• Creating a Self-Watering Planter

      I am so pleased this self-watering planter worked!   There are so many different ideas when it comes to building a self-watering planter, but they all head in the same direction: Having a well at the bottom of the planter with a wick to draw the water up to the plants’ roots. I pooled different ideas from my research and created two self-watering planters that have produced lots of lovely flowers.   The first design problem I faced was finding a planter with enough depth to plant gladiolas that was reasonable to purchase. Most large planters were way out…

  • Reily’s Luck

    By Louis L’Amour   Sentimentality… Is there a book that takes your breath away every time you hear or read the title? Or one that breaks through the bricks walls holding the files of your past, releasing a flood of memories and emotions? Louis L’Amour’s 1970 novel Reilly’s Luck does that for me.   I was introduced to Louis L’Amour’s writing by my second mom, Jan Federson, when I was about 11 or 12 years old. Jan, and her husband, Feddy, lived in a large walkout rambler near McCoy Lake in Eden Prairie, when all the roads off Mitchell Road…

  • Their Eyes Were Watching God

    By Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston was a female black writer in the early 20th century, and she wrote this novel in 1937.   In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie tells her story to her best friend Phoebe, from her first forced marriage when she was a teenager to living with the love of her life in her 40s. It tells of her relationships, describing the three totally different men she lived with, and the adventures incurred throughout her life. The majority of the book takes place in Eatonville, a town in Florida near Jacksonville that was incorporated on August…

  • Creativity a part of survival

    Creativity a part of survival

    Creativity. Life has a way of crowding out creativity. But what is life if not creative?   Survival. Survival at the mercy of our society’s structure.   But there are those who don’t survive very well without following the creative impulses, whether they lead to inventing, or organizing, or creating beauty through words, color or structure. I am one of those people… When life crowds out the ability to create, I withdraw inside myself and move toward being a hermit, which causes other issues inside of me. Spending time with people has always put deposits into my emotional bank, and moving…

  • Finding permission to be called a writer

    I am a writer.   It is that simple. I AM a writer.   How can I call myself a writer when there is little current evidence of my craft? That question often plagues me and holds me down like a wrecking ball resting on a pile of broken walls. I also transfer that question into others, though I have no idea if they really feel that way.   How can you call yourself a writer? You don’t write every day, you don’t get paid for what you do write and your book isn’t selling itself? Those critical questions open the door to…

  • Strengthening the crackling veneer

    Have you ever felt broken? Like someone else is living in your body?   I have, and I think the other person’s name is Meno Pause. Meno has more depressed days than I ever had, is less tolerant of others and is so fragile that little things crackle the veneer that holds her together, sending her into a room alone to get the shaking under control. She also has trouble thinking, would rather be alone and often avoids gatherings. She is the opposite of who I am in so many ways…   Meno Pause has been living in me for…

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