My Daughter, the Athlete
My daughter has always been a focused individual. I’ve described before her intense effort at learning to walk. Another example of her concentration has been her dedication to fitness and sports throughout her life. She grew up with a big brother who loved sports. He played T-ball, then basketball, and she tagged along to all […]
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 […]
Learning To Ski (the Next Generation)
I’ve written before about my first experience skiing. I hated it, though I later learned to tolerate skiing, and even to enjoy it when the base was deep, the weather above freezing, and the skies clear. By contrast, my daughter couldn’t wait for her first time skiing. I think she was about five. There is […]
Random Photo: Summer Visit in Virginia
Now that we know where most of our boxes are after our recent move, I decided to open a box of photographs and post about a random photo. My selection wasn’t entirely random. Summer is drawing to an end, and I told myself I would use the first snapshot I found of summer. What surfaced […]
On Shells and Rocks
I’ve always been fascinated by seashells. I think it goes along with my love of beaches. When I visit beaches, I spend half my time staring at the sand looking for shells. After most coastal vacations I bring back a small baggie containing a few shells. Often they are imperfect, but I bring the best […]
When Lightning Struck
A lot goes on in our family in May. Our daughter’s birthday. Mother’s Day. And, in years past, there was often a graduation or First Communion or Confirmation thrown in as well. My parents tried to visit in May to celebrate one or more of these occasions—they preferred May travel to February travel when our […]
The Story That Wrote Itself: An Epic Fail by Amazon
Every so often, something happens in real life that makes a good story. There is plot, there is conflict, there are characters. That happened to me last week. The characters were my daughter, her brother, and me. The conflict will be revealed if you read this post. I’ve mentioned before that my daughter’s birthday is […]
Not So Random Photos: Spring Break 2003
Most of my photos are now packed away in boxes and would be difficult to rummage through. So I decided not to use a random photo for this post. Instead, I deliberately sought the oldest pictures we had in digital format on our PC—it’s much easier to search a PC than multiple boxes. My husband […]
Treasures That Might Have Been, and Those That Survive
As I’ve delved deeper into closets and drawers and boxes, I’ve found all sorts of things. And on a recent visit, I had my daughter go through her belongings to decide what we should save. She is far less sentimental about “things” than I am, and she kept very little. “There’s a bunch of jewelry […]
First Christmas Away from Home; First Christmas at Home
Christmas 1978 was the first Christmas I spent away from my parents’ home. My husband and I had been married just over a year, and it was my in-laws’ “turn” to have us. There’s an old Hallmark Cards television commercial about a young woman experiencing her first Christmas away from her parents. It first aired […]