March Snow? 12 Things that might be Good

March is usually a headed toward Spring month here in Kentucky. Flowers begin to appear. There are days with a generous dose of warm sunshine to soak into your skin after the winter cold. The normal temperature for a Kentucky day in early March is in the 50s. Sometimes we're treated to much warmer. And sometimes we're slammed with much colder as we were last week. Record breaking cold all across the state with the temperature dipping into the minus regions. 

We had snow to match the low temperatures, or perhaps the low temperatures to match the snow. Wednesday every bit of the snow we had on the ground melted and it rained. Until it started sleeting and then snowing. And snowing and snowing. 

We sometimes have snow in March in Kentucky. But not 16 or 20 inches. That's January snow. March snow is generally a few flakes blowing in the wind. Flurries one minute, sunshine the next. Or if the snow does fall down and coat the ground, the sun warms it up and melts it away pronto. But not this snow with the minus temperatures. It didn't care that it's March and Spring is only two short weeks away. Winter isn't ready to quit. 

But there is good in most everything if you look. And so I'm looking. What good things can we think of for this snow? 

1. It was a beautiful snow. Really. Friday morning when I went out at sunrise the trees were sparkling and the cedars were coated in snow just like a Christmas card. The snow on the ground sparkled too. Made me think of those detergents I used to buy to wash baby clothes. Ivory Flakes or Dreft, I think. And sometimes if a little breeze shook some off a tree, the flakes sparkled like diamonds in the air. Beautiful. Really.

2. I got lots of extra exercise walking in the snow over my boot tops. Had to be good for my leg muscles. Had to be.

3. That much snow is filling up the ponds and underground springs. Nourishing the plants and flowers that are waiting under the snow. 

4. They say it has to be at least minus five to kill deer ticks. If that's true, then this winter should thin them and other insects out around here. 

5. Kids and wanna be kids got to build snowmen and go sledding and had the fun of a snow day out of school. 

6. There was plenty of fresh snow to scoop up for Snow Cream. 

7. The trees might not bud out and bloom too early and get killed by the frost. Maybe.

8. Oscar was ready to come inside. If new experiences help our brains, then maybe the same help dogs learn too. He had to figure out all the different ways to walk in the snow from pushing through the powdery stuff to walking on top of a frozen crust, to breaking through the crust with some of his steps back to deep powder again. 


9. It gave many people reason to help their neighbors with shoveling and plowing out their roads or donating to homeless shelters.

10. It will make us appreciate the spring sunshine and flowers all that much more for having to wait for it. The flowers are coming. Well watered by the snow.




11. A snowy, cold day is a great time to settle down with a good book and a cup of something warm.

12. It's a perfect reason to make a cup of hot chocolate.

What good things can you add about the snow?

Remembering Roxie, My Walking Buddy Saint Bernard

Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love; they depart to teach us about loss. ~Erica Jong

I lost one of my walking buddies last week. Roxie lived across the road from me. She came to her family when she was a pup and already bigger than many dogs are when they are grown. A fuzzy furry sweatheart. Then she grew some more and became a regal, full size Saint Bernard. Her family has a house with one of those porches that go around two sides of it and Roxie liked to sit on that side porch facing my house and keep watch on her world. When the grandkids came to visit and we were outside, Roxie liked to meander on over to our yard to check out what was happening. 

And she loved to go walking with Oscar and me. Every day she'd be out on the porch or yard with an ear out to listen for us to head out to the field for our walk. In her early years, she always heard me, but the last couple of years, her hearing suffered and if she fell asleep on the porch waiting for us, she didn't always wake up. I couldn't help feeling a little guilty when we came back from our walk and she'd be awake and come off the porch to give me that look that said "why did you go without me." A few times I would walk back down the lane because she looked so disappointed. 

She did have that slobber problem that dogs with big mouths have. And she did like to lean on you. Early on, I decided that blue jeans are easy to wash and a little Saint Bernard slobber is a small price to pay for such a sweet companion. My grandkids weren't as sure about that, especially when she came close and shook her head. Then the slobber slingers got them. She wasn't a neat dog. When we walked in the cow pastures, she would rub her neck down in the fresh cow piles as though putting on a little perfume. Not sure her family appreciated her walking with me on those days! She was also quick to scavenger any dead animals we came across. It was useless trying to get her to leave the carcass be. She simply picked whatever it was up and headed for home. Another time her family probably wasn't so happy I'd led her astray. 

