I "heart" hummingbirds!

Many people might find it hard to believe there are hummingbirds nesting and raising babies in Canada in the wintertime, but there is a population of Anna's hummingbirds that overwinters on southern Vancouver Island. For years I've kept feeders in my garden and have had the pleasure of watching them year round.

Here's a photograh I took several years ago, and yes, that's snow you can see in the background!

This year the weather has been milder, but not without its challenges. For the past week, a male Anna's has spent long periods of time perched on the largest feeder in my yard. I've never seen this behavior before and at first I thought he might be injured or sick, but he seems fine and now I believe he's just being territorial! I've started calling him Tuff because he often displays white tufts of underfeathers near both wings, and because he has happily turned out to be tougher than I thought!

Here's Tuff at the feeder.

And here's Tuff in the California lilac.

For even better photographs of hummingbirds, I've started following Hummingbirds Up Close on Facebook and visiting the Hummingbirds Up Close website. If you "heart" hummingbirds, you'll love these sites! Both have beautiful photograhs as well as truly amazing videos of hummingbirds building nests, incubating their eggs and caring for their babies.

While I'm talking about hummingbirds, I feel it's important to offer a few tips to those who might consider setting up feeders in their own gardens. Please do not add red coloring to the nectar. The birds will be attracted to the red plastic on the feeder, and the chemicals in the food coloring aren't good for them. Please do clean your feeder once a week and refill it with fresh nectar. This will prevent toxic mold that's lethal to hummingbirds from growing in the feeder. Make your own hummingbird nectar by dissolving white sugar in water. In the summer I use a ratio of 1 part sugar to 4 parts water. In winter, when they need more energy, I mix a ratio of 1 part sugar to 3 parts water.

If nesting birds have you longing for springtime, I hope you'll consider entering my February contest because I'm giving away this adorable cupcake holder filled with yet-to-be-determined goodies!

To enter the draw, simply go to my website, subscribe to my newsletter AND send me an email telling me your favorite first sign of spring! Only newsletter subscribers are eligible, and the winner will be announced in the next issue.

I'm also thrilled to share the cover of Daddy, Unexpectedly, my next Harlequin American Romance (May 2013). I have loved all my covers but I especially love this one because the hero is very much as I imagined him as I was writing this story. Swoon!

This is the third and final book in my Ready Set Sold series about three women who own a Seattle-based real estate business. If anyone would like autographed bookplates for these three books (The Christmas Secret, The Daddy Project, and Daddy, Unexpectedly, please send me an email with your address and I'll pop them in the mail to you!

Happy reading!

Unitl next time,
Lee
Maggie's Way (Harlequin Heartwarming, May 2013)
Daddy, Unexpectedly (Harlequin American Romance, May 2013)
www.LeeMcKenzie.com

Short Trips of Fancy

Hi, all.
I don't know what it's like in your part of the country, but St. Louis has a reputation for changeable weather. It wouldn't surprise me to hear this is where the famous saying, "Don't like the weather? Wait five minutes" originated. This winter and spring have lived up to that rep. We've had "winter" days so warm, windows were open and shirt sleeves were short. On Monday, we were in the 90s; now I'm in my winter pjs and fuzzy slippers.


So we treasure those brief glimpses of pleasant weather, and tend to run after them, as joyful as children catching bubbles. I dragged my mom to the Missouri Botanical Garden for the orchid show. It was a lovely day, in the high 70s, and windy enough to whisk us off our feet. Fortunately, the show itself was inside. There are more pix on my FaceBook page if you're interested.


My next mission is to meet my critique partner at the St. Louis Zoo and walk around all day, brainstorming and soaking in the sun. Of course, that'll have to wait until the good weather returns.

And you know I have to say it -- can't wait to catch a game in person!

One of my recent "mad adventure" days saw my husband and I at Crown Candy Kitchen. We've always wanted to go there, the sun came out, and off we went. It made perfect sense at the time. This place is a landmark for good reason. A small candy store from 1913, it became a soda shoppe in the 1950s. The booths are intimate and the food is to die for. Almost literally.
I had to try the Heart Stopping BLT, with roughly a pound of bacon, plus tomato, lettuce and Miracle Whip on toast. No kidding: see the bacon? Then the lettuce, tomato, and atop bread slice. And that pic is only half the sandwich. I had to take out a bunch of bacon just to pick it up! And yes, I teamed it with a chocolate shake. The shakes come with a challenge--can you drink five in thirty minutes? The answer is no. Trust me. They are huge.

