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For those who our interested in our wild 2022, here are the highlights:
January – After working hard to recover from her broken back, losing all kinds of weight and going to physical therapy all year, Sherrie was discouraged to learn her heart was clogged up. She had three stents put in her heart on 12/30/2021 and was back at work the next day. She added cardiac therapy to her physical therapy regimen.
February – Sherrie celebrated her 65th birthday and 30 years at the Blue Belle Inn. We enjoyed a short trip to Florida, and found a vintage motel just across from the Gulf on North Reddington Beach. We love walking on the beach, picking up seashells, photographing the sunset, and swimming. On Valentine’s Day, Sherrie hosted her ever first Tasting Menu with many happy customers attending.
March – Mark announced he would retire from “full-time” ministry as pastor at Zion, Hudson at the end of June. We went through the “last-times” with meaningful Lent and Easter season services, confirmation classes, and Vacation Bible School.
April – Sherrie sent HIGHLAND HEATHER, her new Scottish mystery, out into the world to rave reviews. After much prayer and discussion, we contacted a Realtor and put the Blue Belle Inn up for sale. Facing uncertainty as to where we would be going, Mark interviewed for a part-time call as pastor of Sion Lutheran Church, LCMC, rural Lake Mills, Iowa.
May – We accepted an offer on the Blue Belle, with a closing date just a few weeks away. Frantic packing ensues at two of our 4 homes. Dozens of guests were eager to eat and stay at the Blue Belle one last time. Sherrie worked double time trying to keep up. Sion extended a call to Mark to become a part-time pastor, preaching three Sundays per month. On Mother’s Day, while Mark was driving and Sherrie was on the phone to her mother, an uninsured motorist rear-ended us and totaled our Subaru. We now have no car and no place to move. We found our next car in North Dakota, and checked out an acreage that was up for auction. On the day of the auction, Sherrie had 20 people coming for lunch. They all prayed for God’s will to be done. When Mark came home, he had won the auction and we were the owners of a three bedroom home on five acres near a beautiful marsh, with two barns and other outbuildings, just three miles from our new church, a mile from a lovely lake where we love watching sunsets.
June – Moving started by preparing our home in rural Worth County (new paint inside and out, new flooring, new toilet, and a new well for starters). We said goodbye to the Zion congregation after ten and a half years along with dear friends and Blue Belle customers of up to 30 years.
July – Mark received a warm welcome at Sion. Sherrie wowed them with her piano playing. Moving was in full swing, with wonderful helpers to aid in the humongous task. Mark’s knee replacement surgery was postponed for the first time. A blessing in disguise? There was (still is?) so much to do. We continued to spend 2-3 days a week in Hudson, packing up the parsonage and made many trips to St. Ansgar to check in guests and clean Anne’s House, which we still owned.
August – We used our first “Sunday-off” to take a short trip to Wisconsin to hear the Red Hot Chilli Pipers at Irish Fest in Milwaukee and visit Amish country.
September – We headed to California for Mark’s 50-year high school reunion with sightseeing and visits to friends and family in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, and California squeezed in.
October – Anne’s House of Dreams sold and the loss of so many sweet moments and memories finally hit Sherrie. We closed on 40 acres of the original Hansen homestead. We listed our “cottage” in St. Ansgar which remains unsold. Mark’s knee replacement surgery was postponed a second time. Sherrie served 68 pumpkin dinners at our new home, reconnecting with faithful customers and thanking those who helped us move.
November – Mark’s knee replacement surgery went well. He began a period of recovery and physical therapy. Sherrie wrote 65,000 words for her NaNoWriMo project, SEA SHELL GINGER, a mystery set in Florida, and finished the rough draft soon after. Now on to edits!
December – Sherrie continues her nightly prayer and piano time on Facebook – a great way to ward off anxiety, encourage others, and give our burdens to the Lord. We are finally feeling settled in our new, much smaller home, although there are still many boxes to unpack. It’s time to decorate for Christmas but there is no room at the new Inn. Every inch is already full. A Christmas program at Sion accentuates our strengths – little ones who are adorable sheep (baaa) and shining stars (“Follow me!”) – and an entire cast of enthusiastic adults. Our oldest is an 89 year old wise man, our youngest, a 5 month old Baby Jesus, with many ages and talents represented in between.
It’s been quite a year! Not unlike an intense game of monopoly…
We have learned over and over that God makes beautiful things out of broken pieces. He brings joy out of despair and gives hope to the brokenhearted.
God makes all things beautiful in His time.
Thanks to all of you – friends and family – who have prayed us through this year of upheaval and transition. We love you all!
