

A crime of passion occurs when the act happens because of a sudden strong, overwhelming impulse. Some call this temporary insanity.

A crime of opportunity happens when the perpetrator sees a chance to commit the act and seizes it. Such acts have little or no premeditation.

By contrast, premeditated murder involves wrongfully causing the death of a person through careful consideration and planning.

In summary, murders are conducted as a result of careful planning, a found opportunity, or temporary insanity. Until this post, I thought my books contained varied murder motivations, but my mode of operation has been to vary the cause or emotion (power, revenge, greed, envy, etc.) behind the premeditation.

Spoiler Alert

In my Cleopatra Jones series, the victim in book one, In For A Penny, was killed in a premeditated manner for monetary gain. In book two, On The Nickel, the victim seemed to have been killed via opportunity, but the cold-blooded killer’s revenge included framing two scapegoats.

CALL TO ACTION!


Are murders in cozy mysteries are all premeditated? Any mysteries with crimes of opportunity or passion come to mind? Are the root motivations varied in police procedurals or other types of crime fiction? Are premeditated murders more interesting?

Be sure and leave a comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

MORE FUN!!! Scoot on over to my friend Ryder Islington's blog where she also dishes about this same subject - here's her addy: http://ryderislington.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/crime-of-passion-opportunity-or-premeditation/
Maggie Toussaint
Blending romance and mystery into compelling fiction
http://www.maggietoussaint.com/

Confessions of a catalog shopper

Tis the catalog season

I'd like to say it's the glossy pages or the stylish clothing or the unusual stuff, but the truth is, I don't know why I love catalogs. I just do.

This time of year, the great fall migration, most of them fly right into my mailbox and take up residence. I thumb through the slick pages, imagining what I'd do with a pair of leather boots that top my knees or a gift-wrapped tower of fruit or this year's version of a denim shirt. I imagine myself looking thin, blonde, and jetting across continents in my new versatile travel wardrobe. I wonder how many bathrobes a person truly needs, then I remember I own two.

I'm drawn to the dark jewel tones of fall - the midnight blues, the burnt umbers, the hidden lakes. I ponder the strategic placement of darts and ruffles, of beading and buttons. I wonder how to get my comfy body into the tailored-looking pieces I'm drawn to. I worry about clothing looking too young or too old. I worry if people can tell I buy separates on clearance and hope they will match something, sometime, somewhere.

Pages with fleece entice me to linger. Fleece is a special weakness of mine. Gotta have it. Socks, shirts, pants, gloves, jackets, robes, scarves, coats. I love to buy it for myself and as gifts. I can't tell you how excited I was to procure my infant grandson's first fleece jacket!

Back in the days of fulltime employment, I turned to catalogs for Christmas. With a list of sizes and color favs, I knocked out my extended family list in a couple of hours, and that was before the ease of internet shopping.

When I began writing, I cut out catalog people and saved them as characters in my books. That tough looking guy in a Rolex ad? Supreme bad guy. That funky gal in cowboy boots sitting in a giant martini glass? A lost fairy godmother.

Catalogs - they're the gifts that keep on giving.

Have a favorite catalog story? Please share!

Maggie Toussaint
Catalog shopper and sometimes writer