Here We Go Again! by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGems

It’s July and it’s time to frolic in the ocean, cavort in the pool, or loll in the lake. Or simply sit by the water where negative ions theoretically give off relaxing vibes while simultaneously boosting energy and alleviating depression.

Yes, that makes perfect sense. And while I crave the feel of sand between my toes and the sounds of waves lapping at the shore, what I’m getting this summer is the sound of shopping cart wheels rolling over pavement.

Moving is supposed to be one of the most stressful activities a person can experience. After living in ten different places during the first 20 years of my life, I was lulled into complacency by settling in a house where we stayed for almost 40 years.

But who needs to take care of a big old house when the kids have flown the nest and there’s always something to fix, clean or replace?

Oh, how delightful to move to a condo community where someone else shovels the snow and mows the grass! How lovely to wander off to a pool someone else cleans. Like the pain of childbirth, the horrendous experience of disposing of 40 years’ worth of accumulated possessions and moving the remainders into a new place fades after settling in.

Or it did, until with very little warning, our landlord decided to sell the place out from under us. Lucky for us, we were able to find a new place right across the street.

Easy, right?

You’d think that after the first round of downsizing moving would be smoother. But no. Right now I’m marveling at the amount of junk we managed to squeeze into a little two bedroom condo. It doesn’t seem to matter if we’re moving across the street or across the country.

The timing is the saving grace. Instead of the usually frantic move-it-all-in-one-day process we’ve done in the past, this time there’s a week between the time we own the new place and the time we have to vacate the current one.  It all sounded so simple in theory.

So here we are, loading the shopping carts so kindly provided so people can transport their goods from the garage to their door, and making endless trips across the street to deposit boxes as we pack them.

What we’ve got here is a prolonged period of not knowing where anything went when we need it and not agreeing where anything goes when it gets there.

Looking back, childbirth was a breeze compared to this. I can only hope that amnesia will set in once we’re finally settled, and we’ll have time to find a body of water where we can soak up some of those negative ions.

I Hear a Symphony by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGems

 Here in New Jersey, and no doubt in many other parts of the Eastern US, we’re being treated to courtship rituals of epic proportions. Namely, the emergence of the cicada brood known as Brood X, which is the largest group to emerge en masse once every 17 years.

Their presence is unmistakable in the areas where they appear. The nymphs burrow out of the ground and make their way to the treetops, where they shed their shells to reveal a fairly frightening looking creature only another cicada could love.

Cicadas are the original litterbugs. Once they arrive their discarded shells litter the ground. They spread their newly hatched wings and wait a few days to harden, and then the fun begins, because their entire purpose is to find a mate.

Teenagers and rock stars blasting their music have nothing on these little guys. The din of what seems to be loosely translated as the male trilling “come on, honey, I’m up here in the treetops waiting for you” is overwhelming as thousands of males rub their legs together to produce a raspy, crickety symphony, which in concert is about equivalent to a jet engine, maybe.

Who knows how the ladies choose their ideal mate? Is it the bug with the loudest song, the highest perch on the tree, the most attractive wings?

The entire production lasts about a month, during which people are subjected to swarms of flying insects, followed by the corpses of the satiated adults dropping from the trees. Because once the male lures the female and fertilizes her eggs, his job on earth is done, and he’s done for. Mama cicada follows soon after, once she lays her eggs in a tree branch. Baby cicadas hatch, fall from the trees, and burrow into the earth to wait for the next 17-year mating party.

In the meantime, medical professionals are issuing warnings that people who are allergic to shellfish shouldn’t eat the little buggers, which certainly wouldn’t be the first thing coming to my mind when it’s time for dinner. 

Even stranger, a Princeton High School insect-eating club (INSECT EATING CLUB??? Seriously? I thought Princeton produced unusually intelligent people!) is planning a taste-testing event to decide which cicada recipe is yummiest. 

