Book Trailer for PATRIOT'S HEART!

This is short. It takes all of forty seconds. I went to the annual Battle of Monmouth Reenactment during the summer in the hope I would get a few good visuals specifically for this project. So I finally sat down and put it all together. The book was released in February--but, of course, it's still available AND the sequel, PATRIOT'S PRIDE, will be coming out in June 2015. I hope that's not too long for anyone to wait! :-)

You can buy the book at Amazon as well as Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc.--or just go to the publisher's site: http://www.prismbookgroup.com

The Falling Leaves

I love autumn. I love the cooler weather--so crisp and energizing. This morning it was fifty degrees outside. To me, that's wonderful! The autumn colors are gorgeous, too--red, orange, and yellow.

I just wish the leaves could stay on the trees. But no, they come down fast and furious. As soon as I remove them, more litter the ground. I don't mind so much when they're crunchy and dry, but wet, soggy leaves are horrible. They stick to shoes and wind up inside the house. This situation goes on for months. In our town, we pile the leaves at the curb for pickup. Usually, the leaves are scooped up at the beginning of December. If we have snow on top on the leaves, it gets really messy.

I bought a leaf blower that has an attachment so I can vacuum and chop up the leaves. I put the chopped up leaves into my compost bin. It makes great compost. However, I should have bought a bigger compost bin because I don't have enough room for all the leaves in our yard. :-(

I like practical gifts so for my birthday, hubby bought a six-foot long mat that should help collect the wet leaves from people's shoes when they walk in the door. I hope it works. If it doesn't, it should be useful when everyone walks in with snow on their boots this winter.

A Little Fog

Daughter #2 looked at this photo and thought the lavender cloud in the sky looked like a UFO. To me, it looked like a cloud. I took this picture because the foggy mist settling on the ground fascinated me. I wanted to walk through it, but I was expected elsewhere and so I didn't. I've seen this phenomena a few times in the past and I've always wanted to walk through it, but I never have the time.

Driving in fog is dangerous. Walking in fog is interesting, but the fog on the ground in this photo was only about four feet high. Could I see my feet if I walked into it? What would it smell like? Would my clothing become damp from the mist? Would it swirl around me as I moved through it?

I could write up an entire scene about this low-lying fog--if I got out of my car to investigate it.

One of these days, I have to stop being too busy.

A New Adventure

This is a photo taken in 1998. Hubby's parents had been living in Florida full-time at that point for ten years. Our daughters grew up seeing their paternal grandparents twice a year. It all started because Dziadzi and Babci decided winters were too cold in NY. They had friends who bought a house in Florida, and they moved into a house across the street from their friends.

They had fun. They grew oranges, grapefruits, and gigantic lemons. They traveled. They joined a Polish club and danced polkas every weekend.

We visited them once a year with our daughters. They visited us once a year. Eventually, hubby's father grew very ill. Babci and Dziadzi's visits to NJ ended.

Their lovely house was sold. Dziadzi died. We suggested to his mother that she ought to move near us, or near some of the other relatives in this part of the country because there are no other relatives in the south.

She refused to do so until this spring. We found a senior residence nearby and were very fortunate to secure an apartment for Babci.

We looked for inexpensive furniture. We flew to Florida and shipped many of Babci's precious possessions to NJ. We flew home and filled up the apartment. We flew back to Florida and shipped more necessities.

We emptied the apartment.

At last, we got on a plane with Babci and flew back to NJ. We settled her in her new residence. She said she likes it.

It's been a lot of work, but we feel better now that we can keep an eye on Babci. For many years, she had a nice life in Florida, but now she's starting a new adventure.

Reduced Price for PRINCE OF THE MIST

The price of a digital edition of PRINCE OF THE MIST is now $.99! This is a real steal! Read the reviews below.

Wendi, a reviewer for The Road to Romance said, "PRINCE OF THE MIST is so well written and spellbinding, my attention was grabbed from the beginning. I read the story all at once." See the entire review at http://www.roadtoromance.ca/reviews0506/reviewprincemist.htm

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To purchase the book click on the links below.

Amazon Kindle Edition of Prince of the Mist

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It's available at iBooks, too. So download a digital edition now. It's cheaper than a cup of coffee. :-)

Nostalgia

The grandest vehicle my brother and I put together. We even let our little sisters ride in it.

    The other day, as hubby and I walked around the block we did not see a single soul. Everyone was inside, enjoying their air conditioning. Hubby and I reminisced about growing up way back before a/c and computers. People used to hang around outside in those days. And if they were inside, the windows were open so we all knew everyone else’s business anyway.

Hubby grew up in Brooklyn and I grew up on the Jersey Shore—worlds apart in some ways but there were similarities. In both Brooklyn and NJ, one of the ways kids entertained themselves was by making their own scooters. The raw materials were readily available. All that was needed was an old shoe skate (the kind that had four metal wheels which you buckled on), a piece of 2x4 lumber (which somehow always seemed to be around), and an old wooden box crate—also easy to find. With a hammer and some nails, the homemade scooter was a wonderful contraption. Everyone decorated their scooters with bottle caps that were hammered into the wood.

The scooters made lots of noise rumbling on the street. It was wonderful!

Nowadays, there seem to be no old metal shoe skates hanging around—no old wooden crates either. Kids today have nice, shiny scooters purchased in the store. The ones we made as kids were definitely cruder, but we had a great sense of accomplishment for having put our own scooters together.

Another way the kids used up their free time back in our youth, was to put together their own go-carts. At the shore, we called them buggies. Usually, we got the wheels from an old baby carriage—but any sort of wheels would do. With more scrap lumber and a rope (used for steering), we had an exceptional vehicle. Naturally, you needed either a hill or someone to push if you wanted to go anywhere.

I know I acquired some rudimentary mechanical skills from the labor—as well as a sense of pride. Where else would I have ever learned about cotter pins?

Everyone played baseball on the street. We did not have teams or coaches.

We got sweaty and dirty. But we had fun. And it didn’t cost anything.