The sight of a wind farm is stunning. Dozens, or even hundreds, of towering wind turbines dot the landscape. Gigantic white blades spin slowly in the wind.

I'm researching wind turbines for a future novel in a new series. I learned something truly interesting. Sweden built the first wooden wind turbine in 2020. It's the first modern design using wood. One concern about the steel tower currently in use is the environmental and financial cost of manufacturing and transporting the materials. Wood is a renewable resource.

Humans are wonderfully inventive. I expect solar and wind energy technology to improve over the next decades. Both industries are still in their infancy. What we see now as the be all and end all design may seem primitive some day. On the other hand, I still see plenty of the old windmills on Western ranches, pumping water from wells. And in the Netherlands, windmills are still used to drain water from the lowlands.

Doubloon Jeopardy has a cover! The Annie's Publishing series Museum of Mysteries is now available. My contribution is the third novel in the series.

Scarlett McCormick discovers a body in a pumpkin patch. The dead man is dressed like a pirate.

The entire town of Crescent Harbor has pirate fever as it prepares for their first annual Pirate Days celebration. The mayor pressures Scarlett to affirm the legend that pirate treasure is buried in the small California coastal town. Scarlett needs proof before she'll risk her reputation as head curator of the Reed Museum of Art and Archeology.

Can Scarlett solve the mystery of the body in the pumpkin patch? Are an ancient cutlass and gold doubloons connected to his murder? When she becomes a target, Scarlett fears someone must think she has figured out the case.

Join Scarlett and her friends in this fun cozy mystery! 

People are cynical about the prospects of a bright new year, and rightly so. Our optimism that "next year will be better" has been shattered since the pandemic began. I have reason for optimism this time around. Not for any political or financial reasons. Our trajectory in those arenas seems destined to go off the rails again, in a flaming train wreck.

​My optimism is based on waking to snow. Folks living in wetter climates may loath winter snow for its depressing frequency. In Colorado, we celebrate every flake. Many areas of the state haven't had significant moisture in months.

Finally, January 1st, we are getting snow on the Front Range. Maybe 2022 will really be a bright new year.

Happy New Year!

I received my copy of AHMM January/February 2022. It's always a thrill to see my words in print. And after a rather bruising fall, I needed encouragement.

HazMat Holiday features my recurring short story characters Charles and Tony. Charles is a dignified gentleman who loves his career as a chemist. He recently began a relationship with a wheelchair bound art museum docent from Israel, who introduces Charles to Hanukkah.

Tony is a college student / laboratory intern. He aspires to be hip. Thanks to my middle granddaughter for correcting my flawed Boomer attempts at slang. She enabled Tony to grasp for coolness in the midst of his nerdiness. 

Charles insists on completing a vitally important lab test and report, causing him and Tony to be stranded at the factory during a blizzard.

​The story was inspired by my experiences working in a manufacturing facility for over twenty years. I hope you find a copy at your local bookstore or newsstand. You can also subscribe to the electronic version of the magazine. There are over a dozen great short stories by the mystery genre's finest authors.

Now to the "bruising fall" statement. Not a literal fall. The season. The day job workload, fiction deadlines, and my general workaholic tendencies wore me down as the year stumbled toward its end. My husband and I took a long weekend by ourselves over Thanksgiving. On Turkey Day, I could not get out of bed. A bout of flu knocked me down for two solid weeks. And then he got sick.

In the midst of this misery. a tooth abscessed. I had emergency oral surgery to have it removed. The sad little tooth could not be saved. I have been without tooth for almost two weeks. Today I received my temporary tooth. More dental work is in my future due to horrible family genetics in that department.

I can say that all I wanted for Christmas was my tooth (it's a few weeks late for Hanukkah), and I received it. Then Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine arrived. Maybe this year will end on a high note after all. 

My story Hazmat Holiday appears in the current issue (Jan / Feb 2022) of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

I spotted two hearts in the natural world. The first was a patch of melting ice on concrete. The next was a clump of weedy grass along a walking trail. 

In Not Just for Aspiring Authors, on the Pikes Peak Writers blog Writing from the Peak, I discuss the benefits of participating in the month-long creative madness called NaNoWriMo.
National Novel Writing Month – is primarily touted as an exercise to drive aspiring authors to write 50,000 words. Hitting that goal may mean completion of a novel draft for the very first time. At the very least, NaNoWriMo inspires confidence that hitting The End is possible.
But what about the published author?

On every walk through the neighborhood, we see changes in the trees. The colors are beautiful, but warn us that soon the leaves will fall. Our flowers are making a brave last stand before the first frost of the season.

The Garden of the Gods, a city park, began hosting Motorless Mornings in 2018. This popular event involves blocking the roads through the park to motorized vehicles. Pedestrians, bicyclists, roller bladers, and skate boarders share the asphalt roads curving through the hills.

My husband and I enjoyed a peaceful walk. Threatening clouds to the west may have discouraged a larger crowd. We did get sprinkled on, but it was worth risking a soaking to see the stunning views.