Besides a regular whole house air conditioner and furnace, our house also came with a mini-split unit in the bedroom, which provides both heat and air conditioning. If you’re not familiar with mini-splits, and I wasn’t until fairly recently, they are a ductless heating and cooling system. They have two main parts: an outdoor compressor […]
Before I do anything else today, I want to congratulate our granddaughter Destiny on another achievement. As I’ve shared with you before, while attending her last year of high school, Destiny was also attending cosmetology classes at Northland Pioneer College here in Show Low. She graduated from both in the same week, and yesterday she […]
The monsoon season has definitely kicked in here in the White Mountains of Arizona. We have been getting some rain almost every day, sometimes just a quick shower and other times a borderline deluge. It’s enough that we haven’t had to water Terry’s outdoor plants or the clover I planted, and everything is looking nice […]
In an effort to introduce my readers to other authors and their work, every week I run an Author Spotlight, sharing information about an author, their work, and how they go about writing their books. Cleve Sylcox is a Missouri author whose stories begin with a simple question: What if? Whether writing suspense, mystery, crime […]
It’s going to be a writing kind of weekend. Not me writing but hanging out with other writers. Today is the Arizona Professional Writers third annual White Mountain Book Festival, which will be held at the Show Low Elks Lodge, only a couple of blocks from our house. They were sold out with 67 authors coming […]
In an effort to introduce my readers to other authors and their work, every week I run an Author Spotlight, sharing information about an author, their work, and how they go about writing their books. Jennifer Clarke Eskew is a 32-year law enforcement veteran. Starting her career with the Virginia State Police working as a […]
I’m back with more questions from blog readers. While I try to answer all questions individually, I also share some here occasionally. Q. Love all your books! Just curious, do you write one book and then go start another, or do you work on a couple at a time? Just started your new one. A. […]
We were finally getting the monsoon rains that we had been hoping for. Our monsoon season actually started a month ago, but until this week, we’ve only gotten one good rain and a few quick showers. But we’ve had a lot coming down this week, and I’m not going to complain about it at all. […]
Alli definitely dodged a bullet the night before last. Actually, I guess we all did. After I posted yesterday’s blog around midnight, I took her out for her last potty break and some ball chasing before going to bed. We have a large, completely fenced backyard, more than half an acre, and usually after her […]
I have been busy getting things done for the release of my latest book, Big Lake Homecoming. After Terry edited and proofread the last chapters, I sent them off to Judy and Roberta to go through. I got Judy’s back and made her suggested corrections, and now I am waiting for Roberta’s. I hope to […]
I doubt there’s anybody who has grown up in this country without knowing at least something about notorious outlaw brothers Jesse and Frank James, who spread terror throughout the country in the years following the Civil War. From their days as guerrillas fighting for the Southern cause to their careers as train and bank robbers, […]
I had a self-imposed deadline of June 30th to finish my latest book, Big Lake Homecoming. I was on track to get that done, but then we got an unexpected call Tuesday morning from our primary care provider at Premier Mountain Healthcare asking Terry to come to their office to go over the results of […]
Terry has always loved lilacs and wanted to get some planted in the backyard, so when we were at Christopher’s Garden Nursery in Lakeside the other day, we bought three bushes. Since we are supposed to get some rain this weekend, I wanted to get them planted so we could take advantage of the added […]
It’s been a while since Terry’s put anything together, and I think she was going through tool withdrawal. But not anymore. The other day she got to use her skills to assemble a new item to make our life easier when we’re working in the yard or the greenhouse. You can tell she’s happy by […]
Terry has enjoyed getting her raised garden beds set up and things planted in the last few days. We both mentioned that she would have more success here than we did in Alabama because she won’t have the deer and rabbits eating everything before she can harvest them. Yes, we have deer and rabbits here, […]
I don’t really have much to talk about today because there wasn’t a lot going on yesterday, but I’ll try to fill you in on what I do have. We started the day with a visit from Tiffany and Kenny. He was gone much of last week attending seminars down in the Scottsdale area related […]
For travelers, there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason to stop in the small town of Neligh, Nebraska, in the northeast part of the state on U.S. Highway 275. With a population of around 1,500 people, Neligh has a couple of small museums, some mom and pop businesses, and that’s about it. But […]
After reading last week’s Taxicab Tales about the drunk who grabbed a steak off someone’s plate and ran out of a restaurant, one of my readers said, “That sounds like something you would do, Nick.” Not me, although I do love a good ribeye steak now and then. But I don’t drink. I haven’t had […]
We were up at 7 a.m. yesterday morning, which is much earlier than usual for us, because we had an appointment at 8 with a termite inspector. We are paying the mortgage down with the proceeds from our home sale in Alabama and refinancing our house here, and the inspection was part of the process. […]
I had a friend who used to say that sometimes you get lucky even when you don’t deserve to. Something that happened a couple of weeks ago definitely proved him right. Terry and I had gone to Lowe’s to pick up some gardening supplies, and when we were loading them into the back of the […]