Kate Collins's Blog, page 270

House Rules

While our wonderful Kate Collins finishes the last part of writing her manuscript--rewrites, copy edits and even more edits--we are fortunate to have Julie Hyzy, who writes two cozy series, join us for a few weeks. Many of you are probably familiar with her White House Chef series as well as her Manor House Mysteries. We welcome Julie while we await Kate's return. (We do miss our Kate!) 
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Every family has its own rules -- some more obscure than others. House rules can be as common as "No jumping on the furniture" or "Take off your shoes at the front door." But I'm willing to bet that there are some interesting variations on house rules out there, and to get the discussion started, I'm going to share one of ours.

From the time the kids were very little, they learned that there is one phrase that is absolutely not allowed in our family. I'm not really sure how this got started, but I believe our eldest uttered it once and we nipped it in the bud right then and there. "No way," her father and I warned her. "You never say that again. Got it?"

She did. And so did her sisters.

So... what is this horribly offensive phrase?

"I don't care."

Yep. That's it. Whether we're asking what flavor of ice cream they'd like, or what television show to tune into, or whether they'd prefer broccoli or cauliflower with dinner that evening, the girls were never allowed to say "I don't care." They were required to express a preference. Make a choice.

Over the years, the phrase became abbreviated to "IDC" and my husband and I got a chuckle whenever the kids invited new friends over for the first time. Being good hosts (another point we drove home), they'd offer their guests some refreshment. "Would you like pop? Water? Anything else?" Almost invariably, their guests would answer "I don't care."

At that my girls would swoop in and warn them to never use that "IDC"phrase. "You have to pick," they'd say. "We aren't allowed to say 'I don't care' in this house."

We all knew that the guests were just trying to be polite -- they were probably reluctant to express a preference because that might cause more work, or appear demanding. Eventually, however, all our kids' friends got the message and, to this day, we never hear IDC in this house anymore.

We were very happy to have started this rule when the girls were young. The girls learned to express themselves and because they'd never developed the IDC habit, my husband and I were spared a lot of that teenage sullenness you hear so much about.

Of course we have other house rules (plenty of others)  that help keep the family happy and the days running smooth.

What are some of yours?[image error]

There's An Old Saying ...

by Leann

There's an old saying I learned when I worked in psychiatry years ago: the behavior engulfs the field. This was a meant as a caveat. Just because it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck--guess what? It MIGHT NOT be a duck. Certain psychiatric conditions are dramatic, with behavior that is so over the top, that doctors and other mental health professionals may make a diagnosis without checking out all the possibilities.

I saw this happen once when we had a patient with severe delusions and hallucinations. He was admitted as a paranoid schizophrenic to the medical psychiatric ward I worked on. He was so out of control he had to be restrained to keep him from hurting himself or others. Only when he fell into a coma and started running a fever, did the questions begin. Turned out this man had encephalitis. He was treated with the appropriate medications and made a full recovery. His behavior blinded everyone to a severe underlying condition. It probably started with a headache, but by the time we got to see him, he couldn't tell us about what led up to him seeing the pink elephants. He was too sick.

I have now learned, through personal experience, that this caveat doesn't just belong in psychiatry. I have what are called "invisible illnesses." You cannot look at me or do a simple blood test and learn that I have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and chronic Lyme disease. The doctor does know I have all these things. I have been taking all kinds of treatments for years, both traditional and non-traditional. But I like to solve mysteries. I actually make a living solving fictional ones. :-) This past month, I went for my regular 3 month appointment with a laundry list of tests I wanted my doctor to do. Why? Because I am NOT getting better and I am very frustrated. But unless I ask for something extra, my behavior--the fatigue, the pain, the insomnia, the headaches--those symptoms "engulf the field." They are all part of the illnesses the doctor knows I suffer from.

But when my lab work came back, what a surprise! It's sort of like the bad news and the good news all rolled into one. One of the tests I asked to be done was a vitamin D level. Normal blood levels run between 30-74, but 50 is a good number. My number? SIX. 6. Just  6. That is considered a severe deficiency. What are the symptoms of severe vitamin D deficiency? Fatigue, pain, insomnia, headaches and more of what I experience on a daily basis. My behavior engulfed the field and if I'd given up on me, I still wouldn't be on the right track. I just started taking 50,000 IU of vitamin three times a week. I am almost afraid to believe that in 6 months to a year, I might feel normal again.

