A Novel Blog Hop: Lead Me Home
J.G. Burdette, who blogs at Map of Time: A Trip into the Past, tagged me to participate in a Blog Hop for authors. What’s a blog hop? This one is an interview with ten questions posed to a writer about the novel he or she is writing. The author answers the ten questions and then […]
Chinese Landscapes – Ancient and Modern – and the Search for Spiritual Order
One of my favorite oases in Kansas City is the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. I go there when I have a spare hour or two. Last week I went to the Nelson’s special exhibit entitled “Journey through Mountains and Rivers: Chinese Landscapes Ancient and Modern,” and came away with a new appreciation for Chinese art, both […]
Weaving Threads of History into Story
In February 1847, while the Donner party struggled to survive in the snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and Elizabeth Dixon Smith and her family prepared to leave Indiana for Oregon, a baby was born in Denmark – my paternal great-great-grandfather Charles N. Claudson. (I’m told his last name in Denmark was Clausen; it was […]
Humor Amidst the Tears
I wrote on Monday about the tragedies of Alzheimer’s, which are real and heart-wrenching. But there are moments of humor as well. Two of our family’s amusing stories occurred in May 2010, not long after my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Several family members had gathered in New Orleans for my daughter’s graduation from Tulane […]
One Family’s Journey into Alzheimer’s – Keeper, by Andrea Gillies
If you want to know what it’s like to live with someone with Alzheimer’s Disease, read Keeper: One House, Three Generations, and a Journey into Alzheimer’s, by Andrea Gillies. Gillies, a British author, and her family took her in-laws into their home when the older couple could no longer live independently. Her mother-in-law Nancy had […]
Photo Finishes
One of the challenges in writing this blog is finding pictures to suit each post. I’ve read that adding pictures to a blog makes it much more attractive to readers, so I have tried to include images of some type with most posts. Many of my pictures come from Microsoft clipart, which has thousands of […]
Walking and Weapons and Children’s Personalities
I’ve been thinking a lot about walking recently, because of my daughter’s broken leg. Her accident and recuperation have brought to mind the days when she and her older brother learned to walk. I learned a lot about my children watching them learn to walk. Neither of them walked until they were 14 or 15 […]
My Grandmother’s Thimble and Sewing Doll
In an earlier post, I mentioned my maternal grandmother’s thimble. Her initials – WS, for Winifred Strachan, her maiden name – are on the thimble. Her friends all called her Winnie, and I called her Nanny Winnie. Nanny Winnie kept house for her father and brothers after her mother died; my grandmother was still in […]
The Donner Party: Don’t Take Shortcuts and Hurry Along
One of the more sensational stories of the Oregon Trail is that of the Donner party, the group of emigrants to California in 1846 who were lost in snows in the Sierra Nevada mountains from November 1846 until March 1847, and allegedly resorted to cannibalism. As soon as their story became public, their tale became […]
Top Ten Lessons Learned about Blogging
I’ve been posting regularly (at least weekly) on this blog for a year now, and since May 2012 I’ve posted twice a week (on Mondays and Wednesdays). I’ve had some successes, but I also know I can improve. Here are the top ten lessons I’ve learned in the past year about blogging, as well as […]