Now that we've been talking raving about CCK, several friends have mentioned wanting to go for their first time or return again. I'm game, although I may try some other temptation. And of course, there's the candy...

So, is there someplace you've been wanting to go "someday?" Do you have a "mad adventure" day and jump in the car? Where do you wind up on those luscious sunny spring days?

Megan

www.megankellybooks.com

Springtime DIY

It must be spring because for the past week I’ve been itching to get started on a DIY project. I’m also being inspired by the heroine of the book I'm finishing, The Daddy Project (December 21012). Kristi is an interior decorator and if you read my last book, The Christmas Secret, you might remember meeting her there.

What I have in mind is to convert my cluttered back porch into a well-organized mudroom. And when I say “cluttered,” I'm afraid you will have to take my word for it because I’m too embarrassed to post a photo of it in its current state. I’m also too busy to roll up my sleeves and dive into this project right now, but I have started to compile my mudroom wishlist.

Because the porch/mudroom is the transition to our back yard, I’m thinking it needs a nice fresh wall color, like Benjamin Moore’s Woodland Hills Green.

Green is such a calming color, especially compared to the hideous mustard yellow that's on those walls right now.

Along one wall I’d like to install beadboard wainscoting with hooks above for coats and umbrellas and shopping bags.

There will have to be a built-in storage bench, along the lines of this one from This Old House, for stowing footwear and the recycling bin...

…and a shelf over the window, similar to this one I saw on Pintrest.

Finally, I would love to swap the boring old ceiling fixture for something more nature-inspired, like this Whoopsie Daisy chandelier from The Land of Nod. Isn't it pretty?

So, what do you think? Do you have a springtime DIY project in mind? Please share, if you do!

Until next time,
Lee
www.leemckenzie.com

It Must Be Spring

Today marks the first day of Spring Break for the schools here.  For us, that means a practice run of what summer will be like.  Five grandkids ranging in age from nineteen months to eight years will be taking up all-day residence in my small house for six days.  I'm praying it doesn't rain.  Let me rephrase that.  I'm praying it doesn't snow.  (I need to cover all possibilites.)

In Kansas, any kind of weather is a possiblity. We can go from balmy seventy degrees one week, to snow and ice the next, and then back to thunderstorms and hail.  And once the first tornado watch is announced, we know it's time to keep an eye to the sky, along with an ear for the warning sirens.

Every Monday at noon, except when the weather is cloudy and might appear threatening to some, the tornado sirens are tested.  We know it. We're quite accustomed to it.  But when the sirens go off in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday (last week), it's time to check outside.  That's what I did, only to discover a beautiful blue sky with nary a cloud.  The TV was running the warning message, but when I checked the radar online, the entire center of the country was cloudless.  I posted on Facebook, of course.  What else?  Someone answered that it was some special weather day and the sirens were a test.  Obviously this was my punishment for not watching or listening to local news.

From east to west and north to south, we've all dealt with some really bad weather this winter, so let's all hope Mother Nature sends us a kinder and gentler spring and summer.

Writing While Fuzzy Brained

Good morning from the lake house in cold, foggy, Mineola, Texas! While it is below freezing (sorry, plants I forgot to take inside) with light snow at our home in Richardson, about 90 miles away, on Saturday we had cold rain and blustery winds - until this Sunday morning.

Just about an hour ago, before dawn, it began to snow. Right now, soft flakes are drifting down on the deck, the bird feeders, the grass, and our car. We've never been here before when it snowed and it's very exciting to see. I can't wait for the sun to come up to see the lake and trees! (Sorry for the blurry image - I think my hand was shaking from the cold temperature outside.)

I've also included a photo from our absolutely gorgeous day on Friday, when we were out working in the yard and garage in our shirt sleeves. This is facing west over the lake with the rising sun reflected in the water. Mist was rising from the lake because of the warm weather. Many of the trees are budding out and blooming, although you can't see them in the photo. Much more springlike than the actual first day of spring!