Love, Mark and Sherrie
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Mark and I only send Christmas letters to those who send them to us, so if you use the same system, this is your only chance to see what we included in our Christmas Letter for 2020.
Dear Friends and Family:
Amid the many disappointments of 2020, we make adjustments while continuing to be thankful and have hope for the future.
The year began with what has become our regular continuing education experience, the Abundant Life Summit in Fountain Hills, Arizona. As we waited at the Phoenix airport for our flight home, the big news was the first few cases of COVID-19 being noticed locally. We had cut our time in Arizona short because of a large private party scheduled at the Blue Belle, which ended up being cancelled at the last minute. Little did we know it would be the first of many bookings, special events, mystery dinners, and trips to be cancelled in 2020.
Like everyone else, our lives were greatly impacted by the pandemic. Although we both had the memorable experience of dealing with kidney stones in 2020, so far, we are thankful to report that neither of us have been infected with the virus.
For Sherrie, the Blue Belle Inn was without any overnight guests for two months – something that has never happened before in the 29 years she has been open. We are grateful for her loyal customers (many of whom we are happy to call friends) who found ways to support the business as she re-opened with limited seating for dining and many more take-out orders than she’s ever had. She has come to appreciate the new demands of being a “short order cook” and greatly enjoys the pleasant crew of people she has as her staff members as business begins to trickle in once again.
Mark continues as pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in rural Hudson, Iowa, now completing his ninth year. He finds great fulfillment in the ministry there. Although the church never “closed” we have greatly adjusted how we do things. We switched to putting our services on Facebook Live, when we couldn’t have worship with people inside the building. While we continue those internet postings, we are blessed to have a faithful group of in-person worship participants. What a surprise it has been to see people from well beyond our regular membership viewing these services online.
Sherrie published her 14th novel, Plum Tart Iris, set in the Bohemian Alps of the Czech Republic and is nearly finished with her next book, Ragged Robin, set on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. She started posting a daily prayer time on Facebook Live to pray for our country, and friends and acquaintances going through rough times because of the virus, playing a song on the keyboard each day – another big adjustment for someone who has always been shy about having her picture taken and playing the piano by herself.
Mark was able play golf more often than in previous summers. Although part of that involved a trade-off of devoting less energy to his other hobby of repairing old bicycles, getting outside in the fresh air has been positive. He wore short pants so often, that he actually had tan-lines for the first time in many years.
As we look ahead to 2021, we pray you may all have a year blessed with love and health. We are hopeful that we will finally get to go back to Europe this spring, and that some of the frustrations we dealt with in 2020 will be worked out eventually. Because we know that’s what God does! We continue to believe that God works all things together for good. As Sherrie likes to say, God makes beautiful things out of broken pieces.
Love to all of you,
Mark and Sherrie
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Okay – I’ll be honest. Part of the reason I write contemporary romantic suspense as opposed to historical is that I don’t have the time or inclination to do research. It’s not that I don’t enjoy history or investigating the past. And it’s not that I’m lazy – really. It’s simply that I’m already stretched so thin that I simply don’t have time. I own and operate a B&B and Tea House called the Blue Belle Inn, and I’m a pastor’s wife in a different town, 85 miles away. I play the piano at church with a traveling band of musicians, and I’m very involved in the lives of my family. I write on the run whenever I have a spare second, often with my laptop propped on the door of the glove compartment while my husband drives us between our two homes. If I had to stop and do extensive research on a specific time period or worry about maintaining historical accuracy, I’m convinced I’d never finish anything.
To keep things simple, I try to write about locations I’ve been to or lived in, and occupations or fields I’ve worked in or been trained to do. I’m less likely to make silly mistakes that way. I’ve had characters who are Realtors (I’m licensed in the state of Colorado), interior designers, quilters, farmers, pastors, home renovators, and business owners in Minnesota, Iowa, California and Colorado – all things and places that are intimately familiar to me. No matter – it still takes an immense amount of time to research and validate facts, even for familiar scenarios.
Part of the problem is that my characters somehow seem to acquire minds of their own. Tommy Love giving up on building his dream house in northern Minnesota and buying a beachfront property in central California in “Love Notes” is one good example of a character who went traipsing off in different directions, pulling “my” story and stretching “my” plotline to include things that I never would have thought of on my own, and attempting actions and activities I’d never dare try. What could I do? I was invariably forced to follow his lead, searching for those tidbits of knowledge I was lacking to keep the story grounded and authentic.
