Years ago, a priest I admired and liked quite firmly insisted that things like knocking on wood or walking under ladders were superstitions and had no place in the life of a Christian who believes in God. And I’ve tried hard to hold to that kind of faith. I don’t exactly go out of my way to walk under ladders, but then, I don’t freak when a black cat crosses my path. I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane for the first time on Friday the thirteenth and got married without something old or borrowed about my person.

And so, I firmly told myself, just because my air handler/heat pump has finally given up the ghost, long past the life expectancy noted in my pre-purchase home inspection, mind you, and my brand new iPad also died, way before its time, there was no reason to believe that misfortune always comes in threes. But still... there was that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Now I’m wondering which of the events since is to be considered the other shoe!

As I write this, my AC/heat guy is outside replacing my air handling system that had been limping along for the past two years with temporary fixes with a brand new, up to date (no Freon here) system. And Best Buy promptly replaced the iPad that failed to take a charge. But yesterday, I wrote out a check for the Fireman’s fund and noted the admonition to replace the batteries in my smoke detectors.  I dug through my bin of batteries and found the right size, only to discover the smoke detector in my bedroom was broken. Quite definitely broken since a piece fell out when the battery was removed. A piece I have no idea how or where to put back. So, off I went to the hardware store, and I now have a new, state of the art, smoke and carbon monoxide detector. Was that number three?

Or is it the door to the air handler that literally fell off when opened today? The door is a heavy one, made of pressed wood and all the screws pulled right clean out. Terry assures me he’ll fix it, but I’m wondering if it shouldn’t be replaced. Time will tell on that one.

Or perhaps it’s the fact that mildew was found in the duct. According to Terry’s son, this often happens when a system is failing and tries so hard to function that it sucks moisture up into the ducts where it does not belong. I’m told that an ultraviolet light will fix this. Of course, they don’t have such a light with them and Terry will have to return another day to install that to the tune of another couple hundred bucks.

So, here’s the big question of the day... Since 5 things have failed this week, does this mean there’s still one more thing out there waiting to pounce? And where’s my friend Ken when I need someone to reassure me that misfortune comes in threes is just a superstition?

I’m fascinated by the sea. I love it in all its many moods. I love the exhilaration of blowing wind and stinging spray. I love the feel of waves splashing about my feet. I love the romance of moonlight on the water and the endless shades of blue through all the seasons. I love to swim in it, or sail on it. I love watching the endless breaking of waves. Most of all, I love living here where it’s part of my life every day.

What is it about the sea that draws me so inexorably? I didn’t grow up living by the sea, although my grandparents enjoyed it enough to take me to spend many days at the beach when I was a child. For awhile my father owned a sailboat that I don’t remember much about sailing in, but after a hurricane sank her, my dad spent months restoring her while my brother and I played along the shore for unfettered hours of endless adventure. But it’s not as though the sea was in my blood. I didn’t descend from fishermen or mariners who earned their livelihood from the sea. I didn’t grow up falling asleep with the rote of the sea as my lullaby, and we lived too far away for the smell of salt to be a part of my daily life.

So why has a life lived at the edge of the sea become so much a part of me now? I’ve friends who retired to Arizona, yet I am appalled by the idea. True there is the Colorado River among many others and the magnificent Grand Canyon, but nowhere does that state touch the sea. When I joined the Peace Corps and they told me I was headed to the South Pacific, my first reaction was Awesome! 173 Islands scattered over hundreds of square miles of ocean, how far away can the beach be from wherever I end up?

Before the Peace Corps, and before moving to my current home, I had a lovely house on the shores of St John’s Bay in Maine for twenty years. Now I live on a barrier island in St Augustine, Florida. My kids love to tease me about the endless photos I feel compelled to take of the sun turning the ocean to pink or fiery red and orange, or the moon sending a river of glittering silver across the inky nighttime surface of the sea. The endless waves fascinate me and I’ve taken hundreds of photos of those, too. Sometimes crashing boldly against the shore sending up massive plumes of spray and at other times eddying quietly about the rocks or running up the beach in smooth sheets of glistening water.

But it can’t be just the astonishing and ever changing beauty of the ocean in its many moods because God’s world it full of heart-stopping beauty. Snow capped mountains and babbling streams. Magnifient fall foliage. Gardens in full bloom. Towering redwoods, sweet-smelling frangipani and lilacs in spring. The Aurora Borealis. Sunrises and sunsets. A sparkling fairyland left behind after a winter storm of freezing rain. Or a rainbow stretched gloriously above a rain-drenched world. A newborn baby or an intricate spider’s web. The beauty of God’s works is boundless, from large to small.