Thank goodness I love a mystery. :-)

Wouldn't you love to have a truly crisp cracker?

by Lorna Barrett / Lorraine Bartlett / L.L. Bartlett

[image error] There are just some things in life that cannot be improved upon.  One of them is Jacobs Cream Crackers.

Several years ago, I received a package of these crackers in a Christmas basket of goodies.  I loved them.  They're especially good if you spread room-temperature butter over them, but they're great with cheese, and ... as it seems like I'm perpetually trying to lose weight, I eat them plain.

[image error] However, getting these crackers locally isn't all that easy.  So I ate them, and forgot about them.  And then I went on vacation earlier this year.  Guess what I ate nearly every day of my vacation?

You got it, baby--Jacobs Cream Crackers.  Oh ... they're wonderful.

So when I got home, I was determined to find them.  I knew where they had been bought (in the International section of my local Wegmans store), but that store no longer stocked them.  So every time I go into another Wegmans, I'd look, and hope.

[image error] Ha!  This week I hit the jackpot!  The Latta Road store had two packages.  So, I bought one.  And now I'm metering them out.  (Doh!  I should have bought both packages, because who knows when I'm going to find them again.)  They can be bought online can be bought online, but I worry about receiving them in good condition.  Let's face it, crackers crumble.  Would the USPS care for my crackers and keep them safe from being smashed?  Judging by the condition of the packets of  bookmarks I get from some of the Cozy Chicks, I think I'd receive a lot of crumbs.

So, I'll keep looking locally. 

Is there something you like to eat that's hard to find?

Fortune Telling

By Heather

I admit it. I’m a big believer in the universe telling me things. I call it cosmic communication.

Lots of times when I’m writing a book, I’ll start seeing things that relate to the book. A street name that’s the same as a character’s name, or a random TV show about one of my plots. Recently, as I’ve been working on my latest Lucy Valentine, which includes an animal communicator, I’ve seen a couple of shows about them.

Had never seen one before.

Cosmic communication telling me I’m on the right track.

At least that’s what I believe. And maybe because I believe, things like that come true. I look for it. I listen.

Another form of cosmic communication that I love is a fortune from fortune cookies. Rarely do I get a fortune that’s just nonsense. Usually it’s one that really pertains to my life—or my work.

Like this one. I’ve been holding on to it for almost ten years. I got this a week before I found out my Nina Quinn mysteries were going to be published.



More recently, I got this one:



The next day (THE NEXT DAY!) my agent called with the news that my Love Potion shop mysteries were going to be published (am hoping these will debut in 2013!).

Cosmic communication.

Are you listening?

Did Your Mom Teach You That?

by Ellery Adams

I've been thinking about traditions lately.

Mostly, I've been thinking about the skills we pass down from generation to generation. My mother taught me how to do things around the house at a young age. By the time I was eight, I knew how to operate the washing machine, determine if a plant in our garden was a weed, start the lawnmower, and cook things like macaroni and cheese.
When I went off to college, I wasn't concerned about having to look after myself. My mom had prepared me for what to do if I got sick, a button fell off my coat, or my car battery died.

I'm trying to be as good as Mom was about instilling life skills, but one thing I never could learn was how to be adept at sewing (other than a button). Thankfully, my daughter Sophie is learning to sew at school and her teacher, who knows how much I like to draw, asked me to sketch out a design for their class auction project - a quilt.
(You'll see the beginnings of it here and I will post more pics when it's done.)

The kids study the life cycle of the butterfly and I thought it would make a beautiful quilt, with the butterflies in cocoons in the moonlight and bursting forth over dozens of bright flowers below a bright, merry sun. So maybe now I'll learn a bit more about sewing.
Together, Sophie and I are beading and stitching, gardening and baking, and building so many precious memories.
What about you? What skill did your mom teach you that you cherish to this day?

Reading Pulitzer Prize Novels

by Deb Baker/Hannah Reed



The Pulitzer prizes were announced this week, and fiction didn’t have a winner! Apparently, the board couldn’t reach a majority. This is the first time a winner hasn't been named since 1977 when A River Runs Through It failed to take home the prize.

