No, we weren’t playing poker. Oh, there might have been a deck of two of cards in evidence over the weekend, but the game of choice in our family is usually Toledo Run. Since our family is scattered up and down the eastern coast, most of us had to travel. And most of us stayed at Lori and Nick’s home. So, it was more than just a full house – it was packed. Kids on air mats, adults on pull-out couches, the host kids on the floor in their parent’s bedroom so visiting aunts and uncles and cousins had a place to sleep.

We could find rooms in local hotels, but where would be the fun in that. Instead, the day begins with the waking of the first child, with coffee and bagels in our pajamas, cramming as many minutes with each other as possible into the day or days we are together. And it generally ends with the previously mentioned cards around the dining room table after most of the kids have crashed.

As always when our family gathers there’s lots of excitement, kids running and giggling, and sometimes getting into trouble. The kind of trouble cousins always seem to cook up together. Often the guys gather around whatever game is in season on TV. And there’s always lots of great food and cameras catching all the best moments to save for posterity. We often talk about posterity as if he were another guest but looking back on similar gatherings in the past is always fun and made that much more fun when photos are dragged out to remind us how quickly the kids grow up or how young we all once looked.

(That's Rebecca back when she and Joe were just married. Then, Lori, Rebecca and Alex - Lori must have been about 12 then. And me and my husband Cal with the oldest four, Jeff, Bobbi, Rebecca and Alex. Lori was a twinkle in her daddy's eye at the time.)

This particular family event was Emily Catherine’s baptism. My grandmother’s christening gown, which was made in the 1800s, was carefully washed and every inch of lace and linen ironed for the big day. Tables were set up and food set out for the party afterward – All Nick’s family, who live close enough to come for the day would be doubling our numbers. Considering it was a private baptism, a remarkable portion of the pews were filled in this big church. My new grandson-in-law and another granddaughter’s boyfriend were recruited for altar-boy duties which they carried off with aplomb. And Emily Catherine became the newest member of Christ’s family.

We were fortunate that in spite of the time of year and the unusually snowy winter, everyone was able to get there and home without weather related problems. Now we’re all looking forward to our family week at the lake this summer. 

My first book was written in pencil on yellow legal pads. My only distractions (I say that like they were a minor distraction) were three little kids under five. All my research was done at the library and what I didn’t know, I made up. Luckily for everyone, that book is lurking somewhere that the sun no longer shines. Even I don’t want to look at just how awful it probably was. My next book was penned, so to speak, on a computer, and I did have a dial-up email account, but the research for that was still done either in libraries or books I purchased and devoured at home. That second book was completed in thirty days. All 92,000 words. I lived in that book. I ate, drank, slept and dreamed that book for thirty uninterrupted days. By then I was a widow, the last of my kids was off to college and I’d just been laid off and remained out of work for ten months. There were NO distractions. My only breaks were when I sat down to share with my critique partner. 

Compare that with the book I’m writing now. In between that book and this, about ten manuscripts later, I’ve graduated down to a laptop that goes everywhere with me, I have high speed Internet WiFi, and Facebook happened. In many ways all the endless easy access we have today is a good thing. I can research just about anything right from my laptop here at home, in the airport, or on the beach. I can visit libraries I’d never be able to get to physically and find arcane bits of trivia from just about any era. I can learn how a composting toilet works, or how swords were made in the middle ages. A few clicks of the mouse and I have the line-up for the Boston Red Sox game played on September 7^th in 1970, all the gory details of the OJ Simpson trial or who became King of England after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. I can even call up satellite maps and photos so I know just what things look like. It’s mind-boggling and amazing. How did I ever write anything without it?

On the other hand, all this connectivity is distracting. When I first started writing on a computer, if I stared at my work-in-progress long enough and nothing happened, I could hop over and play a game of solitaire or ten. There were other distractions like Sammy the Snake (I know, now I’m dating myself) but on the whole that palled relatively quickly and I was back to staring at my half written manuscript waiting for ideas and words to percolate onto the page. My characters and their problems were so much easier to stay involved with. Today is so very different.

Every day I jump out of bed with the idea that I am going to get soooo much written today. I scramble into some clothes and take the dog for a walk, then make my breakfast and carry it to my study. I’ll read my email while I eat. But reading the email is just the beginning. Then I have to check Facebook. And sometimes Goodreads, or Pinterest or God knows there are so many places to check. Friends post links to interesting books I might want to buy, or clips and videos I just have to see. There are blogs to read and interesting articles about just about anything. Next thing I know, my stomach is telling me it’s hungry. How on earth did it get to be 2:30 in the afternoon already??? Where did that whole long pristine day go? I haven’t even opened up my WIP yet. And the dog wants to go for another walk. The tide is out and the beach is calling. Lunch is calling, too. By the time all these things are taken care of, it’s late afternoon and the day is more than half gone.

