“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.” ~Edward Abbey Sometimes clouds matter. In a landscape photo or in a story. This is one of many photos I took this week on a visit to the Smoky Mountains. For the last five years, we’ve …
Last Chance to Make It Right
“I have been correcting the proofs of my poems. In the morning, after hard work, I took a comma out of one sentence…. In the afternoon I put it back again.”– Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Last week I got the pages of my book, Words Spoken True, scheduled for release in February. That’s what’s in the photo along with a list of …
Desk Clean – Awaiting the Clutter of a New Story
If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk? (Dr. Laurence J. Peter) I had a goal last weekend of cleaning off my desk. I put it off as long as I could Saturday. Even washed windows instead of tackling the piles of accumulated papers, book catalogs, notes and cards, …
Mushroom Ideas
”Where do you get your ideas?” This is surely the question most writers hear the most. At least this writer does. How do you think up stuff? How did you think up this particular stuff? Those are all good questions and ones that are not always easy to answer. I’ve written a lot of books. Some of them have been published, and …
Dementia – The Memory Thief
Me and Mom “In Alzheimer’s [disease] the mind dies first: Names, dates, places-the interior scrapbook of an entire life-fade into mists of nonrecognition.” – Matt Clark My mother has dementia. Perhaps not quite the same as Alzheimer’s but definitely closely related like fraternal twins. I haven’t studied up on any of it, but I have seen the memory thieves in …
Country Church Homecoming at Goshen
“Homecoming means coming home to what is in your heart.” We had homecoming at Goshen today. That’s where I’ve been going to church ever since I got married a lot of years ago. At the time, my husband’s family lived just a mile or so down the road. When all these little churches were started up, people were coming to church in buggies …
What to Wear – Shaker Sisters Knew the Answer
What to wear? What to wear? That’s a question that many of us ask as we stare into our closets every morning. But it wasn’t a question that bedeviled the Shaker faithful. They knew what they were wearing. It could be they might be able to choose between a green dress like the one pictured or a blue dress or …
And So It Begins
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. Albert Camus Summer departed last week and autumn came into her own. When I walked last week, I found leaves beginning to show their colors. I like fall. I like seasons. I’ve never wanted to live where it was summer all through the year – although a year in …
Blogging – A Connecting Bridge
~ Your blog is your unedited version of yourself. ~ lorelle How many blogs can a blogger blog before a blogger gets bogged down in all those blogs and feels blah? (Say that 10 times fast.) I’m not sure if I was trying to come up with a tongue twister this …
The Best Gifts and a Photo to Prove It
Birthdays come but once a year but if you do some finagling, you can make it last a little longer – a week or two at least. Maybe even a month. While you might not get those gifts stuck in amongst bright-colored tissue paper in gift bags or wrapped up with ribbons every day, you might get plenty of gifts …