Goodbye, Kate Spade

I own three Kate Spade purses. One is simple unadorned black, one is brown with white trim, and the other is a beige crossbody with soft pink insets on the ends. The latter, like me, is a creative interpretation on a classic design with a bit of flare. All three bear her name on the…

Read More

Telling Their Stories

This coming Saturday, January 27th of 2018, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a date when people world-wide will observe the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, one of the Nazi’s most infamous concentration camps. The day stands as a symbol of the tragedy that transpired during their regime in World War II and of the…

Read More

The Siege Of The Wine Country

Here in Maryland, in the backyard of my new home, the leaves are just beginning to fire up with color. Back in California, in the yard of the home I’ve left behind and haven’t sold yet, a thick layer of smoke obscures the view of the mountains from my living room windows. In the mornings,…

Read More

Spark A Challenge

This past October, I received some news that I was reluctant to write about here. The novel I had been working on, and believed I’d finished, was judged by my literary agent to need more work before she took the book out to market. Why did I choose not to share this disappointment–one that was…

Read More

Steps To Fighting The Darkness

My last newsletter reminded all of you that September is National Suicide Prevention month. This week I’d like to offer some strategies I used to fight off the darkness when I was a suicide risk. And I’ll also give you a few that worked when my Mom was the one at risk, and I needed…

Read More

Dad, I’m Singing Your Song

It’s Father’s Day this coming Sunday, and considering that I spent Mother’s Day writing about Mom, it seems only fair that I give Daddy equal attention. Now that he is gone, closing his eyes for that final time on May 11, 2012, I have all sorts of memories engraved in my mind and on my…

Read More

Tea For Two

Recently, I was asked to do a Q & A for another writer’s blog, and one of the questions was very thought-provoking. “If there was one person, dead or alive, that you could spend an afternoon with, who would it be and why?” I considered my answer with care. All of my initial responses seemed…

Read More

Dodging Curveballs

Sometimes life sends us curveballs. Just when we are least expecting it, a new situation arises, be it good or bad, and we are left scrambling. Not so long ago, I was talking with a friend whose older sister had died suddenly quite some time ago, and who was having difficulty coming to terms with…

Read More

A LESSON IN LOSS FROM GREEN BEAN

As usual, I have a “dog story” to tell you. And as usual, it is far more than that, having become, for me, a “life story.” I am on a plane travelling to the Dalmatian Club of American National Specialty Show in Ohio, writing by hand on a yellow pad of paper, with a solitary…

Read More

REMEMBER HEART DOGS YOU HAVE LOVED

How many of us have had what is called a “heart dog?” Tons of those reading this, I suspect. If you have finished, or are in the middle of, Bespotted, you will have discovered the inimitable Gulliver, to whom I dedicate the book as “dog of my heart,” which means the same thing. Some of…

Read More