We hit the potato chip factory first (hey—gotta have your priorities straight!) Route 11 is a small company, local to the area. I especially love their sweet potato chips. Yum!
Through the glass of their small showroom, we got to see the whole potato chip process from frying to seasoning to bagging. We also learned that they remove the skins from the potatoes with sandpaper. Kinda neat. There are samples to try as well as bags of chips to buy. That day, we got to sample salt and pepper chips. Pretty tasty.
Tea Garden
Around the corner from that, we went to Shenandoah Caverns. Though Luray Caverns is more well-known, Shenandoah is a lot of fun too. They also have a tiny 1931 elevator to access the caverns.
Cascade Hall
During our about one mile walking tour, we saw hanging strips of bacon, the Grotto of the Gods, and the Capitol Dome, among others. Fox really enjoyed his time in “the caves.” He learned how to distinguish stalactites from stalagmites—stalactites come from the top.
During Fox’s recent spring break, we took him on several adventures. We took a day trip to Charlottesville, Virginia to visit Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson started Monticello at 26 and honed it for over 50 years, seeking to create his version of the ideal home.
In a time before refrigeration, Jefferson stored fresh fish for the table in this pond.
Fox knows Jefferson as the 1-2-3 president. He was the first Secretary of State, the second Vice President, and the third president. Much as The Pilot and I remembered from our own school trips there, Fox loved the clock on the wall of the entryway the best (it tells the days of the week)—though they had to cut a hole into the basement for the last three days.
We were there in very early spring so most of the grounds weren’t quite in bloom. They have a gorgeous new visitors center and buses that carry you to the top of the hill to walk around and see the grounds. (Back in my day, we had to hike from the parking lot 🙂
View toward Mulberry Row and the vegetable gardens beyond.
Even at six, Fox really seemed to enjoy his glimpse into history. Monticello is definitely worth a visit, if you happen to be nearby.
A fun perspective shot of the back of the nickel Monticello with the real thing (my mom is holding the coin 🙂
With WaterlougeView of the Jefferson Memorial across the tidal basin
I grew up in the Washington, DC suburbs so I’m used to cherry blossom fever. The Pilot and I got married at peak bloom thirteen years ago so we both have a special soft spot for the delicate pink blooms. We decided to take Fox to see the blossoms at the National Cherry Blossom Festival this year. Here are some shots we took this year. I also included some shots treated with the Waterlogged app.
Another view of the tidal basin, Jefferson Memorial, and cherry blossoms in bloom.Close-up of the blossoms.With WaterlougeView of the Washington Monument through the blossoms (with Waterlogue app)
Japan gifted the trees to us in 1912 and, after the first batch fell to disease, the second trees were planted all around the city, but most famously around the tidal basin at the Jefferson Memorial. They bloom for only about a week each year, an event prized by tourists and locals alike.
If you just want to see the trees, the Capitol side garden has a beautiful grove that is not nearly as crowded as the tidal basin. We actually had some of our wedding photos taken there and they are some of the best shots of all.
Reserve your paddleboat early!
We did have a wonderful time but the festival is very, very crowded so it’s difficult to maneuver around the narrow cherry blossom paths. If you want to ride the paddleboat on the basin, make sure you reserve online. The National Mall is also in walking distance, as well as the location of the closest Metro stop (Smithsonian), so you could combine your visit with a trip to one of the museums. We hit Air & Space that day too. As there is no nearby parking and traffic is very heavy, Metro transport is also recommended.
View of the trees in the Smithsonian Castle courtyard. (With Waterlogue app).View of the Smithsonian Castle (with Waterlogue app).
They usually bloom the first week of April so if you’re planning for 2016 book now!
So, have you heard about the new trend of coloring books for adults? For the past several weeks, Johanna Basford’s coloring books, Secret Gardenand Enchanted Forest, have topped the Amazon bestseller charts. Full of fanciful illustrations, with plenty of room to color, these books are touted as everything from play for adults to creativity boosts to relaxation and meditation aides.
