On Glaciers, Goats, and Change
I’ve written before about the family hike we took in Switzerland in 1998 when my kids were teenagers. It was a good experience, but far more strenuous than I enjoy. My husband and (now-grown) kids recently took another hike in Slovenia and came back raving about the scenery. I had declined to accompany them, because […]
Now I’m Found—Cover Reveal!
A year ago, I showed readers the cover of Lead Me Home, the first book in my Oregon Chronicles series. Today I am ready to reveal the cover of the sequel—Now I’m Found. (I might revise the cover slightly, but this is close to final.) I’m working on final edits of this book, and it […]
The Squash Dish
One of our family’s go-to recipes is what we call “the squash dish.” I don’t have any better name for it. It was either my sister’s or my brother’s family that started making this, and I don’t know where they found it. But once we tried it at a family gathering, my father, my siblings, […]
A Glossary: Troops and Sports Fans, Ace Guys and Dirt Bags
I suppose every family develops its own lingo, terms they use to describe their experiences together. Our family’s jargon is heavily influenced by my husband’s time in the military. He went to the U.S. Naval Academy, spent time on active duty in the Navy before I knew him, and for the first 24 years of […]
The Vagaries of Mail Service During the Early California Gold Rush
One of the issues I have dealt with in my novel about the California Gold Rush is long-distance communications in the West between 1848 and 1850. I have characters living in Oregon, others in California, and they have relatives in Missouri and Massachusetts. The only way people could communicate over distance was through letters, but […]
Outlived Its Usefulness: The Reader’s Encyclopedia
Among the books I found when I cleaned out my bookcase recently was a two-volume set called The Reader’s Encyclopedia. These books had been on my shelf for many years, but they originally belonged to my parents. I remember the volumes from childhood. When I had nothing better to do on a lazy afternoon, I would […]
Tidying Up: Beginner Level
My husband was recently out of town for about ten days, leaving me home alone. I wanted to focus on my work-in-progress, and I did get a good chunk of it edited into close-to-final shape (yay!), though I didn’t do as much as I had hoped (boo). I also decided that while he was gone […]
Are You Celebrating National Relaxation Day Today?
I learned recently that August 15 is National Relaxation Day—a day is set aside to slow down, unwind, and relax. We are advised to avoid stress, not work late, and rest when work is over. What an odd notion—that we need a day each year devoted to relaxation. Whatever happened to “on the seventh day […]
Ky-Bee-Chee-Bee Did It
When I was a small child, I had an imaginary friend named Ky-Bee-Chee-Bee. To me she was very real, and she went everywhere with me. I don’t know where the name Ky-Bee-Chee-Bee came from—that was her name, and I didn’t question it. The spelling of Ky-Bee-Chee-Bee is phonetic. I didn’t know how to write when Ky-Bee-Chee-Bee […]
Questions of History Raised by Roman Empire Treasures
A few weeks ago my husband and I went to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City to see the exhibit of Roman Empire luxuries—gold jewelry, silver platters, bronze statuettes, and other artifacts. I was most impressed with the jewelry. I don’t wear much jewelry other than earrings, but I drooled over the Roman […]