Kate Collins's Blog, page 304

Gas or Electric?

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

There's been a lot of talk about electric cars.  In theory, these things are great.  I'm all for seeing our country less dependent on foreign oil.  It's dirty and it's expensive.  But do I want an electric car?

First off, they're not exactly attractive.  Take this little beauty for instance.  Only it's just NOT beautiful.  In fact, it reminds me of a tuna can. Okay, I drive a minivan, and they aren't known for being a sexy car, either, but I bought it for utility.  I haul around a lot of stuff--furniture, etc.  I need something that can handle more than two bags of groceries at a time.

Would I feel comfortable driving that little tuna can on wheels around town?  I think not.  And not just because it's funny looking, but it's TINY.  Can you imagine getting hit by an SUV (or a dump truck) while driving that car?  (Can you say "squashed like a bug?")  I'm not sure I'd want a hybrid for the same reason.  They're small.  (Hey, I've been in an accident in a small car.  I didn't sustain any injuries, but the car was so messed up it was on life support.)

And then there's the whole issue of fuel.  Sure, it sounds good to just plug in your car and then take off, but think about where that power comes from.  A lot of electric plants are fueled by coal.  Even if you've got a nuclear power plant nearby, are you really comfortable thinking about what can happen?  Might I mention the Fukushima plant in Japan.  Oh sure, we're not planning a tsunami on the shores of Lake Ontario any time soon, but the Fukushima plant isn't the only one built on an active fault line.

But I do like the idea of an electric car.  One that runs on solar power.  Or maybe the DeLorean from Back to the Future that (eventually) runs on banana peels and old coffee grounds.  Now that's a fuel source I could get behind.

Meanwhile, I guess I'm stuck with my minivan.

Is there an electric car in your future?

Pulling Up

By Heather Webber / Heather Blake

It's that time of year. Bathing suit season. Commercials are full of products that want to help us get in shape, lose pounds, buy their stuff. (Btw, does anyone else hate that Schick Quattro commercial where the women are running by the shrubs that get magically trimmed back? I. HATE. IT. –But I digress).

This time of year always reminds me how out of shape I am. I'm small, yes, but have absolutely no muscle tone. I really need to start working out more. Well—ha!—working out, period.

That mindset is what had me standing in son #2's bedroom, looking at his Iron Gym pull-up bar. Contemplating using it. Trying to figure out how it fits on the doorframe. Some upper body strength would be nice. Shape the triceps, biceps, any kind of ceps...

I get the thing on the door, take a deep breath, grab on, and pull. Up.

Nothing happens. I hang. Down. Gravity at its finest.

I pull again.

Nope, nothing. Though the dangling is starting to burn one of my ceps (not sure which one).

So, I do what any rational out-of-shape person would do. I take the thing down, put it back where I found it, and go in search of a Reece's Peanut Butter cup.

I'm thinking about taking up yoga next. There's no pulling up in that, is there? Anyone have any workout routines you recommend for a lazy, out-of-shape writer?

So Many Books, So Little Time

Ellery Adams

Memorial weekend is fast approaching and I am so looking forward to three unofficial summer days of picnics, cookouts, and family visits. But even more than that, I am looking forward to slowing down. After nine moths of work, I've finished my first Charmed Put Shoppe book and am ready to take an entire THREE days off!
So what am I going to do with that delicious chunk of time?
Read. Read. Read.
I've got a few books waiting for me on my ereader including C.S. Harris' Where Shadows Dance and a copy of Marion Keyes' Sushi For Beginners on my nightstand because that's my June book club read.
I know I want to read the next Rick Riordan release, The Throne of Fire, and there are a number of cozies coming out in June to add to Mount TBR, including our own Lorna Barrett's Sentenced to Death and Maggie Sefton's Unraveled. Julie Hyzy's Grace Interrupted and Wendy Lyn Watson's A Parfait Murder will also hit the shelves.

What about you? Have you fallen in love with a book lately? Let us know what else we should be reading this weekend, no matter what the genre.

My Town

By Deb/Hannah


I live in a little unincorporated town called North Lake. We don't have much - a school (K-8), a gas/convenience store, a post office, a few bars (this is Wisconsin, after all), a cool library that I plopped into my beekeeping stories, and our only claim to fame -

Yes, my town is the home of Shrinky Dinks! For those of you who don't know, Shrinky Dinks came in all kinds of shapes, even cartoon characters. We colored them, then popped them into the oven, where they would shrink down. What fun! Follow this link to shop for them online or to watch a video.