When I started writing “Blue Belle”, I had never been to Tobermory or the Isle of Mull, or even Scotland. When I finally set foot on the island, I had a strange sense of déjà vu because I was already so well acquainted with the place via the internet. One night, while I was sitting on a bench near the harbor, a woman walked by that looked exactly like I’d always envisioned Isabelle, my main character. It was eerie! I also had to change an entire scene that had Isabelle blithely scooting around Mull on her bicycle when I discovered how hilly the island is. It’s a very steep climb from the harbor street to the top of the hill where our B&B was!
Scoping out a location is only the beginning. I spent almost an entire day researching European chocolates for Blue Belle. When I was in Mull, I even had to go to Tobermory Chocolates to taste their famous Rose and Violet Cream Chocolates. You know, so I could describe them accurately. I had to take tea at the Willow Tea Room in Glasgow, try Victoria Sponge with buttercream and berries and Mini-Battenbergs layered with almond paste, moist cake, and apricot jam, and sample Sticky Toffee Pudding with Caramel Whiskey Sauce. Not that it stops with the sweets. I had to taste pub grub – things like Cumberland Mash and Cottage Pie with Thatched Roof and Smoked Haddock Pie with Mashed Potatoes – at locations all over Scotland. And, I had to stay at several B&B’s so I could experience an authentic Scottish breakfast. Yes, we authors are forced to spend our time laboring over many such unsavory tasks. I spent a huge amount of time looking for Scottish slang, phrases, and speech idioms that would define and give depth and reality to my characters and their conversations, yet be understandable to the average American reader. I researched castles and keeps, Cromwell’s practice of slighting, and the art of building with stones in both Scotland and Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.
Isabelle is a journalist, so part of my research involved investigating the facts behind each of the stories she was working on in the book, from Mad Cow and hoof and mouth to puffins and vultures, a Celtic bathing pool, and the centuries-old gold some people believe is still buried on a sunken Spanish galleon in Tobermory Bay.
The thing I like least about research is that I’ve already learned some things the hard way, which, sadly, means I already know everything I need to know about them without doing a single Google search. The thing I love most about researching is that once you start looking for specific answers to certain questions, you discover amazing things that lead you in completely new directions that then become fodder for your plot, and on and on in an explosive chain reaction of knowledge. It’s fascinating!
One of the things I’ve always loved about reading books is the new worlds that are opened up to me as I see a place or situation through the eyes of each character. Being an author has stretched me even more. Research can seem like a necessary evil at times, and a thrill at others. But no matter how hectic my schedule is or how bad my attitude about having to jump out of the story and take the time to chase down facts and figures, research is a great opportunity to learn more things, broaden your perspective, and see the world in a different light.
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In Northern Iowa and Southern Minnesota, where I’ve lived the bulk of my life, the bluebells bloom around the first week of May and are usually at their peak on Mother’s Day. this year, we’ve had a long, hard winter, and it’s seemed like spring would never get here. But the bluebells in my yard are right on target, with clusters of tiny blue, pink, and purple buds ready to pop open on the next warm day.
It seems appropriate that my new release, Blue Belle, the second of my Wildflowers of Scotland novels, should be released just in time for the first week of May. I received my proof copy about a week ago, and should have copies for sale at my B&B, the Blue Belle Inn, by May 1st.
Yes, that’s a lot of Blue Belles – and bluebells. I’ve already started to think about what I’m going to say about Blue Belle, the book, to my customers at the Blue Belle B&B.
Some authors sell their books almost exclusively online. Since I have a steady stream of people coming to the tea house at the Blue Belle Inn, I sell a lot of print books the old-fashioned way.
Over the years, I’ve found that what you write about a book on the back cover, to be read by prospective buyers who might pick it up at a store or look at it on a website, is quite different than what I feel comfortable saying to people face to face. I even wrote a poem for the back blurb of Blue Belle, which expresses many elements of the book very well. But I would feel quite silly quoting poetry table-side to my luncheon guests.
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When I tell people about Thistle Down (a novella) and Wild Rose, my first Wildflowers of Scotland novel, I simply say, “In Thistle Down, Pastor Ian MacCraig has two sisters who are going to be married. Emily has found the perfect man to marry. There’s only one problem – she’s not in love with him. Chelsea is wildly, passionately, madly in love with her fiance – he’s a total jerk. Pastor Ian has some unscrambling to do, especially when the church ladies get involved.”
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And – “When Wild Rose opens, someone has been stealing architectural relics from the church yard, so Pastor Ian installs a security camera to try to catch the thief in action. What he captures is Rose Wilson engaged in a passionate romp under the flying buttresses. My tag line is – Wild Rose and Pastor Ian MacCraig – a match made in heaven or one hell of a predicament?”