She loved the snow because that was her element. She was more than ready to walk when the ground was covered in white. It was easy to imagine her in the Alps with a keg around her neck searching out somebody lost in the snow.  Oscar, who also likes the snow, enjoyed having Roxie along on our walks. They were buddies and the longer walks the better for both of them. Snow in the winter, the creek in the summer were their favorites. 

Then Friday a week ago after I got home from my trip to California, I went for a walk in the rain. Roxie was right there with me and seemed the same as any other day. But the next day she must have had a heart attack. They found her with no sign of trauma, just gone on. I miss her now when we walk. A little Roxie slobber on my jeans would be more than welcome. Roxie bulldozed her way through life, going where she wanted to go and living her her dog life to the fullest. She was a very good neighbor and walking buddy. Go rest high on that mountain, Roxie, where all good dogs surely wait at the gate to welcome their families (and a neighbor or two) home.


Dogs' lives are too short...their only fault, really. ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

A good dog never dies. ~Mary Carolyn Davies

Bumpy Sledding and Editing

I've been away from home for a few days keeping my son's kids. Great kids, but lively. There was snow up their way and of course they wanted to go out and play in it. Trouble was the wind chill was double minus something. It wasn't so bad the day I got there and so we rushed on our boots and gloves and hurried out before dark to decorate the yard with some snow people. Then those minus temperatures helped the snowmen stick around. On the second day the boys wanted to go out and sled on their backyard hill. It was cold. We had to hunt boots and gloves. Took us thirty minutes to get dressed. They got cold and were ready to come in after about fifteen minutes. That's how it goes. But before they got too cold, we did find a little sled. Neither boy made it to the bottom of the hill, but tumbled off about halfway down and rolled the rest of the way. They both wanted me to sled down the hill, but this grandma has learned better than that. The last time I tried to go sledding several years ago with another grandson, I found out pretty fast that older bodies don't like the bumps under those little plastic sleds. So I can build snow people and I can launch my grandkids on the sleds with a little push, but I'm not seeking snow thrills these days. Don't even like slipping in ice on foot or in a car. Does that mean I'm over the hill or just finally getting wise?

My son and his wife were stuck in Atlanta for an extra night and day and so I was late getting home. Since I have a writing deadline looming, I checked back in my blog archives and found a time when I compared that bumpy sledding episode a few years ago to the "bumpy sledding" I was having as I tried to get my new story off the ground. I'm at the same spot now and doing the same as then - hanging on and absorbing the bumps because I think the story is there. I'm putting that story aside to work on the edits of Love Comes Home. No major rewriting, but the little stuff can drive me crazy. I've spent three or four hours on one scene the editor has asked me to do a better job of transition. I'm still not happy with it. It's funny how when I'm in the flow of writing things come easier than when I'm trying to untangle a bit of knotty writing.

So here are a few quotes I put in that long ago post about bumpy writing. I hope it will encourage you if you're a writer and help you understand some of what writers struggle with if you're a reader.

• A writer and nothing else: a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right. --John K. Hutchens (A woman alone in a room, too. I do work much better when I'm alone.)
• Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself-it is the occurring which is difficult. -Stephen Leacock
• I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension. -Norman Mailer (I couldn't agree more. I simply cannot talk about my story in progress. One author I read suggested that if a writer tells her story, there's no need for her to write it.)
• Make 'em laugh; make 'em cry; make 'em wait. - Charles Reade

That last one is advice I want to follow. I think I'll write those words in red on my desk calendar where I can see it every day when I start writing. I'll put it right beside the Proverb about how laughter works good for us like a medicine. Hope you have much laughter and smooth sledding!

By the way, how long has it been since you tried sledding down a hill?  Maybe that was today!

Snow Scenes - Real and Imagined

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder. ~Susan Orlean

Kentucky winters are unpredictable. We might have snow. We might not. When my oldest son was six, he got a sled for Christmas. We did not have sledding snow for years. Then the year he was eleven the heavens opened and we had piles and piles of snow. And some ice. He stayed out sledding for hours. It's a wonder he didn't have frostbite. Three winters in a row we had major snow and cold. 

