My Secret to Weight Loss
Want to increase your exercising and maybe lose a few pounds? Forget joining the gym. I have the solution. Get a puppy! Six week old Josie, a silky black Cockapoo, came to live with me and my husband at the…
Amy Laundrie
A Simpler Time In My Plymouth Valiant
While waiting for the light to change, I pulled up alongside an older woman driving an antique blue Plymouth Valiant. My first car was a turquoise Valiant. I wondered if this one, too, had the cool push buttons for neutral,…
My Purse: Mirror To the Soul Or Where the Heck Are My Car Keys?
If the purse is the mirror to a woman’s soul, I’m afraid mine needs polishing. I dump the contents out on a tray and begin sorting. Ah, here’s my granddaughter’s missing barrette. Hmpphh! So that’s where I put the Map-quest…
Great Things Come in Small Packages
Great Things Come in Small Packages Greetings fellow story lovers! Shortly after my young daughters and I began taking riding lessons, I dreamed of buying a horse of our own. In order to save money, I considered bidding for a…
Colorful, Colloquial Characters (Rated PG for Earthiness)
As a child, and okay, as an adult, too, I happily read Robert Newton Peck’s Soup books. His ability to describe his characters such as Soup’s nemesis, Janice Riker, is peachy. “She was the biggest and strongest and meanest kid…
Living Other Lives
The beauty of the world of literature is that it allows you to live other lives. I’ve been an attractive 17-year-old red-head whose many adventures include solving the mystery of who’s trying to harm Fortune, the racehorse on my aunt’s…
Interview with Author Kathleen Ernst
Kathleen Ernst, a Madison native, is a social historian, educator, environmentalist, and the award winning novelist of 24 books. Her historical fiction for children and young adults include American girl mysteries. Her long anticipated American girl six-book Caroline Abbott series…
The Artist’s Spirit
Greetings fellow story lovers, A friend who wrote and illustrated children’s books, Marsha Dunlap, died after a long battle with cancer. One of the first times I met Marsha was during a blinding snowstorm. A small group of us had…
Silent Rock
Greetings fellow story lovers, I felt it again yesterday while hiking–the heartbeat of the woods. Does the pulse I feel come from all the creatures watching as I walk down their sun-dappled trails, or from all the past creatures that…
Moth Tears
Greetings fellow story lovers, Poet Ted Kooser inspired my muse with the following poem. Lobocraspis Griseifusa This is the tiny moth who lives on tears, who drinks like a deer at the gleaming pool at the edge of the…