Researching Fairmount

My Kelly O'Connell mysteries are set in Fairmount, a national historic district just blocks from my house. The photos above shows a typical row of houses and a restaurant on Magnolia Avenue (photos by Polly Hooper). Because I cut through the back streets all the time and eat in the neighborhood's restaurants, I'd tell you I know it well. But this morning I had a few questions in my mind, so I drove through Fairmount, paying particular attentiont to small businesses that line Magnolia Avenue, the major street that marks the neighborhood's northern boundary. And yes, I noticed new things, had new ideas. Then I came home and did some online research on Fairmount, national historic districts in general, and the League of Neighborhood Associations in Fort Worth. Learned some interesting things: at one square mile, Fairmount is the largest national historic district in the Southwest; listing on the National Registry of Historic Districts does not empower that registry to enforce restrictiosn, nor does listing on the state registry. Such power is handled locally. The Fairmount Neighborhood Association has guidelines but no rules; it encourages retaining original wooden windows and doors, columns and chimneys, for instance, and discourages painting brick not previously painted, use of metal or vinyl siding, and enclosing porches. Of course you can find some of those things done throughout the neighborhood, but in general folks abide by the guidelines. They're proud of their neighborhood.
All this works well for my plot in the current work-in-progress where a developer wants to put a big-box shopping center on Magnolia Avenue--you can imagine Kelly's reaction to that!
I'm 23,000 words into the first draft, have to turn in the completed final draft, at about 70,000 words, by March 15. That will be here sooner than I know.
Highlight of my day: giving the puppy a bath with Jacob's help. We both ended up giggling and sopping wet, while the poor puppy kept trying to climb out of the tub. She had gotten muddy this morning because the sprinkler system had been on earlier and left the ground wet. We toweled her off and tried to brush her, but as Jacob said, "This isn't working." Then he took her outside to play, emptied the outside water dish, and made more mud for her to roll in. Swell.
An evening of writing lies ahead: I'm looking forward to it.

Peaceful weekend--at least I hope

It seems to me my life has been hectic this week--maybe not by other people's standards but by my new relaxed retirement standards, it's been sort of frantic. So today I began what looks like a peaceful weekend--Jordan, Christian, and Jacob are in Coppell for his high school reunion (20 years I guess) and I have nothing on my calendar until a dinner Sunday night that I'm looking forward to. So today I went to the library for a couple of research books, went to the grocery, and have spent the rest of the day at home--reading, taking notes, finishing up the laundry from Jacob's accident yesterday, etc. Ask me about Dr Pepper--I can tall you a lot becauses that's what I've been reading about.
Thursday night I was telling Elizabeth about the tuna salad I like from Albertson's, because it worried me that it had such a long shelf life. She suggested I  read the label, which I know I should be doing, but when I read this one of course I found tons of sodium. So no more store-bought tuna for me. I'll make my own. And then I read the label on the deli-sliced ham that I like to wrap around low-fat cream cheese--a lot of sodium there too. I'm afraid Elizabeth has made a label reader out of me, which is good. It comes at a time I'm trying to encourage Colin to re-think his diet because of the flare-up of his Crohn's this past week. So, I too need to do better. If I haven't mentioned it, Elizabeth has a new blog--http://www.cowstoquinoa.blogspot.com. Her husband was  recently diagnosed with celiac disease so they're going gluten free. Now she's trying to go gluten free, dairy free, sodium free, and corn free. I don't think I can go as far as she has, but I'll take hints from her.  Corn products are apparently known to increase or aggravate the possibility of seizures. But then again, what is life without a good BLT on whole wheat bread?
I've had enoiugh studying for the day. I'm going to read, but I'm looking forward to a quiet lazy weekend. Since in the last few days I haven't even had time to exercise, I'll catch up on that too.