Snow. Really. And The "Snow Cream" Kind At That.

Well, the Weather Channel, et al., "computer models" were correct this time around. It's been a while since we've had a significant snow -- years -- especially the kind we call a good "snow cream" snow. (The wet, fluffy kind.) (What can I say? Our desserts were always where we found them.)

HOW, you may wonder, does one make snow cream? You put a clean pan of some kind out and let it get snowed in until it's full. Some people would collect theirs from a hopefully safe, uncontaminated place, but we usually "caught" ours. It took longer, but it was more likely to be "critter free" -- if you know what I mean.

When the pan is full, you add sugar, vanilla flavoring, and milk. Stir well and eat. I had many, many glasses and bowls of snow cream when I was a little girl. This was a) when it still snowed on a regular basis around here, and b) before someone in authority realized the snow was likely radioactive from the above ground nuclear testing being done in those days and therefore "not safe." (I don't know why I don't glow in the dark.)

Anyway, this is what it looks like at my house this morning:

































It's too bad I didn't put a pan out last night...

Time For An Update...

Here's the latest:

My mom's Mustang had to be put down. We're in the process of getting her some new "wheels." We should be able to finish all the paperwork on the replacement on Monday -- if we aren't snowed in. I'm hoping the weather "computer models" are wrong yet again.

The "care package" with the Cheerwine cake slices turned up. No one knows where they were all this time, but they're still edible, so that's a good thing.

I'm proofreading the galleys for THE FIRST BOY I LOVED.

My grandson applied for "early college" -- and got turned down. He's crushed and I'm significantly dented myself. My glass is usually half full, but I can tell you, at the moment, it's got a leak. (sigh)

Till next time...
(re-sigh)

Update Time Again

- First, I want to show you this photograph I took of the recent full moon -- I thought it was interesting as photographs go -- and then we'll move right along:

- My mom was in a car accident a couple of weeks ago. She wasn't hurt, but her 1989 5-speed stick shift yellow Mustang took a significant hit. It's still in the body shop. Seems they can't find the parts they need to fix a car that old. It may be old, but it only had 54,000 or so miles on it. Anyway, it's very stressful for my mom and therefore me. She does NOT like being without her wheels.


- I've finished proofreading the "deflag" manuscripts for both books (August 2009 release, 2-in-1 volume, THE MARINE and THE FIRST BOY I LOVED). The copy editor did a good job changing what I said into what I meant in fewer and better words, without -- and here's the main thing -- changing my voice. I was pleased with his or her work, and believe me, that has not always been the case. Copy editors can be wonderful things -- or the Devil's Own Curse. In any event, we're moving right along in the production process. I've put in my request for the cover jpg. ASAP, so as soon as I get it, I'll post it. (For me, waiting the see the cover is like waiting for Santa Claus when I was four.)

- My granddaughter has learned the power of sponge rollers. She advised me Monday that a little boy in her kindergarten class told her if she kept those curls, he wanted to marry her. I'm not sure if she's engaged -- albeit conditionally. In this case I guess you really could wash that man right out of your hair if you wanted to.

I have to say I do love little boys at that age. Either they don't know what girls are or they're throwing around marriage proposals. I got a proposal once myself when I was a school nurse. A little kindergarten age boy asked me to marry him -- then he gave me his pencil. I was truly honored. I think I still have my "engagement" pencil here somewhere.
















- I've just learned that mail delivery isn't what it could be. Either that, or someone hijacked the box of Cheerwine cake slices I sent to my nephew. He's in school in Upstate New York, and he never got it. I suppose it could be in a snowbank somewhere until the spring thaw. My guess, however, is that it's in another student's snack stash. Cheerwine isn't alcoholic, by the way. It's a wonderful-tasting cherry cola-esque soft drink made locally since the early 20th Century. The taste is hard to describe, but if you grew up here, you grew up drinking Cheerwine. If you were ever away from home for an extended period of time, you desperately wanted someone to send you a case, and when you got back, drinking an icy cold Cheerwine was one of the first things you did. We make cakes out of it, too. And ice cream. And ice cream floats. And punch. My mom and I introduced him to Cheerwine and to her homemade Cheerwine cake when he was little -- we have to keep him attached to his Southern roots somehow -- so he was disappointed when his dozen cake slices went awry, even if they weren't the homemade kind. Now I have to decide whether I'm going to try to send him some more, and if so, how. Maybe UPS is the better way to go.



