Summer of pickles with my sister

My Montana sister and I have started an annual tradition. A week at the family farm in Montana canning up jars and jars of pickles. We make mostly dill pickles with garlic, but we add various amounts of salt (we've discovered we can use very little in the jars that will sit for six months before we eat them). We start by going to the Hutterite colony that is five miles or so from my parent's farm. There we can buy huge bags of cucumbers for canning (around ten pounds for two dollars). Then we go to my mother's farm kitchen and get to work. We can up close to thirty quarts in a day -- which is a good thing because our family loves pickles (as my little niece said last year, we need lots because she can eat a whole jar by herself).

How about you? Do you have any things you can each year?

Enter an April Fool's contest. Tell a tall tale and be entered to win a copy of my latest book, 'Small Town Moms' -- AND a $10 Barnes and Noble gift card. The more outrageous the better.

Go to eharlequin to enter. You can look at the twitter bar on the right hand of this page and find the link to enter.

Going to the RT Convention

I'm going to be on a panel at the Romantic Times convention in Los Angeles on April 8 at the Westin Bonaventure hotel. It's going to the convention, come see us on Friday afternoon as six of us Love Inspired authors reveal some of the questions our readers ask (and our answers) as well as telling a bit about our journey to publication.

A Different Sort of Fawn

I have been spending the winter with my parents on their Montana farm and recently we have seen an albino fawn in their pine trees. Its absolutely beautiful. After seeing it a few times though I have been concerned that it is often alone (my mother assures me he has a herd and she's seen him with other deer regularly). Still, it makes me wonder if the fawn's color makes the others uneasy. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see the true beauty in an animal or person who is different from the others. I like to think that part of a writer's job is to be that outsider and point out the beauty in the unusual. I posted on the Love Inspired authors website about this fawn and said I was thinking of using this fawn in one of my upcoming Dry Creek books and running it's situation alongside a hero or heroine is different in some of the same ways. What do you think? Vote here -- yes for the albino fawn!

World Book Day

I just heard that it is World Book Day today -- how fitting that I should be sitting here at my desk writing on my next book (I have a great series within a series coming up in Dry Creek). I can't tell you much about it except it involves a family crisis (mother returning from prison who asks her grown sons to come back to work on the family ranch). Lots of cowboy heroes and fiery heroines. The first book will come out around Christmas.

In the meantime, take a look at my April release -- 'Small-Town Moms.' Debra Clopton and I have a very entertaining story in two parts with this book.

A New Year Awaits in Dry Creek

One of the recurring themes of my Dry Creek series is 'new beginnings.' That fits perfectly with the heroine of 'At Home in Dry Creek', Barbara Strong. She is a single mother who brings her children to the small town in hopes of making a better life for them. This title is available anew in the LI Classic pictured on the right.

I know we all hope for a better life and the first of the year is traditionally a time to decide what we need to do to make that happen. I don't usually make resolutions, but this year I am. I plan to lose weight and exercise more (mostly, I plan to walk more in the nearby Huntington Gardens and smell the roses there). It's not just physical exercise, it's relaxing as well. How about you? What do you plan to do this next year to make your life more the way you want it to be?

Loving Chistmas Trees

It's that season and, those of you who read my books, know I love everything about Christmas. The meaning of the season as well as the light-hearted fun. I particularly like Christmas trees and wanted to share an upside down one with you. Isn't this amazing? I've never done an upside down tree, but this picture tempts me to try.