Stay Tuned ~ odds and ends from my WIP

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Mere, odds and ends, Rio Theater, stay tuned, young adult fantasy

I’m currently working on a young adult fantasy about Mere, an 18 year old girl living in Titusville, a small town in east Texas, located smack dab in the middle of Ferry Woods. It’s filled with pine trees, Spanish moss and creepiness. Strange things happen there. Mere’s practical side says they’re only stories. Yet, she’s drawn to the place.

Mere has spent her life trying to be ordinary. An impossible task in her family. Women in the Borchers’ family are witches. And Mere has powers. Even though she tries to ignore them. But with everything that’s been happening, she’s no longer sure that’s what she wants.

Titusville isn’t real, but it’s based on all the places I’ve been to in that area when visiting family. A perfect setting for a YA fantasy. Old-timers are walking, talking history books filled with all kinds of stories about people living in their community. All you have to do is listen.

Below is the Rio Theater in Center, Texas. I’ve pictured a place like this in my book when Mere and Darcey talk about going to see a show at the Rio.

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Christmas Traditions

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Christmas Traditions, grandkids, kids

When my husband and I first married, our Christmases were always last minute things. We didn’t plan ahead. We’d brace ourselves, dash out to the mall and be swept up in the melee along with everyone else. We were young and had lots of energy, so we didn’t mind.

The kids came along, and things changed. I quit work and stayed home while they were little, so money was tight. We had to budget money and time, which meant planning ahead. For a few years we wore ourselves and the kids out, dragging them from first one event to another, trying to make sure they visited with both sides of the family, only to end up at home by nightfall, trying to have our Christmas with cranky toddlers who were tired and wanted to go to bed.

We made a conscious decision to change things. We began putting our time with the kids first before anything else. We started our own little traditions like watching a holiday show and having hot chocolate and popcorn, making ornaments or decorating the tree as a family. I bought inexpensive ornaments every year for them to mark the date and put on the tree. We had Christmas books and records we enjoyed.

We moved from the city to a small town. Christmas tree farms were popular. We made it a family thing to go out, cut down the tree and decorate it. For a week before school let out, I put small, inexpensive gifts under the tree every morning as an incentive to get the kids out of bed. “Look what Santa left last night!”

I made caramel corn, and we roasted peanuts. When they got old enough to buy presents, one of them always got my husband chocolate covered cherries and found me a new little Santa for my collection.

What’s funny is that out of all the memories, the ones they seem to hold most dear aren’t necessarily the years where they received the most gifts or got something they really wanted, but the little things we did. And it tells me something. Traditions like that are important. Now they have families of their own and I’m proud to say they have continued the Christmas traditions.

 

Multi-tasking

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multi-tasking

Not to brag, but I used to be really good at multi-tasking. I could cook a meal, remember to switch the clothes from washer to dryer, talk on the phone, make my grocery list and keep an eye on the kids—and all at the same time.

Not anymore.

These days if I’m cooking I’d better stay in the kitchen unless I want to find myself cleaning up the stove and trying to figure out what I’m going to cook instead of whatever is stuck on the bottom of the saucepan. I’ve spent hours searching for the TV remote, the phone or my glasses because I’ve carried them somewhere they aren’t supposed to be.

Last year I moved for the first time in almost 30 years. I packed nearly everything myself. I kept things organized. Labeled boxes. Even so I found myself spending time searching for things like kitchen utensils, matches, the hammer, the measuring tape. I looked everywhere. The minute I gave up and bought new ones they appeared.

It’s frustrating. I feel like I’ve lost a valuable talent.

Maybe it’s because the older you get, the less you’re called on to use it. The kids are grown, and if the grandkids come for a visit, I don’t waste time doing anything but focusing on them.

There’s just me. That means less laundry, less cooking, less housecleaning. So I don’t have to multi-task any more.

Now if I could just keep up with the remote and the telephone, I’d be happy.

 

Summer’s Almost Over

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end of summer, September, shorter days

It’s almost time for school to start. The days are getting shorter. There’s a slight change in the weather–a hint of fall perhaps. I’m so ready.

September has always been my time to get back into a routine and setting goals again. Rest up from the hectic summer when there’s picnics and swimming and the days seem to stretch on forever.

Sit on the porch in the evening with a glass of tea. Get out my recipes for soup, bread or mac n cheese. Start thinking about fall decorations. Halloween.

I can’t wait!

What about you? What is your favorite time of the year and why?