So if it’s not the beauty, then why do I love the sea so? Why do I put up with stainless steel that rusts so I can leave my doors and windows open to let the sound and smell of the ocean come inside? What lures me out to walk on the beach every day with my dog? Why am I compelled to take my shoes off and wade in the waves? Why do I feel this incredible sense of belonging and welcome whenever I return from being somewhere not by the sea? Maybe I’ll never know the answer to those questions, but I do know wherever I travel, I always find myself seeking out the sea, looking for the nearest beach, collecting little stones and shells, sea-treasures from all over the world. And I’ve told my kids when my life is done, don’t hold a wake, but have a beach party to remember and celebrate my life instead. Toss my ashes into the sea so some small part of me will live in it forever. 

You’re probably wondering what Mayhem and Magic have in common, but that’s because you haven’t seen the new show at the Colonial Quarter in downtown St Augustine, FL.  On Friday nights, for a modest ten bucks, you can relax under the stars with a glass of your favorite spirits and see a master magician creating illusions as mind boggling as anything I’ve seen David Copperfield pull off. Forget sawing a woman in half or pulling rabbits out of hats, Mayhem de Magnifico pours wine into glasses that float in the air and does card tricks with a historic flare. Mayhem mixes his magic with interesting tidbits of history, and a great deal of comedy. And it won’t matter where you sit, because even lurking in the shadows at the back you might still be enlisted to become part of the act.

Last Friday my friend and I had supper at a terrific little Greek restaurant on Cathedral Place, then wandered up St George Street. The town was hopping this past Friday due to it being First Friday, the night when there are new art exhibits all over town. There was also live entertainment at Ann O’Malley’s and the San Sebastian Winery, two stage plays that I know of and a comedy show. But as we returned down St George Street some while later, having laughed and marveled and been thoroughly entertained, we were glad we’d chosen to stop in at the Quarter and take in Mayhem de Magnifico.

I’m not going to give away any of Mayhem’s marvelous illusions because I really want you to head on down and see them for yourself. But I can tell you they involve jewels and coins and a very real sword. From now until at least the start of the new year Mayhem de Magnifico will be performing on Friday nights at 8:00pm. The gates open at 7:30pm and tickets can be purchased at the door. Kids are half price and they sure get their money’s worth as Magnifico draws them right into the action, up on the stage as helpers.

For my birthday a friend gave me a lovely little box all wrapped up with a bow. Wondering what could possibly be inside, I tugged the ribbon off and lifted the lid. It was a pin. A round one – the kind with logos and sayings on them. Mine declared in a careless scrawl, “I write to silence the voices.” And perhaps that’s true, because I really don’t have a consistent answer to that question. When people ask me point blank it depends on the day what pops into my head to tell them.

I loved creative writing in school but I never really did anything with it once I reached adulthood until I got laid off and was out of work for ten months at a time after my husband had passed away and all my kids had flown the coop. Perhaps that was the first time things got quiet enough in my life for me to actually hear the voices. I eventually found a new position and returned to full time work. Five years later I took a hiatus and spent two years in the Peace Corps, then returned to work, but all that while the stories kept coming to me and I kept writing. In spite of the fact that so far I'd not convinced a publisher to take on any of the books I'd written.

Now I’m retired. I’ve built a new life in a new city, made a ton of new friends, and gotten involved with the historical re-enactment community. I live by the beach and spend at least some small part of each day on it, generally walking barefoot in the sand, as my website tagline suggests. I don’t need a royalty check to pay the mortgage or put food on the table. Writing had never become a career. So, WHY do I still write?

Why do I spend most of my time with my fingers on the keyboard and my head lost in the lives of imaginary people? Writing their stories does not shut the voices up, it just encourages them. They whisper in my ear while I’m falling asleep and shout to be heard over the rush of water in the shower. They keep me company while I’m walking the beach, and my dog is off checking out the scents of every other creature that visited the area recently. They argue with me when they don’t like what I have planned for them. My hero wants to get laid, and I tell him to take a cold shower. My heroine wants to find Prince Charming, and I tell her to get real. The kid can’t wait to grow up and I preach patience. I put my fingers on the keys absolutely certain I know what I’m going to write next, but when I pause, I realize that my characters have gone and done something totally different, and they are thumbing their noses at me. But even so, I am compelled. I keep writing.

