Having grown up in a farming family, it’s inbred in me to keep an eye on the weather forecast. When the meteorologists started posting maps showing my location solidly in the pink range (meaning freezing rain) of the upcoming storm, I took action. I always keep bottled drinking water (our well water isn’t fit for consumption), but I also started filling the empty jugs with tap water. I moved stuff from our refrigerator’s freezer section to the chest freezer in the basement. My husband made sure our generator was in good working order. I worked frantically on several writing projects that were almost due and sent them off. I also worked frantically on my tax prep and printed out my spreadsheets. I made sure all of my electronics were fully charged.   My husband even took a vacation day on Friday in case the roads were impassible.   I rescheduled a workshop I was supposed to teach Saturday on Zoom. Just in case.   The rain started Wednesday. By lunchtime on Thursday, ...

I finally admitted I'd outgrown my kindergarten-level Samsung Galaxy Core Prime smartphone and upgraded to a Galaxy 7S a little over a week ago. I could sing love songs to this new phone. And I am extremely grateful to my favorite Verizon guy who took the task of transferring all my "stuff" from the old phone to the new. Technology-wise, the smaller the learning curve for me, the better. One of the things I did before putting my old phone on the shelf was transfer the photos I'd taken on it over the last two years to my computer. I've deleted more than I kept because--let's face it--3 megapixels. The camera sucked. But here is a sampling of life as captured by my cell phone camera over the last two years. Beginning with lunch with my friend, Terri Watson, in Nashville, TN. Such a fun afternoon! Great memories. An in-the-wild book sighting of Bridges Burned: Kensi daring me to keep working on edits: Caught on Mystery Lovers Bookshop's ...

My very first post when I started this blog was about the maiden voyage of our "new" camper. That was back in 2006. After a few years of road trips, we settled it on a "permanent" site in a campground in Confluence. Hubby would go fly fishing. I would write. It was my writing cave away from home. That was 2009. A few years ago, we moved from our "permanent" site to another spot and then another. Same campground. Different neighborhood. Alas, the new neighborhood was a bit more crowded and noisy than the one up on the hill. But it was still an escape from the obligations back home. And it was still my secondary writing cave. Times change. My back doesn't tolerate the camper's bed as well as it used to. "Obligations" back home have changed, too. Now I sit there, two hours away, waiting for the phone to ring with news that I need to rush to the ER for my mom. Yeah, it's not the relaxing escape it once was. So we've decid...

This is a celebratory week for our family of fur kids. Yesterday, marked one year since Kensi moved into our house. She was so tiny then. She’s still small, but that’s okay. With her high-energy antics, if she were any bigger, she’d wreck our house. Camping is torture for her. The camper is too small to contain her. No place to run. So she spends her time either watching wildlife outside the window or digging in the litter box. Not necessarily USING the litter box. Just digging in it. Then digging at the throw rugs. And digging at my shoes. We get up in the morning to find my slipper in her water bowl and the rugs in crumpled heaps. Busy, busy, busy. Here’s a camping shot of her as she contemplates my manuscript. Everyone’s a critic. On top of Kensi’s one-year anniversary with us, TODAY marks four years since Skye became part of our family. She’s such a love bug. And she’s very much MY cat. Kensi is Daddy’s girl. Skye will let Hubby rub her ears or scratch her chin for a moment...

I usually love to retreat to my cave away from home, our camp in Confluence. On most of our trips, I get a lot of work done. And the cats enjoy looking out the windows at the rabbits, squirrels, wrens, moles, and chipmunks that frequent the underbrush behind our trailer. However, the last two times we’ve been here, my peaceful work environment has been shattered by—NEIGHBORS. Part of my problem with people living in close proximity is the fact that I grew up on a farm. Our neighbors were cows. The human variety lived at a comfortable distance. I could walk to visit my friends. But they couldn’t look in my kitchen window. Even now, at home I only have human neighbors on one side of our house, and they’re as reclusive as I am. We wave at each other when we’re out in our yards. But that’s about it. My mom lives nearby. I can walk there in under two minutes. But I can’t hear her talking to her lady friends on her phone. Here in Confluence, we’re squeezed in between two other camps....

Kensi wasn’t all together certain she liked this camping stuff at first. She spent most of our two initial trips to the camp in Confluence hiding in the closet. During the day. She made up for it at night by exploring every nook and cranny and getting into stuff that I didn’t even know we had. However, she’s now a seasoned camping kitty. She and Skye actually get along, sitting side-by-side on the table, looking out at the world. You’ll have to take my word for it, because I didn’t get a picture of them together. For cats, windows are like television. Windows with screens add the extra dimension of smell-o-vision. Our windows have some pretty good programming in Confluence. There was a family of wrens who liked to sit on my bicycle and scold the cats. There were also moles, chipmunks, and a pine squirrel. Hubby tells me pine squirrels are the Pit Bulls of the squirrel population. I say they’re more like Chihuahuas . Small, but they have no inkling of their diminutive stature. And t...