To top it off, cicadas are vulnerable to a fungus which (I am not making this up) causes their butts to fall off to be replaced with a blob of fungus the size of a pencil eraser, but more importantly does something to their brains which scientists, in a very professional way, say makes them unusually horny. (Yes, you read that right.) This causes the cicada to mate with even more partners, resulting in the spread of a cicada-STD.

How appropriate that this all takes place in June, a month dedicated to weddings.  Is Mother Nature a hopeless romantic who planned it that way?

And aren’t you glad human courtship is not quite so gruesome?

Romance Gems celebrate June brides this month! 

Please take time to add some of our brides to your summer reading list!

On the Road Again by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGems

 My sister once told me she knew it was time to move when her oven got dirty or it was time to wash the curtains.

We lived in the same house for almost 40 years before renting the place where we live now, rented mainly because we sold the house but couldn’t figure out where we wanted to go next.

Selling a house you’ve lived in that long means leaving so many things behind. I wonder if the new owners will decide to dig deep into the garden and find the pet cemetery. I wonder if they’ll know the spots where the irises come up in the spring or know not to trim back the gigantic aster bush because it will bloom in the fall. I knew all the plants in the yard and all the strange spots in the house where you had to turn the doorknob just so and to pull the door a little toward me in order to get the key to work. I knew the stain where my mother in law spilled grape juice on my brand new light gray carpet the first time we had a family dinner after we bought it.

More importantly, I had my people and my places. The convenience store where I went for coffee, the dry cleaner where I felt I’d won a victory when the owner finally said hello after grunting at me for several years, the ladies in the library who asked if I was okay after seeing that I checked out several books on depression for writing research, and who admitted they’d been discussing the issue with surprise because I always seemed so cheerful. I knew that the cashier, George, in the grocery store was writing a book and that clerk Janice was studying to be a medical assistant.

Our daughter was horrified at the thought of us selling “her” house even though she said she had no intention of ever moving back to New Jersey. Our son wondered what took us so long.

But now, after a few years in our rented place, I have new people and new places and a landlord who surprised us by telling us he was selling the place and it’s time for us to go.

This move should be easier because we’ve already sold, given away, or tossed huge piles of things. And we have lots of things…um…already packed.  (Never unpacked!)

Moving is an adventure, I tell myself.  Moving is also one of the most stressful things a person can do.

At least we didn’t stay here long enough for me to have to clean the oven or wash the curtains.

  ~  Happy Mother's Day!  ~

 

What on Earth Are We Saying? by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGems

Writers, of course, have an affinity for words and too much curiosity, which can send us spiraling down some weird mental pathways. So when my fellow Gems chose April showers as this month’s theme, “raining cats and dogs” immediately popped into my head.

What kind of crazy thing is that to say, anyway? Off I went on a Google search that informed me of two very disturbing situations. Apparently in 17^th century England it sometimes rained so hard and so long that the bodies of dead animals, including cats and dogs, washed up in the streets. Ick! Then again, some people speculate that in a heavy rain the bodies of small animals washed out of the thatched roofs of the cottages, landing on the heads of the hapless inhabitants. Either way, I’d recommend umbrellas and boots.

While the British cling to the somewhat factual cats and dogs, people in other countries use different expressions to describe heavy rains.  The most common seems to be pouring buckets or being doused by a watering can, which is kind of boring but sensible.  The Cantonese, however, say it’s raining dog poo, no kidding! We should all probably stay away from that part of the world, or at least remember that umbrella.

Since we’re discussing the origins of expressions, and I’m sure most people never wonder these things at all, I’ll admit that while calling bingo at the assisted living facility where I work, I tend to say “by George, you’ve got it” when someone calls out the correct winning numbers. But one day someone wondered…who the heck is George?

Sure, Henry Higgins said that in My Fair Lady, but why? He couldn’t have been the first person to use that expression.

Inexplicably, “by George” is a battle cry uttered by soldiers before charging into battle, again originating in Britain.  Or if you believe other sources, “by George” is a substitute for saying “by God.” I’m not satisfied with either explanation.

Again with the bingo crowd, because bingo leads to deep thoughts, people who are off by just one number often bemoan the fact that they “almost” won. Inevitably someone else will comment that “close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

Why? Naturally, I had to look it up.