At that time we were the only people who lived back our little lane that had high banks on both sides of it. The snow drifted solid as high as those banks and there was no way we were going to get out that road. My husband pulled the car out through the pasture field with his tractor. Then every morning he'd ride the tractor out to the main road, get the car and go to work. He brought in the groceries too. That year nobody actually drove up our lane until the middle of March when I had a family birthday party for my daughter. My brother-in-law had a big four-wheel drive truck and he "broke" the road. The kids and I stayed home except when we walked to my parents' house down the road. And of course, the kids played in the snow. They would take their little brother out and then he'd get stuck in the snow drifts and they'd have to lift him out. But he loved it too.

I remember three and four-week long snow days, and drifts so deep a small child, namely me, could get lost in them. No such winter exists in the record, but that's how Ohio winters seemed to me when I was little - silent, silver, endless, and dreamy. ~Susan Orlean

I don't know how long the kids were out of school, but it seemed like three and four week snow days. We could have had cabin fever. I'm sure we did have cabin fever. But now, I don't remember that. I remember eating a lot of popcorn and hot chocolate. I remember reading the Lord of the Ring books. The two older kids read them too. I remember card games and fires in the wood stove. And I do have to admit I remember being glad when the kids went back to school so I'd have more writing time again. 

The snow this winter isn't nearly that deep. No drifts over the fence posts. But it has been very cold so the snow we did get is staying around. I like walking in the snow and I like taking snow pictures. And sometimes I write snow scenes in my stories. 

"I'm working on a snow scene right now, and it's summer. It's hot, and I will get chilly. I'll have to turn on the heat. My wife walks in, and it's 95 degrees in the studio. I know it's nutty, but it's a projection you have where you step into the painting." ~Thomas Kinkade

I understand that. The same as he is with the painting, sometimes I get so deep in my story that I can almost feel the snow and ice in my face as I write. I heard the ice hitting the cabin windows and breaking down the army tents in Christmas at Harmony Hill. I was with Hannah in The Believer as she defiantly made snow angels at the Shaker village. I was driving through the snow with David and Leigh as they stepped closer to love in Summer of Joy. The same can be true with hot weather scenes, so I guess right now I need to be writing about summertime to keep me warm. 

Hope you stay warm and enjoy the snow if you have it in your world. I always think about leaving a lot of happy tracks when I walk in the snow. That's what the dogs and I did today because snow can be fun. Just ask a boy with a sled. 

What do you like about snow days? Or do you get cabin fever?

The Blizzard of '94

Snow picture on Ann's Farm 2013

We've had a little snow several times this winter, but it has been a little each time. An inch here. A couple of inches there, or maybe only a trace. We even had a little ice one day but it mostly clung to the trees and didn't coat the ground. I like snow like that. The kind that doesn't keep you from going where you have to go.The kind that you can walk around in without wearing hip boots. The kind where the sun comes out the next day and shoots the temperature back above freezing so that the white stuff doesn't out stay its welcome.

But there have been winters in Kentucky where the snow wasn't so accomodating. The blizzard of '94 was one of those times. Snow came down heavy on the 17th of January all across Kentucky with a single day snowfall record of more than 15 inches set in Louisville. In our area a bit southeast of Louisville, we had over 20 inches. You northern friends are probably saying that's nothing, but it was a lot for us. You've got to remember that we're almost south.

But it was what came next that made the storm one to remember. Somebody up in Canada left the door open or maybe it was the North Pole. An intensely cold air mass swept down into Kentucky bringing record temperatures. Louisville set an all-time low of minus 22, but in Shelbyville the temperature plunged to minus 37. I don't remember it being that cold here. Minus 20 something, but then maybe the windows were too iced over for me to see the thermometor outside.  

In Louisville, city snowplows slid into ditches because no one could find the tire chains. It had been so long since they'd been needed, that they'd been misplaced. The state insisted that its top priority was interstate highways. But I-64 resembled a glazed washboard. Ultimately, the interstates got so bad that the governor ordered them closed for two days. Folks stayed home and tried to stay warm.

