What to wear? What to wear? That’s a question that many of us ask as we stare into our closets every morning. But it wasn’t a question that bedeviled the Shaker faithful. They knew what they were wearing. It could be they might be able to choose between a green dress like the one pictured or a blue dress or …
And So It Begins
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. Albert Camus Summer departed last week and autumn came into her own. When I walked last week, I found leaves beginning to show their colors. I like fall. I like seasons. I’ve never wanted to live where it was summer all through the year – although a year in …
Blogging – A Connecting Bridge
~ Your blog is your unedited version of yourself. ~ lorelle How many blogs can a blogger blog before a blogger gets bogged down in all those blogs and feels blah? (Say that 10 times fast.) I’m not sure if I was trying to come up with a tongue twister this …
The Best Gifts and a Photo to Prove It
Birthdays come but once a year but if you do some finagling, you can make it last a little longer – a week or two at least. Maybe even a month. While you might not get those gifts stuck in amongst bright-colored tissue paper in gift bags or wrapped up with ribbons every day, you might get plenty of gifts …
Birthdays and Other Blessings at NQC
Meet the Southern Gospel group, the Patriot Quartet. My husband, Darrell sings bass with them. That’s not him up on the big screen. That’s the lead singer, Joe White. Darrell’s the one on the far right. The shot I took of him up on the screen was fuzzy, fuzzy. I never claimed to be a professional photographer. If I had …
The Week No Planes Flew
There are days in our lives that we will never forget. The 9th day of September 2001was one of those days. We remember exactly where we were when we first heard about the planes flying into the Twin Towers. Some of us were watching the news when that second plane crashed into the second tower. Even more of us were watching when …
Finding the Best Words to Tell the Story
” And that is all there is to good writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles.” (Gertrude Stein) Words – the tools of a writer’s trade. Words tell your story. Words make your characters leap off the page and come to life. Words plunge those characters …
Labor Day and Shakers
Shaker Kitchen tools, etc “Do your work as if you had a thousand years to live, and as if you were to die tomorrow.” (Shaker Saying) The Shakers believed in work. In fact they believed their work, whether it was making chairs, weaving cloth, peeling potatoes, tanning hides, or any of dozens of other tasks, was an act of worship. …
Counting Butterflies and Editing Galleys
The butterfly counts not months, but moments, and has time enough. … Rabindranath Tagore We’ve had a beautiful summer here in Kentucky – the first one in several years where we had enough rain to keep the fields green into August. I took a walk this week through our hayfield before my husband mowed it and counted butterflies. Well, not …
A Week of Encouragement
Lynwood Montell & Ann at a Gathering of Authors “There is nothing better than the encouragement of a good friend.” (Katharine Butler Hathaway) It’s not been my easiest summer with Mom needing so much extra care and with that deadline I had to chase with the Shaker book I was writing that didn’t seem to want to end. I did …










