It’s been so long since I’ve been in touch, I imagine that I should write you a letter like the ones people send at holidays: “And here we are in Santorini! Harald is no longer a guest of Her Majesty, so we kept the champagne flowing the entire trip. Doesn’t he look wonderful? …Read More

An aphorism that came to my mind today was, “Don’t sacrifice the good for the perfect.” I looked it up, and found that it’s a riff on a quote oft attributed to Voltaire (I haven’t even read Candide–bucket list perhaps). “The best is the enemy of the good,” is actually an Italian proverb. I honor …Read More

November. I love November, particularly this time between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Autumn is in full force, and around here the leaves are glorious. Anyone can take good photos this time of year in Southern Illinois. All you have to do is point and shoot. Scouty is happy to be part of the scenery.  

      Finally. It’s officially fall. Or autumn. I like the sound of autumn, though I feel like a pretentious twit when I use the word instead of fall. I read once that you should do your major spring cleaning in fall, instead of in spring. The logic is that your house is full …Read More

    I declared Saturday, September 19th a Hopeful Day. I spent most of it organizing gardening equipment (read: putting it away properly since it’s been lying about/used all season) in the garage, in hopes that it will all be ready for spring. That spring will come in 2021, and new life will grow, and …Read More

  Happy Sunday, y’all! Today is my first Sunday Writer Interview. (Reviews will be back next week.) If you’re familiar with my intrepid, multi-genre writing career, then you know I wrote a sweet cozy mystery for Carolyn Haines’s Trouble Cat Mysteries series. SMALL TOWN TROUBLE was super fun to write, and I did a Valentine’s …Read More

    Here’s a secret that’s not a secret. I’m old-ish. I was a teenager in the 1970s, which was both an amazing and horrible time to be a teenager. Many of us were very confused about many things, and we smoked and drank many things we shouldn’t have. (I swear I would still smoke …Read More