Maybe I’m the last to know, but it seems in horseshoes as long as your horseshoe is close to the stake it doesn’t have to actually encircle the stake. Or the person closest to the stake wins. Or something.

The hand grenade thing is self-explanatory.

And by George, maybe I shouldn’t think so much.

 

We've Come a Long Way, Maybe by Hannah Rowan

In the process of cleaning out her mother’s house, my friend was astounded and maybe even horrified to come across three books giving advice about sex.  “I can’t imagine my prim mother reading these books,” she said.

(Seriously, who wants to think about their mother reading sex books? The only proper use of a mother’s sex books is for pre-adolescent girls to sneak and read under the covers while Mom thinks she’s sleeping.)

Anyway, knowing I write romance, she offered them to me.

Had her mother still been alive, she would have been near 100 years old.  What kind of advice, I wondered, were women getting way back in the day? I gleefully accepted her offer.

What better time to learn the secrets of blissful love than February, the month of Valentine’s Day?

I’m now traumatized by the whole thing.

In my formative years I learned a lot from True Confession magazine or True Story, and later, much more seriously, such books as The Feminine Mystique (1963) by Betty Friedan, The Women’s Room (1977) by Marilyn French, or Our Bodies, Ourselves (1969) by the Boston Women’s Health Collective, and so many more. I can’t even remember the titles of the many books I read in college when minoring in Human Sexuality.  (Don’t tell my children.)

Probably one of the unifying themes in all of this reading was that they portrayed women as…well…actual people.

Now I come upon such intriguing titles as Married Love, by Marie C. Stopes (1918) dedicated “to young husbands and all those who are betrothed in love.” Banned in the United States, this book, though the language was stilted and many of the ideas about the roles of men and women, husbands and wives are extremely stereotyped, was groundbreaking in that the author not only proposed that women (or wives, since unmarried woman apparently didn’t have sex) were entitled to enjoy sex, and their husbands had very well better learn how to make that happen.

Then along came The Sexual Side of Marriage (1939) by M.J. Exner M.D. Although it reads like a textbook in a lot of ways, this book offers many constructive and practical suggestions for couples to enjoy a healthy love life. Married couples, of course.

The highlight of my delving into the past is The Ideal Sex-Life, How to Attain and Practice (1940) by Dr. J. Rutgers, which comes with the warning that it’s “intended for circulation among mature persons only.”

Do I dare read it?

 Oh, I wish I hadn’t, because among other things it explores the sex lives of chickens as a way to explain mating to children, explores antiquated biological theories, and expounds on the virtues of self-control.  Possibly not very helpful to the newly married person in the early 20^th century who’s just trying to figure out what’s what.

While some of the ideas about women’s sexuality could be considered revolutionary in these books, they all carried an underlying theme that the pleasure of women, specifically married women, was simply another way to make their men happy.

I don’t know what value my friend’s mother found in her reading material, but my friend does have two brothers, so I hope she put some of it to good use.

Who knew that our grandmas were up to such shenanigans? And what will our children find when they clean out our bookshelves?

I think perhaps it’s time to purge my library.

Going Back in Time by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGems

 On one of our almost-daily hikes, the man of the house and I returned to the scene of the crime, or more accurately, to Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, the place where we met.

No, we weren’t patients, though our children love to shock their friends by saying that’s where we met.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mclib/2222739491/
Main Building on a sunny day

He had just come home from the army and spent his first summer home there working in recreation before transferring to the children’s unit in the fall so he could attend college.

I worked in recreation for three long years, my first full time, not-a-summer-job job. Then I went back to school part time and worked in personnel. Finally, when I was in grad school and ready to do my psychology internship, where did they assign me? Of course, Greystone. I couldn’t seem to escape the place.

Working there was…well…insane. We met people from outer space and many, many versions of the Messiah. We made life-long friends and had so many experiences that wouldn’t have made sense to people who didn’t work there.

No idea what this is!

