It all started on my birthday last month.

Okay, that’s not true.

It started a few years ago when my in-laws purchased some neighboring farmland with a sweet, little red brick one-room schoolhouse on it.

Actually, not then.

It started 22 1/2 years ago when I moved to the country and into a white house just down the road from a sweet, little red brick one-room schoolhouse.

Alright, it started when I was eight years old and fell in love with Little House on the Prairie.

So, now at least  we’ve got that straight.

I do know this.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a thing for old buidings.  Creaky, crooked farm houses.  Sagging, sorry old barns.  Little churches on corners flanked by long-forgotten gravestones. But, mostly, I ogled those little brick one-room schoolhouses.  And the one in my “neighborhood” (we use this term to describe a couple of square country miles) quickly became my favorite.

Over the past two decades, I’ve watched its bell-less bell tower topple. I’ve watched the wind snatch a slate  shingle here and there. And, sadly, watched as the front awning hit the dirt.  But even the harshest Ohio weather hasn’t faded the “1894″ laid clearly in the roof slate. The foundation is sturdy and rock-solid.  And the brick walls, laid three layers thick, are square and sound.

My father-in-law has always known of my fondness for the schoolhouse . He promised not to tear it down. But, beyond that, I was never quite sure what would happen to this piece of local history.  It wasn’t mine to envision its potential.  But, I did. Every chance I got.

Fast forward to March 2012.  My birthday was a busy day.  A work day followed by a three-hour drive to pick up my oldest daughter from college for spring break. It was late when I finally arrived home.  My youngest daughter met me in the garage, a large envelope in hand.

“Grandpa was here.”

Okay.  He usually manages to make an appearance at least once a day.

“He left your birthday card.”

Okay. He’s good about birthdays. He’s never late with a birthday card.

“It’s really big.”

She had me there. It was  big. I entered the kitchen and gingerly opened the legal-sized manilla envelope.

“Situated in the Township of Liberty, County of Mercer, State of Ohio…”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was holding the deed to the schoolhouse and two point three five acres of land. I was speechless. Mary Lennox couldn’t have been happier when her uncle Archibald Craven granted her wish for “a bit of earth.”

I made a tearful telephone call.  Don’t you love it when you can hear a smile over the phone line?

Me too.

So, here it is. And, yes, I have my work cut out for me.  It took 118 years for it to get this way.  I hope it won’t take as long to fix it up.

I hung clothes on the line this week.  To some, this may sound like a mundane chore.

But, for me, hanging clothes out on the clothesline is much more. And the reasons are as varied as the colors on the line.

First, there’s that smell.  That fresh, crisp, clean smell of sheets or towels or shirts that have spent their afternoon flopping and flapping in the breeze. I don’t care what odiferous names Downy comes up with for their fabric softener. They’ll never duplicate that spring air smell.

Then, there’s the feeling that I’m doing something good for the world.  Or, at the very least, for my electric bill. It’s the green thing to do, right? Let nature do what we too often let machines and electricity do.

Then there’s the aesthetically-pleasing part. Clothes just look pretty hanging outside. Well, most of them, anyway.  Sheets, towels, and, oh – baby clothes and blankets are my favorite!  Underwear should just go in the dryer, in my opinion. No one really wants to see those.

Honestly, I think that hanging out the laundry says something about the status of my sanity. Really. Here’s why. I recently got my clothesline back.  We tore it out a while ago.  It was too close to an encroaching tree. It was leaning a little.  And, to be totally honest, I hadn’t used it for a year or two.

Hanging clothes on the line takes time.  You have to lug the wet clothes outside (from the basement in my case). You have to pin them all up in such a way that they will stay up until you take them down.  And then, you have to take them down.  You have to be close by in case a sudden rain shower pops up.  And, on the farm, you can’t hang clothes out when certain farming activities are taking place – like manure spreading (you can figure out why) and loading corn (those little pink “beeswings” will cover your clothing.)  When it’s all said and done, that 12-inch toss from the washer to the dryer seems much more practical. My life was just too busy to bother with a clothesline.

But, (lucky for me) my son was in need of a home/farm improvement project for FFA.  (I love it when this happens!  My husband’s “honey-do” list gets a little bit shorter!)  He found the old posts, welded a few more, painted, dug, poured cement, strung the line, and ta-dah!  I once again had a clothesline. Ohio was then blessed with a week of Summer in March. No kidding. Eighty degrees!  As I clipped the sheets to the shiny blue line, my mind returned to calmer days, when I was a stay-at-home mom, when my focus was my family, and hanging clothes was a mundane chore. And I realized how much I miss those days.

I put the picture above on my Facebook banner a week or so ago.  Immediately a Danish friend commented that she liked the photo. “Very idyllic,” she said.  Idyllic? I wondered.  Who would think that drying the laundry would be idyllic? But when I look at the picture, I see it. And I know why I love my clothesline.

I’m thankful for many things.  To name just a few: 

                    the enthusiastic readers I’ve met,

                    my fellow authors (especially the first-class crowd of Ohio authors) who support and cheer one another passionately,

                    and the fact that the book is still in print! 

I’m also profoundly grateful to the hard-working men and women in the bookselling industry. 

These folks, owners and employees of neighborhood independent bookstores and employees of major chain stores who do their best to connect readers with books.