The blurb on the back of Blue Belle reads:
Isabelle doesn’t want to be found. Michael doesn’t want to be found out. When Damon starts searching for the centuries-old gold he thinks is buried in Tobermory Bay, it won’t matter what walls they’re hiding behind. Rocks will fall. Castles will crumble. No secret will be safe.
Age-old castles and blue-watered bays,
White sandy beaches and quaint cottage stays.
A rainbow of colors, and chocolates, hand-dipped,
A valley of bluebells, and sheep, freshly clipped.
Legends galore, buried treasure, and more…
In Tobermory, Scotland, that’s what’s in store.
What I’ll probably say about Blue Belle is:
“Isabelle is a reporter from Virgina who’s been burned. Now, all she wants is the truth – and one big story to help get her confidence back. Michael is a psychologist from Wisconsin who’s not only lying about who he is, but why he’s in Scotland pretending to be a contractor. What neither of them knows is that Isabelle’s story is buried in Tobermory Bay, practically writing itself, and that Michael’s finely crafted tale – and the castle he’s restoring – are about to come crumbling down around them.”
As time goes by, I hope to get my verbal pitch trimmed in half, or to think of the perfect one-sentence tagline that says it all. In the meantime, I hope that one or the other of my blurbs inspires you to give Blue Belle a look. Romance, suspense and mysteries aside, it’s about learning to trust – and I hope you will trust me to deliver another good story.
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Lately, everyone’s been asking when my next book is coming out. Blue Belle, the second of my Wildflowers of Scotland novels, should be ready in 60 – 90 days. All it needs is a serious going over and a new ending and it should be ready to send off to my publisher. In the meantime, I took advantage of NaNoWriMo to get 40,000 words into Shy Violet, the third in the series, so there should only be a short wait between the two books.
Some of you know that my primary distraction from writing is a bed and breakfast called the Blue Belle Inn B&B. For the past few months, my two passions have come together in a unique way. In August, I decided to write a series of what I like to call fractured fairy tale style murder mysteries highlighting the storybook themes of each of our guest rooms at the B&B is named after.
I started out with our “On the Banks of Plum Creek” room and wrote (with apologies to Laura Ingalls Wilder), “Little Oops On The Prairie”. It begins when Nellie Olafson’s somewhat eccentric, mean-spirited cousin, Nutty Olafson, is found face down at the supper table. My tagline read: Something smells fishy on the banks of Plum Creek – is there a wolf in sheep’s clothing lurking in the Big Woods or a little killer loose on the Prairie? Suspects Nellie Olafson, Visiting Professor Jerald Jill of Iowa, Quick Draw McNutt, local football hero Big Brawny, and the much loved but tragically flat-footed Insoles family are all in for a Long Winter in the pokey unless the true murderer can be uncovered. I also planned a theme dinner which included Ma’s Bean Soup with Bacon, Chicken Pie with Baking Powder Biscuit Crust, New England Pot Roast with Potatoes and Carrots, and Roast Pork with Milk Gravy and Mashed Potatoes.
We’ve been doing murder mysteries at the Blue Belle Inn for over 20 years now, at the rate of 4 to 9 times a year. Although I have several sources for purchasing the “whodunit” mystery games that become the basis for our dinner theater productions, it’s become increasingly harder to find fresh material that’s well-written. The actors would often complain about how flimsy the plots were, or that there just wasn’t enough material to work with. Often times, I would spend hours fleshing out the plays I bought online with an opening dialog, opening and closing statements, and so on, while the actors frequently had to unscramble plot elements that just didn’t make sense.
When I first started writing books, they were pure romance. I thought I’d never write novels that contained murder and mayhem, but in my last two books (Love Notes and Wild Rose) and the ones I’m presently working on (Blue Belle and Shy Violet), there are bad guys who are truly twisted, evil and bent on hurting people, a kidnapping, gunshots, and even a murder. As I worked on the motivation and chaotic situations caused by the suspense element in my novels, it occurred to me that I could just as well try my hand at a murder mystery. (Not to worry, there are still plenty of sweet, romantic moments in my novels, too.)
I also thought, if I wrote my own mysteries, that it would be fun to incorporate some local color. Some of our local spoofs include the World Famous Miracle Whip Clinic in Rochester, MN, where miracle cures abound, and our locally manufactured breakfast cereals with a pirate named Captain Crunch. Because murder mysteries are tongue in cheek, humorous and very irreverent, you can really toss in whomever and whatever you feel like. It’s also great fun writing parts that specifically match our actor’s best (and worst?) features. If we can’t laugh at ourselves once in awhile, what fun are we?
