2017

Last year, a video of Sumner and Lincoln High schools’ drumlines in friendly competition caught my ear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h0vZPhz-JM   My trumpet-playing teenager stood next to those lines as band members from all around waited over an hour for the 2017 Orting Daffodil Parade to start. The sound of the drums beating and competing their rhythms… Read more

  Merry Christmas! If you are looking for something to get you through the dark days of winter, my good friends Diane, Ruth, and I have a gift for you. A few weeks ago, I wrote about Brené Brown’s book Braving the Wilderness and begged you all to read it as an antidote to the raging… Read more

“How’s the writing going?” People ask me this often and I try not to dread the question. But I sometimes do. No matter how you slice it, I’ve been writing for years–decades even. I began journaling and making stories just for myself since I first learned to write and then writing with an idea about… Read more

Book Review of Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown I have been bothered for some time by the way we are speaking to one another, especially about politics. I lean toward the left. I guess this won’t surprise anyone who reads my blog. A student… Read more

I am not like Stephen King. (I bet you are not surprised.) I know this because I adore stories without horror that instead have sweet characters and even sweeter endings that hit me straight in the feels. Wishtree is one of those stories. A few years back I wrote about The One and Only Ivan… Read more

One More Splash form Inktober

One of the Inktober artists I followed is having a contest! Pick your favorite drawing and Jessica Linn Evans will throw your name in a hat to win a print. Goodluck… Read more

To everyone who survives nursing school, especially the instructors. And to the puppy with the power to soothe. Normally, the nursing class simmered with a low-grade fear and anxiety over the next test, the lack of sleep, the insanely high homework expectations, and, on occasion, tiffs with other students. But not the day the instructor… Read more

Sketching Wonders: Inktober 2017

  My mother has always been so good at visual art that I never thought I would be able to do it. My earliest memories are of her using oils to paint Mt. Rainier while we lived in Sequim. Many years of my childhood passed by in art supply stores where my sister and I… Read more

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