My friend Dave ambled around the side of the house and into my backyard today as I was working. Not expecting anyone to visit and being focused on my work, I jumped out of my skin. He laughed and then we talked about calves and gardening while his […]
Wow. I’ve just had a most-rewarding experience. I’ve been fortunate to publish three of my own books. I worked with book designers, e-book producers, editors, and printers. I learned how to get ISBNs and how to get catalogue in publication information. By the time I published three books, […]
This is an elaborate scam that almost got me and I’m pretty smart, so I am warning you to beware. The invitation to a job interview came from Brookfield Communities, an award-winning homebuilding company. After going through a text interview (who does that?), I was hired within four […]
Marie Kondo would be proud! After watching some of Ms. Kondo’s Netflix episodes, we trekked off to the Dollar Store and bought all shapes and sizes of containers for organizing the stuff in our lives. This was great but I went at the organizing task with so […]
Different things matter to me now. I realized this when I opened up this old scrapbook full of articles about me and emails congratulating me for winning awards, and for almost winning awards. The article was great, so I cut it out carefully and scanned it so I […]
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! This day always reminds me of when I taught Grade 3 at St. Patrick’s School in Grande Prairie, Alberta. It was big celebration and, at night, there was at least one Celtic band playing somewhere in town. That was in the late 1990s when […]
Today in class the topic of my age came up as it sometimes does. The students were saying that I am still pretty young. “Well,” I told them, “I’m not so young anymore,” to which one young man replied, “Nope. You’re not young or old. You’re just mediocre!” […]
We try to sort people into boxes and when they don’t fit, we are not that happy. Human beings sure don’t like surprises when it comes to human behavior. Good luck controlling and predicting that. I learned a lot when I wrote my novel Denby Jullsen, Hughenden about […]
I used to be a full-time teacher and for a long time, that was my identity. In a small community, I was known as the Grade 3 teacher. The teacher box was the one I fit in. Almost two years ago I gave up this position […]
It’s not writers block. I don’t have writers block. If anything, I’m blocking the characters. They’re ringing the doorbell and thinking it’s broken, they knock loudly. Some of them are peering into the lower windows and I’m lying on the floor in front of the couch praying […]