In September, we performed our second original mystery, “Footloose in Never Ever Land”. The intro read: Who will be next to walk the plank in Never Ever Land? One thing is sure – it won’t be poor Woody Stuck, an old hippie who was stuck in the 60’s, because he was found belly up in the Lagoon a few hours ago. Now the clock is ticking and we hope you’ll help Peter Pun and the Lost Boyz find out who is guilty – is it Captain Crunch, the pirate with the biggest chompers ever, Rev. Hal Fyre and his crony, The Church Lady, free-spirit Windy, Fancy Free Willow Tree, Crocodile Rock, who has a scaly skin condition, or Stinker Belle, the church secretary? The theme meal included Gems of the Sea Puffs Mornay with Shrimp & Crab on Scallop Shells, “But Spinach is Good for You, Peter” Chicken with Spinach Artichoke Dip & Italian Cheeses, and The Church Lady’s Sunday Roast Beef with Mashed Potatoes.
In October, we did “Shenanigans in Sherwood Forest with Robin Love & His Band of Unmarried Men”. The write-up says: Relationships are complicated in UnTie the Knotingham, a small but wealthy kingdom where the divorce rate is extremely high. Thus, it came as no surprise when Richie Rich, a philandering playboy, was found dead on his wedding day. The question is, who killed him? Wife #7 – the former Maid Mary Ann, Ginger Root, wealthy nobleman Henry the Eighth, Friar Luck, Viking warrior Little Johnson, or Robin Love – a poor, mild-mannered attorney who has devoted his life to championing the underdog in divorce cases far and wide? It’s up to you to unravel the mystery before anyone else loses their head and does something crazy, like getting married. SHERWOOD FOREST CUISINE featured Cottage Pie with a Thatched Roof, and Fruits of the Forest Chicken with Mushrooms, Apples, Berries and a Splash of Brandy.
That left “Anne of Green Gables”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “The Secret Garden”, Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time”, and “Heaven to Betsy”, from Maud Hart Lovelace’s Victorian era Betsy Tacy books, for future mystery dinner themes. At the rate of one every 3 – 4 weeks, by the time we finished one mystery, my brain has already been working on the next, envisioning characters who tesseract, wear pompadour hair styles and floppy hats and climb big hills with the Crowd, or hob knob with princes and princesses and wicked witches and maybe a giant bunny rabbit or two.
In November, for our Anne of Green Gables Fans, we premiered a mash up Lucy Montgomery’s Anne books and Gone with the Wind. “Anne Green and Dianna Dingleberry’s Most Excellent Adventure”. The lead-in read: When cold-hearted Rachel Bag O’ Wynde, the neighbor from down the lane, is found dead, every one thinks she choked on an artichoke heart. But one person knows how she really died, and it was no accident. Help Anne Green and Dianna Dingleberry find out who is guilty. Is it sour old Marilla Lemon, Matthew Chokecherry, obsessed with being best Gilbert Plum, Southern belle Scarlett Pimpernel, the pasty faced schoolteacher Ashley Grey, or Rhett, the Butler? Dudley Do-Right of the Canadian Mounted Police even made a guest appearance.The custom menu included PEI Potato Soup, Ingleside Inn’s Fried Steak with Cheesy Onion Gravy and Red Potatoes, and Anne and Dianna’s Most Resplendent Raspberry Cordial Chicken served with Cavendish Creamed Potatoes and Peas. The featured dessert was Bread Pudding with Caramel Whiskey Sauce – sans the mouse.
In December, we tackled Sleeping Beauty with “Will the Real Prince Charming Please Stand Up?” My teaser read: When game show host Alec Quebec is found dead, everyone on the latest episode of “To Twist the Truth!” is a suspect. Who is guilty? Is it one of the esteemed panel of judges – Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, wicked stepmother Eveele O’Gress, or Glimmer, the Good Fairy? Or is it one of the contestants – dashing Prince Charming, Hermie, the Outcast Elf wannabe dentist, or Dopey the Dwarf, who was last seen clutching a ruby red slipper and looking for Cinderella? Or is it Kermit, a spirited frog that keeps hopping around the stage? The made-to-fit menu included Bavarian Hunter Schnitzel on Homemade Spaetzle Noodles, Cinderella’s Pumpkin with Pork and Parmesan Filling, and Snow White’s Special Apple Pie.