One of my goals for the weekend was to get my next release almost finished. My understanding editor gave me another month after my three weeks of absolutely fuzzy-brained non-production from the middle of February to the first week in March. I had a bad sinus infection, then strep throat. I took lots of medication which left me goofy and sleepy until I finished all the doses. I then had about four days of clear, energy-filled, fired-up creativity and dedication.

Then I got a cold. The sniffles have just about departed, depending on how much time I spend outdoors in all the pollen. I'm not coughing very much. We even went out to dinner last night at Kitchens restaurant and I could taste my food!

I thought I'd share some techniques I've been using to try to keep writing while on medication that made me less than cognizant. (For example, I stared at my computer for a full two minutes the other day and couldn't remember a major character's name! ) Ever since I started writing series for Harlequin American - first Ranger Springs and now Brody's Crossing - I've maintained a separate Word file titled "People and Places." I add to this file with each book, listing the most current hero and heroine at the top of the list with their ages in the year of publication, their status, description, family situations, etc. I then list any new characters I've introduced in that book with their physical descriptions, ages, etc. Near the bottom of the list I have various places around town where my "regulars" work and congregate, such as Clarissa's House of Style, the Cafe, Dewey's Saloon and Steakhouse, etc. I include descriptions and any relevant history of the establishment in these listings. I save this file under the folder "Brody's Crossing" in my Harlequin American folder so I can find it easily when I can't remember who the police chief is or what month and year someone got pregnant. It's so much easier than trying to remember what book I mentioned that factoid in and trying to find it by doing a text search in Word. I also created a Word file with a map of fictional Brody's Crossing so I know street names, locations of places in relation to blocks of the downtown, etc. I don't think I can upload that image, but if you'd like a copy, I'll be glad to email it to you.

The second thing I've been doing in this book, tentatively titled Texan in Her Heart, is create another word document for "What Leo knows about Amanda" based on what she's told him in conversation., This is where the fuzzy-brained condition really played out; I couldn't remember if he'd assumed something, she'd mentioned it in introspection to the reader, or they actually had a conversation. So when they talk about her mysterious (from Leo's perspective) reasons for being in Brody's Crossing, I copy and paste relevant parts of their dialogue into a file. I also note the page number where the conversation took place. Although this might change later, it probably won't be too far off because I write the book front to back. (Many authors write scenes and place them later, or write out of order when they visualize a scene farther back in the book.)

I also sometimes create a document for "Go back and add" things. These are notes to myself to check on things I'd written, or add something like a motivation or description. In other books, when I used to print out the manuscript as I went, I used Post-It notes to tell myself where things happened or where I wanted to go back and add something. In the interest of saving money and not cutting down so many trees, I've stopped printing out as I go along. I've had to learn new techniques to keep up with the story.

I hope this might help aspiring authors who are having the same fuzzy-brained moments as I sometimes have. Also, it might give readers some insight into how we keep up with characters and events in our books, especially series where it has to make sense over a longer period of time. Brody's Crossing originated in 2006 and will go on through 2011 at least, so that's five years of characters, places and descriptions to keep up with in my mind. That's a lot of details!

Have a great springtime. I hope yours is less cold and rainy than mine!

Spring Break? Really?

I’m pulling an all-nighter. With no good reason to rise and shine early, I’ve been working late. Very late. Not only has my January 2011 release been bumped up three months earlier, but I’m working on changes to a proposal. Need I say more?

There are night people and day people, night owls and early birds. I’m of the late variety. I’ve been a night owl all my life, starting within days of my birth. Getting up early is almost an effort in futility. When working for those hourly wages, I’d much rather sleep in late, work a late shift, and return home to stay up even later, winding down after a few hours. On my own, it’s late to bed, late to rise. Sometimes it’s been possible, but rare. But it’s Spring Break Week here, and there are no grandkids needing to be taken to school. Hallelujah!

There’s a problem. Come Monday morning, we’ll be back to the 7:15 a.m. alarm going off. Now I know that isn’t early for many, but for those of us who are night owls, it’s painful. And because I’ve been crawling into bed near 6 a.m. for the past few days--or nights, depending on how you look at it--getting up an hour and fifteen minutes after closing my eyes isn’t going to cut it.

