Two Poets in the Family: Happy Easter . . . and an early Happy Mother’s Day
In going through the mementos my parents kept, I’ve discovered another way in which my mother and I were alike. We both wrote poetry to our families as children. Here’s a poem I wrote for Easter as a child. I can’t date it exactly, but because I referred to “grandmother” and not “grandparents”, I think […]
What Is Cottolene?
After helping me clean out my parents’ house after my father died, my husband got the bug to clean out our house. He has never liked clutter. Although most of the clutter in our home is hidden in cupboards and drawers, it is there, and he hates it. He started with the kitchen. I came […]
Sluicing and Beyond: The Gold Rush Develops from Entrepreneurial to Capitalist
I’ve written about panning for gold and rockers and Long Toms. Inevitably, as the search for gold during the California Gold Rush, the miners developed more sophisticated methods of extracting gold. Sluicing was the next development after Long Toms. While some consider Long Toms to be primitive sluices, the difference is one of scale. Sluicing […]
The State of Washington Lied To Me When I Was in High School
Sometime during my sophomore or junior year of high school, I was required to take the Washington Pre-College Test. This test was necessary to apply to universities in the state. I intended to apply to both Washington State University and the University of Washington, so I dutifully signed up for the test and spent a […]
Work for a Healthy Brain During Brain Awareness Week
This week, March 16-22, is Brain Awareness Week, a program launched by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. This is the twentieth anniversary of Brain Awareness Week. Because Alzheimer’s and other brain issues have impacted my family, I thought the week was worthy of mention—it is an opportunity to recognize advances in brain science and think […]
What Is Story (Redux)? . . . And a Sense of Urgency
My first post on this blog went live in January 2012, but I didn’t start a regular posting schedule until March of that year, so I consider March my blog’s anniversary. This blog is now three years old. I deliberately set the blog’s theme “Story and History” to be broad enough to let me write […]
My Father’s Bookcase: A New Family Heirloom
When I was a very young, my father made a bookcase. It’s made of a pretty wood (maybe oak?), and it is solid. It has a curved lip on the front facing at the top of the bookcase. I thought that made it a fancy piece of furniture when I was a child. My father […]
A Reflection on Scrivener and on Organizing Writing and Life
Last September I posted about my first few weeks using Scrivener, a software program for writers. I said at the time I was using Scrivener to organize my blogs, novels, and short works. I use it mostly to plan my blogs. When I began with Scrivener, I used it to draft the next blog posts […]
On Birthdays and Owls: Remembering My Mother
Today would have been my mother’s 82nd birthday. One of my most popular posts on this blog is the one I wrote to mark her 80th birthday. By that time, she was in assisted living because of her Alzheimer’s, and she could not really celebrate her birthday that year. Last year—her 81st birthday—was even worse. […]
Family Ritual: Reading Aloud at Bedtime
March is National Reading Awareness Month. I’ve written before about how important reading has been in our family, but my earlier post (here) focused on how my mother read to me when I was a child. My husband and I also read to our kids when they were small. We read to our son (our older […]