Where are my glasses THIS time?

I used to wear glasses for distance. Then as I got older, I didn't need them anymore.  Now I need glasses for close-up work--like reading. The problem is ... I can never find them.

Well, that's not entirely true. I do find them--all the time in fact, but that's only because I have to hunt for them. Hunting gets pretty tiresome when you end up doing it ten or twelve times a day. Yeah, yeah, I do have a couple of pairs on a chain, but often I'll take them off and then they'll be among the missing.

By among the missing, I mean missing as the other ten or twelve pairs of cheaters. Yup, The Dollar Tree is my best friend when it comes to cheaters--and sunglasses, too. I have a tendency to go from the car into the house with my sunglasses on and then take them off and leave them...somewhere. That's why I have 3-4 pairs of sunglasses in both cars--or at least are supposed to be in each of our cars..

But I have come up with a bit of a solution for my my glasses and that is (are) relish trays. I get them at yard sales and pay between 25 and 50 cents a piece. I have them in the kitchen, my office, the living room, the dining room--anywhere I tend to read.

I must admit, I like the ones with patterns on them best (usually some kind of flower), but I do have a couple of clear glass ones as well. These days, not many people use/have relish trays. That's another thing I've done recently...I often add a relish plate to our evening meal.  Pickles, relishes, crudites, whatever is in the fridge. It reminds us of a couple of restaurants we used to go to that offered that delight of days gone buy. (Of course, we haven't found a corn relish that can compare to what they served at the old Cinelli's. Or the pickled watermelon rind they had at The Royal Scot. Hmmm...these restaurants are long gone. Was it because of the relish trays?)

But for me, relish trays play an important part of my daily life. And sometimes they do double duty. Like this one also has a couple of rubber bands and a screw in it. Just in case I need them, too!

So, what's your solution for corralling objects you don't want to lose?

Doesn't everybody want one?

For several years now, I've been wanting something I have absolutely no use for.

A golf cart.

Yup, that's what I want. I have nowhere to store one. I have nowhere to drive one to, but I still want one.

Mind you, I have never driven one. I just think it would be cool to have one and drive it around. Before my parents passed, it would have been cool to have one because I could have driven it up the street to their house. I used to visit them at least once a day (often twice or more--very handy when I was missing an ingredient for a recipe), but ... now they're gone and the house belongs to someone else. (Which makes me want to cry every time I see it.)

I don't have any place to store a golf cart, either. Our garage barely fits our two cars as it is. In fact, I can't park Mr. L's car in the garage because of the way we have to maneuver them in so we can open the doors, and he can't park my car because of how close I have to get it to the wall. The original owner should have had a 2.5 car garage because ... STORAGE. My parents' garage was 2.5 and it would have been dandy to store a golf cart.

Whenever we head to our cottage, we pass a place on the road where there is always at least one used golf cart for sale. The house has a BIG garage, and I figure the guy who owns it probably buys broken golf carts and then fixes them. There was a pretty blue one last month that I coveted, but somebody else bought it.

I don't play golf, but my sister-in-law does. She gets to drive a golf cart around all the time. She thinks nothing of it.  My brother has a friend who rents a site in a campground for the summer and he has a golf car. He let's my brother use it when he camps. Lucky people!

Do you have something totally unreasonable item on your wish list and of no practical use that you'd like to own?

I Got Swans

My family has had a cottage on the “real” Lotus Bay for over forty years. So I’m pretty familiar with the area, which is one reason why I’ve chosen to write about it.

Of course, my version is filled with fictional characters, and it’s not exactly in the same part of New York State as the real one is, and the names are all changed, but a lot is still the same. The seasons, the fishing, the lotuses, and the swans.

Swans are an important part of my Lotus Bay “universe.” Kathy Grant, one of my main characters, is opening a B&B called Swans Nest. (You can read all about it in the latest book, A REEL CATCH.)