This year, I started thinking about how many of the fiction winners I’ve actually read, and discovered that I’ve been serious slacking in the 2000s. But why? When I go through past winners I’ve read, I loved every single one of them. In fact, To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite story of all time!


Here are my 16 – those I’ve read and the year each won:
2007  The Road by Cormac McCarthy
1999 The Hours by Michael Cunningham
1995 The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1994 Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
1992 A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1989 Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1988 Beloved by Toni Morrison
1986 Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1981 A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1980 The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
1975 The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1961 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1953 Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1952 The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1948 Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener

If you Click here, you can check all the past fiction winners, but be sure to come back and tell us how many are on your read list.

Thanks to Amazon's book descriptions (I love using the site to preview books) and 554 reviews for this particular one (no, I didn't read them all), I think I'll start playing catch-up with Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stout.

Happy reading!

Getting Together

by Maggie Sefton

I'm about to travel again, so I'm super busy this week trying to get all sorts of writing-related work done before I hop on a plane and head. . .back to my old hometown. Washington, DC. Land of Politicians and all things political. I'm going to see family and friends and do some book business in between. First, I'll visit my oldest & dearest friends, Nancy & Diane and their husbands, Tom & Les. For those of you who've been reading my Kelly Flynn Knitting Mysteries, Nancy & Diane both contributed recipes for one of the mysteries a couple of years ago. Nancy had a delicious Butternut Squash Soup and Diane had the scrumptious Chocolate Chip Cookies. Yum!

After having fun with old friends, then I'll drive from Northern Virginia, across the Potomac River into Washington, DC to gather with scores of other mystery authors for a fave mystery conference, Malice Domestic. This year, the conference is taking place Friday April 27th through Sunday, April 29th, in the Hyatt Regency Hotel at 7400 Wisconsin Avenue on the edge of Washington, DC and Bethesda, MD. If you're in the DC Metro area and want to see a whole bunch of your favorite mystery authors in one place, then drop by the Hyatt Regency hotel and say "hello." Malice Domestic is known for its friendly atmosphere, and most of the attendees are readers and mystery fans. That's why we authors come! We love to meet our readers.


Six of our seven Cozy Chicks will be attending, and I've been told that we will have trade paperback copies of our new Cozy Chicks Kitchen cookbook available for sale. It's packed with great recipes!

After the conference, then I'll drive back across the Potomac River and back to Northern Virginia to my daughter Christine's home in Fairfax and enjoy spending several days with my family. Grandchildren are really growing like weeds. Actually, they've gotten taller than weeds. :) Then, it's back to Colorado and back to writing mysteries. More about that in another email.

Actually, next week's email will feature my new E-book release on Barnes & Nobles Ebook program NookFirst. Barnes & Noble will have it exclusively for 30 days then it will be released onto Amazon Kindle, Apple's iPad and other formats. What's the book? Well. . .you'll have to wait until next week to find out. But, I can tell you this . . . it's not a mystery. :)

The Thrill is Gone (but so is the panic)

While our wonderful Kate Collins finishes the last part of writing her manuscript--rewrites, copy edits and even more edits--we are fortunate to have Julie Hyzy, who writes two cozy series, join us for a few weeks. Many of you are probably familiar with her White House Chef series as well as her Manor House Mysteries. We welcome Julie while we await Kate's return. (We do miss our Kate!) 
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Our first house in Chicago When my husband and I were first married we went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving, his sister's house for Christmas, and Easter kind of flip-flopped. Fortunately, our families were small enough and they got along well enough that everyone was usually invited, no matter where the party was being held. Worked out great.


Although we didn't have an assigned holiday at first we did attempt a few dinner parties of our own. One of the most memorable was our second anniversary. We decided to roast a turkey on the grill (how hard could that be?) and serve it with stuffing (a family favorite), and a couple of other side dishes. For dessert, I made a pound cake (Mom's recipe). To make it extra special, I decided we'd load each serving up with fresh bananas. You know... like you get on top of waffles at a restaurant. I made the side dishes and the pound cake ahead of time and decided to cut up the bananas early too. I wasn't stupid - I knew that they'd turn brown without lemon juice - so I put them in a bowl and covered it with the contents of a large bottle of RealLemon. We set up the grill outside and put our defrosted turkey atop it, making sure the coals were nice and hot.


