Cottage Tour

Here's the Cottage tour some of you've been asking for.
Oh, and Artist not Author...although I suspect you know what I meant.

Thanks for checking it out!

Speaking of checking out...here are a few books. The second Around the Square book is out in February!!

Holly

Just One Thing is for sale this month on Amazon!
If you just watched my renovating, addition at the cottage, this book is set there in my mind!

Surprises in All Sizes anthology.
One of my Hometown Hearts stories is included!

Signs of the Times
Available for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited
Book #2 comes out in February! 
By Design takes a the marriage of convenience trope and...well, has a bit of fun with it.

Chances
Amazon 
Barnes and Noble
Kobo  
Apple Books 

A View to a Kiln: A Harry's Pottery Mystery
Kindle
iBooks
Kobo
Nook

Questions

I love asking questions. Even more than that, I love finding answers. The Minions and I play a game in the morning...ask a question. Sometimes it's, "What's the biggest snake in the world?" (The reticulated python is the longest...we went with that.) Sometimes we go on long questiony journeys, one question leading to another. Sasquatch, the Wright Brothers, the Gold Rush... 

I've found two distinct branches in my family tree that makes me wonder if my love of questions is genetic.  One line is Mennonite. They came here from Switzerland and I can find their names in church lists for a couple centuries.

The other line is Quaker. I'm still tracing them back, but so far, I've found a few into the 1700's. 

I love that they all questioned the hierarchy and forged their own paths.

Then they stopped. Both lines by the mid-eighteen hundreds were no longer practicing their breakout faiths. Did each generation keep asking questions until they finally answered them? Or did they keep asking questions and never found answers and simply turned away, looking for answers in another direction? It's been fascinating research.

So many things about my family tree makes me ask questions. Trying to understand the paths that brought my people here. The Swiss/German branch seemed to come for religious liberty. I can imagine their stories. One relative was an Irish doctor who married a titled English lady and they both moved here. I can imagine their story as well. But some of them are big...well, questions. Following their paper trail will never give me all the answers to my questions, so I'm left with imagining my own.

Questions sometimes lead to concrete answers. Sometimes they lead to guesses and stories. If questioning is genetic, maybe I owe my writing career to good genes. I am a shirttail relative to Emily Dickenson. I like to think the few genetic strands we share help inspire me to find the beauty of words.

Questions. I think having a bunch of things I'm asking is a great way to start a year. I'm just a small branch on my giant family tree.  I wrote a blog not long ago about mtDNA, where I imagined the long line of women I come from. I doubt I'll find all the answers this year, but I'm hoping I find some! And I suspect anything I discover will lead to more questions.

Wishing you a new year filled with questions...and answers.

Holly

PS Looking for something to read this new year?

Looking for something to read in 2023? Check out:

Just One Thing is for sale this month on Amazon!
If you've followed my renovating, addition at the cottage, this book is set there in my mind!

Surprises in All Sizes anthology.
One of my Hometown Hearts stories is included!

Signs of the Times
Available for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited
Book #2 comes out in February! 
By Design takes a the marriage of convenience trope and...well, has a bit of fun with it.

Chances
Amazon 
Barnes and Noble
Kobo  
Apple Books 

A View to a Kiln: A Harry's Pottery Mystery
Kindle
iBooks
Kobo
Nook

Word of the Year—2023

 

Last year my Word of the Year was Thankful. And I have so much to be thankful about. My family. My friends. Indoor plumbing...LOL

In past years I've had words like Patience, Stretch, Step, Glee, Hope, Time, Chapter, Stop...

As every new year approaches, I spend some time thinking about what I want to concentrate on for the next twelves months. I went round and round this year, not quite able to settle on any one thing. Finally I had it. I've talked before about how little things make me happy. But little things is two words. I know, I could have cheated, and I thought about it. But I hit on an adjacent word...Mindful. To be honest, it's a more powerful word than little-things. I plan to spend 2023 concentrating on the small moments that give me glee and hope. Moments with my kids and with the Minions. Moments with Himself. Moments with friends. Moments at the cottage. Moments in the studio. Beautiful, glorious moments.

But I'm sure there will be other moments to be Mindful of.

There's a poem I learned when I was very young...

“I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chatted all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow;
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh! The things I learned from her,
When Sorrow walked with me.”

― Robert Browning Hamilton

So more than being mindful of the small, gleeful moments I'm hoping being Mindful reminds me to embrace those moments that aren't as gleeful or aren't gleeful at all. I want to meet them head on and see what lessons they leave me with. Lessons and gifts. I think most of our problems comes with one or the other...frequently both.

When I started writing, I wrote straight up romantic comedy. Books like I Waxed My Legs for This? my PTA Moms, Everything But...series, Not Precisely Pregnant. But over time, I've added more serious books. Books that deal with those non-gleeful moments. Briar Hill Road, Just One Thing, Carry Her Heart, my Hometown Hearts series... They all taught me so much as I wrote them. I'll confess, I cried more than once with all of them. But each left me some new insight about myself and about life. Just like those harder moments in real life leave us gifts. 

So I will be Mindful and try to embrace all the moments 2023 offers me. I will try to recognize them and hold them close. 

As the new year begins, I wish you all a marvelous, gleeful year!

Holly

Looking for something to read in 2023? Check out:

Surprises in All Sizes anthology.
One of my Hometown Hearts stories is included!

Signs of the Times
Available for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited

Chances
Amazon 
Barnes and Noble
Kobo  
Apple Books 

A View to a Kiln: A Harry's Pottery Mystery
Kindle
iBooks
Kobo
Nook