Of things Hollywood believes in, attempting to duplicate success is high on the list. The  huge popularity of Joanna and Chip Gaines in “Fixer Upper” led to a search for other “engaging couples who remodel houses”. While there are multiple remodeling shows with various combinations, “Home Time”, has Erin and Ben Napier in Laurel, MS. She is perky and petite and he is hefty with a beard. They are committed to helping revitalize their town and especially focus on older homes. Most are of course done for families and individuals and include a range of sizes and budgets.

Last year, HGTV made the decision to launch a major effort with Erin and Ben taking the lead role for a four-month program of “Home Town Takeover”. (hgtv home town takeover.com) They invited small towns (under 40,000) all across the country to apply to be selected to have 12 properties, a mix of residences and businesses, renovated to try and spur revival of a struggling area. Although the Napiers have the lead, numerous well-known other HGTV remodel personalities will come in to do some of the projects. There were 5,000 applicants and Wetumpka, Alabama, population: 8,278, was chosen. In the way that often happens, larger stores and services offered about twenty miles away continued to drain business from them. They worked out a plan for revitalization and were making progress when a tornado tore through destroying much of what they had accomplished.

The first episode aired last night of a historic house selected as was a young couple who has opened their home to foster boys alongside their two sons. A woman trying to make a go of her clothing story was the business chosen and until Erin and Ben appeared, none of them knew they were going to be helped. On a different project, a long expanse of wall at an entry point to the town is having a welcoming mural painted with the local high school art teacher in charge of some students. I’m not certain of how many episodes there will be, but it is a wonderful series if you enjoy this kind of show.

There was a discussion about hunting and guns and I was trying to remember when I first learned to shoot. We did have cap guns and BB guns, but of course those don’t count. Daddy had a .22 rifle and a shotgun. He only hunted small game; birds, rabbits, and squirrels. Well, he did accidentally shoot a racoon one time and I don’t recall if we liked the stew or not. Anyway, I went fishing with him sometimes, but not hunting and that was probably because he was pretty intermittent with when he went.

It seems reasonable he would have taught us to shoot although the most distinct time I recall was going to a range with my uncle and cousins. I was on the ROTC rifle team for like one semester and did attend a match. I was never more than an average shot. As I’ve mentioned before, I was an “inadvertent” pioneer in the Army based on coming in as the Women’s Army Corps was being transitioned out. My first two years it was optional for women to qualify with the M-16 and .45 pistol. I didn’t hesitate even though a couple of my classmates chose to not fire a weapon. In light of the fact I went into the Ordnance Corps and weapons repair from small arms to artillery was part of our mission, we did of course have to fire as well as learn to repair them. Now when I say, “repair”, what that actually meant for an officer was to get a fundamental lesson in breaking down the weapon to see the parts and learn the most ordinary kind of failures. That was for pistols through machine guns and yes, firing an M60 and a .50 cal was an interesting experience. I had some difficulty with the Light Anti-tank Weapon (LAW) because my hands are small and the hand strength required to hold and fire was designed for the average-size male.

As I have mentioned, I’m heavily involved in the nonprofit Homestead Center for the Arts. We have up to 30 artists and they are in a range of amateur to professional and work in different mediums. A couple are former art teachers and one artist took up painting because her mother was adamant she quit smoking and she was looking for something to substitute. Anyway, a little over a year ago, a couple moved here for the husband half to take a job with the Florida City government. (Florida City adjoins Homestead and is the last municipality before reaching the Keys). Terre Rybovich was an established artist in West Palm Beach and they had quite a bit to relocate not to mention her losing her studio. She’s shown all over Florida, in NY, and overseas. She hoped there would be available space to rent, but we lost that capability several years ago when we lost the last art gallery. With their decision to buy and remodel a home in Redland, they only recently became fairly settled.

One of the aspects of restoring the Seminole Theatre was to dedicate its considerable wall space to the Artist in the Spotlight program. Although the program is run by the City, HCA artists are frequently featured and the exhibits change about every two months. Terre was scheduled for last March when everything was shut down. So, she’s the first artist to re-start the program. She and her husband described her unique art and the fact it’s really big, but I didn’t honestly understand until I helped them hang the exhibit last week. In essence, she takes a huge canvas, covers it with charcoal, and applies part or all of her body. She then decides what part to leave or add and often also adds a bird to inject some color. Here’s a link to her website to get a better understanding. (https://www.terrerybovich.com)

I knew it had been extra hectic lately and didn’t realize I was days behind on posting. Yes, it’s the “usual suspects” as the popular line goes. Today will be only marginally better as I head out to cover a local event for the paper, but another thing I had lined up occurred yesterday instead. That, of course, wound up taking a few hours longer than expected even though it was a good deed. Anyway, among my tasks was getting the word out about the release of Idyllic Islands, now available on Amazon and B&N as well as posted to my website. I’ll get my copies in about another week; those I have earmarked for the ones who always receive signed copies plus a few extra to keep on hand for direct sales.