Did you play with Shrinky Dinks?

Spring Gardening. . .At Last!

by Maggie Sefton








Like other areas of the country, those of us along the Front Range of Colorado (Denver and points north along the Colorado Rockies) have been having a very wet Spring. Lots of rain, some light showers, other times days of rain when Pacific storm fronts have moved slowly across our areas bringing lots of water and cooler temps in the 60's. In fact, our High Country has received so much snow during winter/spring, that the snowpack is 200% of normal. That means there will be some flooding along our rivers when warm temps arrive and the snowmelt starts in June.


Now, we love having rain here in Colorado. This is the West, which means we're drier than points east of us like the Midwest and the entire East Coast. May is traditionally our rainiest month. That's all good. But. . .sometimes the rain storms and chilly weather last later in the month, which keeps most of us weekend gardeners inside. It's either raining or about to or it's just plain chilly.

Some of you, I know, will plant when it's chilly and damp outside. I've done a fair share of that myself when I lived Back East, and fifteen years in the Midwest. Then our family came to Colorado. . .and it spoils you rotten with the wonderful weather. Lots of sunny days and May temps that are warm from the first or second week onward into June and summer weather.



So. . .the later Spring storms kept me from planting my flower gardens this year. I haven't even made my yearly visit to the nurseries and garden shops to pick out my favorite annuals. Last weekend was nice, but my daughter Melissa was visiting from New York City so no garden shop visits. This weekend, however, looks great. Showers earlier in the week are giving way to sunny days and temps rising to mid and upper 70's. Perfect for digging in the dirt and being outside.



So. . .this week, I'll spare some time from finishing the Kelly Flynn mystery due in June and head to the local garden shops and indulge myself in browsing amongst the flowers. I love to plant annuals in the summer because they're such a big burst of colors. Simple petunias, delicate violas, bright impatiens. . .and so many others. I'm particularly fond of the lush purple colors and deep pinks. By this time next week, I should have all my flowerbeds in the front yard planted as well as all the big pots that I have in the gardens, lots and lots of pots. I have more in the back yard. Puppy Dog Max has a thing for hanging baskets, so I've become adept at securing them to the three bishop hooks along the back patio.



What are your favorite spring/summer flowers for planting? Do you plant in pots or in gardens?

The Storm Coward

by Kate Collins

I don't like thunderstorms. Don't like the noise or the lightning or the dark skies or the fierce wind or the driving rain. I don't care how many good things they do, I am not a fan. When I was a child, I ran and hid in my parents' bed. When I had young children, I took them to the basement whenever a violent storm came through, especially because the Midwest is so prone to sudden tornados. Yet, despite the possibility that by doing so, I scarred my children for life, my son loves storms, and, in fact, would be a storm chaser if he could. My daughter is ambivalent. Neither understands my fright.

It usually hits me when I'm home alone. All I can do is climb into my bed, turn on the TV (barring a power outage, of course. I can't even describe the panic that thought causes) and try to distract myself.

I don't know where this anxiety comes from. I've never been hurt by a storm. I bear them no grudges. Yet there it is. I'm certain there's a Greek word for storm phobias, but I don't want to know it. My other fear is that some pharmaceutical company will try to develop a pill for it.

Oops. Gotta go. Storm coming.

Home at Last

by Leann

My husband had major surgery a little over a week ago, and I have to say his hospital experience was far better than mine in 2008. That doesn't mean it was GOOD. Just better than horrendous. I am a nurse who was trained in a hospital, so I guess I bring plenty of ideas about the right way to do things. You don't let IVs run completely out, for one thing. (Yup, that happened.) You make sure the epidural pain medicine is QUICKLY available. (They ran out and how hard would it have been to go down to the pharmacy and get the med rather than wait for a delivery? Had to get the nurse manager involved in that one.) And to allow tubing of any kind to lie on the floor is unacceptable. I don't care if it's catheter tubing or IV tubing, floors are dirty and those tubes connect to the body. No wonder there is such a rise in hospital infection rates. No one seems to pay attention to ALL the details of good nursing care.

