Once In a While

Once In a While

Once in a while, it pays a writer to check up on her writing progress. Has she shown any improvement? Is she repeating the same mistakes? Or, is she learning and growing and stretching her wings? I looked back at resolutions made in January of a few years ago and decided it wouldn’t hurt anything […]

Remembering a Launching

Remembering a Launching

Come with me for a small trip to another time this morning–an exciting time, well-remembered, of launching a brand new series, the Ned McNeil moonlight series with Ned’s first book, Moonlight Can Be Murder.  This was a few years back. The picture is, of course, of the Cozy Critters, who are reading my five cozies. Since […]

Keeping the Hearth Fire Burning

Keeping the Hearth Fire Burning

  Maybe it’s because October is here and with its arrival, the promise of cooler weather. Crisp days and nights make me think of much chillier temps and that, of course, leads to the thoughts of the fireplace. So, why do I have a life-long love of fireplaces? Could it be because Irish ancestors sat […]

It Almost Didn’t Happen

It Almost Didn’t Happen

  We’ve read stories about artists who suffer greatly, trying to represent on canvas or paper the picture they have in their minds. Many of them try and try again before they let the picture be seen by the public. Writers suffer the same way. Sometimes, the exact words just don’t seem to be available. […]

Puddles and Ponderings

When I was a child, Dad had a pond below the house by the barn. I used to drop a rock in that pond and watch the circles spread. Small circles at first, but spreading wider and wider. Life experiences are like that rock. They disturb the small surface of the pond and spread, sometimes […]

A Rusty, Dusty, Relic of Yesterday

A Rusty, Dusty, Relic of Yesterday

  Nothing dates a person like her repertoire of songs. My repertoire is  a rusty, dusty, relic of a long ago yesterday. In my school days, both as a student and as a teacher, we began the day with singing, the Flag Salute, and the Lord’s Prayer. At Valley Center, one of the best elementary […]