 

 

A New Find

Tags

flea markets, Garage Sales, Royal Quiet Deluxe Portable Typewriter, shabby chic

View From My Window

 

My friends and family know how much I love searching for unique finds to decorate my house. There’s something exciting about hunting for the perfect piece to fit in that spot on the wall, on a shelf or in the corner of the living room. I might not even know I need it until it “speaks” to me.

I’ve been doing this forever. Long before anyone ever heard of “shabby chic” or “flea market finds”. You can see me at Garage Sales, Rummage Sales and Estate Sales. Even the city dump. It fulfills my need for retail therapy without breaking the bank, and gives me an interesting story to tell about how it came to be mine.

Today I have a great new piece to showcase. A Royal Quiet Deluxe Portable Typewriter. Only makes sense. A typewriter for a writer. And it had to be a Royal, of course. It looks great on the shelf above my computer and I’ve already incorporated a picture of it into my blog.

What about you? I’m sure there’s something you love to do that is just as rewarding. It could be anything. That’s the beauty. Please share!

 

 

Dinner and Movie Monday – The Dressmaker

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Australian, Judy Davis, Kate Winslet, Liam Hemsworth, movies, reviews, The Dressmaker

When my sisters and I were little, sometimes my parents let us stay up late to watch an old black and white classic. Other times they took us to the drive-in. There we piled into the back seat in our pajamas with pillows and blankets, watching a double feature.

The three of us love to get sit back, get comfy and lose ourselves in a good flick. All kinds. So, when we had lunch together recently, one of my sisters recommended one she’d recently seen. She said it was great and loaned us her copy. She was right.

The Dressmaker is a 2015 Australian film written and directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, based on the novel of the same name, written by Rosalie Hamm. Kate Winslet plays a dressmaker, Myrtle “Tilly” Dunnage, who returns to a small Australian town to take care of her mother. It’s a story of revenge and reckoning. Moorhouse has described the movie as “Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven with a sewing machine.

After being accused of being responsible for the death of classmate Stewart Pettybone, Myrtle Dunnage is sent away from her hometown of Dungatar. Twenty-five years later, she returns to take care of her mother and ends up unraveling the mystery of Stewart’s death.

The whole town is buzzing about Tilly, especially handsome Teddy McSwiney. It only gets worse when she fashions a beautiful dress for one of the local girls who successfully uses it to catch a young man’s attention. Soon, every woman in town is wearing a “Tilly original”.

The film was filled with funny as well as touching scenes. Judy Davis played her mother, and she was a wonderful character. Liam Hemsworth was good as well. And when Tilly ends up getting her revenge, you’ll want to applaud.

Thanks for the heads up Jo Beth. This was a good one!

Lamingtons – In the movie, Tilly’s mother made Marijuana Brownies, which were a hit. However, this is an authentic Australian recipe I thought looked interesting.

Prepare time: 30 min

Cook: 60 min

Serves: 6

 Ingredients

•   Butter – 1 cup + 4 tbsps (unsalted and softened)
•   Sugar – 1 3/4 cups
•   Vanilla – 2 tsps
•   Eggs – 4
•   2 1/2 cups flour
•   Baking powder – 2 tsps
•   Baking soda – 1/2 tsp
•   Milk – 2/3 cup
•   Buttermilk – 1/3 cup
•   Salt – 1/2 tsp
•   Coconut – 2 cups, for coating
•   For Chocolate Sauce/Icing:
•   Butter – 2 tbsps, unsalted and softened
•   Milk – 1/2 cup
•   Sugar – 2 cups, powdered
•   1/3 cup, unsweetened cocoa powder
•   Hot water – 2 1/2 to 3 tbspsPreheat oven to 350° Grease and line two 8″ cake pans with baking/parchment paper. In a bowl, cream butter, castor sugar and vanilla on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the flour, a few tbsps at a time. Use a wooden spoon to combine. Next add a little milk and stir to combine. Repeat with remaining flour and milk, ending with the flour. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool down to room temperature and store in fridge. Next day, prepare the lamingtons. Stir the mixture until smooth and a bit thick. It should not be a thick liquid as the cake will not absorb the chocolate coating. Once the excess sauce is drained which takes about 2-3 minutes, place each chocolate coated cube on a plate of dried coconut. Lamingtons can be stored in an airtight container for 4-5 days.
• Sprinkle dried coconut all over the chocolate coated cake and allow to set for a couple of minutes and serve.
• Once the cake is firm on touch and not crumbly, cut into small 2 inch square pieces. Cut each square in half, sandwich with jam or chocolate sauce. Use a fork or wooden skewer and dip each sandwiched cake squares in the chocolate sauce and coat well on all sides. Place on a cooling rack and allow excess sauce to drain by placing a parchment paper below the rack.
• Prepare the chocolate icing. Place the icing sugar, cocoa powder, butter and milk in a stainless steel bowl over a pan of simmering water.
• Divide the cake batter equally into the two greased and lined pans. Bake for 55 mts to an hour or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, beating to combine. Add the buttermilk and beat for 10 seconds.
• Sieve all purpose flour, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl. Add salt and whisk together. Keep aside.
• Method for making Lamingtons