And I say, yes to all of the above 🙂 I’ve been coloring with Fox for about three years. I started out with free mandalas and downloads from Don’t Eat the Paste. (Several of the ones in the photos are from that site). I saw Basford’s books a few months ago and ordered them quickly thereafter. They are wonderful, detailed and rich, with lots of hidden things to find.
As a recovering type A (my RL friends and family need to stop laughing at that!), I have tried to meditate multiple times. My monkey mind just doesn’t want to cooperate. However, with coloring, I can fall into a meditative sort of trance. I think it’s because the repetitive motion keeps my hands busy and the inner critic quiet.
I keep a notebook beside me and write down any ideas that pop up. That’s how I’m brainstorming my current WIP, Forever a Bridesmaid. Grab yourself a box of crayons or some colored pencils and give it a try yourself.
Have you heard about the latest wellness movement? It’s #wycwyc (pronounced wick-wick) and stands for “What You Can, When You Can.” The brainchild of Roni Noone and Carla Birnberg, the concept is that the crazy fad diets (cabbage soup, anyone?) and the marathoner mindset don’t help anyone actually become fit and healthy for life. Instead, the small daily actions that we squeeze into our real, overstuffed lives are what actually makes a difference long term.
For example, when going to Target, park as far as possible and get some extra steps in #wycwyc. Or get the side salad instead of the fries at the burger joint #wycwyc. Go to bed early so you’ll be ready for tomorrow #wycwyc.
I’ve been listening to their podcaston my own daily walks (#wycwyc baby!) and I love it. It’s like chatting with my best girlfriends (none of whom, sadly, live close enough to take a daily walk together). Their book recently came out. It’s a series of short essays illuminating and exemplifying the #wycwyc philosophy and integrating it into your daily life. It’s just the daily shot of motivation needed to keep #wycwyc-ing your way to your goals.
Carla and Roni really want to create a social media community of wycwyc-ers coalescing around the #wycwyc on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. They are both super friendly and approachable, real women who really understand the struggles faced by the average woman, in the real world. Roni’s Green Lite Bites has long been a favorite go-to recipe site for me.
As I was reading the book though, I was struck at how I, unknowingly, used the #wycwyc philosophy to change fiction writing from a hobby I dabbled in to my new career. I used to believe that I would write when life settled down and I had time—hours on end to devote to my craft, perhaps with a manservant or two to see to my every need. Guess what? That’s not happening. I will never have hours on end, free of all other responsibilities or interests to pursue my writing.
Instead, I took the Chuck Wendig of Terrible Minds, challenge to write 350 words a day, every day, no excuses. (Link does contain some NSFW language but, if you’re a writer, you can’t beat Wendig’s down to earth approach and fantastic approach. Read Terrible Minds!) So, I started writing 350 words a day, whenever I could squeeze it in. Sometimes that meant at lunch, sometimes waking up before Fox, sometimes staying up crazy late. But I did it. And some days it was just 350 words and then sometimes, I’d make 1000+ words a day. I kept up my streak for 254 straight days, until we took a family vacation at Disney World. By then, writing every day was an ingrained habit.
Some other examples of #wycwyc for writing:
1) Load your e-reader up with writing craft books and read those instead of checking Facebook, again. #Wycwyc
2) Set up a newsreader of your favorite writing blogs to stay up on the industry #wycwyc
3) Listen to writing podcasts on your walk (double #wycwyc). Start with anything by StoryWonk. Their podcasts are master classes.
What can you do to #wycwyc your way to your dreams?
As I discussed in last week’s post, in The Lost Art of Second Chances, Bella leaves Italy and ends up in Boston, Massachusetts to raise her family. Partly, this was to mesh with Lucy’s story, which I’d already set in upstate Massachusetts.
In the book, Jack references a family tradition of Bella taking Lucy to buy a special dress and to lunch at Filene’s. Though the store doesn’t exist any longer, Filene’s was a department store in Boston’s Downtown Crossing area.
Because Filene’s placed their markdowns on the bottom floor, they helped coin the term “bargain basement.” Perhaps the most famous of their bargains was the semiannual “running of the brides” when wedding gowns went on sale.
