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Saturday Style: Women in Hats
*** Summer is around the corner, and it’s time to think about getting yourself that perfect hat. Whether it’s a straw one, cotton one, or a ball cap, you will want to protect your face from the harmful rays of the sun. Along with getting yourself a good pair of sunglasses, you will want to purchase the right hat for your face shape that also goes well with your hair. The six-year run of Downton Abbey made me fall in love with hats all over again. Watching Mary, Edith, and the rest of the ladies on Downton, made me miss the completeness a hat can bring to fashion and your…
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In Honor of Teacher Appreciation Week & A Thank You to My Students
In the laundry room on Pointer Ridge Drive in Bowie, Maryland, where I grew up, my parents hung my large blackboard I got for Christmas. The laundry room was a good size, and the perfect place for me to set up my schoolroom. My aunt had given me a grade book she used when she was a teacher, and at the age of eight, I began practicing to be a teacher by writing on the board, planning lessons, and marking the imagined students’ grades in my grade book. Mrs. Schuman and Ms. Cosby were my fourth grade teachers, and I watched how they conducted the class. I wanted to be…
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Meeting People Makes Travel Magical
My husband and I were sitting in a restaurant in London one night trying to get in touch with his Italian cousin who is a surgeon in the city. We were there for vacation, but we had promised Massimo and his wife that we would get together during our stay for dinner. In our effort to contact him at work, we were failing miserably. The people at the table next to us recognized that we were struggling with the phone and our attempt at communication with the hospital and promptly invited us to their table. When we explained that the hospital said he was in “theatre” we assumed he…
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Breathing In the Air and Tasting the Wines in Napa Valley | Part Two
(This is part two of my travel piece about Napa Valley and San Francisco. To read part one, click here). Besides the incredible number of wineries, there are some picturesque towns that are definitely worthy of a visit. Napa was our first stop. Perched on the Napa River, the town offers adorable shopping, great restaurants, wine bars, and views worthy of your best camera. We ate at Bounty Hunter Wine Bar and Smokin’ BBQ, a restaurant/bar that was highly recommended to us, and my husband never passes up an opportunity for good barbecue. Additionally, the place forced you to be social as we sat at group tables, and made…
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Breathing in the Air and Tasting The Wines in Napa Valley
First, there was the air, consistently devoid of humidity according the locals, and as fresh and crisp as you would imagine the hills and unspoiled land of Northern California to be. Puffs of soft clouds decorated the blue sky as temperatures hovered in the high sixties. Then, there was the scenery. The rolling greens of the mountains lulled you in sweetly, beckoning you to stop what you’re doing, forget your watch, and stay a while. Rows and rows of meticulously placed and aligned grape vines grow upwards on the mountains as striking winery after winery welcome and encourage you to come and taste what has been made on the premises…
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Campus Book Talk Tonight and Some Monday Inspiration
I’m excited to talk to students tonight about the self-publishing world. Faculty in the Halls, a program at Stevenson University, has asked me to speak to students about the path of publishing your own book. As I’ve published two novels this way, I’m excited to share my knowledge of the growing arm of publishing, how you can make this work for you, and the pros and cons of doing it on your own. I’ll be talking about both Beneath the Mimosa Tree and Baseball Girl, and I hope to inspire some folks to give it a whirl. It’s by no means easy, but it is something that, given enough drive…
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Recounting Five Years of My Life As a Blogger
On April 6, the notice above popped up in my notifications on my blogging platform, WordPress. I was thankful for the reminder because I wouldn’t have remembered the anniversary of the first day I began the blogging journey. I am too busy tackling the challenge of deciding on what I will write about next. What will the next post reveal? Will I write about writing, fashion, teaching, decorating, films, or books? Or, will I choose to tell a story? In some ways, I’m amazed that five years have passed since I first began this endeavor. I’ve logged 707 posts to date on Steph’s Scribe. During some months, I turn out…
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Friday Fiction: Writing the Prologue & Baseball Girl
There is much debate in the fictional writing world as to whether or not your story should begin with a prologue. The last three books I have read–all mainstream fictional novels–have started with a prologue. I found the prologue of Me Before You particularly effective. The discussion of the prologue is a relatively simple one: should you include a glimpse for the reader as to what will eventually come of the characters and plot of the story? Does the prologue have a somewhat different voice? Does it intrigue the reader and offer a bit of a backstory, which will, in turn, propel the story forward? It’s a challenging question to…
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Why I Probably Shouldn’t Have Ridiculously Large Clocks in the House
The wisdom acquired with the passage of time is a useless gift unless you share it. ~ Esther Williams There they are before me. A large clock in the dining room, an even larger one in the living room, and a most gargantuan one on our porch. They always say, “the bigger the better.” I’m not sure if I believe that’s true. I have a sort of fascination with clocks. I love having them around the house, but lately, I sometimes don’t enjoy having them staring me in the face all the time. They are a constant reminder that this very moment will never happen again. That each tick-tock of…
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A Good Book Will Never Let You Down
I’m about to finish Adriana Trigiani’s touching and inspiring novel entitled The Shoemaker’s Wife. I’ve enjoyed reading this sweeping story of Italian immigrants loosely based on the history of the author’s own grandparents. From the mountains of the Italian Alps to New York City to a small town in Minnesota, the characters and sights covered in this novel will allow you to become a part of a different time and place when the world was a different place, America was growing, and World War I loomed. The truth of the matter is this: a good book will never let you down. As I’ve become older, wiser, and more finicky about…
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A Royal Lesson: Typing Class Came in Handy
*** Just for a minute, I’m going to take you back with me to typing class in 8th grade at Severn River Middle School. We sat in rows, typewriters in front of us. We did the drills. “A, A, A…S, S, S…D, D, D…” We typed this sentence over and over again: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” The whole room was filled with sound…the reverberations of clicking keys, the pounding of returning and advancing the page, the echoes of the teacher calling out what we should type. It was chaotic. It was fun. It was hands-on learning—just you smacking the keys of the typewriter. What I…
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Inspired by Joanna Gaines and Fixer Upper on HGTV
My husband and I have been updating our home since we bought it in June of 2013. Little by little we have tackled the project of making our home something we love. In our previous residence, we did the same thing, though on a much smaller scale. I think we both enjoy watching our projects turn into our visions. Of course, we can’t do it on our own–we need help, and we have received it in the form of an architect and builders who have helped us along the way. Lately, I’ve started watching HGTV again, and have become attached to Fixer Upper, as many of you readers may have…