But even after the roads re-opened, they were still ice covered. I was working then in Lexington and rode with my sister. She had a car that could go, but I remember the jarring ride as we went over those frozen roads. The temperatures were so low that the salt wasn't melting the snow and ice.

We've had other major snowfalls here in Kentucky. The winters of '76, '77 and '78 kept the kids out of school so long they were almost sorry to hear the no school announcement on the radio every morning. 

Do you remember the blizzard of '94? Or what storms stopped you in your tracks? I think ice storms are the worst but those cold temps in '94 were hard to like.

As always, thanks for reading. And remember a comment gets you entered in a drawing for a copy of soon to be newly released Scent of Lilacs.

Snow, 2013, and Winners

2013. Now that's a number that can make you sit up and take notice. I don't know why, but it just seems more in the future than 2012. Maybe that's because it is - in the future. The year to come. A year full of the unknown. Good unknowns. Perhaps not so good unknowns. Would you like to know what waits for you in the wings of 2013? Do you want to know the future? Or would you rather take each day as it comes? 

I think I'd rather take the days as they come. Of course, I do like looking ahead to see what the weather is going to do. Not that the weather people always get it right. Maybe that's part of the fun of watching the weather - to see if the forecasts happen. Sometimes they don't get it right any better than the wooly worms. I saw this little worm last fall and wasn't sure if it was forecasting a cold winter (all black) or a warm winter (all brown). 

The weather forecasters did get it right Friday. We had snow. Lovely snow. Great snowman making snow for the kids and the young at heart. I'll claim being young at heart for making a little snowman when I went out to clear off my front deck. Turned out to look more like a snow teddy bear, but still fun. I put a picture of it on my Facebook author page. I like a little snow each year. Fun for walking with the dogs, Oscar and Roxie who both like the snow. Fun for taking pictures like the one up top that surprised me with the sun glow.

So I'll just step forward into 2013 taking one day at a time. That's the way we're having to do it with Mom. We never know how she'll be each day. She hasn't felt well this week and it's bothering her sleep. Sometimes she's ready to get up at midnight. Needless to say, I'm not. So I guess we're taking it one night at a time too. Maybe even one hour at a time.

But a new year is a time of promise and hope no matter how you look to the future. And I promised to reveal the winners of my Christmas giveaway today. So drum roll please. I've already contacted them all and have heard back from all but the winner of the first prize. That's Nancy. I know she's in the south, but don't yet know which state or which book she's going to want as her prize. She will get the bookends and that book of her choice. Kristina of VA was the second prize winner. She picked my book, Angel Sister, and two other autographed books - Dark Pursuit by Brandilyn Collins and Troublesome Creek by Jan Watson. The winner of the "never won before" drawing is Dianne C. of Georgia. She gets the cute cat magnets (luckily she says she's a cat lover) and my book, Angel Sister. Then just because, I picked an extra winner, Peggy C. of Iowa. She wants Angel Sister too and I'm throwing in a surprise book for her too. Not sure which one yet, so we may both be surprised. Looks as if Angel Sister was the winner in this giveaway. :) Thanks to all of you who entered the Christmas giveaway contest and especially to those of you who shared your Christmas joys and memories with me. I loved reading about your Christmases. We'll do it again in 2013. I'll be celebrating the re-issue of Scent of Lilacs in March, so watch for a new contest then. If you're signed up for my newsletter, you'll hear about it first. If you're not signed up for the newsletter, you can get on the list by clicking on the newsletter link on my website.

Wishing you a very happy 2013 with a hopeful forecast of blessings each and every day. Thanks for reading!

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." ~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce.



 

 

Snowglobes and Stories

When I was a child, I had a great uncle that seemed ancient to me. When we went to visit him he was always sitting in a chair in a room with bookshelves loaded with books and snowglobes. I was amazed by all the books and fascinated by the snowglobes, but of course, not allowed to play with them. Occasionally the uncle would show me one and let me turn it over and then right side up again so that the snow would fall down on the scene inside the globe. I was an extremely shy child and a bit afraid of my gruff uncle but I would have sat right there by his feet and studied those snowglobe if I had been allowed to do so.

