Why I Became an Economics Major in College
I went to Middlebury College expecting to become a Political Science major. I had law school as a possibility in my mind even as I started college. Or maybe I would be a French major and teach French—I had already concluded already that I would never speak French well enough to be a United Nations […]
Selling Cookies and Other Fun Fundraisers
The Kansas City Star has a column called “Snarky in the Suburbs” by Sherry Kuehl, which I enjoy. Last week, her piece was titled “Sure they’re nondescript, but the Thin Mint has a mighty allure”. She described her decades-long addiction to Girl Scout Thin Mints. That reminded me of my own relationship with Thin Mints […]
My Mother’s Hands
I wrote a poem several years back about my mother’s hands. Here it is: Heredity Stubby fingers, Split nails, Swollen knuckles, . . . And now age spots. My mother’s hands At the end of my wrists. How did this happen? At the time, my critique group didn’t get it. How can my mother’s hands […]
Technology Update: On Wi-Fi and Tablets
The time has come again for me to focus on technology. It seems every three years or so I can’t avoid upgrading my devices and/or systems. For the past several weeks, I’ve been deep into wi-fi networks and tablets. Actually, my need to focus on technology began last summer. I am the I/T support in […]
Black History in California
As Black History Month (February) winds to an end, I decided to post a bit of Californian history about African Americans and about my African American characters. I’ve posted before about African American history in the Oregon Territory. California was marginally more receptive to Blacks in that era, but not by much. The Tanner family […]
Cinderella Through the Decades
I follow This Day in History, watching for events that relate to my historical novels. Every once in a while, I learn something that finds its way into my novels. The information also provides fodder for blog posts, such as this one. Most of what I learn has nothing to do with my novels, but […]
What Do I Have After Eight Years of Blogging?
I recently discovered that WordPress could show me how many words total I have written on this blog. From January 2012 when I began blogging through 2019, I posted 502,077 words. That’s five good-sized novels. Before I published my first novel, I was told at writing conferences to build an online platform. That was one […]
Bucket List: Making Music Again
I had my second first piano lesson last week. My first first piano lesson was more than fifty years ago, in September 1964, when I was in the fourth grade. I don’t remember that first lesson specifically, but I know I took piano lessons for six years from that point on, then stopped at the […]
Watching Soaps with My Grandmother
Today, February 12, would have been my paternal grandmother’s 108th birthday. She died in 1990 at the age of 78. I wasn’t as close to Nanny Kay as I was to my maternal grandmother, but when I was a preteen, I spent a week or so with her during summers. Just me, without my siblings, […]
On Hallmark, Haircuts, and the Persuasiveness of Grandmas
I thumbed through a photo album of my son’s baby pictures, trying to think of something to write as a birthday post for him. His birthday is later this week. In the album, I found two photographs taken by a photographer at Hallmark Cards when my son was almost a year old. A month or […]