Fear, Faith, and My Kitchen Backsplash
Spiders, snakes, heights, tiny space . . . what feels scary to you? Other things that scare us: mud-slinging politicians, school shootings, low cash flow, a health blow Studies show that 95% of what we fear is baseless, and the rest are things we must learn to live...
Wordless Wednesday
Who? What? When? Where? Your thoughts welcome . . .
The Velveteen Daughter and My Memoir Title Reveal
A Real Book “What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It...
51 Years of Eat, Pray, Love
“Another anniversary. After the 50th, what’s so special about that?” Quite a lot, it turns out. Cliff and I observed another anniversary on August 5. We had just returned from a trip to Asheville this summer (where we spent our honeymoon 51 years earlier), but I...
Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?
Inquiring Minds want to Know . . . Who Put the Butter in Butterfly? a book that survived my Great Book Purge of 2016, was a birthday gift from the Dean of Liberal Arts at my college in 1993. It is billed as“compulsive reading for anyone incurably curious about the...
Fall Foliage and Blog Break
This week I'm taking a blog break to enjoy fall foliage . . . I will return next week, October 17. Be well!
Aunt Ruthie as a 100-year old: Her Diary Speaks
My Aunt Ruthie died at age 98 1/2, so she never reached 100, a goal I sensed she hoped for in her healthy years. But she did celebrate birthdays on October 4 every year before then. Some happily in elder days. Other celebrations had mixed results as her...
What Editing Looks Like: A Peek into Memoir
I’ve been writing memoir for 3 ½ years now, three more if you count years spent blogging snippets that have become memoir chapters.. Truthfully, I’m ready for this part of the process to end. And it will soon. The Tricky Mind Since 2015, I’ve taken memoir-writing...
Wordless Wednesday
What are these sisters sitting upon? The location? Era? How are the two photos related? *** Do these pictures evoke a memory for you? suggest a story? Share memories of a special family vacation. The Worldometer registers about six million blog posts being published...
The Runaway Truck: A Guest Post
Daddy & I and the Big Truck I raced across the porch and jumped up into the big truck. Daddy and I headed up through Harrisburg past the street where sometimes we picked up big farm equipment like a tractor or combine. Today the truck pointed north...
Remembering Brother Mark’s Birthday
My brother Mark would have turned 65 last week on August 30, an age that often comes with the privileges of retirement, senior discounts, and leisure. He never reached that milestone here on earth. God called him to his heavenly home on May 22, 2018. On his 64th...
Real Men Wear Aprons and Make Flan
Two Beaman families enjoyed Mexican fare at Chuy’s, a Fifties-themed restaurant where patrons can observe hand-rolled tortillas being tossed in air and prepared for the table. When our orders were delivered, we stuffed ourselves with tacos, enchiladas, and burritos....
The Case of the Missing Sock
The Lost Sock “Look what I found!” my housemate exclaimed in his throaty voice. He held up a single dark sock. Grinning at me, he added, "Here's something you've been looking for since last year!" "Oh, my goodness! Where in the world did you find it?" "It was on my...
Women and the Grain Harvest
"In a long, low cutaway view of a farmhouse at harvestime," women fuel men with food, supplying energy for harvesting grain under the summer sun. The two genders work in tandem to complete the cycle of food production, farm to table. Iowan artist Grant...
Wordless Wednesday
Do you remember . . . a galvanized tub like this? wading in a farm pond? swimming in a "real" pool?
Memoir Progress: Peaks and Valleys
Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon one can neither resist nor understand. ~ George Orwell Orwell is right about the...
Aunt Ruthie’s Diary and My Birthday
I don’t remember my first birthday. Can anyone recall that far back in time? But I do remember the highchair because all four of us children used it. And I remember the backyard at my parents’ house, the clothesline, and of course the outhouse, in later years guarded...
Jenna A Thirteenth Birthday
Jenna is our only grand daughter. This July she turns thirteen. She is still very girly, but she is growing up fast and now prefers a more sophisticated look. Once upon a time, this little girl was a three-year-old princess. She woke up in the morning, got out...