As I mentioned last week, Confluence beckoned. And we responded. We spent the last two days at our camp. It wasn’t a vacation. It was more of a test—seeing how certain new components worked out. Hubby had torn out our old lumpy, mushy bed and redid the thing. New plywood. New mattress. New covering. It worked out pretty well. I think it’ll be much better for our backs and sleep in general. I say “I think” because I couldn’t swear by it. Not this weekend. There was no sleep for me regardless of the new bed…because of the other new component. Kensi. If you followed this blog at all over the last couple of years, you already know that Skye is a wonderful camping kitty. She loves it. Travels well. No fuss, no muss, no bother. We went and messed up our lovely, drama-free camping home by adding one small cat to the mix. Kensi meowed the entire two-hour drive to Confluence. Also, the entire two-hour drive home. In between, she explored. In less than two days, she found nooks and crannies and ...

It snowed yesterday. This is hardly news. Winter roared in here December 1st and has refused to budge an inch. For months, all plans come with the disclaimer “weather permitting.” This morning I took a long hard look at the calendar. It’s April for heaven’s sake! Something clicked in my brain. It was audible. CLICK . It’s spring . Snow be damned. Okay, I’m also the person who, on day two of a head cold, is convinced I’ll be completely better by day four. Never. Happens. But today I’m in that kind of mindset where spring is concerned. I’m making plans to head to my beloved camp in Confluence…next week. I’ve decided the weather will be better by then. Just like day four of a head cold. The weather isn’t the only obstacle, however. We currently have no bed at the camp. And we tore the plumbing apart before we left last October. The bed has long been a source of pain and annoyance for us. Neither Hubby nor I have the best backs in the world. We both had too much fun in our younger days. (W...

It’s too early for spring fever, but signs that we’ve had our fill of winter are cropping up all around. This coming Wednesday is Groundhog Day. The little town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania becomes the focus of the world for one morning each year. Punxsutawney isn’t all that far from here. Easy driving distance to be honest. However, don’t look for me in the crowd. More often than not, February 2nd is a crappy, gray, cold, snowy day, and I am not a morning person. Besides, is there any doubt what the little rodent is going to predict? If he sees his shadow, six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t, about a month and a half. No, I look for other signs of spring. Hubby is talking about getting his fishing license. That’s a good one. The RV show in Pittsburgh has already come and gone. I missed it, though, darn it. Last winter, I had great fun there, although I still refuse to consider owning a camper that’s nicer and bigger than my house. The best sign of spring for me came in the mail t...

As anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows, we have a camp in Confluence, Pennsylvania. It’s just a small camper in a small, quiet campground, but it’s in walking distance to the Youghiogheny River and about 100 yards or so to the bike trail. Hubby can go fishing, and I can go biking without moving the car. The town itself is an easy one-mile bike ride away. It’s a quiet little town with a dollar store, a grocery store, a fruit market, and a bike shop. There are other shops, but those are the ones I frequent. There is no cell phone service in Confluence. Oh, I’ve heard tales of someone picking up a signal by standing behind the Laundromat and slowly circling. I’ve been told you can pick up a signal by standing in front of one of the campers in our campground. Maybe SOME people can. But not me. Can you hear me now? No. I either have to walk up the hill to the Youghiogheny Dam and then walk ACROSS the dam and stand in the hot sunshine (or pouring rain) to make my c...

It’s difficult to comprehend that I’ve spent three years on this manuscript. I’ve never taken that long to write a single novel before. Of course, there were a couple of interruptions in the process, including Mom’s multiple hip surgeries and extensive recovery, and coordinating the 2009 Pennwriters Conference. But on Friday, the status of my manuscript changed from WIP (work in progress) to “ Under Submission .” I’ve sent the fruits of my labor out into the world. And now the waiting begins. On Saturday, with no revisions and no edits on my to-do list, I cleaned house. Egads, it needed it! Camping, writing, and conferencing had taken up all my time for the last three or four weeks. Hubby and I could leave notes to each other in the dust. Sunday, I took a day off. Crashed on the couch with the newspaper. Went on a “hot date” with Hubby to Cabela’s followed by a belated anniversary dinner out. I’m not used to being lazy. It was kind of fun. But a little of that stuff goes a long way. N...