I was tickled pink when Linda MacGilvery, the director of the Harrisville Children's Center asked me to donate a signed copy of Blueberry Truth to their auction. The center, nestled in the Monadnock region in a town near my Southern New Hampshire home, is a non-profit early care and learning center for children six weeks- six years old that serves the needs of families in 14 towns. For the past 44 years, the center has offered a safe and nurturing environment for the care and early development of children. 
Each year, the center has an online auction to help fund their programs. This year, they've amassed a staggering 762 items up for bid. With items ranging from garden supplies, to weekend getaways to books and music, there's a little something for everyone. All proceeds go to the center. 
Maybe you'll find something (like a book by yours truly) that you'd like to bid on. Go have a look!
http://www.hccauction.org/

Like so many people I know, I've battled weight gain for most of my adult life. I've tried a lot of diets over the years, from the fish diet (all fish, all the time) to the fat-is-evil diet, to the program Oprah now touts on TV.  Sadly, for every pound I've lost, I've gained back two and my jeans grow tighter until, eventually, I need to buy them in a larger size.
Last fall, I got a Fit-Bit for my birthday. I love to walk, and the Fit-Bit seemed like just the thing to keep me active. I'm wearing it right now, even though typing does not translate into steps. Fall is a lovely season here in New Hampshire, the skies are clear, the air is crisp, the mosquitoes have gone underground (or where ever it is they go). I took advantage of the season, and my Fit-Bit reported that I was logging 26 to 28 miles every week, an average of nearly four miles a day. Some of these were hilly miles—and I often exceeded the 15 flights of stairs that is the recommended daily goal.
I was trying hard to get fit and I was on the right path. Or so I thought. I did not get on the scale—I have a long and tortured relationship with my scale and it was a relationship I would just as soon end as continue—but I felt healthy. Then I went to the doctor, where the scale is a necessary (and to my mind, evil) part of protocol.  To my horror, I had gained thirteen pounds since my last visit. This on top of what had already been an odiously large number. (There are reasons I despise the dreaded scale).
After a day of disbelief followed by several days of depression, I went into full diet-woman-warrior mode. These numbers would not stand! In the name of all that was holy, I would not be defeated! I went on a strict calorie diet. I kept walking.  I was tired and miserable most of the time.
By Thanksgiving, I had lost six pounds. Although I knew dieting would be all but impossible over the holiday (It's Thanksgiving, people!), I was determined to go back to battling pounds once the turkey was made into soup. Only, I didn't. It was December, the season of bright lights and gifts and cookies and stress. Cookies and stress are a bad combo when it comes to the do-or-diet wars. I ate. I drank.  I did not get on the scale.
At least not until after the decorations were all packed away in the storage space under the stairs. I faced the music. It was not pretty—I had gained the six pounds back and added two extra pounds for good measure.  To say I was distraught would be an understatement.
I have a few friends who are into glucose-free, no bread diets. One of them posted an article by Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity expert, online. I'd never been a fan of no bread diets. I'd tried one once and had dreams of French baguettes floating over my head just beyond my reach. My cravings were so bad I would have joined bread-eaters anonymous had such a group existed. Unfortunately, no such group existed and I eventually gave in to those cravings.  
Still, desperate times were at hand and so I read the article. Dr. Ludwig addressed exactly what I had been going through for most of my life—that is, periods of hard dieting where I am both miserable and fatigued followed by weight gain that exceeded the weight I'd started at originally. He explained food in a whole new way. And it made a lot of sense.
Basically, what he said was that calories aren't equal. That what we've long believed—eat less, exercise more and you will lose weight has never worked in the long run. You don't have to look far to see evidence of this. Besides myself, I can name countless people who have dieted and regained the weight they've lost. It's a sad statistic, but a true one.  Dr. Ludwig suggests that, although a handful of walnuts and a glass of soda might have the same number of calories, how they act in your system is vastly different. I was fascinated. So fascinated that I went and bought Dr. Ludwig's book, Always Hungry, and read through it with a voracious hunger.
Still, I considered not following the plan. Following the plan would mean giving up bread again. And not only bread, but pasta and potatoes and added sugars. It would mean more cooking, more planning. Even if he did allow for wine and chocolate (and trust me, no wine and chocolate would have been a deal breaker) and did include things like butter and cheese, it would be a big change and a difficult one.
I decided to give it two weeks. I can do about anything for two weeks.  I bravely stepped into the breach and, although I didn't follow the diet to the letter (there's a menu in the book which I didn't follow to allow for personal taste), I certainly followed it in spirit and ate all the kinds of food in all the recommended combos and avoided all the foods that the diet recommended I avoid.
I can't claim a happy ending. Not yet, anyway. I can tell you I've been on the program for three weeks now. I've lost five pounds, which is good news. The better news is that I'm never hungry, I have more energy than I've had in quite some time and , best of all, I do not crave anything. Not even French baguettes.  Also, I love the food I'm eating. It tastes great and it's satisfying.
I'm hopefully optimistic. From time to time, I'd like to share some recipes with you. Not diet food, exactly. Just good honest, clean food without additives and sugars. 
This is a simple salad that makes a great side for dinner or lunch.
​
Tomato, Cucumber and Kidney Bean Salad
I tomato, diced
I cucumber, peeled and diced
I 15oz can of kidney beans, drained
6T olive oil
2T balsamic vinegar
I-2t basil
I garlic clove, minced
Toss tomato, cucumber and kidney beans in a medium sized bowl.
In a small bowl, combine olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil, and garlic to make a dressing. Mix well.
Pour dressing over tomatoes, cucumbers and kidney beans. Toss until vegetables are covered.
Enjoy!
 