The saving grace for me is that the hours between four pm and ten pm are my most productive hours anyway. But I still have to discipline myself to disconnect from the internet and pay attention. My laptop has a function that puts all that stuff in the background and even stifles the little dings that normally tell me I have mail, or someone’s posted to my FB page. I just have to turn it on. AND leave my smartphone out of earshot and out of sight. My phone has even more distractions than my laptop.

There’s good and bad in everything and the Internet is no different. For a writer, it can be the biggest boon with enormous potential, helping to expand our platform and learn about our craft. But it can also be the biggest distraction. 

The holidays were good to me this year and I have a lot to be thankful for. My flight north on Christmas Eve was only delayed by a couple hours, and I arrived in a land sparkling with new snow. What could be nicer than a white Christmas? Better yet, my son’s new family room had the most gorgeous tree with twinkling lights reflected in all the windows and a lovely fireplace to cozy up to. Stockings had been hung and a snack set out for Santa. All I had to do was settle in and enjoy.

Which I did. Very much. Christmas is always more exciting with children and their innocent pleasure in the magic of the day. Then, on the Saturday after Christmas my granddaughter, Anna Rose, was baptized and the entire family gathered to celebrate with her. All my kids but one and all my grandkids but two. The perfect ending for a year filled with blessings.

My flight home was scheduled for Jan 2^nd at 8:04 pm. By New Year’s Eve it was clear that a big snowstorm was on it’s way to New England. I called Jet Blue to see if I could fly out the night before the storm, but alas, that was going to cost me so I declined. Then on New Year’s Day when I logged onto the internet to check in, instead of having my boarding pass pop up, an 800 number appeared advising me to call and change my flight - no fees would be charged. I wanted to say, I told you so..... but I didn’t. I claimed one of three seats left on the first flight out the next morning. Then the evening news reported the snow, which I’d thought wasn’t going to start until mid-day, was going to begin in the wee hours before dawn.

My son got up an hour earlier than planned and drove through dark streets already covered with snow and far more traffic than I would have guessed at that hour of the morning, but he got me to the airport on time. As it turned out the plane I was to fly out on did NOT get to the airport on time. Instead, a flight bound for Tampa that was supposed to be gone a half hour ago still sat at the gate. But it finally left and my plane arrived. An hour later than scheduled, we were all in our seats and ready to push back, but......the door remained open! What now? Apparently the pilot had filed a new flight plan. I’m not sure, but I think it had to do with the gathering storm. FAA rules require that the actual physical paperwork must be delivered to the cockpit before the plane can push back from the terminal. I have no idea where these were generated, but I swear it had to be somewhere in South Boston and there was a bicycle currier involved. Why else should it take an hour for the paperwork to arrive? 

When the paperwork was finally delivered to the cockpit, the pilot announced it would be just a few more minutes before we headed out to the de-icing area. What he didn’t tell us (probably fearing a revolt) was that the de-icing line was an hour long. This area, where men sitting in little enclosed cages at the ends of long, hinged booms and armed with high volume nozzles that spray two different chemical mixtures to first rid the plane of built up snow, then keep it clear of ice until it can get into the air, is right at the end of the runway. As we pulled into that line we could still see the buildings on the far side of the runway, but by the time our turn came around, the visibility was closing in fast. The snow was gathering momentum.

Before we boarded the plane there were already quite a few delays and several cancellations showing on both arrival and departure boards. By the time we roared down the runway and into the air at 11:30 (only 3 hours and 10 minutes behind schedule,) I wondered how many more cancellations had been posted. As it turns out, I was fortunate to get out at all. The entire airport was closed down later in the day and well before my originally scheduled flight. It might have been cloudy and spitting rain when I stepped out of the terminal in Jacksonville, but it was great to be back in Florida and even sweeter to shed all the heavy clothes I’d layered on earlier and head home in my shirtsleeves. 

Christmas and New Years were good to me, but so were the forces that brought me home. Thanks to my son who not only drove to work so he could drop me at the airport but then had to drive home at the end of his day in the height of the storm (he usually takes public transportation.) It took over two hours to drive what should have taken 30 minutes. Thanks to all the workers at Logan who put up with frustrated travelers and labored to get us off. Thanks to the pilot and his crew. And Thank You God that I live in St Augustine. 

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.