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 […]
Happy Short Girl Appreciation Day To Me
December 21 is Short Girl Appreciation Day. I am a short girl—5’1” in my stocking feet. So I hope to be appreciated today. In Catholic school, we frequently lined up by height. I was always one of the shortest girls in my class in school. Of course, I was a year younger than most of […]
First Visit with Santa—Better on Zoom?
A couple of weeks ago a friend told me about her family’s experience setting up a visit from Santa for her grandchildren this year. Two of her grandkids are four-year-old boys. Of course, they need to see Santa, pandemic or no pandemic. So parents and grandparents are working on a way for the grandsons to […]
On Christmas Trees and Vacuums
’Tis the season for putting up Christmas trees. My husband and I have not yet purchased our tree this year, but, as he says, we are “closing in on it.” Which is another way of saying “it’s on my radar screen.” Which are both military-speak for “I’m thinking about it, and it might happen in […]
New Books by Kansas City Area Authors
Books by local authors make great holiday gifts. Many of these books will be unknown to the recipients, and readers can discover new authors to read and enjoy. I don’t have a new book published in 2020 under my name, but here are some books published this year by other Kansas City area authors that […]
My 900th Post: What Should I Do Differently on This Blog?
WordPress tells me this is my 900th post on this blog. At an average of around 500 words/post, that’s 450,000 words, or about four novels. As I wrote in my last post, it takes me 16-20 hours a month to write two posts per week, and I could probably write about 25,000 on a novel […]