 

An Excerpt from The Whisper of Time
​The kiss was flight, the kind of kiss that had magic I hadn’t known existed. Or maybe it was the kind of kiss I had known long before and had all but forgotten, like the scent of roses once they’re no longer in bloom.
We came apart, the kiss still fluttering in the air between us, but muted now and then it plunged with a heavy thought. Kyle. What was I going to do about Kyle? I had married him in the Wedding Chapel at Caesar’s Palace, canned Elvis singing “Love me Tender.” I was still married to him. I wanted Kyle to be someone different. I wanted him to be Slate. Slate, who I seemed to have travelled back in time to find. Slate, whose violet blue eyes were watching me with such intensity it made my heart hurt.
“I need…” I began, not able to put words to my feelings. “It’s a lot to take in. I’m not sure how to move forward from here. And yet I have this sense I belong here, with you.”
“Maybe it is,” Slate said. “Where you belong.”
 

The first few drafts of Blueberry Truth were called Beanie and Blue. The book was written in three first person voices., alternating between Beanie, Mac, and Blueberry. I liked the format, but after some good advice, decided to cut it back to a single narrator. The resulting book, written from Beanie's point of view, was a faster and better read than the original. Yet I was sorry to lose Blue's point of view, because it was her voice that first inspired me to write the book. 
Seven year old Blue came into my head fully formed and fiesty. I loved her from the start. Here's a little bit of her voice, from an early draft of Blueberry Truth:

My granny the one who call me Truth. Ma call me Blueberry because that what she like to eat when she have me. I live with my Ma and Julio and Frostie before she gone off to Florida and I have to go to Granny house and she change my name. No baby be called Blueberry is what she say. I say there no baby here. I am seven years old, old enough that I go to the store by my own self. Granny say I seven years old with a mouth. That be Ma fault, she say. Ma ought to have said me some manners, but Ma run off with  trouble, is what Granny say. 
            Teacher at the new school show us to write, but my letters come in crooked. Child write crooked, teacher tells Granny. Uncle Dee say it cause I stupid. I ain’t stupid, I say. You a little bitch like your Ma, he say. She can’t write good neither. I throw a cup at him, hit him in the nose and make it bleed. Uncle Dee got a good job that pay twenty dollars an hour, Granny say. Don’t you be messing with him. She make me sit in the closet. One hour for being disrespect. One hour, but when I see the clock she let me out it been one hour and one half. I can tell the time. I ain’t stupid.

I'm giving away a signed copy of Blueberry Truth at Goodreads this month. 
Click the link below to enter the contest.