There’s an old saying that I heard when I lived in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country decades ago: “Too soon old. Too late smart.” I spent a year there when I was nineteen, still young enough to believe that these words held no relevance for me—then, or ever. The old folks who quoted the saying (who, now that I think about it, weren’t nearly as old as I believed at the time) would often accompany it with a chuckle and a rueful shake of the head. I, armored by my youth, would feel somewhat superior and amused at the corniness of it all. With no earthly clue what they really meant. But now, on the cusp of being eligible for Medicare, […]

The other morning Glen and I were going into town together and drove through a lingering patch of skunk funk. That’s all too common here from about mid-February to mid-May. Skunks are mating in February and March, then raising their young, and all this activity evidently creates many opportunities for them to spray. Forcing the non-skunks among us to avoid breathing as much as possible for those three months. Because even in our climate-controlled houses, we can’t escape the stench that hurtles miles across country on the evening breeze. In our cars, we try not to drive over the still-pungent black-and-white-striped pelts flattened on the asphalt. (So many bodies!) If we’re lucky, that’s as personal as our skunk interactions get.* […]

In the summer of 2017 I shared two of my recipes for homemade ice cream: Coffee Cinnamon and Chocolate Pecan Brickle. Both are uncooked, meaning they require no eggs or standing at a hot stove on an August day when your air conditioning struggles to blow tepid air and you have to keep stirring the custard until it thickens. They’re super easy to make and also fast, since you don’t have to wait for the hot custard to chill before you can churn the ice cream. These uncooked versions are endlessly variable, and so rich and delicious that I’ve seen no reason to make a custard base in decades. But also in that post I promised that one day I’d […]

If you haven’t yet read The Realm Below, book 2 in the Space Between series, then you probably don’t know that at the end of the book there’s a little pilón, as my mother used to call it. That’s a Spanish word that in Mexico means “something extra.” The pilón in this case is a short appendix offering two original cocktail recipes that The Daughter came up with after the release of The Space Between. They’re inspired by the descriptions of mulsus (a favorite drink of my faery characters) in the books. I’m writing this a few days before Glen and I are scheduled to go out of town to visit Katie—and The (best) Son-in-Law (in the world), Wesley—and if […]

Sunday morning I got up much too early—before 4 A.M. I’ve never been a very sound sleeper (maybe that’s due to sleeping with my eyes open *snort*), but for the past ten years it’s been worse. And for the cause, I can point with a reasonable degree of certainty to this: That’s Phoebe. Part Maine Coon. Part dominatrix. And guess who’s 10 years old? Uh-huh. Coincidence? I think not. Ever since Glen and I adopted her from the Austin animal shelter when she was about 8 weeks old, Phoebe (aka Tatonka, Jabba the Catt, Queen of All She Surveys and Tons o’ Fun [or Squirt, as Katie calls her]) has ruled the household with her incessant demands. And many of […]

Last week I was wrapping up the day’s Twitter biz when I came across my name in someone’s tweet. The context was surprising, but most gratifying. Ashley, the blogger who sent the tweet, had nominated me and fourteen others for The Versatile Blogger Award! (Read more about the award here.) Thank you, Ashley at Lellalee, for the nomination! You can find Ashley’s fun post about the award here on her blog, including who nominated her and the rest of her nominees. I also recommend exploring her other great content and luminous photographs. You might want to subscribe, as I did. Lellalee is a gorgeous, professional site. To say I was gobsmacked by Ashley’s nomination is an understatement. We bloggers often […]

Do you ever hear from someone in your distant past? Someone you haven’t seen or heard from since childhood and were certain you never would again? This probably happens more often than it used to, thanks in large part to social media. Before that, the options for tracing people boiled down to, what? Private detectives, the Salvation Army and newspaper ads in the Personals section? (Are there still such things as Personals ads? I used to read them for fun. Sometimes I’d come across messages so cryptic that I was sure they were connected to drug deals, extramarital assignations or murder-for-hire schemes. ) Well, once in a great while, someone from the remote (as in decades-old) past will track me […]

“I only desire your talent...” Twelve-year-old Lindsey McKay's biggest dream is to be a famous ballerina. But after moving to New York, she ends up at the Community Center with a teacher who’s a burly bear in tights. When she meets Madame Destinée, the teacher of a top dance school who offers her classes for free, Lindsey can't believe her luck. In exchange, she must perform in the school’s exclusive midnight shows, ones sure to make her a star. But something’s not right... One by one, the other dancers disappear. Each time they do, a music box with a figurine just like the missing ballerina joins Madame Destinée’s growing collection. If Lindsey doesn’t discover the truth about the dance school, […]

Last week I had a terrible epiphany. Well, it probably wouldn’t have seemed terrible to most people, but it hit me like a concrete block. Lying awake one night, it dawned on me that nowhere on the cover or within the pages of The Realm Below does it tell the curious reader that it’s the second book in the Space Between series. Nowhere. How in the world did that slip by me? Even worse, if it weren’t for one thing, I probably still wouldn’t have noticed the omission. What one thing? A really terrible review. It came from a reader who didn’t seem to know she was reading the second book in a series and who clearly had not read […]

Before the end of last year, my Twitter friend, fellow author Amy Elizabeth Miller (find her website here), messaged me to ask if I’d be interested in doing an author interview as part of a series she’d planned for her blog. Amy has an amazing work ethic. She’s a talented artist. She blogs about subjects I wouldn’t have the nerve to touch with such depth and passion it often takes my breath away (I’ve been a subscriber for some time). She writes The Endeavor Series: captivating, imaginative fantasy novels that feature a host of magical creatures and endearing (or hissable!) characters (find them on Amazon here). As if all that weren’t enough, she homeschools her four kids! That alone is […]

Happy 2019, Dear Readers! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! It’s been a rainy, grey start to the new year here, but I’m holding out hope that someday we’ll enjoy sunshine again. In the meantime, cookies will do nicely. Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I used to, when I was young and naïve. Despite years of evidence to the contrary, when each new January rolled around I thought that would be the time I’d actually make resolutions and stick to them. Until one year I’d finally had enough of that. I decided that instead of trying to impose puritanical self-improvements, I would begin each January with an easy intention: to make something delicious on New Year’s Day, […]

Just a short one today . . . I want to wish you all the most joyous of holiday seasons, and the hope that your year concludes with many blessings and hearts full of love. I’m going to be kicking back and having fun for the rest of the year, because . . . The Daughter’s home! And The Son-in-Law will be joining us soon! It’s been seven years since Glen and I have had the chance to spend Christmas with Katie and Wesley. The last time they weren’t married yet. Or even engaged. So we’re taking full advantage of this opportunity. There will be days of delicious food, fabulous cocktails, abounding snarkiness, clever puns and uproarious laughter over raucous […]