In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

  Current state of Alexandria, missing three hexagon blocks to complete this round. Painstaking also applies to the sudden reemergence of a pinched nerve in my right shoulder, shoot! So yeah, a slight detour from how I was going to wax poetically about prepping to move onto the next phase. Or not. Huh. Didn't see that coming. Nor could I have fathomed what happened to a beloved childhood landmark of mine; early this morning the Bidwell Mansion was destroyed by fire. HEARTBREAKING! Northern California is my birthplace, and I visited the mansion many times in my youth. Makes me ill pondering all that was lost, especially on the heels of the destructive Park Fire that burned Upper Bidwell Park this past summer, and let's not forget the Camp Fire that ravaged Paradise in 2018. Again, I feel queasy considering these events, hard to separate myself from them merely to talk about a quilt. Perhaps what I need to consider is how FLEETING are possessions, even parts of this planet. Ani...

Page one of two.... Certainly time consuming; doing my civic duty these days means more than half-heartedly paying attention to the barest news items. In addition to signing up for American of Conscience Checklist , I'm pondering other avenues of using my voice. Today I wrote down all the Republican U.S. senators, their office phone numbers, and the end year of their terms. You never know when you might need to call an elected representative. I've never been an active activist. I vote, I stay informed in a manner that doesn't push me into lasting depression. I pray. I've signed petitions, made my opinion about the incoming administration pretty damn clear on this blog and other social media accounts. Within my books my feelings are best noted; all people are treated with respect. Page two. I double checked the phone numbers, hopefully they're all correct. I am flummoxed to the level of bigotry and fear that continues to pervade my nation; equally I am aware I will n...

  Peace is the theme for this coming week. Peace, peace.... Easy to wish for others, not always easy to claim for myself, mostly because I'm living with one foot in this realm, another beyond the veil, and corporeal human life these days is....difficult. Not on a health-level, not economic. Not in most face-value manners, so outwardly my life is happy. Fulfilling. Yet.... Yet my nation is fraught with BS politicians and billionaires and it makes me wanna puke. Hard to be peaceful when so much shite is stirred up, so much hypocrisy, so much.... I've already swore once, don't need to belabor the massive wrongs awaiting. Why it's hard to be at peace, that corporeal foot feeling stuck in concrete. But what about my other leg, another possibility? Can I take on faith that all will be well, no matter how futile the outlook seems? Can I seek a different render of the future, perhaps many years from now, maybe beyond my presence, or even tomorrow? How bleak must life have seeme...

Going through a manuscript with a fine-toothed comb, or the equivalent method of revising. Or deciding the next stage of a medallion quilt. Or how to use one's energies to oppose a false democracy. Well OKAY Very Recently Past Me, ahem. Very Recently Past Me (VRPM) seemed to be teetering on the edge of her high horse, but sure, I'll run with this prompt. Uh, yeah.... I'm only hesitant because VRPM made this post because 1) I mostly liked the title in conjunction with editing a new (LOL) book. Not that Give Her My Love: The Hawk Book One is old news, but I do like me a shiny, the shinier (and seemingly more labor intensive) the better. Okay, so that's the main reason for this post. The current round of pink-ish and green hexagons is halfway done, woo hoo! The second reason is.... 2) The above quilt! Or what's emerging as nightly I ecstatically stitch away on Alexandria. OMG I am SO IN LOVE with SEWING this QUILT! I'd been deeply (DEEPLY) concerned if a medallion...

Pondering why I write, sew, or do anything really. Lol. That could easily be the blurb for this blog! Or life, if life manages to free up a few moments for said introspection. I had some last night after the latest trio of hexagon blocks were attached to Alexandria; I stared at one from the previous round, made with yellow fabric from a fat eighth surrounding some beautiful Kaffe Fassett jewels, with a navy hexie nestled inside them. To the right are upside down Anna Maria hearts in blue, also a big LOVE! I studied this block for a good ten minutes as yawns rang the bell for bedtime. Posted a snippet on Bluesky about it, then promptly went to bed! Whether writing or releasing a novel or working on a MAMMOTH English paper-piecing project (EPPP), taking a few minutes to question/admire said project seems to happen less frequently than previously. Not sure if it's because lately I've been up to my armpits in STUFF GOING ON, or if aging seems to allow less time to ponder, which mi...

  HURRAY! Finally I can trumpet Give Her My Love: The Hawk Book One in all its entitled glory. The official blurb goes like this: In the early 1960s, painter Eric Snyder harbors a secret known only to his wife Lynne. When Eric's latest disappearance raises the suspicions of best friends Sam and Renee Ahern, Lynne can no longer keep the truth under wraps. While the Aherns ponder this phenomenon, Eric embarks upon a search for his father, once again taking him far from the woman he loves. Of course, there's so much more; a saga befitting those who appreciate women's fiction, historical fiction, and magical realism, The Hawk expounds upon soldiers battling PTSD, couples grappling with infertility, women struggling to find their roles in a decade churning with upheaval. Love stories aplenty as well as solid friendships borne of extraordinary events both on the corporeal and ethereal planes. Set in the Pacific Northwest, this series hearkens across the Atlantic to a woman in N...

Many notions rumble through my mind. Like how 17 degrees Fahrenheit (-8 C) is pretty damned cold! That was the temperature we felt as we entered the cloud bank, pictured above. Not that it had been warm right before we drove into what was freezing fog, but WOW! Nature and weather are pretty amazing elements, let me say. Thankfully freezing fog was the forecaster's term; there was no fog, only clouds as we headed from Nevada into California on Interstate 395. That icy spate lasted until we turned off Highway 36 for Highway 44, when bright sunshine lifted temps a few degrees, yet the sun's warmth was like stepping into a different realm, for the scenes we encountered on 395 were like an alternate reality. They made me think about a similar scene I wrote in The Hawk , when Lynne and Sam observe an icy vista right before Christmas. Yet I conjured that from my imagination. Driving through it, mile after mile, was wholly something else. December, and Advent, are similar, in how many ...