Novels... 

Leaving It All Behind - At Amazon

Finding Hope - At Amazon

Mystery At Cove Lake - At Amazon

Sweet Deception - At Amazon

Innocent Heart - At Amazon

Appalachian Sunrise - At Amazon

Banjo on My Knee - At Amazon

Good Country People - At Amazon

The Long Road Home - At Amazon

Innocent Heart Now Re-published

Originally published by The Wild Rose Press in 2012, my novel Innocent Heart has been re-released on Amazon in both Kindle and Paperback formats.

Cover art created by Gilded Heart Design.

Paperback Version
Kindle Version

Eggs...Medium, Large or Extra Large

I’ve been confused about eggs lately. Having grown up on a small farm with chickens, I remember all our eggs being large. Nowadays, I'm noticing that eggs in that carton marked Extra Large are not all the same size. I recently bought some extra large, and many of the eggs looked the same size as the large eggs I still had, or smaller. It got me thinking. Are we consumers being duped? How do we know we’re getting what we pay for?

I decided to do some digging, and found Southern States website. According to them, eggs are not sized individually, but rather sized by the combined weight of one dozen eggs.

Therefore, logically, I could buy a carton of extra large eggs with a few small, medium, large and extra large, as long as the total weight comes out to the minimum per-dozen weight of 27 oz. I guess it wouldn't matter if I'm making one big omelette, would it?

Below is the size/weight chart they use for a dozen eggs:

Size Category	Minimum Weight
Small	18 oz.
Medium	21 oz.
Large	24 oz.
X-Large	27 oz.
Jumbo	30 oz.

What do y’all think? Would you like that box of extra large eggs to have 12 extra large eggs in it?

To read more on interior egg grading, check out Curbstone Valley Farm

Good Southern Food

Cover Art for Innocent Heart

Just got the cover art for Innocent Heart. The book will be released September 9, 2012 from The Wild Rose Press for their American Rose line. Does this look like the Appalachian Mountains?

Reading Novels

Does it ever rankle you to pick up a novel by a best selling author who has at least seventy-five novels under her belt and discover she doesn't know the difference between farther and further, and she uses it incorrectly at least two hundred times throughout the story? When she has the hero say, "It's not much further up the road," are we to assume the hero is not very intelligent? Would she have him say, "How fur is it?" instead of "How far is it?" But when other characters also speak this way, we can only conclude that the author is lacking in simple grammatical skills.

And one would also conclude that the editor who handled the book did not feel the need to read the book because Best Selling Author is so famous no one cares if she says "She jumped off of the wagon" instead of the correct "She jumped off the wagon."

As a writer or reader, what are some of your pet peeves when it comes to reading a novel?

Sugar Babies Candy

Does anyone remember eating Sugar Babies candy as a kid?

Recently, I got a craving for them and was looking in stores everywhere. Since I had grown up in the South, I started thinking that perhaps these yummy little nuggets only existed there. So, when I was in Kentucky a few weeks back, I continued my search, asking at stores, including Wal-Mart. Not one person I asked had ever heard of Sugar Babies. Some thought I was joking and asked what the punch line was.

Finally, I searched online and I found I could buy them—a case of 24 packets. Now, I don't really need that much candy lying around my house tempting me, so I resigned myself to living without Sugar Babies. Then, a few days later as I was leaving my favorite fabric store, there staring at me from a small basket on the front counter were packets of Sugar Babies. My first thought was that they must be 20 some years old and stale. But to my delight, they had a 2011 expiration date.

I bought two packs, opened one in the car and ate it on the way home. Since I didn't want that other pack tempting me, I ate it soon as I got home. Yes, they were delicious—exactly the way I remembered. Now, I have my sugar quota for the year, and have satisfied my craving for Sugar Babies.