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What on Earth Did I Do?
Since the first of the year, I’ve been running like crazy. Seems like there’s never a spare moment to just kick back and relax. Well, that’s not entirely true, but I sure don’t have the kind of downtime I had just a few years ago. Four years ago, we didn’t have any dogs. It’s not…
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Goodbye Home Economics
The field of Home Economics was established many years ago to improve economic well-being and quality of life for families through research-based education in the domestic arts. Topics included nutrition, food preservation, food safety, money management, clothing construction, the use and care of fabrics and household equipment, parenting, household management, and more. In short, knowledge…
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Revisions: Round Two
Today I spent a few hours working on revisions to Glass Houses. Having completed line edits, I’m now reading every word from the beginning again, and thinking more about how it all fits together. It’s a complete immersion process–the kind of task that requires focus and concentration. Once I get rolling, revisiting the manuscript is…
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Just Doing It
The long break between Christmas and New Year’s seriously messed with my training regimen. Except for my thrice weekly Zumba classes, I quit working out, stopped running, and gained fifteen pounds. Going into the break, I thought the time off from work would enable me to exercise more. Instead, I lost all momentum and spent…
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The Longest Year
The older I get, the more quickly each year seems to pass. Unless of course, it’s an election year. It’s a long, long, time until November, and between now and then, we’re going to be inundated with nasty and mostly untrue attack ads. Liberal and conservative are not just names hurled from one end of…
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Learning Curve
I bought my first personal computer back in the mid 1990s. The only software I used was America Online for e-mail and internet access, and because it came preloaded, Microsoft Money. At the time, I questioned whether or not the purchase was worth the money or the space the set-up required in my little Washington…
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Progress!
I spent the better part of last year writing Addicted, my first novel. For much of that time, a freelance editor was working her magic on my memoir, Glass Houses. Though she sent me her recommendations and suggestions back in November, I decided to finish the novel before turning my attention to revising the memoir.…
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Experience: The Second Best Teacher
I recently sent Addicted (my first novel) to someone who’d read Glass Houses (my first book–a memoir). In the accompanying email message, I said she would likely notice a big improvement in my writing because of what my great friends in the Athens Writers Workshop have taught me about writing. She replied that she’d love…
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Potty Mouth
The use of colorful language is not foreign to me. In certain settings I may occasionally use words that would, were I fifty years younger, result in certain punishment. My parents were more likely to spank me and send me to my room for an extended time-out than to wash my mouth out with soap.…
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A Welcome Sight
Winter is the time of year I most appreciate living in the Deep South. Today the temperature was in the upper sixties. The forecast calls for similar highs well into next week with lows only in the middle forties. It’s the one time of year I don’t mind temperatures here being twenty degrees warmer than…