My laptop travels with me wherever I go. I can’t leave these fascinating characters behind, even if they are contrary and argumentative half the time. They are real and they have lives to live and stories to tell and somehow, I’ve been elected to tell them. I’m considering an even more portable tablet and if they come out with an App for my smartphone, I’ll have it downloaded in a heartbeat. I simply can’t imagine NOT writing. But why?

And this morning the answer came to me in the form of a quote from Steve Jobs that a friend posted on Facebook:

“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.”

Check out WHATEVER IT TAKES, a Political intrigue publised by Wings ePress - June 2012  --- and coming in March of 2014 the first of my Contemporary romance series (the Camerons of Tides Way)   FALLING FOR ZOE.

Back when I was a child, my grandmother would sponge leftover breakfast off my face with a spit dampened handkerchief and call it a “lick and a promise.” When applied to me in the entryway to our church, it meant I’d get a bath come bedtime. She also used that phrase in relation to housecleaning when passing a hasty duster over all the flat surfaces in her home on the unexpected arrival of guests or giving the kitchen a cursory cleaning before hurrying out the door for work. Of course my grandmother backed that up with a day of hard labor on Saturdays and ultimately with thorough spring and fall cleanings. I often think of her as I give my house a “lick and a promise” and hurry off to do something more interesting or fun. I haven’t done a spring or fall cleaning in my lifetime and I don’t usually back it up with a Saturday dedicated to cleaning the house, either.

Instead, my housecleaning seems to take on all the aspects of classic military mission creep. Like this past week, the day I needed to toss a few clothes in the washer before I ran out of clean underwear. Since my bed hadn’t been made yet anyway, I figured I might as well wash the sheets while I was at it. The mattress cover was cockeyed so I go to straighten it and notice how much dust has accumulated between upright posts of the bedframe. Didn’t I just clean that when my kids were here? Oh, wait! That was Christmas! Have I really been sleeping next to all this crud for the better part of a year?

I get the cleaning stuff out and begin running a rag between each of the posts. I love my bed, but it’s not the easiest to clean... and I realize I need to push the bed away from the wall to get at the backside. Which leads to the revelation that the dust on the under-bed storage bins is thick enough to write love letters in. Which further leads to the need to go unearth my vacuum from the over-full storage closet and suck up all the dust bunnies that have grown into lions. By now I have pretty much all the usual cleaning supplies gathered around me and I’ve succumbed to the inevitability of cleaning the entire bedroom. Which means taking down the curtains. All the time ignoring the nagging thought that it just might be dust I’m allergic to.

Hauling down the curtains reminds me that the rods are rusty and I’ve been meaning to replace them. They are rusty because I hate to turn on the AC and prefer to open my windows, which, lets in all the salt air along with the sound and scent of the sea.

“Hey, Duff? Wanna go for a ride?” Duffy loves to ride in the car, whatever the excuse! So, off we go to Home Depot where I find wooden rods with totally hidden hardware. Perfect! Back home, I hunt down all the required tools and begin that project. I’m already a long way beyond my original intention to do the laundry, but as the afternoon wears on, I come upon the stash of totes I hadn’t put away when I got home from summer in New England. I carry them to the storage closet. Which requires me to stop and organize that because I’d left everything pulled out of place when I went after the vacuum cleaner. The big duffle bags I’d shoved under the bed go out to the car to be taken back to my storage unit until next summer. A folder of mail buried under the cushions on the window seat gets taken to my desk and checked to make sure there isn’t something in it that should have been attended to weeks ago. All the odds and ends retrieved from the nooks and crannies of my suitcase and dumped on the bureau get dealt with. The stack of books I’d read but never put away are removed from the bedside table and re-shelved in the library. I replace the white duct tape I use to protect the leading edges of the cheap fan blades (But that’s a whole ‘nother story) in the ceiling fan. I even replace the dead bulb over the bathroom mirror and clean the bathroom.

  By now it is well past three in the afternoon. I never did stop for lunch. I missed low tide and our usual walk on the beach. And I didn’t get the bills paid, which was my intention for the day. BUT! When all is reassembled, the room looks bright, clean and tidy. The new curtain rods are perfect. The air still has a hint of salt, but if dust is what I’m allergic to, I’ll sleep better tonight. And I’m almost certain my grandmother is smiling in approval.