  The grounds were gorgeous and we had our own farm with pigs        and chickens. The building we called Main Building was a historic      Kirkbride building with the second largest footprint in the country,        after the Pentagon. We had a bowling alley, a movie theater,              baseball fields, basketball courts, and a bandshell.  We had a big      auditorium/gym where we held dances or played bingo.

  The place could get pretty spooky. Dark, damp, and scary tunnels    ran from building to building with an atmosphere that would have      felt at home in a horror movie. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was just a routine day at work for us.

The State of New Jersey gradually removed most of the patients and let the buildings fall into disrepair. And due to various political machinations, the beautiful Main Building that had been the centerpiece of the hospital eventually was knocked down in spite of the efforts of a “Preserve Greystone” group.

Maybe it’s natural to grow nostalgic as the year draws to a close, but as we walked the paths we once followed many years ago, we’d point out landmarks that used to be part of our daily lives. The grounds are still beautiful, but now they’re home to a huge county park with soccer and baseball fields, a dog park, a hockey rink, and a handicap-accessible playground.

All that's left of the Main Building

On a gray day in December the grounds didn’t seem so beautiful and I felt as though the sadness of former patients had soaked into the very soil.

But pretty soon the days will start to get longer and the sun will shine and the grounds will be beautiful again.  And this year will finally be behind us.

Falling into Romance? by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGems

The leaves are turning brilliant colors of orange and yellow, the air is crisp, and there’s frost on car windows in the mornings.  Mums decorate gardens and pumpkins proliferate everywhere. Pumpkin flavor is all the rage, though honestly the thought of pumpkin ice cream or pumpkin-flavored coffee strikes me as rather gross. Spooky decorations abound.

Fall is the time of year when I have clothes strewn all over the house while I’m in the process of washing and storing all my summer clothes, digging out the sweaters, and trying to decide how to dress in the changing weather.

Fall once had its good points. As a child I’d be excited about the start of school. (Yes, I was that kind of kid!) I enjoyed raking leaves into a big pile and setting it on fire, which was legal at the time. And of course there was Halloween when I trudged from door to door filling my pillowcase with yummy treats.

But now…fall means it’s about to get cold!  It means I have to set aside my sandals and squeeze my feet into confining shoes. It means no more Jersey tomatoes or sweet corn from the farm stand.

For me, fall is redeemed by one thing—my wedding anniversary starts off the season. It’s become our tradition to take some sort of special trip in honor of the occasion, and I do love to travel. As the years go on our celebrations have evolved from something along the lines of an overnight trip to the Poconos complete with the heart-shaped whirlpool tub to a week in Europe.

Under normal circumstances this year, our 45^th, would have involved some sort of extra special destination.

What we ended up with was two nights in upstate New York in a resort called Mohonk Mountain House, which honors the spooky part of fall by resembling a haunted Stephen King-like castle. With some trepidation, we ate our meals inside a public place for the first time in over six months.

I swam in the indoor pool and he worked out in the gym, the only guests using them. What a treat after missing my daily swim all these months!

And we walked and walked. Up very high hills where we could look out over the landscape and gaze at the colorful leaves. Through gardens and greenhouses festooned with pumpkins of all sizes. We were lucky to have sunshine and fairly warm weather.

So if my fellow Gems are celebrating Fall into Romance this month, I suppose you could say I qualify, and maybe fall isn’t so bad after all.

Last Chance Beach: Summer's End is here for only a few more weeks. The box set is still only 99¢ and is available on Amazon.

If you haven't picked up your free copy of Cocktails on Last Chance Beach, do that too. Our little recipe book is still in the Top 100 of Bestselling Special Occasion, Beverages, etc. on Kindle.

Don't Make Me Change! by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGems #LastChanceBeach

Online surveys often ask if I’m an early adopter of new technology. Oh, no, not me!  While I heartily approve of all things digital, I find I have to sneak up on new things rather than jump in wholeheartedly.

Part of the problem is me being cheap frugal.  Why replace something that’s working perfectly fine just because a new model is available?

