Dear Readers,

I penned my last missive on my anniversary. As of last Friday, I reached the two week mark after my second dose of Rona vaccine and can now consider myself fully vaccinated. My wife is scheduled to receive her first dose on Thursday, March 11^th. From my own personal experience, I found the month in between doses to be incredibly nerve wracking as you worry about whether or not you’ll contract it before you can get your second dose. At least that is how it was for me, though in truth I really do not go anywhere but doctor’s appointments. But now, I can do that with a little less anxiety, though I will still wear a mask and follow all the guidelines. I look at the vaccine as like a suit of armor. It is effective, but it helps to take other precautions as well.

On March 3, our oldest cat, Autie, went to cat heaven. He had been with me for 14 years, one year longer than Elizabeth and I have been married. Over the past month, his health had started to deteriorate and he lost his eyesight. I’m glad he went peacefully and he is now running around cat heaven with his friend Simon who passed away in 2015. Anastasia is still upset as Autie was her best friend, but she is slowly starting to come to terms with it, as am I.

I do have some good news on the writing front. To be honest, 2020 was the year of crippling writer’s block. Though I finished the first draft of Molly’s Song on Thanksgiving Day 2019, I had planned on working on edits as well as starting my next book in 2020. Well, I got the edits done and the book found a home with a publisher, but I got very little done when it came to writing anything. Part of that is due to the spring we had and all the repairs we had to make to the house. That put a damper on just about everything. However, beyond that, I still struggled to regain my writing voice. I wonder if other writer’s struggled last year as well or if it is just me.

Well, Dear Readers, I made a breakthrough over the weekend. Of the original sequel that I had planned, I did manage to plot out the first third of the book, but was having trouble writing it and also figuring out the rest of the plot. As she is known to do, Molly decided to take charge and show me the “write” path (see what I did there)! She is taking the sequel in a totally different direction and seeing as how I wrote 10K words in two days, I think we are onto something. It feels good to be back to pounding on the keyboard again and I am slowly hitting my stride.

Next week I am giving a Zoom presentation on the Gulf Hotel Fire which happened in Houston in 1943. I haven’t done a lecture to a group like this since Nov. of 2018, and never virtually, so I am curious to see how it goes. I think I’ve got a pretty good presentation put together, and I hope they enjoy it.

Until next time, Dear Readers, take care of yourselves, and each other.

L.H.