After a busy summer visiting family and rusticating on our island in New Hampshire, I am back in the land of running water and hot showers. Everyone around me is pining for cooler fall weather, but I’m soaking up the heat and loving every minute of it. Perhaps they should spend a week or six sleeping in a tent with nighttime temps dipping low enough to necessitate the use of L.L. Bean’s finest winter-weight sleeping bags. Or taking a bath in water that makes one gasp on first contact. Anyway, I am happy to be home in my bungalow by the sea, enjoying the sun, and walking on the beach every day.

The deadline for my first sale to Bell Books was September 1^st, so I was pretty busy finishing that project my first couple weeks at home. I also had my writer’s chapter checkbook to balance and a monthly treasurer’s report to submit, a meeting to attend and two doctor’s appointments. In a rush to get to one of those appointments on time, I grabbed a bottle of shampoo my sister had passed on to me and proceeded to squirt a healthy dollop onto my head.

Those of you who’ve been following this blog awhile might recall the post about my sister who celebrated her arrival at the big five-oh, by opting to color her hair. NOT coloring to cover the ever-increasing gray, but to add a flamboyant and totally unnatural tint to her locks. It’s been orange, purple, green, blue and pink. On the day I wrote of earlier, Sarah arrived on the island in a downpour, by rowboat (of course) with rivers of blue running down her face and into her shirt.

So perhaps you can imagine my horror when I gazed down into the sink to see this:

  Sarah’s not the type to pull pranks, but just what was in that bottle of hand-me-down shampoo? I know I’m old enough to be in the “blue-hair” set, but please! Not this shade of blue. A glance in the mirror wasn’t reassuring. I snatched the bottle off the counter. “Color enhancing” read the label. “Helps to remove dulling residue to reveal luminous silver strands.” Well, that didn’t sound too threatening. I started to breathe again. I rinsed, praying I wasn’t going to have to show up for my annual physical with a blue do. My doctor is a very patient man, but explaining my sister might take more time than he had to spare. The conditioner was far duller than the shampoo, but still very definitely blue. I rinsed thoroughly. And rinsed again. Rinsed a third time. I have white towels – no need for everything to turn blue...

To my everlasting relief, my hair came out pretty much as it always does, a heathery mix of sun-streaked blond, hints of my once rich brunette, and far too much gray...I mean silver. Silver sounds so much nicer than gray, don’t you think? Maybe I should keep the stuff after all.

Years ago, my kids, who at the time were childless, all came to our family island on a lake in New Hampshire for a long weekend. As we packed up to go home, my son-in-law insisted that we had to do this again and next year, for a whole week. We’ve been coming for that week of family fun and togetherness ever since. As children came along, it became a chance for cousins who live in different states to hang out and get to know each other and for siblings to reconnect and create memories to last a lifetime.

We call the week Mutt’s Nuts (long story) and in addition to being time to swim, play games, have campfires and enjoy time together, we have also had some fantastic parties: safaris and pirate parties, wedding and baby showers, and big birthday bashes.

This year, during Mutt’s Nuts we had an infestation of fairies. They built homes all over the island, next to tents, hanging in trees, even on the beach. Then our own little munchkins got to be fairies for the day, dressing up in fairy skirts with wreaths of flowers in their hair. The fairy luncheon had the most marvelous menu, from real cucumber sandwiches to chocolate kiss acorns. There were snail sandwiches and deviled eggs with tomato caps and so much more. The girls loved it.

My daughter, Bobbi, began planning the event months ago and her living room became a fairy house factory. She made the flower wreaths for their hair and conned me into creating the fairy skirts. Jack, being the only boy present got a special crown of feathers that looked very manly, but he opted to copy the girls and wear flowers. My sister even dyed her dog purple for the occasion and both dogs sprouted wings to join the fun.

The girls later snuck off to build more fairy houses of their own, and in the evening we had fairy jars of twinkling lights. Such fun!  Thank you Bobbi, for bringing the fairies to Mutt’s Nuts.

The Beaver                                                                                                    I'm a Boston lady of 1773

When you get invited to a tea party, you generally think of dressing up a bit and sitting at a prettily laid table while sipping tea from fine china cups. But this summer, my granddaughter, Theresa and I went to a very different kind of tea party.

The Boston Tea Party!

