My Scribbler’s Heart

From A to Z Blogging Challenge: P is for Pirates

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Blogging from A to Z April 2017 Challenge

For the first time, I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! The concept is simple: Each day in April I’ll be blogging on a topic  starting with the letter of the day, beginning with A and progressing to Z by the end of the month. Posts will be short and will relate to my chosen theme: my new coming of age story, Rightfully Ours, released April 1.

P bloggingP is for Pirates

What is our fascination with pirates? Kids love pirates, for sure. Pirate play sets, books, and costumes never go out of style. For my oldest son’s fourth birthday a decade ago, I hosted a pirate party in our back yard in which the kids dug for buried treasure, crafted parrots to perch on their shoulders, played Pin the X on the Treasure Map, and pummeled a papier-mâché pirate piñata. (Ask me if I had the will to host anything so elaborate for any of the children that followed. The answer is no.) Continue reading →

From A to Z Blogging Challenge: O is for Orchard

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Blogging from A to Z April 2017 Challenge

For the first time, I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! The concept is simple: Each day in April I’ll be blogging on a topic  starting with the letter of the day, beginning with A and progressing to Z by the end of the month. Posts will be short and will relate to my chosen theme: my new coming of age story, Rightfully Ours, released April 1.

O bloggingO is for Orchard

A couple of summers ago, I took my three youngest children, then 7, 3, and 2, to a local orchard to pick peaches. It was hot. My 2-year-old kept disappearing down rows of fruit-heavy trees. There were bugs. But it was still fun. Continue reading →

Top 10 Tuesday: Things I’m Still Learning After 20 Years of Marriage

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Things Learned 20 YRS Marriage

My husband and I will be married twenty years this week. Twenty years. Not sure how it’s even possible that so many sunsets have slipped by me.

As a twenty-five-year-old bride, I thought I came into marriage well-prepared. Relatively speaking, I did. My parents provided a good example of a long and faithful marriage. (Remote preparation.) I understood, more or less, what marriage entailed, at least as well as any never-been-married person can. We attended the Church-required marriage preparation and consulted with a priest. (Proximate preparation.) We discussed the important stuff: faith, babies, finances, and lifestyle. Continue reading →

Blogging from A to Z Challenge: N is for NaNoWriMo

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Blogging from A to Z April 2017 Challenge

For the first time, I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! The concept is simple: Each day in April I’ll be blogging on a topic  starting with the letter of the day, beginning with A and progressing to Z by the end of the month. Posts will be short and will relate to my chosen theme: my new coming of age story, Rightfully Ours, released April 1.

N blogging
N is for NaNoWriMo

For those who do no know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, which takes place annually in November. It was during NaNoWriMo 2010 that I wrote the first draft of Rightfully Ours, then tentatively titled All That Glitters. I hadn’t ever attempted writing fiction longer than a short story, and even that had been a decade earlier. Suffice to say, I didn’t really know what I was doing, only that I wanted to get 50,000 semi-coherent words written during that November. Continue reading →

Blogging from A to Z Challenge: M is for Medals

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Blogging from A to Z April 2017 Challenge

For the first time, I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! The concept is simple: Each day in April I’ll be blogging on a topic  starting with the letter of the day, beginning with A and progressing to Z by the end of the month. Posts will be short and will relate to my chosen theme: my new coming of age story, Rightfully Ours, released April 1.

M blogging M is for Medals

A personal item or token of some sort can tell you a lot about a character. It may be a piece of jewelry, a memento kept in a pocket, or a treasure tucked in a nightstand drawer. I’ve used religious medals as items important to Catholic characters in my novels.

In Ornamental Graces, it was a Miraculous Medal pinned to the inside of Grandma’s bra (!), later given to a special young woman. In Rightfully Ours, it is a St. Paul medal given as  birthday gift to Paul from his friend Rachel. Continue reading →

Blogging from A to Z Challenge: L is for Lentils

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Blogging from A to Z April 2017 Challenge

For the first time, I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! The concept is simple: Each day in April I’ll be blogging on a topic  starting with the letter of the day, beginning with A and progressing to Z by the end of the month. Posts will be short and will relate to my chosen theme: my new coming of age story, Rightfully Ours, released April 1.

L blogging
L is for Lentils

Yesterday I bypassed “kiss” for “karst,” despite the kisses in Rightfully Ours. Today, I’m going to skip the overly broad “love” for “lentils.” Yes, lentils. The legumes.

I don’t believe I ever tasted a lentil until I was in my twenties, and my husband encouraged me to make lentil soup. I found a recipe in one of his cookbooks and gave it a shot. In fact, it earned a regular spot in our menu and has a tiny place in Rightfully Ours when Rachel makes a pot for her family’s dinner. Continue reading →

Blogging from A to Z Challenge: K is for Karst

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Blogging from A to Z April 2017 Challenge

For the first time, I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! The concept is simple: Each day in April I’ll be blogging on a topic  starting with the letter of the day, beginning with A and progressing to Z by the end of the month. Posts will be short and will relate to my chosen theme: my new coming of age story, Rightfully Ours, released April 1.

K bloggingK is for Karst

We’re almost halfway through the alphabet, and I’m feeling a little loopy. What is “karst” anyway? And why did I choose it over “kiss”?

In Rightfully Ours, between the fracking, a rainy spring, and some other geological factors, conditions are ripe for a phenomenon I’ve seen plenty of in south-central Pennsylvania – the sinkhole. No, karst isn’t precisely what I imagine going on underneath my fictional world, but it’s pretty close, what with limestone deposits being prevalent in these parts. Continue reading →