themartianchick

Thanks, kamkelms! I'm so glad that you enjoyed it. Life has been intervening a bit, but I will be back on schedule with the editing tomorrow. (No, the sequel won't be finished tomorrow, but it will be a bit closer to being ready!)

This response really tickled me this morning!. I love you, Violet!

Thanks, Dee & kamkelms! I hope that you both enjoy the story!

My book is now available on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Bystander-ebook/dp/B00756PYRG/ref=sr_1_9?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329142725&sr=1-9

Okay... I'm willing to give stevia another try this year...

I agree, Arby!

If the power goes out, Sunflower, you can fill empty juice or soda bottles with hot water and slip them into your cabinets to help to keep them from freezing, too. We have some pipes that tend to freeze if the temps dropped down around 10 degrees outside for a couple of days. Our ancient heat tape gave out on us one year in the middle of a cold snap and none of the hardware stores had any in stock. We slipped some juice bottles with extremely hot water into the closet that allows access to the bathroom plumbing and it solved the problem. We now have a new heat tape, but I would use the bottle again in a heartbeat and there is no risk of fire. I tend to worry about heat lamps but that is because my mom was extremely fearful of fire and would not allow one in the house...even to warm baby ducks or chicks.

I don't know a doggone thing about packrats but since they smell bad, I'm assuming that they happen to love their own smell. Is there anyway to put something in there that they will HATE. With ordinary mice, I have heard that they hate peppermint. Would mothballs or cedar shavings keep them out?

Thanks, kamkelms! Welcome to Mrs. S! I have just gotten word that the book will be ready on Kindle in about 2 weeks. I guess it takes Amazon that length of time to complete the formatting. I appreciate the plug on FB... I'm finding that it really is a good place to network.

Thank you so much for posting a review on Amazon, AMarthaByHeart!

Thank you, ladies! I'm so glad that you enjoyed the story. I wanted to keep it an easy read so that I could lure in a unsuspecting sheeple or two... I've had these characters in my head for such a long time that it was so nice to be able to share them. If any of you are so inclined, I would love it if you could leave a book review on Amazon. It doesn't have to be particularly lengthy...just your perception of the book. Thanks again for all of the encouragement. It truly means a lot to me.

Our Christmas dinner consisted of: Turkey Mac & Cheese Collard Greens Potato Salad Smashed Potatoes Gravy Peas Green Beans Garlic Bread Corn Bread Garden Salad Dessert was a Black Forest Cake from Wegmans. If we ever move, it will have to be someplace near a Wegmans store so that I don't have to learn to make the kinds of cakes that I can order so easily from them!

Awwww... Y'all are great for my ego! Thank you for all of the encouragement! As to the cliffhanger...there really isn't one for this story. The story actually ends, but you get to see glimpses of the characters from the first book. I included the first chapter of the second book as a preview of what is to come, though. Some of you might recall that I posted the preview of the second book here in Fireside awhile back. I went back to find the preview: http://mrssurvival.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=43010

@ Amber! I learned my lesson well about CreateSpace before I got to the proof stage the first time. I found a great template to use for the story, but couldn't get the cover sized properly. I was determined to use MY cover and not some stock photo. After struggling with it for awhile and then starting to write the second book, I finally posted a question on their forums to find someone who could size it properly for me. I emailed each of the components to another writer and he shot back the finished product within a few hours. Total cost was $20...My peace of mind= PRICELESS!! Other than that, CreateSpace wasn't too hard to navigate. They have a new feature that analyzes your files for potential issues. It works fairly well and I really liked it.

I hope that you enjoy the story, Jeepers. One of the hardest things that I went through was allowing my husband to read it. In fact I didn't let him...He just picked it up and started reading it. I kept asking him about what had happened in the story as he went along so that I could ask him specific questions about it. I kept wondering if he thought that I was a lot like my lead character or if he thought that her thoughts were mine...I almost went crazy while waiting for him to finish...It really broke the ice though...Now I want to finish the final edit on the second one so that he can find out what happens next!

Thank you, Daylily! There is a backstory to the cover design...When I was a little girl, my school bus used to go past that house. I always loved the architecture of it but it was a bit too near the turkey farm. Every spring, they'd spray turkey manure all over the fields that surrounded it, so we mostly plugged our noses as the bus went by. At any rate, in writing the story, I always kept that house in mind and never doubted that it should be the main character's home. I still pass that house from time to time. When I received my first publishing proof, I showed it to my dad. He asked if that was a drawing of the such and such mansion. I didn't know it by that name but I described where the house sits and he said that it was fairly well-known to have been a part of the underground railroad. That was news to me! However it does fit with some of the followup stories that I have already outlined for development and the lead character in the novel is black, though the lead characters in the follow up stories are not.

