National Random Acts of Kindness Day: Musings on Small, Daily Acts
February 17 is National Random Acts of Kindness Day. This day originated in New Zealand, although there it is celebrated on September 1. But I think random acts of kindness fit well in the depth of our Northern Hemisphere winter. As of the morning of February 17 this year, Kansas City has not been above […]
Baby Boy Hupp: What’s in a Name?
I wrote an earlier post about my son’s birth. I put his first baby picture in that post, but what I didn’t say in that post was that at the time of that first picture, the only name that baby had was “Baby Boy Hupp.” That’s how the hospital labeled his crib, and that’s how […]
Vaccines Then and Now
As of early February 2021, the news is full of stories about vaccines against COVID-19, the pandemic that hit the United States early in 2020. For almost a year now, we have restricted our activities on almost every front. Working from home. Limited church services. No restaurants. Buying as much as possible online. We are […]
Childbirth in the Mid-19th Century
In my current work-in-progress I have two female characters who are pregnant, one for the eighth time and the other for the ninth. And they are only in their early thirties. This was not at all unusual for the mid-19th century. Pregnancy and childbirth in the 1860s were common . . . and a common […]
Marital Conflicts Between Precision and Efficiency
Because of the pandemic, over the past many months my husband and I have been at home together most of each day. It’s given me an opportunity to see our differences in a more concentrated light. The other day I came upon him transferring our laundry from washer to dryer. I always like to encourage […]
My Mother’s Dish Towels
Before I married in November 1977, my mother gave me six dish towels. “Here,” she said. “I received a dozen of these when I was married, and I want you to have some.” She and my father married in June 1955. The towels had had some use, but I think my mother mostly kept them […]
On Deer and Cows
Last Sunday morning I saw six deer on the fairway behind our house. They were silhouetted against the snow, and when I glanced out the window—there they were! It was a foggy morning (the reason I have no pictures), so perhaps they felt safer coming out into the open. I hadn’t seen any deer in […]
Goals for 2021, Weekly Posts, and Hoping for a Better Year Ahead
Despite the awfulness of 2020, I got a lot accomplished. I wrote most of a novel, edited it, published it, and drafted another novel during NaNoWriMo. As the year ends, I’m about a quarter of the way through my first edit of this new work-in-progress—which will be my seventh novel. As I described at the […]
OneDrive and Not-So-Random Photos
I recently loaded the OneDrive app on my Android phone so that I could have access to documents I’ve backed up to the cloud anywhere on any device. It won’t enable me to be productive everywhere, as it would be difficult to edit Scrivener files (the program I use to write my novels) without the […]
When Did Slavery End? The Answer Varies
The novel I’m writing now takes place in 1864 Oregon. The Civil War was the biggest news of the day, though other issues were also important to Oregonians of the period. I’ve been researching what happened during the Civil War in 1864, and when news of these events reached Oregon. In early March 1864, the […]