Our January premier was “Who? Whatsit? Which Wicked Witch is Dead?” a mash up that featured childhood favorites “A Wrinkle in Time” and the “Wizard of Oz”. My teaser read: When a Wrinkle in Time causes Camazotz and the Emerald City to collide, the witch is accidentally squished. Or was it Mrs. Which? And was it really an accident? Follow the yellow brick road with Meg Dorothea Ditz, Charles Wallace Wiz, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, the creepy computer guy nobody likes – Jay I.T. Bug, Glinda the Good, scary mafia man Scarface Crow from Central Intelligence, and nice guy Calvin Tim Mann, who wears his heart on his sleeve, to find out which one really did it. I had fun with this meun – Emerald City Soup with Green Broccoli & Garlic Herb Toasts, Over the Rainbow Fruit Wand, Starry, Starry Night Steak with Green Peppercorn Sauce, Aunt Beast’s Best Ever Vegetable Cheese Puff, Out of this World Salmon with Seafood Stuffing, and Mrs. Murry’s Bunsen Burner Beef Stew with Biscuits on Top.
On February 7 and 8, we’re looking forward to presenting another original murder mystery entitled “Betsy and Tacy Go Downton” – a mash up of my favorite books, the Betsy Tacy books by Minnesota author Maud Hart Lovelace, and the popular British TV series, Downton Abbey. Here’s what guests have to look forward to: When Betsy Ray’s British cousin, Matthew Crawley, fakes his death in a car accident and comes to Deep Valley, MN because he needs a break from Downton Abbey, a round of parties is planned to introduce him to the Crowd. When Lord Grantham and the Dowager Countess cross the pond to put an end to his lark, the unthinkable happens and Matthew is murdered. (Yes, this time, he’s really dead.) Did someone tamper with his dance card, hot wire his motor car, or spike his punch? Or could he simply not tolerate the caterwauling during the Cat Duet? Betsy, Tacy, Tib, Bad Boy Tony, Busty Bonnie the Minister’s Daughter (who we’ve never quite trusted), Joe Schmo, and Thomas, the Valet are all suspects. The menu includes “Onion Sandwich” Soup a la Mr. Ray, Betsy’s Heart of My Heart Chicken with Garlic Rosemary Cream Sauce and Artichoke Hearts, Tib’s Beef Rouladen with Bacon & Onion Gravy on Homemade Spaetzle Noodles, Tacy’s Irish Meat Pie with Pork and Potatoes, and Lady Violet’s Elegant Roast Beef with Chardonnay Cream Sauce, Gorgonzola Cheese and Red Potatoes – and of course, a bite of the Crowd’s Famous Fudge for dessert.
A tale based on the book “The Secret Garden” is next, in March or April, and will probably feature a mad Farmer MaGregor and that rascal, Peter Cottontail. After that – who knows? It’s been an absolute thrill to see the creative costumes the actors have come up with for each of my mysteries and watch the way they’ve brought my characters and words to life. My only regret is that I’m usually working in the kitchen and don’t get to see much of the performances. Our actors are some of the best and so creative! John Deyo’s portrayal of a hopping, green frog / Prince Charming and Lisa Deyo’s rendition of Sleeping Beauty were amazing and very memorable. Mel Schroeder has done everything from A to Z including a one-legged pirate. My favorite of Deb Stickney’s roles to date is The Church Lady but she also does a great German accent. My husband, Mark Decker, makes foaming at the mouth and dying look so realistic that it’s scary. Neil and Terri Hernan, Mark and Ken Borchardt, Phyllis Ruehlow, Brenda and Michael Esdohr, Julia Crail, Tiffany Adams, and so many more who have filled in for us on occasion are some of the most versatile, slightly crazy, very silly actors ever.
I’m thrilled to say that our new, original mysteries have been getting rave reviews from our customers, including my mother, who said, “Are all those crazy things really in your head?”, to which I replied, “They kinda are.”
If you live in northern Iowa or southern Minnesota and haven’t been to one f the Blue Belle’s mystery dinners yet, it’s high time! Like I always say, at what other event does the guilty perpetrator of a dastardly deed get a round of applause? And as always, if you guess correctly or solve the mystery, you could get your dinner free.
One of these days, I’ll get around to finishing Blue Belle and Shy Violet, but in the meantime, if you’ve wondered what I’m up to – this is it! I hope you’ll also watch for another instance when my innkeeping and writing worlds are scheduled to collide… Second Wind Publishing will be hosting a Pitch the Publisher event at the Blue Belle Inn B&B sometime this summer or fall. Stay tuned for further details!
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I woke up this morning filled with sweet memories of a Merry Christmas spent with my family, prepared to do a “Twas the day after Christmas” blog, but then I looked outside.
