What’s New in the New Year – Ramblings

The new year, 2017, stretches out in front of us like a new composition notebook, a path in the woods, a blank check…shoot, like anything shiny and new. I did some after Christmas shopping with time saving technology in mind. First, a deck chair for a sheep was...

WV Flood 6/26

Mud and loss.  Bodies strewn on the Greenbrier’s golf course.  Unimaginable  horror stories of the sounds of the night it rained 9 inches.  Houses floating away. Houses burning.  West Virginians with nothing but the clothes they wear and whatever was in their...

Summer Writing and Pain

Something about long, warm summer days invites me to write.  I am imagining and writing about my main character, Stella, in her life with new hubby, Jonas. In fact, I often wonder what Stella would think about things that I see in my world.  I think she would be...

Busy, Busy, Happy, Happy

Since my last post, I’ve finished two months of substitute teaching in a wonderful 8th grade LA classroom, got an elementary school Field Day planned (with a lot of help), saw a DAR grant though until it was finished – a fence now surrounds, an old, remote...

Reality Check

My basketball team played a game tonight that we have prepared for and anticipated for weeks.  Before the game, we had a moment of silence for one of our opponents and her friends because her father had just passed away. Both teams standing around the center circle,...

Ring in 2016!

Looking back over 2015 is a happy reflection for us. Grandchildren remained healthy and growing, Daughters and husbands are well.  Teams won.  Lambs were born, donkeys were bought and sold, and only one animal passed away (not counting chickens – rough year in...

Peterstown Crafts Fair

Great fun on Saturday in the Peterstown Middle School Gym!  I sold books which was fun, but even more fun to talk to readers who had already read Drunk on Peace and Quiet and were purchasing more copies for gifts.  Some wanted hints of what was going to happen in the...

If you love WV tales…

Mama’s Song is a WV story set in the rural community of Elgood, in Mercer County.  I finished it a few weeks ago and enjoyed the local history and the powerful, ordinary people portrayed.  It hooked me from the first sentence, ” Ten thousand years ago,...

Dayfly Books & Collectibles

Saturday was cool and windy but we were warm inside this cozy used bookstore (with more!). Bass the dog and Butler and Olivia, 5 day old Nigerian Pigmy goats, played and slept in the aisles.  There was live music and food in the coffee shop next door and the troubles...

My “Great Alaska Book Tour”

In the air again…Drunk on Peace and Quiet is coming to the North Slope next week!  Here is a summary of planned events (weather permitting)! October 27, Tuesday:   Arrive in Barrow October 28, Wednesday: Atqasuk’s Meade River School Book Signing October...

WV Bridge Day ’15

It was nippy this morning, low 40’s, but there was a fun crowd at Bridge Day!  We watched jumpers leap into nothingness (almost 900 feet high!) and glide with hang glider parachutes across the gorge and river to land on the beach.  Some splashed near the beach...

If you love Monroe County

  Here’s another great book:  Monroe County, West Virginia: A Photographic Journey Book 1 It is a book chock full of photographs…check it out here: http://www.blurb.com/b/6457195-monroe-county-west-virginia