This is the Sunday we “sprang ahead” to Daylight Savings Time.

Everyone seems to hate when DST ends in the fall, because it’s darker “earlier”.

Well, no. It’s darker at the same time; we simply look at our clocks differently.

DST is actually the “unnatural” way of measuring our days.

I’ve often wondered if the advice I read about avoiding  the sun between eleven in the morning to one in the afternoon takes DST into account? Isn’t the sun supposed to be directly overhead at noon? Then wouldn’t the sun be hotter, brighter, more dangerous between ten in the morning and noon during DST because the sun would be at its zenith at eleven?

Several studies have found evidence suggesting that Daylight Savings Time is actually bad for our health.  There are more heart attacks, strokes, and road accidents in the days following the spring ahead than there are at other times. And “falling back” triggers depression and earlier onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder in some people.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for the extra sunlight at the end of the Day Job day.

The third and final novella of my Mask series, featuring baseball player Tag Gentry and caterer Skye Schuyler comes out on Tuesday, 3/7.

Skye Schuyler’s business is failing because of a reporter’s lies, yet telling the truth about baseball player Tag Gentry’s injuries would destroy him. She loves him too much to betray his confidence. But his marriage proposal is only damage control, suggested by his agent, and Skye wants more from a relationship than Tag seems willing to offer.

Tag won’t take no for an answer. It’s bad enough an injury cost him his career, but now he seems to be losing his best friend, too. He can’t figure out why Skye won’t marry him when marriage to him should convince everyone she didn’t betray his secrets to that reporter. Wanting to fight every man who comes into contact with Skye doesn’t mean he’s jealous, despite what his brothers think. He wants to protect her the way she’s been guarding his secret.

But when a vicious attack on Skye’s business also threatens her life, Tag is forced to reevaluate not only his feelings for her, but also his plans for the future. Now all he has to do is convince Skye to unmask her true feelings and join his team…permanently.

On Sale March 7 at Loose-Id

For the first years of my marriage, I felt like a pack mule, especially when the children were young, and I had to haul their things, too. My husband was always asking me, “Do you have room in your purse for this?” It could have been a camera, a flyer he saw somewhere and wanted to further investigate, or his sun glasses. The assumption was, the wife carries.

Maybe this comes from the hunter/gatherer stage of human development, when women gathered the berries, nuts, roots and such that ensured survival of the species. Men carried their spears. We hauled everything else. They had to be ready to hunt or defend at a moments notice. We lugged the babies and provisions.

Or it may come from the fact that for many years, women’s clothes didn’t have pockets. Having pockets for our wallets and such would ruin our “profile”. (Men wouldn’t be able to ogle our bosoms and backsides.) So we needed bags for our house keys and sunglasses.

My children, however, are now grown. And I am wiser. When TV Stevie and I go out, I carry a tiny bag just large enough for my cell phone, a purse-pack of tissues, a house key, a credit card, my ID, and lip balm. I am now as unencumbered as he is. And I like it.