Emilie in Western Ireland

Dear Lord,

Give me a few friends
who will love me for what I am,
and keep ever burning
before my vagrant steps
the kindly light of hope…
And though I come not within sight
of the castle of my dreams,
teach me to be thankful for life,
and for time’s olden memories
that are good and sweet.
And may the evening’s twilight
find me gentle still.

Like so many Americans, I have a fair amount of Irish blood flowing through my veins, and on St. Patrick’s day it always does a jig.  My husband and I have been to Ireland twice as I did research for Whiskey Island and The Parting Glass, and the entire country had a familiar feel, as if everyone I met was a distant relatives and the land was home.  What marvelous story tellers we met.  I like to think that’s where at least some of my love of writing came from.

Whether you are Irish or not, I wish you the blessings of this prayer.

I am an unabashed fan of Les Miserables, the show and the movie. I suspect I would like the book, as well, although having picked it up at Books-A-Million yesterday, I realized I would need a camel caravan to carry it home. But Les Mis (and The Christmas Carol) are productions I never miss in any form.

Why those two? That’s another blog.

Recently I had the treat of seeing both the movie and the touring company of Les Mis within the same month. While neither were perfect, both were outstanding in their own ways. I found myself distracted, though, by the overdramatization of the stage version. Hence, the subject of melodrama vs. plain old-fashioned drama.

Dictionary.com defines melodrama as: A dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization.

Just as written the musical Les Mis borders on melodrama. Fantine’s fall from grace into prostitution, Jean Valjean’s heroic attempts to become a better man, the barricades where the best and brightest give their lives for very little. These are huge, sweeping events, and in any audience at any time you will hear the zippers and clasps of handbags as women rummage for tissues for themselves and their male companions. The music is so stirring, the melodies so easy to hum, the staging is so . . .

And that’s where the distractions occurred for me.

Let’s clear the air first. Melodrama is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is what it is. Melodrama is like cotton candy. It’s so wonderful going down, but in the end, if it weren’t for sticky fingers, you wouldn’t be sure you really ate it. There’s nothing left, not even a lingering taste on the tongue.

Compare that with chocolate mousse? (more…)

What are Muckles and Mickles you say and what in the world do they have to do with Emilie’s novels?

What, have you no Scots blood–as do many people in the Shenandoah Valley?  ”Many a mickle makes a muckle,” means that if you carefully accumulate many little things, you’ll end up with something larger and better.  And truthfully, I found this smile-worthy expression on the internet, not in an old family diary from my distant Ross family ancestors, but do we care?

So what do mickles and muckles have to do with the reissuing of the first three novels in my Shenandoah Album series?  Well, you see, the letters and emails you sent my publisher asking for more books in the series are the mickles, and they seem to have created a muckle (not to be confused with muggles, because I am not J.K. Rowling.).  We haven’t quite achieved lift-off on a new addition to the series, but the fact that the first three books are coming out in new and exciting trade paperback editions is, quite probably, due to all that mail.

Now, nobody’s told me this is why, but that’s not the kind of thing they WOULD tell me.  Publishers keep secrets almost as well as politicians do.  Still, Wedding Ring, Endless Chain, and Lover’s Knot with their lovely new covers, lovelier larger print, and loveliest price yet, ($7.99 at Amazon, for example) are a joy and a step in the right direction.

Do you remember how the Shenandoah Album series got its start?   I was writing all the time and had very little time to quilt.  One day it occurred to me that at the very least, if I couldn’t find time to finish the quilt in progress, at least I could write about quilts, quilters and quilting.  I decided to write a novel that used a vintage Wedding Ring quilt as a way to bring three generations of women together.  And since it was a Wedding Ring quilt, clearly the theme had to be marriage. (more…)

Welcome to the first Sunday Inspiration blog.  While during the past  two years I’ve thoroughly enjoyed finding poetry for you to enjoy on Sundays, I feel a need to branch out to other writings now. So while there will sometimes be poetry in this space, my Sunday blogs will broaden a bit to concentrate on illumination and encouragment.

Merriam-Webster calls “inspiration: “the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions.”  Many of us start or end our weeks in churches, where we receive inspiration to help us through the coming week or to help us make sense of the past one.  So many people have uttered or written so many wonderful things to help with that.  I look forward to finding and sharing those thoughts with you in the coming months.

I’ll be aided in this by my husband, who spent forty years in the Unitarian-Universalist ministry discovering myriad sources of inspiration and sharing them with the many people he worked with.  Who better than to inspire me?

I can’t think of a better quote to start with than Helen Keller’s, whose life was surely one of the most inspirational.  Are you pessimistic about upcoming events in your life, or will you struggle to find a way to use them to “sail to uncharted land?”