Theresa had read a book on her summer reading list about the original tea party so her mother thought it would be fun if Grammy could take her to Boston to the Tea Party Museum. So, off we went. Although the original Boston Tea Party took place at night, this day was sunny and beautiful for a trip into this lovely old city. There are two replicas of the original merchant ships that sat in Boston Harbor loaded with tea while the Sons of Liberty and the British governor argued about the new tax levied on the tea. The Beaver and the Eleanor sit at the pier and the whole tour is a very fun reenactment.

Every visitor is given a role to play, and the name of one of the original tea party goers. Some of them have speaking parts and join in the assembly where Sam Adams does his rabble rousing best to fire up resentment against the tax and a refusal to let the tea be brought ashore. Then, with feathers stuck in our caps or hair, we troop onto one of the two ships and toss tea into the harbor. The kids got a huge kick out of that part and Theresa hauled her bale back aboard to re-toss several times.

Let's have a Tea Party!                                                                       Stearing the ship

The rest of the tour was instructive about how the Boston Tea Party led to the insurrection, with a short presentation on a wide 3-D screen of the first shots fired at Lexington Mass. What a fantastic way to learn about a little bit about  how this great country got its birth. Abigail’s Tea House is a great little place to enjoy a snack when you finish the tour. If you live near Boston, do go. If you don’t, why not plan a trip to this wonderful little city? The Boston Tea Party Museum is only just one of many places to see and things to do in Boston. Lots of history and lots of other great stuff, too.

The Captain's Cabin aboard the Eleanor was well appointed to show his wealth and success.

Last week I showed you my tent in it's original site, at the top of the hill with a fantastic view of the lake. Here's where it is now - nestled in a hollow down at the bottom of the hill. No view, but less wind.

Much as it pains me to admit to even thinking I might be too old for something, I’ve twice had a fleeting vision of renting a nice, cozy, dry place on shore next year instead of spending 6 weeks in a tent on my island. The first time was while I was wrestling an upside down tent in a 40-knot wind, in the dark and cursing steadily throughout.

I’d gone to bed, in my tent as usual, and was reading a book when the wind suddenly picked up. Rain was on the way and my tent doesn’t leak so I settled back and continued to read. As the wind grew harder, one lightweight, very flexible tent pole suddenly bent INWARD, bringing the entire side of the tent with it. I shoved it back into place with my foot and lay there on my back bracing the tent with both feet, now praying fervently that the wind would drop. Unfortunately my prayers were not answered and the next thing I see is the fly slipping off. I jump up and get out of the tent to capture the fly before it sails off to destroy itself on the surrounding trees.

It should have occurred to me that as soon as my weight was not holding down the mattress and thus, the tent, something worse might happen. All the tent stakes had been yanked out of the ground, both those around the base of the tent and the ones further out securing the fly. Securing! Hah! I should have had tent stakes the size they use to hold circus tents up. My entire tent flipped upside down with all my gear inside, including the dog’s crate, but thankfully not the dog who had opted to stay in the camp for the night. He’d have been in a panic so that was something to be thankful for, anyway.

So here I am, trying to find my way back into the tent to retrieve my flashlight to augment the pale light of the moon. The moon was nearly full, but for some reason didn’t seem to shed a whole lot of light on the mess. I eventually found the door, which happened to be on the opposite side from where it should have been and managed to locate not only the flashlight, but also my glasses which, by some exceedingly good chance, had not been crushed by any of the tumbling gear. With the threat of rain on the way, I knew I had to get all the rest of it collected and back to the camp, so I grabbed as much as I could carry and headed over to bring back the wagon. Three trips later and all that was left was the dark, unrecognizable outline of my deflated summer bedroom.

Locating black tent poles in the dark and figuring out where the other end might be is not as easy as one might think when going by feel alone. I now have a whole new appreciation for what blind folks live with every day. But they, at least, don’t have to dismantle a tumbled tent with a 40-knot gale still blowing down the lake with unabated relish. It didn’t rain, Thank God, but I was exhausted by the time all was safely stowed and I fell onto an exceedingly uncomfortable cot for the remainder of the night. It was 2:00 am and that’s the first time it occurred to me that it might be nice to have a cottage with a comfy bed and running water and warm showers to summer in.

