Distillers, Massagers, And Good Eating!

My CPAP machine has a reservoir that has to be filled with distilled water every day. It seems like it uses a lot compared to some people I have talked to in the online forums, but other people say they also have to refill the reservoir on a daily basis. Terry’s AeroGarden also uses distilled water, as does her Steamfast digital steam press.

We have found that it’s sometimes hard to find distilled water in our local stores, so when someone in a CPAP forum recommended a stainless Megahome countertop water distiller, I decided to look into them. We liked what we saw so we ordered one, and yesterday Terry set it up. It takes up quite a bit of counter space, but it will be nice not having to find distilled water at our local Publix. It takes over five hours to make a gallon of distilled water, so it’s not a quick process, but we think it will be worth the effort.

Something else we recently ordered was a Lunix LX3 cordless electric hand massager. I’ve written often about the fact that my arthritic fingers give me a lot of problems when I am typing, and Terry has problems with her hands, too, especially when she is knitting. The hand massager has good reviews and hopefully, it will give us some much-needed relief.

Sore, stiff hands never keep Terry from working her magic in the kitchen! She made a delicious dinner of tortellini and homemade meatballs that was better than anything you’ll find in any Italian restaurant in the world.

And what better dessert than some of her fresh, hot, homemade banana bread? Yummy!

I mentioned writing above, and for those who are asking when the next Tinder Street book will be out, I’ve spent quite a bit of time the last couple of days getting my notes organized to begin working on The Hard Years, the fourth book in the family saga. Each book covers roughly a five-year period, and this one will be about the difficult days following the 1929 Wall Street crash and the Great Depression. I’m old enough to remember my parents talking about how hard things were back then and will be incorporating many of those memories in this book.

Speaking of books, I have the greatest readers in the world. I released Big Lake Ranger on December 26, and thanks to all of you who have downloaded it, posted reviews, and told your friends about it, it’s still riding high at #1852 in the Kindle store yesterday (down from a high of #543), at #52 in the Mystery category, and #19 in Police Procedurals. It sold over 1100 copies in the first 36 hours. I can’t tell you how much your support means to us.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Congratulations Judy Butterfield, winner of our drawing for an audiobook of The Driving Lesson by my friend Ben Rehder. While Ben writes some excellent mysteries, including the wildly popular Blanco County series, this tale of a boy and his grandfather on an unplanned road trip across the country is a coming of age story that will tug at your heartstrings. We had 30 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – I took the grandkids to the zoo last week. I’m going to go back tomorrow to see how well they have settled in.