~~

Fast forward a lot of years and get to this winter of the snows in Kentucky. Other places too, but we've had more snows this year than I can ever remember. Not deep snows. We've had snows that piled up more inches in one storm, but this winter the snows just keep coming. An inch here, two inches there until they say we've gotten over 25 inches altogether. I know that doesn't seem like much to you folks up north, but our average snowfall up to this time of the year is 10 inches. I'm getting used to the snow. I just go out and get in my car like I'm driving a 4-wheel drive truck and take off. So far I've stayed out of the ditch. So far.

~~

The snow we had the other day was a beautiful snow. One of those where the snowflakes gather in clumps in the air and drift down to cover everything. No wind much. Just thick snowflakes falling. So I told my Facebook friends that it looked like we were in a snowglobe. My dog, Oscar is looking out at you from the globe in the picture above. Anyway that got me to thinking about snowglobes and then that got me thinking about stories. All right, there's no logical bridge between those thoughts, but sometimes a person has to make her own bridge.

~~

Once I threw down that bridge, I got to thinking how stories can be so much like the scenes in those snowglobes. A creation of places and events by the writer. The writer comes up with an idea. He or she gathers the characters and designs the setting. Then she sprinkles in a liberal amount of snow (problems or challenges) and turns that snow/story globe upside down to get everything started. Perhaps that's why I'm a storyteller because I want to watch the snow drift down on my imaginary world. I want to be as fascinated with my created world as I used to be with those glass-enclosed worlds from my childhood days.

~~

I have to admit that it's a little disappointing to shake a snowglobe that doesn't have enough snow inside the globe. You feel cheated somehow. The same can be true with stories. Without enough story then you don't have the snow to keep the reader turning pages. That's why I'm struggling a little with my work in progress. I don't think I've given my heroine enough challenges. We love cheering for characters or maybe hoping they get their just deserts. (Google it - it's deserts - not desserts. It uses a meaning of desert - to get what is deserved.) So I'm shaking my story globe, trying to stir up the words so I can make a new story. A good story. A story that will captivate readers as they let the words fall down into their imaginations.

~~

If you live in my area, you can come meet me and Virginia Smith, a fellow Kentucky author, at Corinth Christian Book Store in Frankfort, KY this Friday, Feb. 11th at 7 p.m. I'll be talking about how I put the story of Angel Sister in a story globe book. Ginny will be talking about her new book, A Deadly Game. Then we'll be ready to field questions. One of us will be sure to have an answer - right or wrong. We'll have fun and no doubt do some laughing too.

~~

You still have plenty of time to enter my new giveaway described on my website's Event page. If some of you would rather win a couple of books than a gift card, that can be arranged if you turn out to be the winner. I've gotten some sister stories, but I'd love to hear more.

~~

Thanks for reading and I'm hoping we'll have some sunshine on our scenes in the next few days. Oh, yeah, and for the rest of the story, my uncle's house burned down and he lost all those wonderful snow globes to the fire.

A Snowy Day Down on the Farm

~The weather people talked about snow for days and it finally showed up down here on the farm. We got about four inches - a light dusting compared to what they got west and south of us. But plenty for me. I like a little snow every winter, but I'm always ready to see it go, too. This morning it was so cold when I went out that the snow squeaked and crunched underfoot and blew up little mini-puffs of snow in my wake. A good kind of walking snow. Tonight would be a good night to take a snow walk since the moon is almost full and is reflecting off the snow making a glistening light almost as bright as day out there. But it is very chilly.

~I took my camera out on Saturday afternoon and took this picture of the hay bales and cedars. It made me think of the title of the book Snow Falling on Cedars. That's a very evocative title for a book, but one that I doubt I would have ever had the nerve to suggest to a publisher. But then again, maybe I would. I did The Scent of Lilacs. I did Wish Come True and Bridge to Courage for a couple of my young adult books. Not exactly the same feel as the snow falling title, but I think interesting titles. And all fit the story. I read Snow Falling on Cedars, but it's been a while and I can't remember if the title was central to the story or not.

~I enjoy thinking about titles and wondering where the authors might have come up with them. With my Shaker books, the publishers suggested I use a The Something theme and we came up with The Outsider for the first one. The Believer fits the second story perfectly and The Seeker is right for Charlotte and Adam's story. I have absolutely no idea what The Something the next book is going to be. But then I often write the book before I come up with a title. I guess I keep hoping my subconscious will nudge a great title up into my conscious mind and I'll go bingo and know it's the perfect title. Of course, right now I'm just hoping my subconscious will push a good story up into my conscious mind. I like my new characters, but they seem to be very secretive about their stories. I need them to start whispering some of those secrets into my ear. Or they can just run them straight through my fingers if they want to.

