I know many of you have already heard the news, but since I am still continuing to get phone calls asking for lunch and room reservations, I want to do what I can to spread the word… After 30 years at the Blue Belle Inn B&B and Tea House, I recently sold the property, closed the business, and moved to a north Iowa acreage near my husband’s new church. It’s been an interesting transition and “redefining” the ways I spend my days has been a challenge with mixed blessings. It’s been a busy few months moving out of 4 houses and downsizing to one fairly small ranch style house on our new acreage. Of course, I’m having fun decorating our new space. We enjoy being surrounded by our cherished mementoes and treasures, but trying to find room for all the things we thought we needed to save continues to be difficult.

I continue to enjoy cooking for family and friends, hosting tea parties for my great nieces and nephews, writing novels (I’m currently working on Sea Shell Ginger, set in Florida), photographing the sun setting over the lake at the wildlife area that’s less than a mile from our new house, playing the piano at our new church, traveling the world (Scotland last September and the West from Colorado to California this September), reconnecting with old friends, and making new ones, too.

My focus once we get past the moving blues will be on writing and hopefully, doing a better job of promoting my novels. For those of you not familiar with my writing career, my debut book, Night and Day, was released in 2009. I now have 15 novels and a novella in print including Love Notes, the Maple Valley trilogy (Stormy Weather, Water Lily, and Merry Go Round), and my Wildflowers of Scotland novels (Thistle Down, Wild Rose, Blue Belle, Shy Violet, Sweet William and Golden Rod), as well as Daybreak, the long-awaited sequel to Night and Day, and four recent mysteries – Seaside Daisy, set in Ireland, Plum Tart Iris, set in Czechia, and Ragged Robin and Highland Heather, set in Scotland.

In November, I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo once again, which involves writing about 1650 words a day for 30 days for a total of 50,000 words. I’ve already got a good start on Sea Shell Ginger, set on St. Pete’s Beach in Florida, and hope to finish the rough draft by the end of the month. Next on the list is a sequel to Highland Heather called Alpine Meadow. And, this winter, I’ll be releasing the long-promised Blue Belle Inn Cookbook.

If any of you “retired” people have any advice for someone in my position, let me know! Life is good, and one thing that I’ve already learned is that afternoon naps are a wonderful thing. For those of you who have been cheering me along already, I appreciate your continued prayers as I continue to redefine my new life.

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