Let’s take that journey together.  Please feel free to share your thoughts by commenting here.

The lovely graphic with this quote comes from a website I discovered, The Quote Factory.  You can download their quotes and graphics as posters, so enjoy. You’ll be seeing many more of their quotes here, and I thank them for this valuable, uplifting resource.  

Don’t forget, too, that I have a board at Pinterest titled Wisdom of the Goddesses, which are thoughts the women who call themselves the Goddesses Anonymous  in my new series would find inspirational and helpful, and you will, too.  I’ll be adding these quotes to the board whenever I can.

It’s not unusual to find me in the kitchen baking something or other. There I was again yesterday, preparing to make bread while I considered what to write about for my next blog.

Bread baking is a weekly ritual in my house, and I often use the time to think about my next writing project. As I was taking ingredients off the shelf and deciding which to use this week and which to save, I realized, as I did a few years ago, how many similarities there are in creating a delicious loaf of bread and a fabulous story.

Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.

Did you know that the Poetry Society of America recently announced that Robert Bly is the 2013 recipient of the organization’s highest award, the Frost Medal?  Like Robert Frost, Bly writes poetry that celebrates how extraordinary the ordinary moments of life can be.

In this poem, “Climbing Into Bed,” he reminds us that bedtime should not be taken for granted, especially on chilly nights.  Don’t forget this poem when you climb into bed tonight.

Remember, we read poetry together here for the pure pleasure of the experience. There are no quizzes, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share. Absolutely no dissecting allowed. Just come along for the “read.” What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week? If you’d like to tell us where the poem took you? We’ll listen.

If you’re following the renovation of our cottage in Western New York, I have some new photos to enjoy.  And I say “enjoy” because you will enjoy knowing this is not YOUR house and you don’t have to worry about what’s happening when you are many states away.

The truth, though, is that I was supposed to go to Chautauqua this month and see the progress.  Instead I persuaded my patient architect to just keep me updated by phone and photos so I could enjoy Florida weather and not drive on ice and snow.  So far it’s working.

The project is finally going full steam ahead.  Here are some of the highlights. (?)

If you’ve been following, you might remember what our kitchen looked like.  There’s a photo here.  Just scroll down to the end of that post.  Here’s the demolition:

Right now it’s been gutted, but that wall on the left will (or already has) disappeared making this one larger room. Not a pretty sight. . . yet.

There, we’re making progress. That “box” to the right is part of the stairwell which will disappear because the stairs have been reconfigured. We’ll have a seamless ceiling.  We hope.

And here’s a closeup of the stairs and the former fridge residence. That will all disappear, along with the wall to the left. Shelves to the right were added after we moved in (a former broom closet) because there was absolutely no place to store food or dishes. I like it and asked them to leave it there. My architect’s assistant thinks I’m nuts.

I’m not quite sure what wall this is, but I believe it’s the one that came down in the kitchen. Look what was under the wallboard. Glad they documented this wallpaper for me.

Remember all the squirrel problems? Here’s what we’re doing about them. This is spray foam insulation to fill in all the gaps.

And here’s what the attic looks like now that the insulation is finished. Take that furry beasties!

So that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.  Tune in next time.  Eventually you will be able to tell there’s real progress building up instead of tearing down.

The Oscars are coming. On Saturday night, in fact. You probably already know that unless you haven’t watched television in months or read the paper or checked the Internet. We’ve already had the Golden Globes and the Screen Actor’s Guild awards. The Oscars may feel anticlimactic about now, but hang in there. This year there are real choices and good ones.

I’ll confess I rarely go to the movies. Or rather I rarely DID. Then in the fall we moved ten minutes away from a wonderful theater with stadium seating, wide aisles, comfy chairs and discounted rates on Tuesday evenings. That coincided nicely with a surprising trend. Suddenly there were movies I actually wanted to see. Not Comic Book 3, Return of the Bad Guy, but original films, with more happening than car chases (in or out of outer space) or heroes with superpowers fighting villains with superpowers.

2012, though, saw a resurgence of beautifully filmed and acted dramas and musicals. I’ve been mesmerized. And now some of my favorite films of the year will be butting heads at the Academy Awards ceremonies. (more…)

Welcome to Sunday Poetry. If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.

To honor our grand-daughter’s 6th birthday today I’ve chosen a delightful poem about the birth of a little girl.  “Birth Day” by Elise Paschen, celebrates the beginning of a new life and new possibilities.  Do you remember a special birth that gave you this feeling of exhilaration?

Remember, we read poetry together here for the pure pleasure of the experience. There are no quizzes, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share. Absolutely no dissecting allowed. Just come along for the “read.” What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week? If you’d like to tell us where the poem took you? We’ll listen.