Just a few days later, I was returning to the island from a trip to my son’s. All the way up, it threatened rain, but none fell. So, Murphy being such a great friend and all, as I arrived at the beach to launch our little boat, the rain began. I had grabbed big trash bags just in case, so I dropped my suitcase, tote and all the stuff I’d hauled up with me for our family week into bags, got the boat turned over and loaded. The rain got heavier as I drove back up the hill to park and still more persistent as Duff took his sweet time hunting for just the right place to relieve himself as we walked back down the hill. By the time we were in the boat and headed to the island it was downright pouring. We arrived cold, soaked and shivering to an unheated camp. That was the second time I considered the value of having a cozy little cottage on the shore.

I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that I just might be too old for this shit!

Duff at Paws Beach Pet Resort                              Scott's Hill NC (a.k.a. Tides Way)

It’s been awhile since I posted here and in the interim, many things have caught my interest and provoked a desire to share my thoughts. But busyness got in the way. Or I was on the road with my laptop packed away.

My last few days at home in St Augustine were, as always, busy with packing and lists, making sure I turned off the water heater and locked all the windows, stopping the paper and forwarding my mail, packing my bathing suit and laptop (making sure not to forget the recharging cords for all my gadgets,) grabbing time for lunch with one friend and supper with another, and of course, going downtown to see the 4^th of July fireworks and taking one last long walk on my beach.

Then it was off to New England with a detour in North Carolina to do some research for my new series, The Camerons of Tides Way. FALLING FOR ZOE, the first book in the series will be released by Belle Bridge Books in March 2014 with five others to follow. Since they are set in a lovely little place my imagination dreamed up not far from Wilmington NC, it just made sense to visit the area again on my way north to take photos, refresh my memory and germinate new ideas. I met and chatted with some of the nicest folk who willingly dropped their tasks to answer questions and share their knowledge of the area. Thanks especially to a nice gentleman near the waterway who told me about the tides, a long ago plantation and the lilies that were taking over his yard. Two lovely ladies at the airport, Mary Pfannenstein and Alice Razzano, pointed me in several directions with advice on places I really needed to see. While I was out poking about this wonderful little corner of our country, Duff was lounging at Paws Beach Pet Resort, swimming and playing with the other pooches. I think we both enjoyed this side trip very much.

I stopped in Maryland overnight and again in Massachusetts, and got to see one daughter and her hubby, my son and his wife, four of my grandchildren, a niece and my Dad before finally arriving in New Hampshire. Oddly enough, considering I drove over 1000 miles, the temperatures didn’t change. It was 82 when I left St Augustine and 82 when I got out to my little island up here. The heat and humidity didn’t make schlepping all my gear over from the mainland to the island all that much fun, nor setting up my tent and unpacking. But the reward was a lovely long swim with Duff. That and the gorgeous sunset that ended my first day here.

In spite of no television, which can be a blessing, I am in touch with the world via the internet. So I wasn’t spared the not guilty verdict for a man who killed another unarmed citizen and all the media hype. While I am convinced that justice wasn’t best served, I am appalled that our president and others with no business getting involved in the Florida justice system now feel they have to do something. And while all this is flooding the news, nearly to the exclusion of anything else, what about Russia’s big show of force with military exercises on the borders of China and Japan? What about the volatile situation in Egypt? Or the boat that capsized with 150 asylum seekers near Australia? Or the bombing of a Buddhist temple in India? And the ethnic clashes in Guinea that has taken so many lives. Never mind our own military, still struggling to maintain a fragile peace in Afghanistan and Iraq. The list of distressing events is lengthy and under-reported. Almost as if no one in this country really cares unless the media tells us we should. Missing children,  firemen who gave their lives protecting others, our flagging economy and monthly jobs reports, dead diplomats and downed planes get a brief mention, but they too get swamped by the media circus over one trial, and I find that so much more distressing than the acquittal of one man in a controversial case in Florida. Why are we not more concerned with what National secrets Edward Snowdon might reveal to our enemies? Or which citizens our government is currently spying on? Or who the IRS will target next?  Why are we not making a bigger push to either fix or get rid of Obamacare before it becomes the biggest nightmare in our country's history?

So, those are my thoughts on this gorgeous day in New Hampshire while I sit in a beach chair on my pine-needle strewn island with my laptop on my knees listening to the soft slap of water against the shore. I know I am truly blessed and I shall pray for all those who are struggling wherever they may be in this world.

My new summer digs                                                           And my summer transportation (at least until I get to shore.)