So. That's it for this time. All of you have a good rest of the week. Have yourself a nice cold Cheerwine -- you can always buy some online.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. If there's no one standing in the wings with candy and flowers, may I suggest being your own Best Valentine? Take yourself out to dinner, or buy yourself a new lipstick or rent yourself a chick flick, pop some popcorn (What can I say? I like popcorn better than I like chocolate), hit the Hershey's-slash-Dove aisle -- do something that brings you bliss -- with friends or all by yourself. Have a nice day just for you. Or, better yet, take a kid out for ice cream -- kids love being someone's Valentine. Enjoy. Valentine's Day isn't just for lovers.

The local Chic-fil-A is going all romantic today from 5-8 PM -- tablecloths, maitre d' and everything. I understand they'll even bring my Kid's Meal to me. Now this is my kind of event. I just love whimsy.

Till next time...

FREE BOOK DOWNLOADS!!!

It's raining books, my dears, courtesy of Harlequin's BIG 60th Anniversary Celebration.

The publisher (my publisher) is making a number of their books available for downloading absolutely free. This is a wide sampling of Harlequin fare and therefore a big opportunity for those of you who are romance novel devotees and for those of you who've never read one because you don't want anyone to catch you at it. Now you can. And no one will know. And it won't cost you a penny.

If you're not familiar with the romance genre per se, let me advise you now that, regardless of what you've heard, all romances are not the same. Each line meets certain reader expectations. Some are much more explicit than others and some, like the Love Inspired line, are considered "sweet" and inspirational. Some lines have elements of intrigue or suspense or the paranormal. Some deal more with relationships. Some are historical fiction, some are contemporary. ALL of them are love stories. I'm telling you all this so that you won't get your socks knocked off if you don't want to. If you do want your socks knocked off, there are books available for you, too.

This is the list of the free books by series line and by title and author:

Harlequin American Romance, Once a Cowboy by Linda Warren
Harlequin Blaze, Slow Hands by Leslie Kelly
Harlequin Historical, His Lady Mistress by Elizabeth Rolls
Harlequin Intrigue, Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch by B.J. Daniels
Harlequin Presents, Price of Passion by Susan Napier
Harlequin Romance, The Bride’s Baby by Liz Fielding
Harlequin Superromance, Snowbound by Janice Kay Johnson

Silhouette Desire, Baby Bonanza by Maureen Child
Silhouette Nocturne, Kiss Me Deadly by Michele Hauf
Silhouette Romantic Suspense, Stranded with a Spy by Merline Lovelace
Silhouette Special Edition, Dancing in the Moonlight by Raeanne Thayne

Love Inspired, A Very Special Delivery by Linda Goodnight
Love Inspired Historical, Homespun Bride by Jillian Hart
Love Inspired Suspense, Hide in Plain Sight by Marta Perry

Kimani Romance, Irresistible Forces by Brenda Jackson

Nascar, Speed Dating by Nancy Warren


The files are available as PDF in all eBook formats, as well as a Stanza App for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The titles can also be found at all the online retailers like Sony, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Fictionwise.com, eReader.com, etc.

The 16 free books (one for every series) will be available throughout 2009.

So click on the link above and enjoy. I'm going to go pout because none of my titles are on the list.

Happy Birthday!

It's the granddaughter's Big 0-6 Birthday today. How in the world can she be SIX already? She was just a baby the other day. Experience tells me that in no time at all she's not going to want to play "Big Cinderella and Little Cinderella" anymore. She has quite an imagination -- don't know where she gets THAT.

We two Cinderellas have had some exciting adventures. Imagine my surprise one day when we were pretend floating in our pretend boat (read: couch) down the pretend river in our beautiful pretend pink and blue satin dresses, not to mention our pretend crowns and jewels -- on our way to a dance at the castle so we could meet the Handsome Prince -- when she suddenly announced that we had to deal with a bunch of Vikings. (I'm not sure if they were Norsemen or football players.) Either way, the Vikings were no match for us (Girl Power!) and we arrived at the castle still gorgeous with hardly a hair out of place. We met the Handsome Prince and broke his heart when the clock struck midnight and we had to dash away. (He's still not over it.) That's the good thing about pretend satin princess dresses -- you can dash all you want.

I asked her last month what she'd like for her birthday. "Pink," she said. She doesn't care what it is. It just needs to be pink. (If only the boys were that easy.)