FEAR

Tags

Being a writer, Conquering Our Fears, Facing Our Fears, learning about my characters

If I want to be successful as a writer, I must understand what makes my characters tick. Strengths, weaknesses. Things that make them happy or sad. Whatever motivates them. Including their fears.

I had an interesting conversation the other day with members of my critique group. I just considered it part of the meeting where we all visit and catch up before we get down to business. Until I got to thinking about it.

We were discussing our personal fears. Something we all have whether we want to admit it or not. While one of my friends had no problem admitting hers, she didn’t feel compelled to face them. Another friend said it was her faith that had helped her face hers.

Later that evening, it hit me. There’s a fine line between facing our fears and conquering them. And I’m not so sure that facing them isn’t the most difficult. Who wants to admit the fear of something others might consider irrational? And once we do, it means we have to deal with them. Which isn’t easy.

I have to admire anyone who has conquered their fears, but I must also admire those who keep trying.

One Man’s Journey (Part 4)

Tags

MuseItUp Publishing, photography, Stan Hampton author, travel

Here’s the 4th and final excerpt from Stan Hampton’s Journey Of The Spirit. I don’t know about you, but I’ve enjoyed making this trip with him via his wonderful photographs. At the end of this post I’ll share  an excerpt from The Ledger, available in Stan’s Intimate Journeys Anthology. Thanks again to Stan for sharing. You’re welcome back any time.

 

Did I mention I am a published writer? Not self-publishing, though. Several years ago on an author loop run by Melange Books LLC, I met the very talented Charmaine Pauls. We have become very good friends, and she is one of two authors that I regularly pepper with questions, particularly regarding female dress and perspective. (Ahem, she is the friend who came to my rescue by calling from Montpellier for a taxi in Vers-Pont-du-Gard—and, don’t ask why I don’t know enough French to call my own taxi.) After my arrival she took me on a quick walking tour of Montpellier, and we stopped for lunch.

One of the sites she showed me was a 700-year old church. Beautiful and incredible—I’ve used those words so many times since arrival in France, and especially during Winter Break, that I must find other words to use. But words really do not do justice to what I have seen and experienced.

Charmaine showed me the bookstore Le Bookshop in the old town where she once held a book signing. This is the cellar—the ground floor is just as fantastic. And no, the stones are not mere decoration. Imagine, a bookstore in the cellar of a building several hundred, if not a thousand, years old!

After resting and visiting with Charmaine and her wonderful family in Montpellier, I returned to Pau on Sunday night, 5 March.

This has been incredible. I have gazed upon what I had only read about and finally I have walked where Romans, Gauls, and Medieval men and women once walked. My journey of the spirit has come to a close for now. But there are more journeys in the next two months.

And after that? I want to return to France to live for a year or two, to write and especially to photograph. And you know what? Such a happening is a very real possibility—I can do this rather than simply dream and wish as I once did. I can do this.

Intimate Journeys Anthology, Melange Books, February 2012.

ISBN: 978-1-61235-332-6

BLURB: Every journey through life is an intimate journey simply because it is someone’s personal journey. Sometimes the journey is like being alone in a small boat at the mercy of wild ocean currents, and sometimes the journey is like being part of a crew in a strong ship with billowing, wind-filled sails…

EXCERPT: The wintry night of New Year’s Eve 1899 was filled with excitement, hope, and wonder. The world was leaving the 19th century behind and entering the 20th century and no one could guess what wonders the new century offered.

Except Caleb Winston could care less. He was a heavyset man with a thick gray beard and mustache, and long gray hair slicked back over his head. As he sat in his favorite office chair brought from Fort Abraham Lincoln to the newly built home in New York, he let out a sorrowful sigh.

“It’s time to retire,” Abigail, his wife of thirty-six years, and his grown children had reminded him for several years until he gave in.

It was with a heavy and sometimes resentful heart that he turned over the operation of his sutler stores, convenience stores that served the soldiers in their far-flung forts, the local civilian population, and sometimes the Indians, to a long-time and trusted employee. He had two stores each in Montana, Wyoming and Arizona, and a pair of Indian trading posts in Wyoming and Arizona. Before he retired, management was usually conducted by mail and telegraph, though he sometimes visited his distant stores and posts. Though he was no longer a young man he enjoyed the travel.

