Murder in Amish Country

That previous post - the Ben Folds song - wasn't an accusation for anyone. haha. I just like the song, and it has an interesting message.

So, here I am back at work. My carpal tunnel has been flaring up again. I'm not happy about that. I guess it makes sense, since I've spent an average of 6 hours a day typing on this thing.

So how was everybody's weekend?? Mine was fun! Matt and I did Eliza stuff on Friday night, i.e. went to Old Navy, then got pizza and ice cream. Yum...actually the pizza was nothing to write home about, but the ice cream was good. And I got some fun things at Old Navy. I was actually returning stuff, so I felt justified in buying new stuff. You know that feeling, when you return $20 worth of stuff for $25 worth of stuff, so it's like, "Wow, all this stuff and I only paid $5!" Yeah, that was me on Friday.

Then we got up early on Saturday and headed for...the beach! In Delaware. Turns out Delaware actually does exist. It was fun - we swam/hung out on the sand from about noon to about 5, and I didn't even get sunburned! That's what sunscreen'll do for ya! I was very happy, because last time we went to the beach I sort of misapplied the 'screen - you know, missed a few key spots - and ended up quite splotchy. It was bad.

Anyway, so that was some delicious beach fun. Then we ate a disgusting "Baja" dinner - people just don't know how to make Mexican food here! It was so bland. Ugh. Anyway, then we hung out on the boardwalk for awhile, which was fun. People-watching is one of my favorite pastimes.

Then we got to talking to an older couple from Pennsylvania and when we said we were from Utah the old man said loudly, "Are you a Mormon?" I love when people ask that. Matt and I were discussing it later, the phenomenon of Utah=Mormon. Because really, who asks perfect strangers about their religion? I was tempted to say, "Oh, you're from Pennsylvania, are you Amish?"

Haha...but I didn't. I don't think they would have gotten the joke.

I actually am pretty guilty of equating Pennsylvania with Amish. hahahahha. I'm not sure why. I mean besides all the Amish people that live there.

Speaking of which, as of late I've been in the mood to write a mystery novel...a murder mystery. Involving a creepy Amish villain in the creepy Pennsylvania countryside. It might be all the M. Night Shyamalan movies I've seen, or it might be the mystique that surrounds Amish-ness for me...or it might just be those dark scary trees everywhere, but Pennsylvania just has great potential to be the setting of a very scary novel.

I think I've blogged about this before.

At any rate, I've given it some thought. I first thought about it when we drove through Pennsylvania on our way out to D.C. It was like 10:00 at night and everything is just so hidden by all those huge trees, and it was very creepy. I thought about it even more when we went to Manchester/Palmyra, because it's pretty scary there at night too - and we were camping! I guess anywhere rural is scary at night, especially when you're outside. And rural people have great potential to be scary as well. Just same old same old, doin' the chores, feedin' the pigs, day after day, until SNAP!

Disclaimer: I have nothing against Amish people, rural people, or where they live. I am guilty only of an active imagination.

Anyway, so I'm trying to decide if I'd rather have the scary Amish man be the suspect throughout the book, and then turn out not to be the culprit, or if I'd rather have it the other way around - you know, the twist at the end is that all along the bad guy was quiet Amos Standish, who would never hurt a fly...but actually, he wasn't REALLY milking his cow all those times we saw him in the barn at night...he was killingmurderingkilling people under the cow.

Or maybe it was Amos' wife the whole time. We thought she was making star quilts...but in reality she was stitching people into body bags.

I don't know. Any thoughts? I think it has promise.