A Quiet Corner of a Busy World
As part of The Habit Membership this month, we've been participating in an online class, reading The Magician's Nephew, discussing writing techniques, and practicing with writing exercises. Last week, the writing exercise was to focus on the subjective experience of characters in a story about which the readers would already know the objective "facts". Enjoy [...]
The last few years, I have developed a tradition of writing poetry on Valentine's Day, often to a literary character. A few years ago, I wrote in honor of one of my favorite book characters here. Last year, my thoughts turned from the literary characters to the authors and poets who created them. I found [...]
This fall, I decided I needed a new robe to wear around the house in the winter. I knew I wanted it to be warm and floor length. Of course, I could have purchased something that met those requirements online, but I wondered if I could make it myself. I looked through my vintage patterns [...]
This past week brought the end product of an anthology that was dreamed up years ago by Bandersnatch Books. I entered in on the project two years ago when they put out a call for submissions of new children's poems. It was eight or nine months before I found out that a poem I submitted [...]
A few years ago, my workplace gave me a comprehensive assessment (the Pro-D assessment) based on nine key career values. The assessment ranks the career values against themselves in three areas, mission, competency, and style. I found it extremely accurate and insightful! Recently, I revisited the assessment results, but with my writing work in mind. [...]
True sweater weather has come early this year! Where I live in Virginia, it is rare for us to get snow before Christmas. So far, we've had two good snow days and another is forecasted tomorrow. We're not even 12 days into December yet! I tend to get cold easily, but sweaters layered over a [...]
Honestly, I think the answer to that question keeps shifting. When I started this blog almost six years ago, its main purpose was to share my home renovation projects. Then as the renovation work settled, it became more of an outlet for my writing, occasionally fiction or poetry, but most often non-fiction essay or personal [...]
For those of you who are artists, have you ever found a certain supply that made you think, "I'm going to have to save this for something special"? Maybe you hold onto it much longer than necessary, waiting until the perfect inspiration comes along? Or waiting for your skill to be perfected to do justice [...]
Shall we go back another decade? We have made it to the "aughts"! This series started when in early 2024, my mom and I made "greatest haul of all" at an estate sale. I have previously shown you clothing from the 1920s and 1910s (additionally there were many "newer" items from the 30s-60s). The oldest [...]
This summer, I participated in a summer book chain of sorts. Participants received an advance reader copy of a new middle grade fantasy book Beyond the Far Horizon, by mail. We had a week to read it and then pass it on to the next person on the list. In return, we were asked to [...]
Welcome To The Carriage House 