Well, in honor of my new book hitting the shelves, my daughter Rose, my friend Theresia, and I all decided to try our hand at making snow globes. This could have proved to be a big nightmare since I did not inherit the craft gene. My mom had it, my daughter has it -obviously, in my family it skips a generation. But this turned out to be great fun. So, what do you need to make a snow globe? Cute jars (pickle jar, jam jar - anything that will hold a miniature ornament), ornaments for inside the jar (which you can get at craft stores such as Michael's and JoAnne's), glue & glue gun, glycerin, glitter, distilled water, and some ribbon to cover up the jar lid.

We did this in stages, gluing our figurines one day and then filling the jars with water and glue after the decoration inside had time to set up. To make it more visible, we mounted a bottle cap on top of our lid (which served as the base). Vitamin bottle caps work great for this. So, once your decoration is in there and you've filled your jar with water and added glitter, how much glycerin? Well, it depends on how slowly you want your glitter "snow" to fall. The more glycerin the slower the snowfall. I think we used about a quarter teaspoon. Experiment with this. Some sites suggest mineral water instead of glycerin but we found that it made the water cloudy. Some sites called for waterproof glue. We tried that. The figurine fell off its stand with one small tap. Regular old glue gun glue worked like a charm.

One of the globes we used aquarium sealant to make sure our lid stayed on. The other two though, again, good old glue gun glue did the trick. You want to fill your jar as full as possible so you don't wind up with an air bubble at the top. But hey, if you get a bubble, put a decoration on the top and no one will be the wiser. This makes a great project to do with girlfriends or older children. We had a wonderful time together doing this. And our snow globes turned out great. The picture doesn't do them justice. (I didn't inherit the photography gene either!)

snow globes

Can keep an author from going where she needs to go. Last Friday was great fun. I enjoyed hamming it up at a library event with my friends and fellow writers Susan Wiggs and Kimberly Fisk. (Great women, great conversation, and chocolate - what was not to like about that?) After the event, it was off to Bellevue (lovingly known as the east side to Seattle residents) for a romance writers conference (where there would, of course, be more chocolate). Sheila was at the wheel . . . and Kimberly, who was riding shotgun was wishing she'd had more wine and chocolate before we left. Our timing wasn't the best, going through Seattle when a Mariners game is letting out. Let me just say that a salmon would have an easier time spawning upstream. We encountered the mother of all detours and wound up stuck in traffic waiting for a turn signal to change. This would have not been so stressful if we hadn't been waiting on a train track. Yes, I know. Does that get the stupid award or what? I kept thinking the conga line of cars was going to move forward any second, but nobody was going anywhere. And yes, there were no trains on the track but still... I know I saw SOMETHING waaay down there. A light. The light at the end of the tunnel, as in follow the light to the great beyond. Sure we were going to die any minute, I further risked life and limb and car fenders and squeaked by the car in front of me, went another way that had Kimberly reciting the Lord's Prayer, and, low, and behold, we finally wound our way back to the freeway entrance we needed. I sprouted eighty-two new hairs in the process but we made it to our conference and had a great time. As you can see by the picture of me happily, hamily smiling with authors Cherry Adair and Elizabeth Boyle and my fabulous editor from St. Martin's Press, Rose Hilliard. Now I'm once more safely home and I keep thinking about that old kids' song about the peanut sitting on the railroad track with its heart all aflutter. How does the peanut's story end? "Toot, toot! Peanut butter." Well, when you act like you have the brain of a peanut what can you expect? Thank God I have a very efficient guardian angel!

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