In his book “The Longest Road,” author Philip Caputo writes of his experience covering a nomadic people group in Israel. An anthropologist familiar with the tribe’s culture said they sometimes move not to follow herds or water, but just for the sake of moving. It seems ingrained in their genetic code. While my family is anything but nomadic—I am a …
A Change Will Do You Good
Believe it or not, some people thrive on change. I count among friends people like this. People who aren’t content to stay put for too long, be it geographically or in their working life. People who aren’t unsettled when something different comes their way, but who embrace the difference and make the best of their circumstances. As you can probably …
Eyes on the Prize
Those of you who know me know I’m a pretty competitive person. I keep it under wraps, at least, most of the time. Very rarely do I initiate a game of one-upmanship. Most of the time, the people with whom I’m competing have no idea. But if someone starts it with me? If I know someone is trying to “beat” …
“Stop Playing In The Bathroom Sink!” and Other Tales of Working From Home
With the advent of technology, more and more people are able to work from home. In fact, I think the vast majority of writers work from home. Sure, some of us have day jobs that require putting on real pants and leaving the house, but all our writing generally occurs at home. As you can imagine, working from home does …
What Medical Bills and a Broken Radio Taught Me About Forgiveness
A couple weeks before Christmas, my husband was hanging lights on our house when the ladder collapsed, taking him with it. He suffered a nasty gash on the back of his ankle, which—to make a very, very long story very, very short—got infected, went septic, and landed him in the hospital for nine days. As you can imagine, nine days …
Wisdom From My Dad
One of God’s greatest blessings to me was to give me a wise, intelligent, hilarious man of integrity as my dad. So, in honor of Father’s Day, I thought I’d tell you a bit about him. My dad is one of the smartest people I know, though, due to boredom, his grades in school did not reflect this. He filled …
Writing When You Don’t Have Time
Photo by JackF/iStock / Getty Images My children are home on summer break. This is both wonderful and not-so-wonderful. It’s wonderful because they really are pretty awesome kids. And I enjoy having them around (most of the time). Perhaps even more than that, I enjoy the down time. I enjoy not having to spend my evenings drilling spelling words and …
Take Five
This is what my TBR pile looks like right now… To hear my mom tell it, I started reading when I was a toddler. (There is a picture of me at about 18 months old “reading” a book about butterflies). While I doubt I was reading real words at that age, there’s no denying that books and I have never …
Honoring our Heroes
In what I hope will become my debut novel, the hero, Jesse, wears a memorial bracelet to honor someone who was killed serving in Afghanistan. (That someone just happens to be the heroine’s husband, but that’s another show…). Jesse’s bracelet features prominently throughout the book, tying hero and heroine together in unexpected ways. I, too, have a memorial bracelet. This …
Use Your Words
Any of us who have survived the toddler phase with our little darlings have undoubtedly told those darlings, more times than we care to count, to “use your words.” Sometimes I still have to say this to mine, despite the fact that all three of them have long since graduated from toddlerhood. If I’m feeling especially obnoxious, I sing the …