One of my long time friends, as well as one of my biggest writing encouragers, turned ninety this week. I hoped to schedule a lunch in honor of her big day, but she was already booked. Family members were coming from Minnesota, Alaska, and Utah to help her celebrate. I would have to wait until […]
General
A Synonym for Published
Picture Credit: Tammy Bowers Synonym for Published? BUSY! When I signed my first book contract in 2016, I was totally ignorant of the work load I would soon face. Hey! I’d written two of the three manuscripts. I just had to pound out a third by the end of the next year and I was finished. Right? Wrong! […]
Welcoming 2018
The New Year is upon us. Three hundred sixty-five days waiting to be lived, surprises to be discovered, hopes and dreams to be realized. I’ve enjoyed 2017. I’m reluctant to let it go. My debut novel, An Anchor On Her Heart, published, my second novel, Love Calls Her Home, will follow in March, and […]
A Night on the Town
Publishing my debut novel, An Anchor On Her Heart, earlier this summer brought many fun surprises, but this past week I experienced an event I’d never imagined. I participated in an author panel at a Christian bookstore where customers came to purchase books and have them signed by the author. Eight […]
One Parade, Two Miracles
Dubbed the oldest and coldest, Springfield Oregon’s Christmas parade, a tradition for more than six decades, almost didn’t happen this year. The event’s coordinator announced mid-October that lack of […]
In Everything, Say Thanks
When the Pilgrims celebrated a harvest festival in 1621, fifty-eight of the original one hundred and two remained alive after surviving that first dreadful winter. Native Americans had come to their rescue earlier that year, helping them grow crops to harvest. A second ship arrived from England, bringing recruits and supplies they desperately needed. That Thanksgiving […]
Reflect with Thanks
Days of rain, accompanied by cold, forced my husband’s decision not to attend this year’s annual Veteran’s Day parade in Albany, a city forty miles north of us. The parade boasts more than two hundred entries and as many as 40,000 spectators, making it the largest of its kind west of the Mississippi. The event […]
Turkey Trotters
Two turkeys moved to our street recently. I’m not talking about nefarious neighbors with questionable pasts, I mean the oversized bird—guts, feathers, and all. I first noticed them in August, strutting side by side down the sidewalk […]
A Place To Shine
My daughter’s company, Critter Corner Cards, released its newest annual calendar this week, Furry Friends. The calendar includes thirteen hand-drawn images of our favorite domestic pets in colorful prism pastels. Unlike something you find at a discount store, where a dozen photographs have been printed a million times, collated […]
Music: God’s Gift
Works by Mozart and Strauss, along with a powerful piano performance by Conrad Tao, impressed the local symphony audience last night at our city’s performing arts center. A new conductor took the podium over the summer and this was the first performance I’d heard since his hiring. Music enchants me. I love to listen […]