 I’ve met folks who are willing to put aside their work to keep me company for a couple of hours when almost no one shows up for a signing,

 folks who decorate their stores with farm scenes,

 and make my daughter feel like the best book-signing assistant ever.

But in the past two and a half years, some of my favorite bookstores, bookstores who hosted me,  have gone out of business.  Like this one…

 Oh, my heart broke when Stately Raven in Findlay, Ohio closed its doors last year.  This place was breathtaking.

And, this one…

The Canalside Bookshop (it was located along the Miami-Erie Canal) where two cats, Agatha and Maya, took turns crawling over the signing table. 

Even the charming little Cottage Bookstore at our local university branch campus, who handled all of my school visits with speed and professionalism….

 … has been purchased by a national chain and has less power to choose what lines their shelves. 

I’m still so thrilled for some of my favorites that are hanging in there.  Like…. 

…  the charming Beehive Books in downtown Delaware, Ohio.  

And New Bremen Coffee and Books…

… in New Bremen, Ohio.

And I couldn’t end without mentioning the absolutely adorable …

 Blue Marble Children’s Bookstore in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati.

So, what about your favorite bookstore?  Is it small or large?  Independent or a national chain?  Is it thriving or barely surviving?

And, what’s at the root of this rash of bookstore closings?  Is it a result of the ECONOMIC times?  Or the ELECTRONIC times?

I’d love to hear what’s on your mind!

I’m really not much of a mall shopper.  I tend to gravitate toward small shops and neighborhood stores.  But there’s something so wonderful, so magical about the mall – any mall – at Christmastime, I could spend hours there.  From Santa’s house to a Winter Wonderland to the massive ornaments and decorations, I don’t need to spend a dime.  I’m happy just gawking at the glitz!

Recently, I was at the mall with my oldest daughter on her 19th birthday.  I’d arranged to make a very important telephone call in the middle of the day.  It was one of those calls every author waits for:  an agent wanted to speak with me about my submission!  So, the first order of business after arriving at the mall was to scope out a quiet spot to make this potentially life-changing phone call.  But finding a quiet place in the midst of this…

…wasn’t going to be easy.  There were people everywhere. There were children everywhere. There were elves everywhere!  And, most of all, music everywhere.  Now, I adore Christmas music.  But how could I risk not hearing that all-imporant phrase, “I love your manuscript!” just because Jingle Bells was playing too loud!

Finally, my daughter had a brilliant idea.

Have you seen the ladies room at Von Maur?  Like a lot of upscale department stores, Von Maur’s restrooms look more like a Hilton lobby than a restroom.  Nicely appointed with comfortable furniture, soft lighting, and best of all – delicate, classical piano music piped in from above, it was the perfect place for me to settle in, take a few deep breaths and get my thoughts together before my shaking fingers made THE call.

So, that’s how I found my agent at the mall. 

Oh, you want details?  Okay…

I’m thrilled beyond belief to say that I’m represented by the fantastic Karen Grencik with Red Fox Literary!  She’s smart, sweet, and she believes in the middle grade manuscript I sent her.  What more could an author ask?  I feel like Santa came early this year!

I told you.  The mall is a magical place at Christmastime!

It’s a big stretch, I know.  From cattle to gnomes.  But my current work-in-progress has me reading and studying all about our wee friends in pointy hats.  I’m developing a particular fondnes  for woodland gnomes.

  So, on a recent hiking trip in the Hocking Hills, my daughters, my neices and I were on the lookout for…

…. no, silly, not gnomes.  They are much too fast to be seen unless they want us to see them. And besides, they sleep all day and work and play at night.  

No, we were on the lookout for gnome homes.  Now, those are easy to spot if you know what you’re looking for.

This would make an excellent entrance to a gnome home.  Look at all those great ferns and the inviting spaces below the logs!

We found this quite intriguing.  Do you suppose the gnomes left this ramp to their front door so their animal friends could come on in?

What do you think would make a good home for a gnome? 

It’s a simple, little place.  Little, indeed.  And on this day, the temperature was teasing 100 degrees outside and maybe just a little below that indoors.  But, even so, people packed in shoulder to shoulder waiting to order.

Ordering is pretty simple.  I took my cue from my the guy in front of me.  “I’ll take one with sauce and pickles.”   No one asked  ”One what?”  That’s because the only thing on the menu is  – you got it – hot dogs.  You can get “one with sauce and ketchup” or “one with sauce and onion and mustard” or even “one with sauce and hot sauce.”   But while I was there, no one ordered one without sauce.  The sauce is what makes Remo’s Remo’s.

Here’s my “one with sauce and  pickles.”  A footlong hot dog,  topped with a delicious, homemade, rich, tomato-y, kind of peppery, meaty, messy sauce.  And dill pickles! All my life, I’ve suffered ridicule and shame for  putting dill pickles on my hot dogs.  Here, they’re on the menu!  Finally, someone understands me!

Maggie ordered “One with sauce.”

 We were lucky.  We got a seat at the counter where we could watch the fast-paced hot-dog-making action up close. 

So, thanks to Marjorie and Chuck and the kind folks at Remo’s, Maggie and I have officially experienced and enjoyed our first Italian Style hot dogs – with sauce!