Who knew that dressing changes for an incision are no longer sterile procedures--using sterile gloves and gauze, where gloves are changed after a dirty dressing is removed so germs are not transferred to the new dressing. That and catheter care are treated as "clean" procedures--no glove changes--but I'm not so sure that's a change I like or that it's being done correctly even being done as "clean" procedures. Again, look at infection rates and tell me that nurses are being trained in good, common sense techniques. I think not. I have never been more certain that if a loved one goes into a hospital these days, make sure someone is there who is unafraid to speak up to the staff AND to the (haughty) doctor. Just sayin'. Dealt with my share of doctors and I am not intimidated. I saved their butts on dumb or eligible orders more than once in my time on the hospital floor.

None of this is to say that I do not appreciate the kindnesses offered. Kind is good. The nurses my husband had were skilled to a point. And there were always people available to bug--which I did. They didn't mind. Drinks and snacks were in abundance, but of course not even part of the nurse's aide job to go and get. My patients always had fresh water on their stand. My husband wouldn't have had fresh water t if I wasn't there. Instead, the staff spent 2-3 hours every shift writing notes on the computer. Back in the day, the entire shift was spent giving nursing care and notes were only done at the end. If I had to stay to finish my notes, I stayed. But interacting with my patients was more important than sitting at a desk typing. This is not to blame the nurses. I saw this coming a few years before I retired. Nurses want to give care first, not make sure the hospital doesn't get sued.

Now he is home. The surgery went well and his incision looks great, but then, he has his own nurse. Now ... if I could just get him to cough and deep breathe more ... yes, I am a pest! What about you? Have you seen the change in health care? And I mean the folks who actually should be spending an entire shift providing that care.

The End of the End?

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

At six o'clock this evening (and no one had said WHAT time zone that's supposed to be), the beginning of the end of the world is to start.

HOGWASH!

I mean, honestly, why are there so many people willing to believe in the negative instead of the positive?

For most of my life I was a "glass half empty" kind of girl, but sometime in the recent past something has made me change my point of view.

A few years back, my husband gave me a book:  "Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Watching Star Trek."

There's a wonderfully positive message one can get from Star Trek.  That we are, for the most part, GOOD people.  That we CAN make life on Earth (and beyond) better IF we work together.  That as a people, we CAN overcome just about anything.  All we need to do is TRY.

On Thursday, Ellery wrote about recycling and being less wasteful.  (Go Green!)  And we can do other things to make life here on Earth better.  Use less fossil fuels.  Give to charity.  Give the gift of our TIME to worthwhile projects.  And on and on.

I don't know about these naysayers, but at six o'clock this evening I'm going to hoist a glass and wish man(and woman)kind well.  We have a lot more to do...to accomplish...to make this world a better place to live...and beyond.

We can do it.  We've just got to be positive.

At least ... I'm going to try.

How about you?

Ridiculousness

By Heather Webber/ Heather Blake

How's this for ridiculous? In my master bath, which only my husband and I use, there are not one, not two, not even three, but nine—NINE—bottles or jars of various products. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash, face wash...

Nine. For two people. Two people, I might mention, who aren't high maintenance.

Isn't that ridiculous?

I do have some excuses. As in, we use different shampoos. And we have different face washes (he likes Noxema while I love my Aveeno). But really, nine is just too many.

And that number doesn't even include the bar of soap or the shaving cream.

Okay, maybe we are high maintenance? How many things do you have in your shower?

Going Green: A Fad or the Future?

Going green has definitely been the catch phrase of the year. I've viewed it with skepticism, because sometimes when you hear about a product that's supposed to be environmentally friendly, that's not always the case. Sometimes, its just good advertising, but not entirely factual.
Still, I'm down with the stuff that makes a difference. I recycle our garbage, use those expensive lightbulbs that take forever to warm up, and pump my gas early in the morning. But that's about it.
Last week however, I decided to count how many takeout cups I used over the course of 7 days. You see, I'm in the car all the time, dragging my trolls to school, to tutoring, and on errands. I end up eating whole meals in the car and drinking everything from coffee to water to iced tea on the go.
In one week I used 15 paper or plastic takeout cups. Even though these materials can be recycled, I decided that was 15 too many. 15 times 52 is 780 cups a year. That's 780 too many!
So I've loaded up on reusable containers and though there is a hassle-factor to cleaning these and actually remembering to carry them all with me each morning, I feel good about making this change.
Have you changed your behavior at all lately in order to be greener?