This has been a crazy year, but I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

Last night, my kids and I had a quiet dinner together. Usually, we have a nice Christmas dinner of quiche and salad and dessert and wine with family and friends, but this year it was just us. The kids picked what they wanted to eat, and we had takeout Chinese. While I'm not a superstitious sort, I do always enjoy the fortune cookies at the end of the meal. We have a tradition that whenever we get fortune cookies, we each read our fortunes out loud, and my kids save the ones they like on the fridge.

I don't usually save a fortune, but I got one last night that I felt was worth saving. It said, "As one grows to understand life less and less, one learns to live it more and more."

I feel that this is true. I don't have any great understanding of life after this past year of the 3 P's: pandemic, politics, and protest. Whatever side of the divide you fall on, America has more problems than answers right now, and it's hard to imagine what's on the horizon.

However, because of the pandemic, I've had to scale back my work. I'm homeschooling my kids. And a year that might have passed in a blur of work and events and lessons and always rushing, rushing, rushing, has slowed down. It's become a time that I will look back upon as the year that I learned how to live day by day and learned what it truly means to appreciate the strange journey of life.

 May you have a healthy and safe end to the year, and a bright and peaceful New Year.

I am proud to announce that I am one of the editors for a new literary magazine called Scribes*MICRO*Fiction. Our magazine is looking for fiction, creative nonfiction, and poems all between 90-110 words. We'll be publishing once a month, and be open to submissions year-round.

For a full list of guidelines and how to send in your writing, please visit our magazine's website HERE.

Happy writing!

So... it's been a while. July, in fact, since I was last on this thing, LOL. The year has been simultaneously terribly slow without the usual assortment of author events and summer camps and back to school things that we usually do during the year. My two youngest kids are homeschooling with "Mrs. Mom" as their teacher, and my oldest is doing distance learning. So our household has stayed busy, even though it's an unusual kind of busyness. Like everyone, we're looking forward to a more normal future when the vaccine can be distributed, although I'm sure some things have permanently changed.

For example, has anyone noticed their kids haven't been sick at all? Since we mostly stay home, and wear masks every time we go out, we've had exactly 1 cold so far this season (and I have no idea where THAT came from). Yes, we got our flu shots, but on top of that, we just haven't had the same exposure. I'm wondering if wearing masks will continue to trend, even after the vaccine helps tamp down the numbers of coronavirus. Last winter, we were sick pretty much for 5 solid months. So life has been more pleasant without the constant illnesses.

Hope everyone has stayed healthy & safe in the meantime, and will continue to do so through the winter. Love and virtual hugs to everyone!