So. Happy Birthday, Sweet Girl! Big Cinderella loves you.

The Harlequin Calendar and Harking Back

Harlequin sent me a very colorful, high-quality 2009 calendar in celebration of their many years of publishing romance novels. Each month has a vintage Harlequin cover, and this particular one is the one that caught my eye. Why, you may ask? Because the nurse's cap looks like my nurse's cap. Back in the day, when nurses still wore caps, every school of nursing had its own distinctive headgear, whereby those in the know could immediately identify from what school a nurse had graduated -- and some caps had a lot more prestige than others.

I was always partial to the (Charlotte) Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing caps. They looked like tiny pleated birds. This calendar one looks like a Rowan Memorial Hospital School of Nursing cap. The student nurse uniform (if that's what it is) is similar, too, except ours were short-sleeved and blue and white striped. And, unlike the Harlequin heroine's, they were one-piece, i.e., the apron didn't detach. They were so heavily starched you could actually stand them on the floor. The collars and the edges of the cuffs on the sleeves made your skin raw. We used to rub them with Ivory soap to blunt the scraping. Even so, I had calluses on the backs of both my arms and a streak on my neck for at least a year after I graduated because the constant rubbing.

We also had the same kind of navy blue and red cape. (I say "we," but I don't mean me. They were "extra" and so expensive I couldn't afford to buy one.)

I scrounged around and found an old, back-in-the-day photo of either my or my roommate's cap. It's hanging on the mirror. The cap holder thing was made out of a strategically bent coat hanger that had been wrapped in wool yarn. I remember that, but I don't remember who made it. The cap hangers were very handy, though. See how similar the caps are?






Now I'm going to give you a glimpse of what the dorm rooms looked like. None of them were air-conditioned, and they were all the same except for the wall color. My first year, the walls of my room were the color of very weak chocolate milk. Clean bedspreads were provided once a month, and as often as not, the ones my roommate and I were issued were a lovely shade of battleship gray. It was...depressing, but since neither of us had much of a cash flow, we were stuck with it. After my probie year, I got to move to the second floor, and I was assigned a room that was robin's egg blue instead of...whatever that color was. Gray bedspreads didn't look nearly as bad in that room -- when we got them. In the blue room, we usually got beige with brown stripes.

Here are the photographs. You'll have to use your imagination: Robin's egg blue walls. Bedspread, beige with brown stripes. In the second picture, you can almost see the framed photo of the dh, then boyfriend, who was in the army. He was out of basic training by that time and learning to build bridges so he could blow them up:





































I'm surprised by how fuzzy the nursing school memories have become. What do I remember clearly about the student nurse time in my life? Anybody could hit you who wanted to.

Update Time

In case you're wondering:

- My mom is back safely from Cleveland. She had a wonderful time -- except for the very cold, cold.

- Our World Traveler is safely back at school. He, too, is likely undergoing a climate readjustment. You should see the silk scarf and the Fes porcelain he brought me. Beautiful and beautiful.

- If you have my email address because I have your email address, it's very likely I no longer have your email address. Most of the address book was lost in the recent and unfortunate iMac crash and burn, despite the back up hard drive. So. If you want me to have your email address again, I'll need you to send it to me, using whichever of my email addresses you have, otherwise I can't tell you anything I need/want to tell you. (You are following this, right?)

- Five months or so and counting for the release date of The First Boy I Loved and The Marine. Hopefully, I'll see the covers ere long -- which I'll post here and on my website the moment I get my hands on them. And hopefully, both sets of galleys aren't going to show up at the same time with a three-day turnaround. "I" think these two books are some of my better efforts, ergo the anxiety regarding their release is beginning to rise...

That's all for the moment, I think. I'm planning on going to see my granddaughter do the cheerleading thing tomorrow. I know I'm going to love this -- 5-year-old cheerleaders are so adorable.

All of you take care...

It's Pinto Bean Pie Recipe Day

This isn't a recipe from the Methodist Church Lady cook book, though it very well could be. (I've said before that the Methodist church ladies of my childhood could make something edible out of just about anything.)

This recipe comes from "The Grange Range -- Favorite Recipes from the St. John's Community." It was a Christmas gift from a patient's family a couple of decades ago, and it's a wonderful collection of recipes, including ones for unusual pies like "oatmeal" or "mashed potato" and of course, "pinto bean."

What with the beans and the eggs, I would call this pie a high protein dessert. And no, I don't know if you'll need "Beano."