Sooner or later, though, most things wear out and I’m forced to succumb to the need to buy something new. I don’t rush home to tear open a package and use a new thing right away.  Whatever it is has to adapt to being in my home.  A new computer may sit in a box outside my office for a month or so before I reluctantly introduce it to my desk.

Recently my husband’s phone refused to emit any sound no matter what we did to it.  I’d call, it would ring, but when he answered I couldn’t hear him.  Off we went to the phone store where we discovered that not only was his microphone disconnected, but the phone had a virus. 

The perky young clerk shook his head and advised us we’d be better off with a new phone.  And since I’d been complaining about my phone being too slow for the past few years, and I’ve been working around an annoying message about my memory being full, and since the nice young man told us if I also bought the same phone I’d get $30 off, I broke down and bought one for myself.

Transferring most of the data was fairly simple.  However, I had to spend a few days fixing things like the background and the size of the font in an effort to make the new phone look and feel like the old phone.

Mostly it was okay except I lost my knock-knock.

I loved my knock-knock. Whenever I got a text my phone knocked, and it really did sound like someone was knocking on the door. It provided me with little moments of amusement, like when I was in the eye doctor’s office and someone sent me a text.

The doctor was doing his “Which is better, number one or number two? Which is clearer, two or three?“ routine.

“Knock-knock.”

“Come in,” he said, forcing me to explain that it was my phone and not someone intruding on our efforts to measure my eyes.

Similar scenarios played out in many places. Okay, so maybe I’m a tad too easily amused. Sadly, my new phone no longer has the knock-knock sound. It has a doorbell, but it’s just not the same.  I searched so many apps and played so many knock-knock sounds, but none were exactly the same as my old one. Now I’m resigned to ding-dong instead of knock-knock.

With so much in the world changing every day, a change in my text notification sound isn’t anywhere near a catastrophe.  On the other hand, it’s the little moments of enjoyment that keep us all from going totally insane in today’s crazy world.

Here’s something new I don’t mind jumping into…the Gems’ new box set Last Chance Beach: Summer’s End.  

It’s a collection of 14 brand new, short stories from 14 authors.

And grab a copy of our free recipe book Cocktails on Last Chance Beach, and maybe you’ll find a new favorite poolside beverage.

AWAY TO LAST CHANCE BEACH by Hannah Rowan

I don’t remember learning to swim.  It’s something I’ve done as long as I can remember.  As a small child I lived in the big city of Newark, NJ, where chances to swim were pretty slim.  We drove out to the wilds of New Jersey to swim in a small lake, and I can still remember my mother frantically trying to convince me to come out of the water as thunder and lightning crashed over my head.

Fast forward a few years and I had moved to the country, where we went even further west to swim in a man-made lake fed by a mountain spring.  Bones chilled, teeth chattering, and lips turning blue—I refused to get out of the water unless it was to climb up the high dive to take a leap.  I did my own version of water ballet, stood on my head, trying to hold my breath for a world record, and swam back and forth to the raft in the center endless times.

When my sister got a boat she sailed on New Jersey’s largest lake, we’d motor out to the deep water and jump off the side to swim.  Even when my brother told me about the giant snapping turtles lurking below, who loved to munch on little girls’ toes, I jumped in anyway.  Only the promise of an ice cream sandwich at a nearby amusement park---a slice of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream between two toasted waffles—lured me from the water.

In high school I earned my life-saving certificate, though to date I’ve never had the need to use the lessons.  The one I remember best was that I could save even a man much larger than me by swimming up behind him and grabbing hold of the hair under his arms.  Apparently the pain was supposed to distract him from struggling and potentially pulling me under. I’ve never had the occasion to try that one out and probably don’t want to.

The first college I attended sported a beautiful Olympic-sized pool, and in order to graduate a student was required to pass a swim test.  (I think they were trying to justify spending so much money on a pool.)  I could have tested out of swim class, but I was busy drinking coffee and eating glazed donuts in the student café.  We shared ugly, ugly, ugly swimsuits made of t-shirt material, bleached and stretched beyond recognition.  Not an attractive option.  In winter, with my hair almost to my waist, the thought of rushing to the next class in another building with hair that took forever to dry was just too much!  Those glazed donuts in the café again!

