A Good Home, An Honest House, Books, Canadian Families, PTSD

An Honest House

Dear Friends:

The long wait is finally over.

My new book, An Honest House, is on sale online today – earlier than I expected.

An Honest House by Cynthia Reyes

An Honest House will be available in some bookstores in June and later, though any store worth its salt will bring it in for you before that. Just ask.

Here are the Amazon links:

Amazon USA

Amazon Kindle

http://www.amazon.com/Honest-House-Memoir-Continued/dp/1772360368/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462851324&sr=8-1&keywords=cynthia+reyes+an+honest+house

Amazon Canada

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1772360368/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_asp_kTXAL.Q9M9HBE

Amazon Kindle

Kobo Books

Amazon UK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Honest-House-Memoir-Continued/dp/1772360368/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462921393&sr=1-10&keywords=an+honest+house

When you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Meantime, please help me spread the word.

Thank you for your wonderful support,

Cynthia.

A Good Home, Flowers, Gardens

The Last of the Summer Vine

August 25, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

The summer vines are nearing the end of bloom-time.

But – oh! – they were so lovely when they were blooming!

My favourites, Clematis, flowered in different shapes and colours.

Some bloomed all summer, and some bloomed twice.

So here’s to the blooming vines in all our gardens: those that have already given their all this summer, and those that are hanging on and blooming their last.

And, as summer ends, I offer a warm welcome to the morning glories who are now ‘in their glory’.

A Good Home, Flowers, Gardens, Life in canada, Peonies, Photographs

A Photographer’s Passion for Flowers

July 14, 2015July 14, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

Gundy Schloen is passionate about photography.

So: add her passion for photography to her passion for flowers and what do you get?

Beautiful photos of flowers, of course.

Over the years, Gundy has taken thousands of photos of flowers.

Flowers in her own garden and flowers wherever she goes.

Like the Oshawa Peony Festival a few weeks ago. (Oshawa is a city east of Toronto.)

So I asked her if I could feature just a few of the photographs she took there.

But choosing just a few was very difficult. I really liked this one, above.

Then again, I liked this photo below and the one below that.

Gee whiz – I liked a lot of them.

And aren’t these ones below just luminous?

Beautiful flowers…. and beautiful photography.

Well done, Gundy and thanks for allowing me to feature “a few” of your stunning photos.

Photos copyright of Gundy Schloen.

A Good Home, Canadian Gardens, Canadian life

Garden Friends

June 10, 2015June 10, 2015 Cynthia Reyes

So, okay. I’m seriously not a Snow-White-and-The-Seven-Dwarfs-in-the-Garden kinda girl.

Garden gnomes you won’t find here.

But I have garden friends. I do!

Birds, horses and butterflies…..

A green frog playing a bass serenade to the hosta.

A wind chime whose own song soothes our hearts, and tells us when it’s a windy day outside.

Faces that steadfastly oversee the garden….

And welcomers for the newly bloomed clematis flower…. Namaste to you….

The nice thing about these friends is they listen to your troubles and never criticize. They never say: “Leave those weeds alone! And it’s 11 a.m. Isn’t it time you got out of that tattered old houserobe and put on some decent clothes?”

Mind you, I’m glad for human friends who visit and make me laugh.

Like Pia, who insisted on getting a string to tie back the uber ex-uber-ant clematis that threatened to strangle her and all others who passed.

And Vito, our vintner-neighbour who claims that flowers are useless because – unlike grapes and vegetables — flowers can’t be eaten. It’s an ongoing argument and I think we both like that.