Family wasn't due for several hours and for once the house was clean. We decided not to waste all this downtime - we'd been talking about buying a new car because our current one (we only had one at that point) was dying a slow death. How about we go buy one now?


Yeah. Seriously. What were we thinking? All I can say is that we were young and inexperienced.


We took off for the car dealership and found a great demo model that was in our price range and fit our lifestyle. Having never bought a car before - except as a tagalong when my parents bought theirs - I didn't remember how long it took.


Three hours later (at least) we were driving home in the new vehicle. But we weren't worried. Family wasn't due for another hour or so.


Except... we hadn't counted on the coals dying out. The turkey had browned a little, but it was still raw inside. No way was it going to be ready on time. My husband and I panicked, of course. We wound removing the bottom tray of our microwave (thank goodness it was a giant microwave, as most were back then) and we shoved the turkey in, fighting the legs that kept trying to escape. We heated it, turned it (as much as that was possible), heated it and turned it again, and again. Finally, the bird was cooked. I can't say that it tasted all that great but at that point we didn't care. We just needed it to be done.


After dinner (I wonder why everyone ate more of the side dishes and less of the turkey?) I pulled out the pound cake and cut everyone a slice. I heaped on a huge spoonful of bananas onto the first dish and handed it to my father in law. He took a big mouthful and then his face contorted in a way I've never seen on a human before. Yeah... I guess soaking the bananas in lemon wasn't such a great idea after all....


That was one of our first family dinners. We had more, and lots more mishaps. The picture to the left is of a subsequent turkey-on-the-grill attempt, but this one turned out better, probably because we stayed home to tend to the coals. 


The kids love hearing our silly stories. Over the years, however, I've hosted Thanksgiving (my brother has that one now), Christmas, and Easter, among countless birthday parties, and graduations. I just hosted Easter last week. A small crowd this time - only 13 people - and everything went so smoothly it was almost boring. I had daughters helping me in the kitchen and with cleanup. Our food was tasty and plentiful. Nothing went wrong. Not even a little bit. I'd have to say it was an unqualified success.


But you know what? I kind of miss the excitement. Those moments before guests arrive where I'm puff-puffing and worried about every last detail. Where the layer cake falls apart because I frosted it when it was still hot. Or when the dog jumps up and eats half the dessert (that was years ago and she was fine). We have everything under control nowadays... but that makes for fewer stories to tell.


How about you? Any fun moments to share about dinner with your family?
I'd love to hear them!


Julie

It's Time To Go Outside

The weather's warming up (at least it was until this week) and while a layer of pollen is coating Richmond, Virginia, I am starting to think ahead to al fresco dinners and a garden bursting with blooms and scents.
It's time to go outside, like the Lowe's commercial says. I am a month over deadline and am far behind my preparations for a pretty and colorful yard.
Luckily, I found these adorable plates at Kroger this weekend and the flower placement? A Dollar Store buy - yippee! These bright hues and dishwasher see plastic plates and bowls are getting me in the mood for....you guessed it...grilling!
To me, outdoors means cheeseburgers and hot dogs, corn on the cob, watermelon, tea, and Popsicles. But as you can see, our eating area is covered in pollen and the plant containers are bare.
I'll return in a few weeks with before and after pictures of this patio. I plan to have a busy weekend at our local plant store!
What are you looking forward to about being outside?
(And to those who entered Ellery's Mystery Cozy Contest, the author was Judi McCoy and the winner of this month's contest is Joan Mormann. Congrats, Joan!)

Today is National Pet Day

By Deb Baker/Hannah Reed


Here in the U.S.A., today is National Pet Day. We sure do love our animal friends. Look at me for example, I'm a member of the Humane Society – nationally and locally. It's our largest animal protection organization. I've also been known to make secret contributions to, dare I say it…I'll whisper…peta! Sure, they are extremists, sometimes going overboard, but they do some hard work in difficult and sad situations.

I've also found another cool volunteer group called the Animal Miracle Foundation, which connects animal lovers, shelters, and rescues to find homes for orphans. They jumped in to save lives during Katrina.

If you are thinking of adding a new family member, please consider adoption through a reputable organization. And if you already have a special pet, take a moment to give thanks and to hand out tasty treats.

And treat yourself to a new sticky roller because you deserve it.