~I'm about rested up from my grandbaby sitting, but my desk is still looking like a disaster area. Plus I can't seem to locate the book I was reading before I headed to WV. No, it's not under all the paperwork on my desk. I've already checked that out. It takes talent to lose a book in your own house, but that seems to be what I've done. I gave up on finding it. Now I'm just waiting to discover it in whatever interesting spot I last laid it down. Either that or the reading gremlins carried it away. Do you have gremlins at your house? You know those mysterious beings that run off with paperclips and scissors and all your inkpens when you most need to write something down.

~Some of you have already entered my February book drawing for two of my books and The Frontiersman's Daughter by Laura Frantz, but for those of you who haven't, you still have time. I won't be doing the drawing until the end of the month. If you want to throw your name in the hat, just send me a message from my website or leave a comment here. I appreciate each and every one of you. Thanks for being reading friends.

Snowy Sundays

It appears winter wasn't quite through with us. Last Sunday was balmy. This Sunday snowy. Our church didn't have services the same as about three-fourths of the churches in the area. And it just hasn't seemed like Sunday without going to church to meet and worship with my church family. Actually due to the SC Book Festival and then going to WV to my son's church last weekend, it's now been three Sundays I haven't been out to Goshen to see the "family."

We do feel like a family there. That's why I like going to a small church, and I'm really talking about a small church here. If we ever have 50, we say we had a crowd. If a big town church had 50, they'd panic. But for us 50 is good and 40 isn't bad. While I've been going there since I married, we've averaged anywhere from 20 to 80. I can only remember a few years we brought in the 80. But older members can remember when that was the norm. They used to tell me how during revivals people stood on the outside and listened in through the open windows.

The church was established in 1812. So it's been there a long time. I used my memories of Goshen as it was when I first started going there for my church in my Hollyhill books. It's a good church and it's sent out a lot of faithful members to other churches - people who grew up at Goshen and remember it fondly. At one time one of the men came early on a Sunday morning in the winter to build the fires in the two stoves on either side of the church. Now I don't remember that far back. We had a furnace when I started going.

I told everybody Wednesday at Bible Study that I'd be back this morning the Lord willing and the creek didn't rise. I guess I should have said if the snow doesn't fall. But who expects 6 inches of snow on March 8th. Snow this time of year does make for good snowman material. I was sort of wishing I had some grandkids visiting so I'd have an excuse to go out and make a snowman. But they were sledding on other hills this weekend. I settled for a walk in the snow. It was beautiful yesterday afternoon - white and smooth. Pristine fields of white. Me and the dogs made short work of that. But then by the time we came back the wind was already wiping our footprints away.

Now today the sun melted most of the snow. That is the great thing about it snowing in March. It rarely lasts long. You have the snow to enjoy and then just like that it's gone and you can start looking for crocuses again. I actually spotted some pretty yellow crocuses the other day, and the March flowers are trying to bloom. Spring is really coming. But you should have seen my bird feeder yesterday while the snow was still on. About a hundred birds were fighting for the seeds. Well, at least fifty. I counted fourteen cardinals. They look so pretty against the white snow.

I'm trying to get going on my new book. I'm still figuring out who everybody is. I want to have strong characters who readers will want to read about.

I'm planning an author event at the Anderson County Public Library on Sunday, April 13th at 2 p.m. I'm going to be talking about "Writing about Small Town, America in the Sixties." We're going to be doing some just for fun trivia about the Sixties and have some door prizes. I want it to be a fun afternoon for everybody. What trivia question would you ask about the Sixties? Even if you aren't old enough to remember those olden days, you might still be interested in what went on then.

Hope you all have a great week and that next Sunday we'll be enjoying some warmer Spring sunshine again. Next Sunday is my mom's birthday. She's the greatest and we love celebrating with her. But we'll skip the candles. No need involving the fire department. Just kidding, Mom!

Signing off for now. Ann