As I write this, I'm sitting in the lobby at our local hospital waiting for my hubby who is having a test for no other reason than he's reached "a certain age." Meanwhile, having watched him go through the preparation for it, I've decided to put a freeze on my aging. Click on over to Working Stiffs for a discussion on The Joys of Aging.

We took a day trip (I think the new term is daycation) to Presque Isle on Saturday. Apparently, we have as much luck with daycations as we do with vacations. It rained. I packed a picnic lunch. We ate it under a pavilion near the beach. It was cold and wet and windy. Instead of potato salad, I should have brought a Thermos of potato soup. I managed to run out onto the beach to snap a couple of pictures. This first one shows the gray and the fog. It also shows we weren’t the only optimistic fools heading to the lake for the day. Here’s a quick shot of the windmill. Quick because my camera was getting wet. I would have taken more pictures, but the longer we stayed, the harder it rained. We gave up and drove home. Today, I have lots of work planned. Did I mention it’s sunny and warm?

I decided I should update everyone on the state of our bathroom remodel. We have walls. Hubby installed the cement board over several days this week. We won’t discuss the foul language or the multiple do-overs. Or the leak the toilet tank sprung when it had to be removed and then replaced. We had high hopes of heading to the camp this weekend, but the weather doesn’t look like it’s going to be any better than our last trip, so we’ve made alternative plans. Part of those plans involve purchasing tile, which is the next step in the remodel.

Do you enjoy listening in on strangers' conversations? I've taken to eavesdropping in a big way on a regular basis. Check out my new nosy habit at Working Stiffs today.

Friday, while most of this area’s residents were focused on game 7 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs (Yay, Pens!), I was fighting the traffic to make it to Mystery Lovers Bookshop for a book signing for two of my friends and fellow Sisters in Crime. Kathryn Miller Haines’ latest is Winter in June , a wonderful historical mystery set in 1943 and once again starring aspiring actress Rosie Winter, who is headed to the South Pacific to perform with USO Camp Shows where they encounter surly cast members, inhumane schedules, primitive housing conditions, and a majorly difficult Hollywood star, not to mention a sinister tragedy. Kathleen George’s new release is The Odds , another of her delicious police procedures which provides vibrant characters and vivid Pittsburgh details. I love book signings. I know lots of folks don’t understand this. They don’t see the appeal. So here are just a few reasons why you should attend book signings. 1. You can meet and chat with your favorite authors. You may no

It's Wednesday, so I'm over at Working Stiffs . Today, we're taking stock of our progress on our goals AND I'm writing from a different point of view.

With the drain connected at last, I cleaned all the sawdust and drywall dust and assorted other dust out of the new tub last night and christened it. Our bathroom is back in business. Until the next phase of the remodel, at least. What’s next? It could be either replacing the wall around the tub or replacing the toilet. I’m not sure which and Hubby is still crabby over the whole plumbing fiasco, so I’m afraid to ask.

We have a new tub. Sort of. Okay, yes, we definitely have a new tub. What we don’t have (yet) is plumbing. Hubby and his friend Chuck got to work early this morning. My dear, late Grandma Miller always said bad things happened if you worked on Sunday. My grandpap washed his pickup truck on a Sunday once and while backing it into the barn, something went through the back window, breaking it out. He listened to Grandma after that. Somewhere up there, Grandma is shaking her finger at us and saying “I told you so.” The tub went in deceptively easy. The two guys only vaguely resembled a shorthanded version of the Three Stooges. The real trouble began after Chuck went home leaving Hubby to finish the plumbing on his own. The swearing could be heard for miles around. And there was some very creative use of swear words. Apparently a large part of this plumbing should have been done BEFORE the tub was set in place. Oops. The whole process came to a screeching halt when Hubby made yet another tr

We arrived at our camp late Tuesday morning, only to discover that my brain had left on vacation several hours earlier. “Did you bring the camper keys?” Hubby asked me. “No,” I replied. I’ve been known to joke around about such things, so he asked me again, “Seriously. Did you bring the camper keys?” “I’m not kidding. No. I didn’t.” Did I mention that our camp is a two hour drive from home? Thankfully, Hubby had made a duplicate set and hid them. I scoffed at him at the time. Guess I won’t do that again. For a while anyhow. Unfortunately, while those keys may have gotten us into the camper and unlocked the storage bin, they did not include the keys to the shower house. This meant Hubby might have to share MY shower in the camper. We unloaded the car, opened the windows, rolled out the awning, and swept the floor. By lunchtime, we were settled in. After we had sandwiches, Hubby set up shop under our awning and tied some flies. (For those city folks out there, this has something to do wi

I'm not really here. Ah, the wonders of modern technology that allow a person to post days before the thing actually publishes. Such is the case. I'm off where there isn't any Internet or cell phone service. But I have posted my weekly Working Stiffs blog. This week, it's about the Forensics workshop I attended.

The pace of the bathroom remodel picked up a bit. Amazing what a full-blown allergy attack can do to a project. I’m not sure which I’m more allergic to: dust or mold. Either way, it was a rough night. Hubby is on “vacation” this week. Instead of packing for a return trip to our camp, he spent the morning removing the old tub. In spite of coughing, runny nose, and swollen eyes, AND in spite of Hubby’s pounding and ripping and swearing, I managed to meet my writing quota before lunch. At one point, he managed to draw blood. This isn’t unusual for him. The fact that it didn’t require a trip to the emergency room IS a tad unusual. Still he bled quite a bit. On the floor. On the wall. While he was patching up the physical damage with a bandage, I inspected the hole where the tub used to be and commented (perhaps a bit too gleefully) “blood spatter!” One can find research just about anywhere. Anyway, the old tub is gone. We’ll be showering at my mother’s this evening. Before Sara says the ba