Here in North Iowa and Southern Minnesota, we’ve had a lot of snow and below zero temperatures already this winter. The forecast HIGH for Tuesday is -2 below zero. Don’t even get me going on wind chills – they were – 25 and -30 a few days ago and forecast to dip as low or even lower next week.
Can you blame me for wanting to take a little trip to summertime?
I’m deep into Shy Violet, the third of my Wildflowers of Scotland novels, and almost ready to do edits on Blue Belle, the second, and relishing summertime on the Isles of Skye and Mull. When I can’t remember the sights and smells of summer, I look at my photos and dream of warm days and starry, summertime nights and write on. It’s fun to escape to a landscape filled with wildflowers and green grass. Some people take a vacation to the south of France or Florida or the California coast. I get lost in a book set in the summertime.
My favorite wildflowers are those that I find growing in front of a picturesque sight like a castle or an old kirk, a lake or ocean, a stunning mountain, or even those that grow in the front yard of my B&B, the Blue Belle Inn. If I were a wildflower, that’s where I would plant myself. Life is short and I like to get outside and enjoy the views as often as I can.
Wildflowers take root wherever they can find a toehold. They’re tenacious and determined and slightly stubborn, just like me.
Wildflowers grow in a wild tangle of disarray. Although I try to make myself tidy up my house on a regular basis so it looks like a photo shoot from Beautiful Home magazine (in case my mother should drop by), it more often looks like a tornado just touched down. The truth is, I’m just not into regimented gardens planted in straight rows a specific number of inches apart. I’m more of a wildflower and always have been.
The heroines of my Wildflowers of Scotland novels – Wild Rose (Rose), Blue Belle (Isabelle), and Shy Violet (Violet) – are all prone to living their lives in unconventional ways. They don’t like to be fenced in. They know how to make the best of a bad situation – to bloom where they’re planted despite that fact that the weather and soil and growing conditions are less than ideal. They get trampled on and they bounce back. They’re true glories of nature.
Thanks for taking a brief trip to summertime with me. I hope you’ve enjoyed the green scenery, warm breezes, and raindrops on roses.
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If you refuse to get in the mood, you can go read Love Notes – it starts as autumn is changing to winter and ends on Christmas Eve. It takes place in Embarrass, MN, the coldest place in America. If you’re in the mood for a good winter read, this is it. Google Embarrass, MN on Tuesday and see how warm it is up north! I’ll be cozied up, dreaming of roses and bluebells and violets, waiting for summer to return. Merry Christmas!
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I wear a lot of different hats in my life as a writer, the owner and manager of the Blue Belle Inn B&B and Tea House, a pastor’s wife, and a daughter, sister and aunt. And I don’t get it from strangers. My Grandma Hansen loved wearing hats. During the depression, she and my Great-Grandma Danny used to make matching mother daughter dresses out of feed sacks. They would go to the feed store with Grandpa and root through the pile of feed sacks until they found enough in the right fabric to make two dresses. They sewed the dresses on a treadle sewing machine. I remember pumping my short legs back and forth on it when I was a girl. Grandma told me once that she never minded wearing a feed sack dress as long as she had a pretty hat to make it an outfit.
So she would take a few pennies of the money she raised selling the eggs her chicken laid (their only source of cash during the depression) and drive to the Millinery Shoppe in St. Ansgar to buy a hat.
Grandma Hansen was a multi-tasker, and a wearer of many hats, just like I am. She cooked enough for a threshing crew even when there wasn’t one, had a huge garden, entertained family, friends and neighbors on a regular basis, taught a Sunday School class, and always seemed to find time for a game of Aggravation or Sorry with the grandchildren. She taught us how to make hollyhock dolls (with pretty little hats) and pick eggs and butcher chickens. She was a woman of many talents. But no matter how busy she was, she always had time to tell us a story.
When I think of how tired Grandma must have been at the end of a long hard day washing clothes on a wringer washer, sewing on a treadle machine, cooking over a wood cook stove and standing on her head out in the garden, it amazes me that she had the energy to tell us bedtime stories, And never just one… My favorites included Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, The Little Red Hen, The Three Little Pigs, and Chicken Little with Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, and Turkey Lurkey. There were also stories about our dad when he and his brother and sister were little. And there were stories from the Bible, stories about Jesus, and people he knew, like Nicodemus, Peter, and Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Grandma wove her stories with Billy Goat Gruff’s deep, scary voice, and Goldilocks sweet soprano. She held us spellbound for hours, telling stories that were new each time we heard them even though we had heard them hundreds of times.
