Beach House in the Burbs

You think moving a household (or a house, for that matter) is hard, try moving a business full of heavy equipment when you're too cheap to hire movers! My husband owns 3-D Graphics & Printing , a large-format printing business. But just because it's HIS business, doesn't mean I'm uninvolved--and becoming more involved by the minute! Click here you'll see a photo of me holding up a very large aerial photo of Jacksonville Airport that we printed. Anyway, I say all this to explain my blogging slackness--after trying to do better this month. I'm part of an online group that had an August Blog Challenge --to try to blog every day for a month. I didn't sign up to do it because we were out of town, had company, got found by a new cat (looks like his name will be Stewie, since his head is sort of football shaped, like the baby Stewie on Family Guy--a show I can't stand, by the way) and had this move scheduled. But I convinced myself I'd blog at least twi...

How many cats do you have to have before you become a crazy cat lady? Six years ago, Miss Kitty appeared on our doorstep right before Christmas in the freezing cold. Our first cat (we're really dog people) she's with us still. Last year about this time, Dusty Cat showed up in our yard. We were determined to keep him an outside cat, which was easy for me. He wasn't very nice at first. But then it got to be winter. Despite living in Georgia, we do experience winter. So, long about Christmas we got him neutered and brought him in the house. He's now about the sweetest cat I've ever seen. He seems, in fact, to think he's a dog. (It took Miss Kitty five months to come out of our bathroom. But now she likes Dusty Cat okay.) Now, a really cute black cat, with a white spot on his chest and great, huge green eyes, has shown up. (All I can figure is word's gotten out in the kitty community that there's a crazy cat lady on the street, so drop by. She'll take yo...

Chris , another blogger/writer, posted this on her blog and challenged folks to introduce their characters--or think about the facts as they relate to their characters. So, here's a brief introduction to Billy Poteet, the 20-something-year-old sidekick in my as yet unpublished mystery Redneck Tarot. Eight Character Facts 1. Your Character's Favorite Word: Anything that rhymes and can be combined with "damn." Damn-spam is a favorite--and he doesn't mean the annoying e-mail kind of spam. 2. Your Character's Favorite Pastime: Shooting televisions from the comfort of his outdoor recliners. 3. Your Character's Oddest Thought: How many bites would you have to take of a cat before it died? 4. Your Character's Favorite Food or Snack: Hamburgers and beer 5. Your Character's Worst Memory: When his father died. 6. Your Character's Likes or Dislikes: Billy likes the small, north Georgia town he lives in. He hates anybody messing with his friends or family....

No, I never claimed to be a good cook. But, honestly, any idiot ought to be able to bake a potato in the microwave. Get a load of the mess that appears when a potato explodes all over the oven! I swear I poked holes in it. What the picture doesn't show is that the potato skin was completely empty. Every bit of the inside blew out, leaving a hard, crusty, empty shell. It’s a good thing Chris can cook, or we’d be living on cold cereal and restaurant fare for the rest of our lives.

I was tagged to play this game, but maybe you're headed into the witness protection program or you've been asked to star in the next superhero movie. Sounds like fun, but you can't use your own name. The folks at your day job just wouldn't understand. This meme will help get those creative naming juices flowing. 1. Your real name: Karen 2. Your Gangsta name: (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle) Karizzle 3. Your Detective name: (fave color and fave animal) Red Dog (sounds like a beer, to me!) 4. Your Soap Opera name: (your middle name and street you live on) Ann Rich (Not terribly exciting. I"ll probably be killed off or at least go into a coma in the first season!) 5. Your Star Wars name: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name) Kenka (Are you sure this isn't the porn name?) 6. Your Superhero name: (your 2ND favorite color, and favorite drink) Pink Wine (What a weenie sounding superhero!) 7. Your Iraqi name: (2ND letter o...

Part II of my joining groups post: Recently I’ve read blog posts and comments from writers who’ve had bad experiences with critique groups, including this one here . I just thought I’d share the other side of the experience. I’ve been in the same critique group more years than I like to think about, and I wouldn’t be a writer without them. That said, here are my reasons for happily sticking with them: No. 5 I’ve become a better writer for critiquing the work of other people. Part of my day job is editing newspaper and magazine copy, not books. By thinking about what works and what doesn’t work and why as I read other people’s fiction, I learn to recognize those same things in my own writing. No. 4 They are all good at different things. Carol can see the big picture. She moves sentences, paragraphs or even whole scenes around so that they make more sense or build more suspense than the way I had them. Cindy, with her eye for detail, catches little mistakes, like if a car changes color o...

In the last few days I’ve read several blog posts and comments about writer critique groups and professional organizations—some have been pro groups, some have been anti groups, often so opposed that I found myself wondering who had beat that person up so badly in a group setting. I’ve been a member of Sisters in Crime (writers and readers of mysteries, not a merry band of female criminals) and a smaller critique group for many years and would not have gotten where I am today (granted, it’s not some high, exalted place, but still, I’m happy) without them. So, without further introduction, here are my Top 5 Reasons for Joining and Sticking with Sisters in Crime. Tune in next time (either this weekend or Monday) for my 5 reasons for sticking with a critique group, which has occasionally been known as the Thursday Night Slashers, but generally isn’t really known as anything fancy. No. 5 I’m not a joiner. I’m perfectly happy sitting at home in my pajamas (like right now, they’re bright gr...

I'd never heard of Amphicars , cars that go on land and in the water, until I read my most recent Coastal Living magazine last night while waiting in the MommyVan (No, we don't have children, and I don't even drive the van. Chris, the male spouse in this marriage, drives the fairly beat up 1998 Windstar and dubbed it the MommyVan.) for Chris to pick up his 1976 pickup truck (we don't do new cars) that had to have transmission work. It wouldn't go in reverse; a real drawback in a longbed pickup! Anyway, I've got to have an Amphicar. It's the perfect beach house in the burbs car--part convertible/part boat. My birthday's coming up in September. For those of you planning to get your shopping done early, this is what I want! I prefer the Fjord Green, but am willing to go with the blue or white in a pinch. Get one for me and I promise to take you for a ride!

These are not words you want to read in the same sentence with “beach,” especially when it’s the beach you are spending a week at, and the words are followed by the advisory , “don’t swim.” But it’s what we ran into on , an island off of Apalachicola, in the northern Gulf of Mexico. According to the nice man at the St. George Island State Park , this happens every year—YIKES! We managed to have a good time anyway. Here’s a picture of my dad, on the eve of his 71st birthday, wearing his beach booties (he’s the only man I know who can call size 13 shoes “booties” with a straight face!) while walking his dog, Leroy. This was the day before the advisory went out. We didn’t get Dad or his booties back on the beach after this. When the beach outside our door became unavailable, we headed to St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, about 45 minutes from St. George. It was a beautiful park. (Chris says all beaches look the same, water + sand, but I disagree. Some are cleaner--even without the “waste”...