So tonight I’ll try to keep going. There’s always a chance of a short nap later this afternoon…if I’m lucky. It could mean sleeping through The Mentalist
this evening, but because I’ve only just begun watching it, a miss isn’t going to hurt too much. Easier, by far, than to continue on this schedule, come Monday.

We’ve asked this before, I think, but let’s take a poll. Night Owl? Do you enjoy the quiet after the moon has risen? Or Early Bird? Rising with or before the sun?

I Was Wrong

Before I admit to how I was wrong, I want to congratulate our RITA finalists, Linda Warren and Cindi Myers. You do us proud!! The judges obviously have excellent taste.

Now, about being wrong... It happens. Quite often, to be honest. Last month I posted that Spring had sprung. I certainly thought it had. After all, the first official day of Spring was March 20. On the following Monday, we had proof when tornadoes were spotted in the area. That's always a good sign that Spring has arrived in Kansas. Nothing new.

On Friday--only five days later--we ended Winter...with two inches of sleet, covered by at least six inches of snow. That's Stay-Home weather, as far as I'm concerned. The problem was, in the midst of the sleet, that sounded more like hail, and at eight-thirty at night, I went to pick up my daughter who was at work. I wasn't half-way there when my windshield wipers froze. Not the blades, but the arms that move them. I fixed that--with lots of prayers--and went on about my not-so-merry way. The usual fifteen minute drive took almost an hour, but I made it safely to her workplace.

The trip home would have been eventful if I hadn't noticed the car I was SLOWLY and at great distance following, doing a little slip-and-slide to the side. Just as I was saying to my daughter, "Looks a little slick up ahead," an SUV came from the opposite direction, slid around the car ahead, barely missing the back of it, and came sliding toward us sideways. It's impossible to stop on two inches of frozen sleet. A whole band of angels must have been watching over us, because somehow I managed to avoid the SUV without losing control of my own car or even barely sliding, and righted myself in my own lane, the SUV left behind in a cloud of...well, sleet.

So, yes, I was wrong. We had spring and winter...within a five day period. At this late date, we don't expect snow again until, well, winter, whenever that is.

If you'll all join me in a rousing rendition of In the Good Ol' Summertime, I might make it through Spring.

Has Spring Sprung?

It certainly seemed so here in middle America yesterday, with the temperature topping out at eighty degrees. The day promised to be a beautiful and fun one with plans to go to our outstanding county zoo. Until we arrived, that is, to find long lines in the middle of the afternoon. My #2 daughter, Lyndsay, her hubby and their three little ones were already inside, after waiting in line for over an hour to pay admission. My youngest daughter and I were waiting in the ticket line with my oldest daughter’s daughter, when Lyndsay and family came out. It seems they had problems seeing the animals and exhibits, and people were rude, pushing ahead in front of small children for a better view. We decided to call it a day before it even began and opted for some time in one of the parks near our home. The little ones enjoyed climbing on the play equipment, and I enjoyed being outside on such a lovely day. Once summer arrives, we’ll find a day to try again, probably with much better results. The moral? Don’t try going to the zoo on the best day of spring break week.

I’m really, really hoping Spring has sprung!

Spring has sprung

Spring has arrived here in the Pacific Northwest. I actually live in Canada, so I’m even a little further north than the Pacific Northwest. Most people—me included!—associate Canada with long, cold winters but here on the west coast, spring arrives early.

Last weekend my husband mowed the lawn for the first time this year, and this weekend he swept off the patio and set up the patio furniture. Other signs of spring are everywhere, from gardens to duck ponds. Ornamental fruit trees are in full bloom, there are daffodils everywhere, and ducklings will soon be paddling around our ponds.

I’ve lived on the Canadian prairies and I know a thing or two about winter, so I especially savor an early spring. Still, this year we’re worried about family and friends who live in places that still have severe winter weather conditions and the threat of floods and tornadoes. If we could send a little springtime your way, you can be sure we would.

We’ve had a grey Easter weekend and I'm one of the world's worst photographers, but I thought I'd post these pictures anyway. No matter what your weather was like, I hope you had a wonderful Easter!

Lee
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