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Sunday Snippet: The Lake Life Reality Edition
We are in our 10th year, 11th season here at the lake. It’s hard to believe we’ve had our cottage for so long, particularly given that we waited for so long to buy one. It seemed like whenever we were ready to buy, cottages were just out of our reach and when they were in our reach, we weren’t in a position to consider buying one. Ten years ago, when this marriage-long dream came true, we were overjoyed. We still are, although the realities of lake life are a little different from the fantasies. The fantasies didn’t include have to scrub the cottage down a couple of times a year…
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Snippet Sunday: The Real Snippet Edition
It’s been a busy week. I’ve got a couple of editing gigs going and I’m trying to write. We’ve been up at the lake since Thursday and although I love this place, I confess I’m more easily distracted when we are here. We won’t be coming up again until June, which is fine–we avoid the holiday weekends. It just gets too people-y for us. Husband’s had a good weekend–we put the boat in the water and that always makes him happy. Tomorrow I get to meet Liz for a writing day and that always makes me happy. I’m working on book 3 of the Lange Brothers series and it’s coming…
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Sunday Snippet: The Opening Up Edition
Not a lot to share with y’all today because we are super busy opening up the lake cottage this weekend. It’s the first time we’ve been up here since late September and although we have sticks to pick up in the yard and the place is dusty and needs a serious vacuuming, all in all, things weathered winter very well without us. There’s a particular scent that always pervades the first weekend of being at the lake–it’s a mixture citronella and watermelon candles, mothballs (to keep the critters away) and pink antifreeze, bleach and a slight mustiness that means you’re at the lake. This year, it hit us as soon…
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Saturday Snippet (Okay, Sunday…)
Yesterday was a bit more zoo-y than I expected as we got Son and DIL’s cottage closed up for the summer and his boat pulled and winterized for storage, so I didn’t get to my Saturday post. It was a fun day with Son, though, and I got to take a final ride for the season in his fishing boat, which was a treat. Hardly anyone was on the lake, but man the shad were firing like crazy. It was kind of a crappy year for fishing (no crappie pun intended), but there are years like that. Husband and I were remembering the second or third year we had our…
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Happy Independence Day!
I considered writing a long post about July 4 and what it meant back when and what it means now, but someone else already did that. So go here and read Liz Flaherty’s message for July 4. I’ll wait. I’m simply going to share this photo from July 4 a couple of years ago–Son and Grandboy celebrating America’s independence exactly the way Husband and Son did more years ago than I care to mention. I love our lake life together and how much Son wants to share that world with his son. One of the blessed freedoms we have–to be able to share our history and our traditions with new…
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New Week; Big Gratitude
This is the start of a brand new week and although I haven’t done my gratitude days for a while, I have a really good reason for my absence, which will be revealed here one week from today. In the meantime, let’s talk about…whatever. Right off, what the heck happened to fall? I mean, the leaves started changing, we had a few brisk days and suddenly, oh my gosh! It’s winter–like below freezing temps and snow! Now, I’ll grant you, the snow didn’t stick, but the temperatures in the 20s and teens sure did! Leaves are falling off the trees like crazy up here at the lake and poor old…
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Book Blast Tour!
I know I owe this blog about fourteen days of gratitude and one huge day of gratitude for something that’s in the works. I purposely haven’t posted here for a couple of reasons. One is that although I don’t really believe in jinxing something by talking about it, I’m reluctant to start celebrating before it’s time. So hold tight and I promise, there will be news. The other reason is just plain busyness. Life has been complicated and so overwhelming for the past couple of weeks. But I’m here now and with some fun news. Goddess Fish promotions is doing a Book Blast Tour for me December 2 through 6…
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Wednesday Check-in
It’s been a long week. We’ve spent nearly every day working on some aspect of getting the house ready to put on the market. Our dear brother-in-law came by to help us put down new mulch in all the gardens–fun because the dang mulch was frozen! Made for interesting raking, I’ll tell you. Husband is busy scrubbing the outside of the house and I’m inside packing up the last of the stuff that needs to disappear before we clean and stage. Painters come in next week to freshen up the bathroom and then the realtor will be here to move stuff around and make the place as appealing as possible.…
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Cover Wars!
Happy Wednesday, everyone! The cover for A Small Town Christmas is currently in a cover war over Author Shout. We’re firmly in third place, but here’s the great news, you can vote every 24 hours! So I’d love it if you clicked over and voted for my gorgeous cover all week long! Merci, mes amies. We lost our dear lake buddy, Rich, on Tuesday and we are heartbroken and bereft. He was a kind, generous, and charming man, who always had a smile. Cancer is so evil, and it has taken so many people from my life in the last few years. I know that, years ago, Rich would have…
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Wine, Writing & Romance
What’s more fun that doing a book-signing at a winery? Not much. My writing BFF Liz Flaherty and I did just that on Saturday and we had a ball. The good folks at Whyte Horse Winery, in the little lake town where Husband and I have our cottage, opened their doors to us and our readers. We had wine and snacks and books and wine and lemonade and wine and did I mention we had wine? It was wonderful getting to meet readers and answering their questions about writing. Our husbands acted as cashiers while we sold and signed books. Good buddy Maureen was a lovely hostess for us, setting…