Beach House in the Burbs

Okay, so maybe calling the Miami Beach lifeguard huts architecture is a bit of a stretch, but I loved them! Given my inclination to move all things beachy into our suburban ranch house, I'm trying to figure out where to put one of these things. By the pool is probably the best spot. We could use it to store all of the pool junk--nets, vacuum, chemicals, floats, etc. But it can't be too close or some of the adreneline junkies who use the pool will be diving off the platform, and the deep end's just not deep enough for that! The Art Deco architecture was fun to see, too. But everybody talks/writes about that, leaving those cute little beach huts feeling completely ignored. I've included photos of my three favorites. I was in Miami Beach for Sleuthfest , a mystery writers conference sponsored by the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. I've written a mystery, Redneck Tarot, and was at the conference to pitch to agents and editors. I have one of each who woul...

This was the week of biology lessons in our chicken room. That room as been home to lots of wildlife, from the human to the non-human variety. First the chickens lived there. Then a hive of bees moved into the walls. This week we finally got the bees removed--and discovered the walls had become home to carpenter ants and these disgusting beetles that look like ticks, except when they're in the larval stage and look like maggots--blech! Thanks to Georgetown House who provided a tip about finding someone to take our bees alive! Chris, my husband, found Cindy Bee, a woman who has been ridding homes of bees for 11 years! She came out on Thursday and took ours away--and let me watch, take pictures and learn about the process. She doesn't need to worry that I'm planning to horn in on her business. It looks scary as hell! The first photo shows the outside wall of the chicken room. This is all we could see of the bee hive until Cindy exposed it all. We could occasionally see the ...