As newlyweds and apartment dwellers, my husband and I searched for places to swim all summer.  We were finally fortunate enough to buy a house with a pool, and not only have a place to swim, but a place to toss our children in the water so they could swim, too.

Just about every vacation we take involves a beach, though.  From our honeymoon in Kennebunkport, Maine, to a post-retirement cruise stop in Cozumel where I learned how to snorkel, from the Blue Lagoon in Iceland to a glacial river in Alaska, and so many beaches in between, I guess you could say our romance also includes a love affair with the water.

After all, what’s more romantic than the scent of the ocean and the sound of waves crashing on the shore, whether enjoying hot sun or cozying up with a blanket and a hot drink on a cold day?  Something about the water brings a sense of peace I can’t find any place else, especially in these difficult days
.

It’s quite possible a person could find the same serenity, or even romance, in a place called Last Chance Beach.  The legend begins here… The Legend of Last Chance Beach

Why don’t you join us there?  Come on in, the water’s fine!

And don't forget your chance to win an Amazon Gift Card!

CHICKENS ON MY SIDE OF THE ROAD by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGems

The topic of city girl vs. country girl seems to be popping up frequently in my life lately. I was reminiscing with my daughter-in-law about a brief, unfortunate time when I left New Jersey as a child and moved to Michigan for a few months that felt like a century.

Why?

Chickens!

Imagine the culture shock of a kid moving from very urban Newark, NJ, to a farm in Michigan that included not just an outhouse, but chickens. Chickens who pecked at my skinny little nine-year-old legs every time I walked through the yard on the way to said outhouse. It was terrifying.

Chickens seem to be the current must-have item for many people I know. A friend in northern New Jersey built a palace for her new brood. Another acquaintance ordered 50 baby chicks through the mail. At the assisted living where I work, we joined a farm project where we borrowed an incubator and hatched 12 baby chickens. We had to turn the eggs every 90 minutes. Do mother chickens do this? When do they sleep

I recently read a book called HOW TO SEDUCE A TEXAN by Karen Kelley about an out-of-her element city girl reporter who goes undercover to a dude ranch to do an exposé on the hero, who is on to her and puts her in the most primitive accommodations imaginable. And that included not only chickens but a psychotic rooster. I felt her pain.

Now I’m not only reading about chickens but I’ve acquired four grand-chickens with the names Checkers, Siren-head, Cupcake, and another one I can never remember because who names their chickens? At least these chickens are safely confined in a lovely chicken coop—isn’t that what you call the houses chickens live in? Because this isn’t really my area of expertise. But I don’t want to think about the possibility of eating a creature I’ve been introduced to by name.

My grand-chickens aren’t about to become anyone’s dinner anytime soon, as far as I know. Their function seems to be wandering around making strange little sounds and laying multicolored eggs at an alarming rate.

I’ve been sent home with many, many eggs every time I visit. So although I don’t want to make a meal of a creature I know on a first name basis, it seems I have no compunction about munching on my…potential great-grand-chickens. Is that a thing?

In self defense I learned how to make something called a frittata, in a big old iron frying pan, which again reminds me                                                  of country living, but what could
I do?  My world has gone so chicken-crazy that my husband started talking about whether we could have a few chickens on the little balcony of our tiny two bedroom condo. If that ever happens, I’m flying the coop.

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BLOOMIN' CRAZY! by Hannah Rowan #RomanceGEems

I am so jealous of my fellow Gems who have gardens to plant during this “stay home” time.

 While I don’t miss much about having a house now that we’ve moved to a condo where all the maintenance is taken care of for us, I do miss having a garden. 

My condo community offers little garden plots we can reserve, with reservations being open for about five minutes at dawn on a cold, rainy day in October for the following spring. Somehow I missed it. 