Filenes also had a famous clock that became a common meeting place for shoppers, hence the phrase “Meet me at the clock.” My mother often reminisces about the lunches she’d enjoy after meeting her girlfriends under the clock and working up an appetite hunting for bargains in the basement.
Sadly, the store filed for bankruptcy and shuttered for good several years ago. The Downtown Crossing store was leveled soon after. So, no more meetings under the clock or running of the brides, except in my novel, The Lost Art of Second Chances.
Time again to visit some research for The Lost Art of Second Chances. Once Bella leaves Italy, she establishes herself in America. Specifically, she lives in a suburb outside of Boston. In one key scene in the book, Bella and her family enjoy an outing to Revere Beach.
Revere Beach is about four miles north of Boston. Established in 1895, the beach quickly became popular, especially with immigrants to the area. After a thirty year decline, revitalization efforts in the mid-1990s, along with a sand sculpting competition and festival provided a resurgence to the area.
My mother is from Massachusetts and we still have family there so we often visit. I’ve been to Revere Beach many times. But I’ve heard my mother’s stories about it even more often. Riding the roller coasters (the Cyclone is still famed–my mother still won’t ride a roller coaster after riding that one in her youth) and eating Kelly’s roast beef sandwiches. So, when I needed a beach setting for my scene, I thought of Revere.
Bella’s scene there is set in the mid-1950s. So, obviously, it was a bit different than it is today. An excellent article about the historical sites on the beach can be found here.
Back again with more background information on The Lost Art of Second Chances. So, this story is a braided or dual narrative. We have Lucy and Jack’s story that takes place more or less in the present day. And we also follow Belladonna’s story starting from her childhood in pre-World War II Italy and coming forward to the present time.
As I’ve mentioned before, Jack and Lucy were my initial plan for this book as a second chance at love story. Instead, Belladonna just up and stole the show. I realized I needed to tell her story too and began researching Italy in the second World War. In school, I’d learned that Italy sided with Germany and Japan in the war but I never realized that Italy actually withdrew from the war in mid-1943. From that point forward, the Allies (mostly the British and the Americans) marched up the Italian mainland, fighting the Germans the entire way.
As the Germans retreated, through the remainder of 1943 and 1944, they occasionally attacked various towns. As I was developing Bella’s story, I heard CNN report on the story of San Pancrazio. On 29 June 1944, German soldiers attacked the tiny mountaintop village, killing 73 men and destroying the village. The horror of San Pancrazio became the basis for Belladonna’s fictional hometown, Angelo Ali, and Paolo’s story. Angelo Ali translates to Angel’s Wings, an appropriate name for a tiny hamlet in the clouds. Here is the CNN story.
Art and other priceless cultural treasures are often victims of war too. The Monuments Men, made famous by the recent George Clooney movie for their more well-known work in France, were also quite busy in Italy. Bella’s love interest, Paolo LaRosa, works with the Monuments Men. They meet when Paolo and the Monuments Men want to secrete art treasures in her hometown. Paolo himself did not exist, except in my imagination. But the Monuments Men did. The books I relied on to learn about their mission were (note that all links are Amazon Affiliate links):
This sailboat directly inspired the scene with Jack on Plum Island early in The Lost Art of Second Chances. He sees the sailboat and chooses to take the chance to go to Italy with Lucy.
Last week, I talked a bit about the backstory of Lucy’s cat, Frank, from The Lost Art of Second Chances. This week, I thought I’d talk about Lucy and Jack’s (the heroine and hero of the present day story) hometown of Applebury, Massachusetts. After a quick consultation with my handy dandy Google maps, there, in fact, is no such place as Applebury, Massachusetts. It’s a fictionalized version of a place called Amesbury, a small town about an hour north of Boston.
As I have family and friends that live there, I’ve been many times, most recently in October 2011. Probably because I’d just been there, I chose to set my novel there, in the fall, when I started Nanowrimo 2011.
