Slightly Off the Mark

 Thanks to everyone for your birthday wishes! There got to be so many that I wasn't able to respond individually, so I pretended I was Neil Gaiman and couldn't respond to all my fans. Sadly, I wasn't able to duplicate the accent, or the looks, or all those book sales.

I did intend to ask everyone to buy one of our books for my birthday, which would be an awesome present ... but I seem to recall doing the same thing last year. So, just buy one now, instead.

(That never works, but what the heck.)

On a related note, I stopped doing any work on my writing for most of the week. Why? Well, to start out both the dog and I were sick--me with a ginormous sinus infection, Beowulf with a tooth abscess. We even both started on antibiotics at the same time. (He's a lot better now.) Still, after a few days Emily was able to shepherd us up to Michigan, where my oldest daughter Charis and her family were staying at my ex-father-in-law's cottage on Lake Bellaire.

(Lake Bellaire, not coincidentally, is the setting for my novel Radio Red)

So, we got to celebrate my fiftieth birthday up there!

(There was apparently some kind of math error.)

That's Charis and Vince and--oh, Beowulf!--waiting for one of Lake Bellaire's awesome sunsets. I spent most of my time sitting, being still under the weather, but there's something about that place that's just--relaxing. And if you're going to sit, isn't it better to sit on a shore watching the lake and sunset, and eating S'mores? I agree.

Speaking of S'mores, we had cake, ice cream, biscuits and gravy for both mornings we were up there, and some yummy grilled chicken, and I didn't have to cook a bit of it, which is probably what made it taste so good.

Above are my grandkids Brayden and Hunter, and the beginning of one of the coolest sunsets I've ever seen ... which I'll post photos of later.

So yeah--we had a great time. Now we're home, and I'm still spending a lot of time sitting, but hey: We have books.

Oh, and if you want to check out Radio Red:

Emily and I took the grand-twins to Indiana Beach, a local amusement park ... and by local I mean it was a two hour drive there and two hours back, with eight hours in between. Long day.

It rained much of the day, but the park was still fairly well attended, and with the exception of the big rides just about everything stayed open the whole time. When the temperature hits 80, a light rain isn't so very terrible.