So the Gems are busy with Romance in Bloom, and I’m trying to squeeze some gardening into a three room condo which at least has some East-facing, large windows and a screened in (very tiny) balcony.

One of my indoor gardening success stories is the rather frightening cactus that began as a small, six inch potted plant given to me for my birthday by my son several years ago. I’ve had many run-ins with this prickly plant. The worst occurred when I carried it to the sink intending to spray some water on its leaves, and I tilted it too far, sending it careening out of its pot. At which point, yes, I grabbed it! I spent several hours pulling needles out of my palms with tweezers, and I tried to follow advice to wrap a towel around it or use a deflated bicycle tire to pick it up. Nope. I managed to get the thing into a box and deliver it to a local florist, who, for extraordinary sums of money, re-potted it in a larger pot. Since we were moving at the time, my cactus remained at the florist for a while, thriving in the shop window. By the time I returned for it, the shop owner had grown quite fond of it, and it was almost as tall as I am.

My other plants live on a rack in front of the window in a crazy jumble of leaves. I water them but I’m kind of afraid to get in there to sort out the tangled mess.

When faced with some garlic that had begun to sprout, I planted the cloves and was rewarded with some tasty sprout similar to scallions. They lasted until the untimely demise of my garlic garden.  Poor, droopy garlic!

But I’m not giving up! I have high hopes for my latest gardening project—mini-tomatoes and a lavender plant that will, with any luck, grow very nicely on my screened in balcony. Let’s just hope they don’t meet the same fate as my garlic.

Our May giveaway and theme are in full swing. First Prize: $20, Second Prize: $15, and Third Prize $10, all paid in Amazon Gift Cards.

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Never All By Myself by Hannah Rowan #romancegems

Most writers are no strangers to social distancing or isolation.  Many of the authors I know comment that today’s situation isn’t all that different than their regular routines.  At first glance this would seem to be true.  But is it really?

For many writers, the idea of being closeted at home, assuming there’s a sufficient supply of coffee, chocolate, and wine, seems like a dream come true.  For some writers with a live-in partner, however, blissful isolation with the freedom to focus on their writing has turned into an impossible dream.

At least it has in my house, where the spouse is a personal trainer who is accustomed to spending at least four hours a day, seven days a week, at the gym.  In the absence of a gym or other people to train (read that torture by forcing them to perform physical activity of a nature that requires sweating, not chocolate) this man has turned his attention to improving my physical condition.

Every day we head to a different park where we slog through mud, scramble up rocks, or trudge along miles of trails enjoying the view of trees, trees, and more trees, which don’t even have the decency to sport some leaves to break up the monotony of the drab gray scenery. Occasionally we come upon a body of water that not only provides some variety, but also serves as a breeding ground for minuscule insects that fly up my nose and also feeds the gooey mud clinging to my nice aerobic sneakers.  This whole process takes several hours.

But wait, there’s more…!

I could look at this enforced isolation as a perfect time to work on my writing, but when we get home…

The spouse heads to my office to check his stocks on my computer while simultaneously closing the tabs I left open for my research.

So, OK, I will use this time to have some tea and do the crossword to exercise my brain, except, the spouse is now shouting for me to help him because the #^%$^& computer is doing some sort of %#$%# thing that’s not his fault.

Eventually, I do settle into my chair, retrieve my lost tabs from my history, and hear “Are we going to eat soon?”

Yes, we’re going to eat.  And I also answer whether the mail has come, and do I believe a certain politician could be so dumb, and do I have any books because he’s read all the ones from the library, and where do I hide the light bulbs, and the batteries, and, and…

My children knew not to interrupt unless there was fire or blood.  At this rate, I’m betting there could be some blood very soon.

Ah, the joys of togetherness.  We play dominoes after dinner and I’m exhausted but I stay up all night to find some quiet.  And think about how, when the virus has gone and life goes back to normal, I’m going to go to a nice little Airbnb I know of, where I can enjoy some alone time and grow to miss the company of my dear husband.

April Rafflecopter Drawing!


The complete information about this month drawing can be found on our Monthly Giveaway page.