At last, he and Abigail packed up their home and moved east that last spring of the 19th century; Abigail was ecstatic as their three children and their families lived within walking distance of their new home.

Yet, settling into a comfortable retirement was difficult. Caleb missed the vast wildness of the west with its beautiful snowy, forested mountains, isolated mountain valleys, full rushing rivers, and grassy prairies that extended to the edge of the world. During his travels he sometimes felt that he was watching a hard, yet pristine world, vanishing before the onslaught of endless settlers and a growing, yet mystifying technology. Future generations would never know the West as he had known it.

His resentment and unhappiness wasn’t only due to leaving a beloved life and world behind, but a realization that he was old. His health wasn’t the best and he sometimes felt his path in life was becoming narrower and darker, as if he was entering a deep sunless gorge that he would never leave…

The Ledger

http://www.melange-books.com/authors/sshampton/intimatejourneys.html

One Man’s Journey (Part 3)

Tags

One Man's Journey of the Spirit, photography, Stan Hampton author, travel

After Lunch, Les Voutes, Vers-Pont-du-Gard, France

 

 

I’m back again with another installment of Stan Hampton’s journey. Please join me for this wonderful experience. The pictures are absolutely stunning. Actually being there is the only thing that would make it better.

 

 

 

 

On the morning of 2 March I missed the Continental Breakfast at the L’atelier du Midi where I was staying in the old town of Arles, but I had to be sure I found the pick-up site for the Camargue tour. The morning was chilly and sprinkling—which describes most of my stay to date in France—and out in the Camargue, there was a fog. But I saw my first white horses of the Camargue.

 

At the town of Les Saintes-Maries-de-lar-Mer, at the southwest edge of the Camargue, we reached the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It is beautiful. One can imagine wooden merchant ships with billowing sails on the horizon bound for the Middle East or perhaps some forgotten port along the Mediterranean coast.

 

That afternoon, because I had forgotten the day before to use a camera provided by a friend to get some photos for her, I returned to the amphitheatre and arena. The inside of the arena did not really excite me because there were so much modern additions, perhaps because it is used for bullfighting. But I climbed one of the stone towers and from there found a view of the top of the arena that interested me.

On the morning of 3 March it was time to go again. In the early morning light I photographed the bed and breakfast L’atelier du Midi; my room was on the second floor, the window on the left. On the side of the building, beneath the light, is the entrance for guests.

The morning of 3 March—now this is the Continental Breakfast that I missed the previous morning. I suppose sacrifices must be expected when heading out to the Camargue for the first time in my life. This was a very good breakfast. Afterwards, I rode in a rickshaw to the train station to catch the train to Montpellier.

Come back next Tuesday for the last installment of our journey as well as excerpts from some of Stan’s books. See you then.

It runs in the family…

Tags

Creative, family, Greeting Cards, sister

In a recent post I mentioned I had talented friends and family. Here’s the first in a series of features about them.

I grew up in a family used to taking what they had and making something better out of it. My sisters and I watched our father restore furniture rescued from second-hand stores. An excellent seamstress, my mother passed along her skills. We rarely bought anything we could make.

In our family we repurposed and recycled long before Pinterest. If we saw something we wanted we got busy trying to figure out a way to get it without having to spend money we didn’t have. We learned how to be creative out of necessity.

My sister, Kim, designs greeting cards. This is only one of the many things she’s taught herself how to do, and this is the one I want to showcase today. Not only does she enjoy making them, but she’s good at what she does.

Working full-time, taking care of a husband and two boys doesn’t leave a lot of downtime, but she always managed to find the time for a project. This is what she has to say about the subject.

Creating & designing cards is one of my most enjoyable hobbies. Since starting this journey over 10 years ago through colorful papers, embellishments, ribbons & stamps, I have made dozens of cards for all occasions.  I usually start with color scheme, or pattern then build from there.  I have also incorporated many personal photos for the main focal point.  Equally inspirational is some of my sons’ artwork that I have included in my designs.  My sister, Susan and I are fortunate to inherit our artistic abilities from both our Father & Mother.

As you can see, it takes talent to mix the right colors, the right graphics and the right sentiment. Sometimes it’s tedious work. I know. I’ve done it before. And my efforts are nowhere near as good as hers. And there’s another thing, too. People love to get a card they know has been especially made for them. It makes them feel special.