So it seems that I got not only my love of hats from my Grandma Hansen, but the gift of storytelling. As a writer of novels, I’ve spun tales of pure imagination in Night and Day, Stormy Weather, Water Lily, Merry Go Round, Love Notes, Thistle Down and Wild Rose that I hope would make her proud.
When I put on my chef’s hat and go to work in the kitchen of my B&B, I tell people how the Blue Belle Inn came to be, and how I concocted their favorite recipes, how I met my husband and what interesting guests we’ve had that week.
I really do wear a hat to church most Sundays, when I dabble at being a pastor’s wife. And I tell the old, old story with my hands and voice, as I play the piano and help lead worship. When I’m with my nieces and sometimes my nephew, I tell stories about their daddy when he was a baby, and about what happened in our family before he was born. I’m 16 years older than my brother, and someone has to pass down the stories and legends and funny family tales. Who better than I, the oldest daughter of the oldest daughter of the oldest daughter for generations back? It’s a sacred calling.
I used to wish I had one outstanding talent that would propel me to some sort of greatness. I play the piano plenty well enough for our small church, but a concert pianist, I’ll never be. I was a straight A student, but I’m no rocket scientist. I am good at a small dabbling of different things instead of being great at one thing.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve decided I like wearing different hats – my purple one to parties, my velvet one to church, my straw hat to tea and my floppy Florida hat with the big brim to the beach. What I once rued, I’m now thankful for. I’m a storyteller, a preserver of legends, a mind set free to fly anywhere in the world my imagination may take me.
So thank you, Grandma Hansen, for telling me about Indians and horse-drawn sleighs and one room schoolhouses and eloping to the Little Brown Church in the Vail, and all the stories of your life. My hat’s off to you.
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About 10 pm, I left work. My last words were, “I’m going to blog, and then I’m going to bed.” I’ve not been getting enough sleep lately and I have to be back at work at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning to receive a shipment.
It’s now almost 2 am. I fell asleep in my chair.
So the moral of the story is…
Sometimes I think it would be nice to be Superwoman – to do everything I want to do and be everything for everyone I love. But it just doesn’t work that way.
I’m more Supernova than Superwoman.
So get it while you can. Read “Wild Rose”.
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Just as the night is darkest just before the dawn, perhaps the light is brightest just before it fades from view .
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I’m posting my favorite recipe for Beef Burgundy, and a fun way to use leftovers — Beef Burgundy Cobbler with Bacon Chive Biscuits
Do you have a recipe that has burgundy wine for an ingredient? In my opinion, a delicious recipe is a very creative endeavor and also a thing of beauty!
Beef Burgundy
Three 8 oz. top sirloin steaks
2 slices bacon, cut in pieces & browned
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 pkg. dry onion soup mix (may use 1 pkg.)
1 c. burgundy wine
½ cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/2 tsp. herbs de provence
½ c. water + ½ c. beef broth with 1 TBS cornstarch
Brown steaks in oil. Pepper steaks and move to a dark enamel roaster, saving drippings in frying pan. Mix other ingredients together, add to the frying pan and bring to a boil. Pour over the steaks and roast. Cover & bake for 2 hrs. at 325° or until steaks are tender and gravy is a rich brown. Serves 3. Serve with red potatoes.
*This recipes makes a lot of gravy, so we make a big batch and use the leftovers to make Beef Burgundy Cobbler with Bacon Chive Biscuits. One leftover steak along with the mushrooms and gravy, is enough to fill 3 – 4 individual, ovenproof crocks or a medium sized casserole to about an inch from the top. Then, make your favorite baking powder biscuits (my recipe is below) and stir in some precooked bacon pieces and some freshly snipped or dried chives. Drop the biscuits on top of the hot gravy (if the gravy isn’t hot, the biscuits won’t get done on the bottom). Bake the casserole(s) at 400 degrees until the biscuits just start to brown.
Baking Powder Biscuits
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons crumbled, cooked bacon, if desired
2 tablespoons freshly snipped chives (or 2 tsp. dried), if desired
4 heaping tablespoons (I use a soup spoon) shortening
1 cup milk
Mix the flour, salt, B.P., and bacon and chives if desired. Add shortening and cut in until the consistency of fine crumbs with a pastry cutter. Stir in the milk until fully moistened. Drop on bubbling meat pie mix or on a baking tray and bake about 15 – 20 minutes until just starting to brown.
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I had a book I made at Shutterfly on the coffee table at the Blue Belle Inn B&B – a guest fell in love with it and asked me to order a copy for a friend of hers. Hope you enjoy it, too. Sherrie
Blue Belle Books... a Blog by Author Sherrie Hansen 