For the Criminally Inane

A few years ago, my sister wanted to visit Europe for the first time. She tried to find a friend to go with her--another available friend who could frolic over Christmas break when she had one week of vacation between Christmas and New Years.  She couldn’t find anyone. People were visiting family or they were short of funds. My parents, concerned with her going by herself to foreign countries, asked me if I would go with her. I lived in Europe in my twenties for a year and a half and was somewhatly still fluent French.  But we were poor.  My husband was still in grad school. We lived a simple life on his small stipend, and I stayed home with our three kids. And Christmas was a family day.  When my parents offered to for pay my airline ticket, my husband agreed to let me go. All we had to pay for was lodging (we stayed at hostels), food, and travel within the country. So we were off!  We scheduled our itinerary to be in Paris for New Years eve! How exciting, right? To be in the city of

Summer is heating up here where I am at, which is good because that means all I want to do is sit inside all day in the AC and write instead of doing outdoorsy things. I've been wildly productive and I've been working on a few things this summer: Sin and Sinister (paranormal vampire and werewolves mystery series set in Monte Carlo) is finally done. I had struggled with the ending and put it down to work on more pressing things. My Alpha readers are looking it over for plot holes and other major revisions I might need. More plotting for this series is ongoing! Seasons of Sugar Creek First Kisses. This is the backstory of Roland and Debra and how they had their first kiss Homecoming evening in 1972. It's been fun to write a retro piece. It's almost finished probably at the 80% mark.  The Autumn Fallout ( also part of Seasons of Sugar Creek )  is 100% done with the first draft. I'll be sending that to my Alpha readers this week for major plot/character suggestions. I

 If you're interested in the historical research links for Wylder Bride, I will leave them here. Have fun! https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/brief-history-boston-brahmin/ https://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/events/1870_1880.htm https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/gunsmithing-tools/10108 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E4jwmPj6hg https://www.classicamericangunsmith.com/glossary-3/glossary-t/timeline/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flintlock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy https://www.aircontrolindustries.com/us/blacksmith-forge-us/evolution-of-forge-fan/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuyere https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/brief-history-boston-brahmin/ https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Bunker-Hill http://grimsdyke.com/victorian-dining/ http://www.historyofpencils.com/writing-instruments-history/history-of-writing-implements/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Amazon_history https://www.mentalfloss.com/article