So, if you're feeling rather daring today, here it is:

Pinto Bean Pie

2 cups cooked pinto beans
2 cups sugar
3 Tbs. chocolate*
2 Tbs. self-rising flour
1/2 cup margarine
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla

2 unbaked pie shells.

Place beans in a large mixing bowl. Mash until smooth. Stir in remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour into unbaked pie shells.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

(*I'm pretty sure "chocolate" means "cocoa.")

Enjoy!


(I should use this recipe in a book.)

THE PRISONER -- and Visual Writing

I'm a visual writer, that is, it helps me to actually see the place I want to write about, whether it's literally or through photographs or drawings. What I have learned is that if it's real to me, it's going to be real on the page -- and "seeing" makes it real.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of the writing process -- my writing process -- is going on a quest for settings. If I can, I go to the actual place and take photographs myself. If not, I use other sources. VICTORIA magazine in its heyday was a wonderful source for "mood" photographs of houses, interiors and gardens. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC is, too. Basically, I look for an image that will convey whatever it is I need to "feel" about the story I want to tell, and I keep that image where I can see it throughout the writing of the book. I never really know what that unnamed "something" is going to be, but I always know it when I see it.

I used a particular Salisbury historical landmark, known locally as the Hall House, in my first book (my first book, not my first published book -- it took a while to get THE PRISONER on the shelves). In it, the house is always referred to as "the Doctor's house." General George Stoneman and his officers really did billet there when he and his cavalry raided the town in April of 1865. My fictional "Amanda" stayed there, too -- but only inside my head.


The following photographs I took over a decade ago -- maybe even longer than that.

Here's the actual Hall House:




This was taken during an annual October Tour of Salisbury's historic homes, but it's open to the public all during the year.


I think of this next shot of the house as my "ghost" photograph. It's strangely eerie-looking -- as if the house were melting away, but the trees look fine. It had nothing to do with camera settings. I took all of these with a 35mm Canon Snappy. There was nothing to set. Also, there were a many, many people around, but somehow I only managed to get one in the frame.






Here is one of the interior shots -- the bedroom where I imagined "John Howe" was taken after he was wounded:



And this is the dining room. It had a more important role in the second half of THE PRISONER. Only the first half of the book was published. The original manuscript continued the story of "Amanda Douglas" and Captain "John Howe" until he was in his forties, but that part didn't make the cut. I still get reader email about the book -- halved or not.






During this particular October Tour, there was an Civil War reenactment group on hand. I'm going to show you photographs of them, too.


In this one, the Yankee invaders come pouring in...


And they were very scary. I can't begin to imagine the number of hours these men (and women) put into "getting it right" and making history live again.

The thing I liked about this particular group was that they stayed in character between events. If you encountered one of them on the way to his car to get something, he still spoke to you as if he were a 19th century entity, or if you happened to come near to a pair of them in conversation, they wouldn't be talking about the Dallas Cowboys. Like as not, it would be about rumors of when the war would end or where the fighting was at that moment.





Part of the reenactment took place in the National Cemetery, which was the location of the Confederate prison during the Civil War and where a large number of unknown Union soldiers who died there are buried. The stone monument behind these two ladies is a memorial erected by the state of Pennsylvania to honor their dead. A coworker of mine, who was a nurse during the Vietnam War, is buried directly across from it. My late father and two great uncles are also buried here, as are a number of World War II nurses I knew and worked alongside when I was a "probie."

Which brings us to the drummer boy. I asked him if I could take his photograph. He very shyly, very politely gave his permission. I think he's very much like "Tobin" from THE PRISONER, except "Tobin" was a bugler.




And this is a photo of the "enemy camp." (That would be "Them," not "Us.")




One of the reasons I wanted to show you these is that Salisbury is having a big "tourism" push. If you're ever in the area, I thought this blog post might entice you to come see history -- and several of my book settings. The NC Transportation Museum is also nearby -- in case you need some kind of authentic transportation for your next movie. (This is where, it just so happens, George Clooney got his railroad car for LEATHERHEADS.) The museum is a nice place to come and look at vintage trains and automobiles. Some days you can take a short train ride around the yard with former railroad men volunteers, who help keep their particular corner of history alive.

So go to the Visitor's Center and tell them Cheryl sent you. At which point they will frown, look at you blankly and say, "WHO?" (These people, bless their hearts, are very difficult to impress.)