Giving Thanks

             Yes, it’s that week. Thanksgiving Day is tomorrow. We’re celebrating it with our younger son and his girlfriend—and the dogs, of course.

Meanwhile, I’m finishing the manuscript edits for the second book in my K-9 Crime Solvers series for Harlequin Romantic Suspense. Deadline is approaching!

            I did meet up with my Harlequin editor for lunch in New York last week, which was a wonderful get-together…and got me thinking about another Harlequin Romantic Suspense series idea that we briefly discussed. I’m planning and plotting it now, including arranging some fun research for it.

            Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Side Effects

 I like to think of them as side effects of whatever book I'm working on.  I write about things that fascinate me or I become  fascinated by things I am writing about.  Either way, they bleed into my regular life.

 Rose tea gets a lot of attention in SCONED TO DEATH.  I had tasted it a long time ago and I loved everything about it.  The pink blossoms were a lovely contrast to the curled  black tea leaves.  I scent or roses was strong enough to note, but wasn't overpowering.  The taste was the same.  I could taste the roses, but also the tea.   

I bought it the first time at the Huntington gardens Christmas sale.  It was a lovely event for members held in December.  We always got there late in the afternoon when it was already beginning to get dark.  There was champagne and hot cider to sip while you made a quick trip through the gardens and then went through the holiday sale.  They sold tins of tea that had rose blossoms I assumed came from gardens, mixed with  tea leaves.  The ingredients were simple--rose petals and black tea.  It was the first time I had ever seen rose tea. I was instantly entranced and bought a tin of it.  

So when Annie Sara  makes a tea room in the old school house, I decided to have her serve rose tea.  I also decided to have the blend made by Liv Stein using roses from her garden.  The tin from the Huntington is long gone and all that writing about rose tea made me want  some. 

The Huntington doesn't even sell the tea I bought in the past anymore.  They sell something made by a big tea company that has rose petals and black tea, along with natural and artificial flavoring.  The artificial flavoring was like a big stop sign to me.  It just seemed wrong.  I checked online and found  rose tea without artificial flavoring.  It is even nicer than the tea I bought from the Huntington that had tiny bits of rose petals.  This one has actual tiny rose buds and bigger pieces of petals.  It has a wonderful fragrance and flavor.  I drink a lot of tea and it has become part of my regular repertoire.

 The tea room serves finger sandwiches.  Writing about them, made me anxious to try different kinds of filling.  I thought back to watercress sandwiches I used to make.  I had read an article that said something magic happened to the the leaves and stalks when they were put on buttered bread.  The writer also mentioned how her kids liked the sandwiches.  Once I tried them, I was hooked.  My son liked them too.  

Time passed and I forgot about watercress until recently when I read that it is the number one best vegetable.  I wanted to add it to Annie Sara's sandwich fillings and en;joy some myself.  There was only one problem.  No store seems to carry watercress anymore.  It seems the only option is to grow my own. Annie Sara had better luck since I could write a better outcome for her.

Writing this made me hungry and I think I'll go make myself a cream cheese and cucumber sandwich.  It will have to due until some watercress shows up. 

 

 

 

 

 

  

My Trip

              Okay, I actually was away last week when my blog here was posted. Where was I? Well, my husband and I took our frequent late fall trip, first to visit family in Indiana—our older son, d-i-l and 2 grandsons. Definitely fun! As always! Notwithstanding the snowstorm one day. Around 10 inches landed, and family had fun sledding in it. California-me these days doesn’t see much snow, but I’m certainly familiar with it, having grown up in Pittsburgh.

Then to NYC to attend the Baron Mutual Fund annual conference—which also has fun entertainment.

We started by attending a couple of shows. The first was an off-Broadway play called The Play That Goes Wrong—and that was exactly what it was! It was fun and humorous, showing the cast of a mystery play in which the actors forget lines and get out of character and even get injured, and sets keep moving and collapsing. We also saw the Broadway musical version of Mamma Mia, which was wonderful!

And then there was the Baron Fund entertainment. We chose Broadway as our lunchtime entertainment, and those on stage were Kelli O'Hara and Sutton Foster performing songs together that Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett sometimes performed together. The surprise afternoon entertainment was Pink, who also gave an enjoyable performance.

I’d been concerned about flying, but we were fortunate enough to have all our planes leave on schedule. Good thing I didn’t decide to cancel just in case!

And of course our dogs were well cared for while we were gone, first by a skilled sitter who’s a neighbor, and then by our younger son.

Calm Before the Storm

I am finally doing what I have had my characters do--calm their nerves with crochet.  I needed something unchallenging, but at the same time I didn't want to  make  a swatch with string as I have Sheila do in the Crochet series.   I am making a cowl out of basic worsted yarn.  There's no pattern to follow-- just my whim if I want to change from half double crochet to single crochet in the next row.  The beauty is that I can feel my shoulders unhunch as I move through a row.  It is nice to see that it really works.

The revised SCONED TO DEATH was sent back to my editor last weekend.  It's always a little nerve wracking, waiting to hear if she liked the changes.  I not only revised things because of her comments, but also things I decided to change as I went through the manuscript again.  I gave Jack the cat a better chance to show off his magic skills.

Next up, I will get the copy edit and my last chance to do any tweaking.

I needed a day to clear my head before I went back to the next Yarn Retreat book.  I was going to call it KNOT A DEAD END, but now I'm not sure.  It was my editor's idea to have KNOT  in all the titles, but I think that it is too close to KNOT DEAD AGAIN, so I'm going to think about it some more.

We went up to Ojai the other day.  After setting MURDER BY THE HOOK there, I have a different feeling when I look around the town.  Jakey was with and he loves the playground which happens to be near where  set a number of the scenes in the book.  In my imagination, the empty courtyard was filled with people watching and dancing to an ethereal music performance.  An there's the bench where Molly and Barry had their late night talk.

I even finally got a glimpse of the pink moment.  The other times I've been there, the days were longer and we always left before sunset, but this time we stayed in the playground as it got dark.  It wasn't the grand pink moment I had seen photos of, but the mountains had a faint pinkish color as the sun went down. 

The biggest surprise was that the local grocery store had pixies.  Everything I read  said that pixies had a season from early spring to about June.  We brought some back and they may be rogue pixies, but the mandarins were delicious.

Our sunny fall weather is about to change with days of rain predicted.  This morning I did what I could to clear a downspout so rain won't pour out at the end of the gutter.  I hope it works.