This is the fourth of the Chris Green books; the character I created in Shades of Truth and liked her so much I decided to spin her off into a separate series. That was why I featured her as the dual protagonist in Shades of Gold. I included a subplot to make it reasonable for her to leave Verde Key and go off on her own. I had already developed her character to be more of a “wandering type” and while not free-spirited, definitely more open to certain things than the character of Detective Bev Henderson. In fact,  when I wrote False Front (second Chris Green book after Deadly Doubloons) I did check with a friend and fan about Chris consistently entering into short flings. Not having been single for quite some time I wasn’t sure how that would play in my target audience. I was assured that didn’t mar her as a character. While a new interest isn’t quite the case in Idyllic Islands, there is a bit of a reflection about it as it applies to her relationship with Jeff. (No, I’m not going to say any more about that). This one is somewhat like False Front in that the clues to potential sinister events are not completely clear. Oh, and this is also a case where I actually made a major change toward the end based on my editor’s view. After you read the book, I’ll let you in on it.

It seems as if I have once again allowed extra days to zip past without posting. This is another case of having a full schedule and then, oops – gee, can’t you fit in this one other task? Oh, well, I guess I meant two; or really I suppose it’s three, etc., Not to mention I’m trying to manage to get a dive in before the end of the month. Okay, with that said, I’ll move on to the topic of the day which is I managed to not get reservations for an Eagles Tribute band performance at the Seminole Theatre as I had intended. In all fairness, I tried to get tickets a couple of weeks ago, but with the reduced attendance capacity of the theatre due to on-going COVID restrictions, the on-line seating function wasn’t working. I even went by in person a couple of days later to no avail. Alas, when I tried earlier this week, the site was functioning correctly along with the notice the show was sold out.

However, there is a potential silver lining. It so happens there was another performance I was interested in, but it’s for Apr 2d, and as there are already one (now two) more events scheduled for April we have to attend, I passed on the Swon Brothers. I decided on them as our back-up: “The Swon Brothers became the first duo to make it to a season finale with the help of their coach, Blake Shelton on the hit TV show, The Voice. In October 2014, The Swon Brothers released their self-titled album and received a nomination for CMA Vocal Duo of the Year. Shortly after, in 2016, they released their EP, Timeless and spent the year touring coast to coast in the United States and Canada with Carrie Underwood on The Storytellers Tour.”

I’m sure we will enjoy them and the only potential drawback is Hubby has been teaching a lot lately due to the usually busy spring break crowds. He may have full day on the 2d which means a late dinner after the show instead of dining beforehand as I prefer. Ah well, that’s easy enough to handle.

The word may not yet be familiar, but Homestead now has one. The full article about the grand opening of the Cybrarium will be in next week’s paper. I have of course written multiple posts about how deeply I feel about the value of libraries. When government at different levels look to cut funds, unfortunately, they can be prone to view libraries as a target. Our county did cut back some hours a few years ago during a crunch and thankfully were able to restore them. Our library here has always been modest and in an older building, but the County has a robust program for getting materials from other branches so it wasn’t bad. A few years ago, the City Manager envisioned something much more ambitious with the intent of making the Cybrarium appeal to the digital generation.

The new building opened yesterday, bright and airy and nearly 24,000 square feet with two stories. “Regular books” are available, but also Virtual Reality capability, a Children’s Theater complete with a digital “wall” atop the stage to allow for special effects such as rain falling if that is part of the story/play.(Yes, they will have adult shows, too). Later in the summer, there will be a Book Mountain, which is a two-story high interactive sculpture where apparently a young astronaut will read books or talk about them or something (I’m a little unclear on this). Then there is the Steampunk area, complete with more books, art, displays, and a special lounge where they have 3-D printers.

While some older people may be a bit reluctant to enter initially, there’s no questions kids of all ages through teens (and of course their parents) are going to be drawn in. This is a City initiative and so people will need to have a separate card, but there is a reciprocal agreement with the County and everyone will still have access to the county library system.

Have a peak: www.cybrarium.org

The other day, we – as in a group of friends – had the discussion about e-readers versus real books. I’ve posted about this before, but it’s been a while and I will add an extra note at the end. We did hold off on buying Kindles for a few years after they came out and are a couple of generations “behind” the newest versions. Although the original reason to do so was because I had a fan who insisted I publish an e-book edition of my books, we quickly appreciated what others had been telling us all along. I don’t own a tablet as I have my regular laptop and a smaller laptop for travel. The point about tablets is because the Kindle app and I think now Nook (Barnes and Nobles e-reader) can be downloaded onto a tablet as well as a smart phone. That eliminates the need for a separate e-reader if someone already has a tablet.

Storage space and travel (notwithstanding all the restrictions of 2020 and into 2021) are what I like about the Kindle.With our many bookcases filled to capacity and the difficulty in finding a place to take used books, being able to store hundreds electronically has definite benefits. Yes, I do still like the feel of a “real book”, but that doesn’t take priority over practicality. The other thing though about real books is the ability to quickly flip back through if I want to re-read a passage. I haven’t found an easy way to do that with Kindle. Oh yes, being able to increase the size of the font with an e-reader is handy,  too.

E-books have also opened the way for many authors who decide to self-publish because costs to do only an e-book are significantly less than to do even a trade (paperback). That of course can lead to the debate of all those books that probably shouldn’t be published, but that’s not the point of this post. And speaking of costs, I refuse to read newly released best sellers on Kindle because the price of $14.99 (standard) is ridiculous. I know what it costs to do a Kindle conversion. What you are paying for at that price is the name recognition. Wait a few months and it will drop.