Hi! I’m blogging over at Health Bistro today on how to keep up with laundry!!!!!
Heeeeeeellllllp!
I need your ideas. … I’m drowning here under two laundry baskets and four hampers. … Anyone have a brilliant, fool-proof schedule I can borrow?
And now — off to do some whites!
So my son has this little group of friends – very cool teens, girls and boys, all smart and funny and college-bound and trying to change the world and at the same time hoping they don’t have to.
I often get a glimpse of their world when my son tells me stories at the dinner table. He’ll tell a conversation they had at the lake, or something someone said when they went to a dance after the football game, or something someone said on a date. One of the lines that has stuck with me – because I found it so sweet and so profound at the same time – was from one of his female friends (we’ll call her “Shelby”).
As my son and Shelby and a handful of their other friends were sitting around on a picnic table, contemplating their futures, she said that maybe she wasn’t so ready to grow up: “Because we’ll have to go grocery shopping … and then … buy forks and stuff,” she reasoned. Continue reading
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed.
That is all.
He was tall and lean, his bald head dotted with age spots. But the way he moved – the way he rested back languidly in the patio chair – spoke of a youthfulness that belied his 80 years. Maybe it was a smoothness borne of decades of athleticism. Or maybe a military career. Something. …
He moved his hands to swat the pigeons away, and his long fingers gave away more of his story. Something involving wealth. Something involving elegance. Something involving shiny automobiles, perhaps. …
“You’re a cool chick,” he yelled to me across the patio.
The waitress walked away as I squinted back at him through the heat. I pulled my chair in and set my purse in an empty seat.
“Pardon?”
“You’re a cool chick,” he repeated. He smiled when he said it this time. He directed his oversized sunglasses more pointedly toward me, but maintained his languid pose, one elbow draped over the chair beside him. He motioned again with his hand toward the empty patio. “It’s hotter than blazes out here, but you’re sitting outside.”
I laughed politely. “Well, let’s see how long I last.”
The heat truly was oppressive. Over 100 degrees. Continue reading
Do you like the bougainvillea I chose for my header?
It’s a picture I took, and it’s so very “California.”
When I first started writing fiction I decided that, if I can, I’d like to set all of my romances in California, since there are so many nooks and crannies to explore. Most people only think of the beach, or of L.A., or of San Francisco when they think of California, but there are so many other areas to this enormous state. I thought it would be fun to have books set in wine country, balloon-riding country, along old Highway 49 (“Gold Rush” country), some of the islands off the coast, at a national park or two, and maybe even on a houseboat in one of the harbors. The Golden Heart-finalling book was set in a California mountain resort, because that was a place I always wanted to write about. (I’m not sure people think of “mountaintops” when they think of California, but we have a lot of them. And I wanted to write about how it feels to be “stuck” in a resort on a hilltop.) My next two books were set in fictional “Sandy Cove,” which is based on the real-life San Clemente and Dana Point. I chose those places because they’re beautiful seaside towns that still have a bit of an “old-school” California vibe that we don’t always see here anymore.
But California also has lots of dairy farms, ranches and agriculture. The state is so rich with land and stories — I feel I could write about it for at least 70 books. : )
Let me know if you like my new masthead, and if you have other favorite California settings you’d love to read about. … If you’ve lived here or visited here (or live here now), what area left an impression on you and why? Was any place completely different than you expected?
