rocking horse publishing « Robin Writes

Well. We found another property—we’ve been looking since September, so almost six months. We’ve put in offers on two places; the first was a cluster from the get-go, and we ended up being the back-up contract, and it looks like it’s a no-go. The second place received five offers the same day, including ours, and we lost it too. Turned out to be a good thing—a hoarder’s house. That explained why so much interior had been removed from the cabin!

This new one, well, we were supposed to go look at it today, except snow happened. Lots of snow. And it’s bad here in the metro area, so I can only imagine what it’s like on the back roads . . .

Rather than wait, and lose out again, we, um, put in an offer last night. Sight unseen. Are we nuts?? Wait, don’t answer that yet!

See, the new place is 35 acres; it has a barn, a clean barn, with steel trusses. An old house, not worth much at all, which is by the country road with the barn. The drive goes back between them to the house—smack in the middle of the property, in the woods.

The house is 900 square feet, with one big bedroom, a bath, and a kitchen/living area. We can work with this. Even has a dishwasher, which I wasn’t planning on.

There IS some clean-up work to do—the elderly gentleman who just moved out has a lot of stuff—NOT hoarder-stuff, just stuff. He may have an auction; he may not. Doesn’t matter to us, either way.

Everything works, everything is clean. The property is a little farther out than I wanted, but in my husband’s mind, since it has a pond that evens things out. Still trying to make sense of that!

He said his first thing to do is call the conservation department and get the pond stocked.

*I* said his first thing to do was move the light fixture over the kitchen sink—it’s about 8 inches off!

Everyone reads books, right? Well, no, in fact, adults read less now than they used to. And as far as books go, no, Facebook doesn’t count!

Me, I prefer real books. The smell, the feel, the printed page . . . But I’ll read just about anything in a pinch: cereal boxes were a favorite when I was a child, because my mom didn’t like me to read at the table, even the breakfast table, because I could drag it out for an hour.

What kinds of books do I like? Some science fiction—I like to be able to pronounce words, even if only in my head, without a struggle each time; and it has to be believeable, as in “what if?” I like historical fiction, too, both the regular kind and the mash-ups, the “what ifs.” Murder mysteries, yes, especially series. Paranormal, magic, other-worldly, ghost-type stuff. Things that make you go “hmmm.” I like westerns, too.

To be specific, in no particular order, I like:

Stephen King

Dean Koontz

John Grisham

James Patterson

Tim LaHaye

Frank Peretti

Sidney Sheldon

Walter Farley

Patricia Cornwell

Zane Grey

Danielle Steel

Louisa May Alcott

Laura Ingalls Wilder

I also have a lot of author friends, and I’ve read many of their books—which I loved! But I also haven’t read and re-read them over decades, because, well, they weren’t available until the last few years. So if I left you off the list, don’t worry—ten years from now, you’ll be on a new list!

I have, at the moment, three favorite books whose authors aren’t mentioned above because I’ve only read one of each of their books:

Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse

Mira Lode, The Grandma in the Apple Tree

And I highly, highly recommend all three! Obviously, the first one will take a sort of time commitment from you; the second would be considered, today, YA, and the last one is a children’s book. But they all fired my imagination, I still think of them fondly, and yes, I own copies of each.

What books and authors are your favorites, old or new?