But since I’ve been writing about Lotus Bay and the swans … I started collecting swans. Okay, I did have a few swan planters beforehand, but it didn’t become a collection (and you have to have three for a collection to start) until I started writing the series.

I’ve got tall swans, and itty bitty swans. Many white ones, but in pink, green, and orange. (I know! What’s with that?) And recently I acquired a lotus and lily pad salt and pepper shaker set. I mean, how could I resist it?

I’ve also got swan coasters, swan prints on the wall, and a couple of swan decorative plates. They’re such beautiful birds—how can one NOT like (love) them?

Have you got any swans?
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Swans Nest Inn is about to open, and Kathy Grant solicits her BFF, Tori Cannon, to help spruce up her property at the marshy end of Lotus Bay, only they didn’t count on finding a body. Who was he? What’s his connection to their friend Paul Darcy? Meanwhile, two entrepreneurs with vast business ties are interested in helping Tori reopen the Lotus Lodge, and their real motives are as murky as the bay after a storm. Will Swans Nest open on time? Will the Lotus Lodge reopen at all?

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Taking a dip and a drink

My mother had bird baths. So eventually, I got one too.

I admit it. I haven’t been a good bird bath owner … until this year. I read where birds have a hard time finding water all year long.

Really?

Okay, so I decided this year I would try to make a point of keeping the bird bath clean and full.

Holy cow—what had I been missing?

During the summer, I like to write in our screened-in porch. This year, I moved the bird bath from the outer yard to the area around our pool. Holy crap! Those birds are there all day long. Not only are they taking a drink (and I’ve seen sparrows, robins, crows, red-winged blackbirds, grackles, and others I don’t know of) and bathing. Holy cow, do they like to bathe!

The other day, there was a bath-a-thon. Five birds at a time were vying to clean their feathers (while others sat on the electric lines scraping their beaks clean). Suddenly there were twenty or more birds vying to take a bath. The overflow decided the pool might be a handy bath—but too many times Mr. L has had to fish out dead birds from the skimmers, so I ran out and made noise to let them know that the pool was a potential death trap. So when they all flew away, I noted the water in the bird bath was a disgusting brown. So I dumped it and started again. The first couple of birds decided the water was too cold and flew away, but an hour later, it was bird bath heaven once again.

I read where it’s really hard for birds to find water in the winter, so now it’s my job to figure out how to get water in the bird bath and not let it freeze. I know there are electric wires for horse troughs, so are there heaters for bird baths?

The birds have given me so much pleasure watching them do what we do—keep clean and drink. It’s such a small thing to help them to keep doing that.

Do you have a bird bath?
 

A Reel Catch -- just a little late

The days before a book launches are always filled with excitement and a lot of extra work, especially when you don't know if the paperback edition will be available in time, and the audio edition is taking longer than I had anticipated to get started.  So what did I forget to do on launch day?  I forgot to blog about it!  So, I'm here to remedy that little error.

The trade Paperback edition!

The reviewsare starting to come in. I was thrilled with the Fresh Fiction review (above, you can read the whole thing here), and there are at least three more reviews from bloggers, too.

Here's the description:

Swans Nest Inn is about to open, and Kathy Grant solicits her BFF, Tori Cannon, to help spruce up her property at the marshy end of Lotus Bay, only they didn’t count on finding a body. Who was he? What’s his connection to their friend Paul Darcy? Meanwhile, two entrepreneurs with vast business ties are interested in helping Tori reopen the Lotus Lodge, and their real motives are as murky as the bay after a storm. Will Swans Nest open on time? Will the Lotus Lodge reopen at all?

Trade Paperback:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books A Million 

Book Depository (free shipping worldwide)

Kindle US | Kindle Worldwide | Nook | Kobo | iBooks

Coming to Audio, too!

Have you ordered your copy yet?

National Booklovers Day

Are you caught up with the series?  If not -- check out my books page.  Click here.

And, of course, POISONED PAGES is the latest installment.

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Happy Reading!