Thank you, ladies! It feels good to be finished with it. I noticed that it isn't yet available as a download, so maybe that will happen in the next few days. One of my relatives is getting a Kindle for Christmas so I wanted to be able to contribute a downloadable version of the book to her gift.

This is a really nice place to out yourself on. It felt almost momentous when my mouse was hovering over the Add Reply button! I guess that I have to finish the website tonight to make it functional...

Ahh, well... I needed a ruse to get you to open the thread! My house is a big old Victorian and apparently those Victorian folks didn't have much use for them. Our closets aren't big enough to hide any (real) secrets in! Edited to add: Grit is part of the Mother Earth News family of magazines now and is still going strong.

My goodness! I didn't expect anyone to post so quickly! Thank you for the compliments. As I've said before... I really am a girly-girl at heart! Here is a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Bystander-Tale-End-World-Knew/dp/1453760482/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324409119&sr=8-1 It is sort of a light apocalyptic tale that reads like a romance novel. The story is told from the perspective of a woman who moves out to the country after the death of her husband. She envisions herself as a sort of Martha Stewart for Homesteaders, except she really has no experience with rolling up her sleeves and actually "doing" the work. She just used to write articles for magazines.When an actual scenario occurs, she and her new neighbors have to figure out a new way to survive. For the most part, I kept the storyline at a PG-13 level.

I have known for quite some time that I would eventually out myself publicly on this (and a few other forums). I have decided that today is the day since my blog on the Grit Magazine site has gone live in the past hour or so. I have also reached a couple of other milestones in that my first novel became available through Amazon.com today and I just finished the first edit of the second novel late last night (or maybe it was actually early this morning?). At any rate, I hope that you all enjoy my first blog post for Grit and look forward to some of you following my urban farming endeavors! http://www.grit.com/the-urban-bystander/raising-quail-the-itty-city-biddies.aspx

So, exactly where are the donuts and cookies?

Oh my... These are awfully cute! We really do need a uniform of sorts...

My main garden is probably kinda small compared to most of the rural folks here. Like Michael & Laurie, we live in an area that doesn't have really big yards. Our yard is about 3/4 of an acre, but I tend to not plant a lot of stuff in areas of the yard that are easily visible (except on Google Earth!) I have a small raspberry patch and most of my neighbors are the type that would probably tell their chldren NOT to eat them because they are likely poisonous! (Raspberries are only recognized if they are in those little plastic boxes at the grocery store.) The patch is in the worst soil on the property and I am constantly adding ammendments to it. Compost, eggshells, you name it! The soil is bad because it is near a tarvia driveway to allow them to get plenty of sun and keep them from taking over. My visible gardens more closely resemble weed patches but they contain my asparagus plants, a few herbs and tomatoes. In the spring, the peas are planted there. They started out as raised beds but somehow the weeds took over when hubby kept mowing the grass and shooting the cuttings directly in the beds.... My main garden in the back yard includes beans that trellis on the fencing and more tomatoes, peppers, groundcherries, volunteer potatoes, callaloo, collards, peas, cukes, New Zealand spinach, turnips, etc. Whenever a plant comes out of this area, a new plant goes in to replace it. I grow lettuces, arugula, garlic, green onions, herbs, rainbow chard, a round variety of carrots, more tomatoes, flowers and a few other things that I cannot seem to remember in pots. The lettuces and garlic are grown in windowboxes that reside on my potting table. My potting table also supports a small quail cage (and more herb pots) and then there is another quail cage in the backyard next to the garden. On top of that cage are many pots of herbs, flowers, etc... (I always include flowers to encourage the pollinators. This was the first year that we saw a resurgence of honey bees. IN prior years, we only saw one or two all season!)) This main garden isn't pretty to look at either, but it appears to be more "managed". The beans trellis on the fence and on sturdy callaloo plants. Cucumber and melon plants trellis on the fence or on tomato cages. Peas don't do as well in this garden but I do trellis them on the garden fence, as well. I also use yarn remnants to tie plants up and keep them out of the aisles. The planting areas are wide and densely planted. Things that trellis on the fence are harvested from OUTSIDE of the garden. The rest is reached via the two long aisles/paths. At the end of the gardening season, I rake a lot of fallen leaves into the garden so that they can be tilled in during the spring. I have a compost pile and always throw old potatoes in there. I swear that I have no intention of growing potatoes and haven't planted any in years, however, they volunteer in my main garden and in my front yard flowerbed! So, I figure that anything that grows in the compost pile is free food in a situation. I keep nettle seeds on hand that can be sown if and we also cultivate a patch of lambs quarters. Most of what I grow in the garden will not be recognized as a food plant by most of my neighbors, but will grow fairly when intensely planted. My gardening technique overall, borrows from many techniques...stealth gardening, a bit of lasagna gardening, some raised bed and container gardening and a bit of traditional gardening....Whew! Now this post was about as clear as mud...

I had very poor luck growing stevia. My plants only reached about 5 inches long.