While we were there, we enjoyed a trip to Cider Hill Farms. How gorgeous are these pumpkins? And if you ever go, do not miss the hot cider donuts. Cider Hill Farms didn’t make it into the book, except as the name of Jack Hamilton’s single apartment building.
We also visited nearby Newburyport several times during our visit and enjoyed a delicious seafood dinner there. Jack mentions that he has an office in Newburyport as well as in the city and is coming from court there that day in his first scene with Lucy. There is a district court there but I have never been there. I have been to their awesome fall festival and snapped these shots there.
Later, when Jack wants to escape his unhappy and ill-fitting career as a lawyer, he goes for a walk on Plum Island. We had a wonderful time walking there at sunset. I’d just gotten my DSLR camera and my uncle (a professional photographer) taught me the basics of how to use it that day. So, here’s what Plum Island looks like at dusk.
As you can see it’s a beautiful area of the country. In next week’s blog, we are off to Italy…
The Lost Art of Second Chances is now in beta and should be coming to an e-reader near you in the next month. So, I thought I’d talk a little bit about that book, how it came to be, and share some research I did over the coming weeks here on the blog.
I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) on and off for probably the past decade. Nanowrimo is a writing challenge conducted every November. Participants attempt to write fifty thousand words in a month. Now, that’s basically routine for me but before, when I worked in the salt mines of my old day job (kidding, my former co-workers, just kidding), it was a major challenge.
Back in those days, I never pre-outlined or brainstormed a book. I just opened a blank page and started typing…only to stop about twenty thousand words in when I had no idea what I was doing. Nanowrimo 2011 was no different. I wanted to write a second chance at love story because it’s one of my favorite tropes. My uncle (and godfather) recently taught me to make summer sauce and so, I opened the story with the main character, Lucy, chatting away to her white cat as she made the sauce.
That scene, in a much revised form, appears in chapter two of The Lost Art of Second Chances. As I was writing along, Lucy’s grandmother, Belladonna, appeared whole cloth and promptly took over the whole scene (and book too). I’ll talk about Bella’s story in another future post.
Today, I wanted to talk about Frank. Lucy’s cat, unlike Bella, was not a wholesale invention of my imagination. Frank was based on my own beloved white cat.
Frank, the inspiration for Lucy’s cat
The Pilot and I found Frank, and his sister, Carolina, as tiny eight week old abandoned kittens on my father-in-law’s farm. They’d taken refuge in a dilapidated barn. Carolina found me first and crawled up my jean leg into my arms. Frank was the little white puffball that followed her around. I scooped them both up and turned to my husband and father-in-law, who were both astounded that I’d managed to catch not one feral cat, but two.
We brought them home and, after several courses of worm and flea treatments, and some remedial litter box training, they were both wonderful pets. When Frank was about two, our amazing vet found a heart murmur and recommended a cat cardiologist. Thinking it was nothing, we visited only to find out that Frank had a genetic heart condition called feline hypertropic cardiomyopathy. We began a five year round of daily heart pills (which he detested) and semi-annual visits to the cardiologist with the dreaded EKG gel.
We lost him the day before Fox’s first birthday, when Frank was just seven. Young for a cat. At midnight the night before, he did his sideways leap and ricochet routine off the front window and the living room furniture. At dawn, he had a stroke and was gone within an hour.
It’s been nearly six years and I still miss him. When I spent four months on bed rest during my pregnancy with Fox, Frank laid at my feet every day, watching over me like a little feline guardian angel. He was very loving and affectionate with everyone, nearly like a dog that way. And he had a funny way of trilling his meow, like he was rolling his Rs. He even had a little kiss spot on his forehead and would come sit on my lap until I gave him his kiss.
Note the kiss spot
Though Frank’s time on earth was shorter than any of us would have hoped, the truth is that we usually outlive our furry companions. When they go to the rainbow bridge, they leave their little paw prints right across our hearts. Most animal lovers never forget their furry friends.
Many writers, myself included, love to immortalize their lost pets in print. So, all white cats will forever be Frank in my books, where they never have to leave for the rainbow bridge. And someday, I hope to get to see my little white fluff ball again. But not for a while yet…I’ve got more books to write.
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