Crying: A Slice of Time
Crying: A Slice of TIme I’ve been wanting to cry for days now. Not because of anything specific, just general malaise from following the prickly path of my life as a writer: feeling stuck in my next project, seeing just a trickle of monetary results from my first...
What I Learned from Chef Molly Yeh
Molly Yeh, a Chinese-Jewish American chef, cooks tasty dishes on the Food Network. In a show titled Girl Meets Farm, Molly is equally at home with baking challah as using chopsticks. "Molly Yeh attended the Juilliard School in New York City to study...
Wordless Wednesday: Glass Sculpture
Your thoughts on the photo? Reply below to enter a drawing to win an e-copy of Mennonite Daughter, photos and artwork in full color. Contest winner will be chosen via random.org and announced next Wednesday. Thank you! Indicate if you want to be entered...
Dorian Delivers Mennonite Daughter
The National Weather Service blurted out: “Get ready for a hurricane, Jacksonville, a Category 5 storm named Dorian, is creeping up the coast." It was September 2, 2019, and any day now I was awaiting the delivery of 16 cartons of books, my memoir. The skies looked...
Mary: Face to Face with a Memoir Character
When I was a plain, ten-year-old girl, I wanted to looked like Mary. My big brown eyes turned green with envy when Mary Martin and her sister Evelyn walked through the door at Grandma Fannie’s house for holiday dinners. Both were elegantly turned out, resplendent in...
Howard and Faythe: Bed, Breakfast, Lunch and More
Howard and Faythe Landis don't operate a bed and breakfast, but they are hospitality hosts extraordinaire nonetheless. We discovered their great hearts and open arms on our recent trip to Springfield, Missouri in mid-July. Before we ever boarded the plane,...
Housing Highs and the Hans Longenecker House
Have you noticed? Housing prices have gone through the roof! All-cash offers, bidding wars, homes selling for thousands over asking prices—these describe the US housing market in spring-summer of 2021. The boom may continue indefinitely. It's hard to predict....
An Invitation: Rave Reviews Writers Conference and Book Expo
Hello, followers and friends! Drop by and visit me and many other talented writers. There are door prizes and free ebooks, something for everyone! Listen to me tell 2 truths and a lie + hear a short reading from Mennonite Daughter. Monday, August 9th, is the start...
The Marriage Box: Have a Look Inside!
An Anniversary Meditation Under a colorful collage created by Artist Cliff, I've stored 3 hatboxes. They sit on the rattan coffee table in our lanai. One is floral, another has a repeating Tuscan scene and the third is transparent, the contents held taut by pale blue...
Bobby: My Ideal Reader
Bobby Oliver read my book, Mennonite Daughter, and reviewed it the same week. Bobby is the ideal reader and reviewer, but he is certainly not my typical reader. Seven of the Amazon reviews of The Story of a Plain Girl are from men. Women are more apt than men to pick...
Mother Ruth, Bedtime Stories and a Legend with Chickadee and Star
July is Mother’s birthday month. If she were still living, she would be 103 years old on the 23rd. Like most Mennonite women in the 1950s, Mother Ruth expended energy in keeping house, making meals, and preserving a garden...
Wordless Wednesday: Reading Lesson
Who’s in the Mirror?
When you pass a mirror, do you deliberately walk on by, or do you make a point to look into it? The Evil Queen in the tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” stared with vengeful intent into a mirror and chanted, “Mirror, mirror on the wall/Who is the fairest of them...
Come with me to Mount Dora – Again!
Off on an excursion to Mount Dora, Florida, a peaceful, small town in central Florida we visited in late 2018. Here is a refresher of what we saw! Comments closed
The Right Thing to Say Too Late
Two women were approaching their car, parked under the pines at the Southeast branch library on Saturday. Returning from the library’s front door as I was stepping out of my own car, the older woman yelled across the parking lot, “Sorry, but the library is...
Nostalgia and Aunt Ruthie’s Diary
Did you know that, Boomers and Gen-Xers are looking back to their youth, collecting . . . Cassette tapes Vinyl LPs Polaroid cameras Manual typewriters . . . even decades old video games So says, Jeff Nilsson in “Nostalgia is Good For You,” an article from The...
The One-armed Piano Maestro: A Memorial Day Tribute
A Memorial Day Tribute When I play Ravel’s Left Hand Concerto, my goal is to make it sound like I have THREE hands, so says pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. The Back Story Pianist Paul Wittgenstein who lost his right arm because of a bullet wound in WW I,...
Secrets of the Longenecker Draft Cards
Memorial Day is celebrated this month and I'm think of my forebears living through the World Wars . . . My Grandfather Henry Longenecker and my Father Ray Longenecker were Mennonites. Both registered for the draft during one of two world wars Grandfather Henry during...