Remembering Another Difficult Time in History

For many reasons I've been thinking of my mother lately. With our stay-at-home life I've started working again on a project of hers that I inherited and want to finish before my kids end up inheriting it. Mom always seemed to go overboard in the things she did for us. If I liked one sweater she bought me two--one in each color. Meals were always more than we could finish. This project, quilts for all her grandkids (at the start, six, but became eight before she could finish one), was way bigger than she could accomplish. I know because I was always finishing up projects she would start and not finish.

As I think back now with a lot more hindsight and maturity, I realize that all of this overabundance of things, projects, purchases, food, was probably a result of her childhood. Growing up during the Great Depression was an overwhelming challenge at times. As one of seven children, she wore mended clothes until they could not longer hold together with mends. Food on the table was not always a guarantee. Entertainment was whatever they could create on their own.

While our COVID 19 period can in no way compare to the years of desperate times back in the late 20s and early 30s, I can't help but wonder what stories our children will share about this time in their history. Hopefully they will be of perseverance, sharing, caring, and learning to love each other.

Unfortunately, as with all children, I did not listen as well to my mother's stories as I wish now I had. Some of them stuck though and I wove them into the novel that I dedicated to my mother. The novel does not follow her life but is enriched by the stories of her childhood. Ruby, A Novel, is now on sale at Amazon in the Kindle store for 99 cents and the paperback is reduced to $9.99. It
may be a little longer before we all emerge again from our confinements so perhaps you can enjoy another book.

Pandemic Lessons

Yes. It's a new world. How are you adjusting? I'd like to say I've adjusted well but I'm still a work in progress. This all started while we were still in Florida so the first few weeks for us were not too bad. We could get out in the nice weather and there was even Pickleball still being played although between games we were socially distancing.

The anxiety grew though. As word that Ohio was closing down and more states were considering it, we wondered what the trip home might be like. Would we even be able to travel home? Suddenly, Northeast Ohio weather aside, home was looking good. And once we made it home, there was a sense of relief despite all the changes created by COVID. Lesson One: home is a good place to be in a crisis.

Once we were stocked up on food and yes, I even managed to find a few packages of TP, we hunkered down. While thoughts of places to go and people to see crossed our minds, we realized that those activities that were so near and dear were not going to happen. Lesson Two: friends are precious.

Lesson Three: routine is good but needs variety. When Bob retired we settled into a new routine and now we find ourselves searching for a few adjustments that fit in with the new normal we are all living in. We look for ways to keep that routine interesting. Finding a time slot for at least one walk a day (not always easy when the weather turns nasty as it does around here in spring). Looking for new places to walk--we have some great parks in our area. Going for a drive just to be out. Playing lots of Hand and Foot--our favorite card game. Going out for lunch at a fast food drive thru and eating in the parking lot.

Grocery shopping has always been a chore for me. Yes, I've said it many times. "I'd rather stay home and clean toilets." Lesson Four: shopping for groceries may not be so bad after all even with a mask on. It's a little contact with others albeit from a distance.

Lesson Five: reading while tuning into the Easy Listening channel on the TV is relaxing. I think I may have known this from childhood though. I've always been a reader. In a normal year I read between 30-45 books. I'm already up to 21 and we're only about a third of the way through the year. Of course the reading and relaxing hasn't done much for my writing and my blogging but maybe that's beginning to fall into routine as well.

Lesson Six: Worship, praise, and prayer are essential and can be very creative. We tune into two worship services each Sunday--our home church and our home church away from home in Florida. There's also coffee twice a week with the pastor from Florida and when Easter morning was cold, rainy and cloudy here, we were able to watch the sunrise service on the Florida shore. We even got a brief look at the sunrise service of a third church whose pastor was live on FB from a graveyard. Lots of creative ways have given us inspiration and hope through Zoom choirs and social media.

I'm sure there are more lessons that I could list but as I sit here and watch the snow fall in a mid-April change in the weather, I wonder, what lessons have you learned?

Monday's Mulling

Three chapters of Secrets Among The Shamrocks are begun. I'm just getting into the story. It takes a while to feel the story develop. So far I'm taking you to Ireland--of course! To a town called Dingle, or rather just outside that town to a castle (fictional).

The town of Dingle does exist however and was one of my favorite stops on our driving trip around Ireland several years ago. I posted about our stay there: Dingle--The Town, The Bay and Fungie! I remember our beautiful Bed and Breakfast there that sat up on a hillside overlooking the bay.

I'll let you read the post to find out about Fungie.

While there may or may not be an actual castle outside of town, there is in my story. The castle's name? Shamrock! Oh what secrets will I find?

Fort Lonesome - The Novel

It's coming! It's almost here!

I am working on formatting the manuscript for paperback and ebook publication. It should be ready by the end of March. Stay tuned! Here's a teaser:

Ginnie Scott looked forward to the beginning of a new life in Fort Lonesome. She felt a new sense of freedom leaving behind the parents she had so deeply disappointed. She was starting fresh as a preschool teacher where no one knew her past. Little did she expect that the past would catch up with her.

Grant Richards’ life had been through some deep valleys. Just as he thought his heart might mend from the loss of his wife, Becca, he has to cope with his daughter’s perilous brain tumor. Then Bonnie’s new preschool teacher arrives to throw his life into more turmoil. Is she Becca’s ghost? The resemblance is uncanny.

Martin Westfall ruined Ginnie’s life with his rash promises and failures to fulfil them. He’s found her again and this time he won’t let anything come between them, not even a little girl and her cowboy father.

Fort Lonesome, Florida, is classified as a ghost town but the only ghosts in town are the ghosts of the past that come into Grant and Ginnie’s lives. Will those ghosts bring the two together? Possibly, but only if they can overcome their fears and find the hope they need for the future.

Meeting My Characters

[While Paul Carson never worked out in one of my novels, the process has yielded some other great characters. This post was from January 2010.]

It's a new year and time to start a new novel. I have had a story idea kicking around in my head for months and I guess it is time to let it out. Now that involves meeting new characters. Usually I have a character in mind before I begin a book but this time the storyline came first so I need to get out and "shake hands" with some people to determine who is involved with this story.

Developing a character is a lot like meeting new people. On a cruise for instance, we sit down at a table for a meal and introduce ourselves to the others at the table. After that the conversation turns to where we live, how many kids/grandkids we have, professions, etc. As the cruise goes on, your table mates reveal more and more about their lives--interesting tidbits from their prior trips, tales of exciting experiences from their jobs, what they like to read and why, etc. You get the picture.

So I "met" this character yesterday. His name is Paul Carson and he's an air traffic controller. Now that's an interesting profession! I have lots of questions for him. So far I've found out he's married, has one daughter, grew up in Detroit, MI (but we'll forgive him for being from MI since he went to MSU not UM), and he has quite a story to tell about a time when his faith in God was tested. I'm excited to learn more.

Once In A Blue Moon

There's a harvest moon, a strawberry moon, a blood moon--and the list goes on. One of those on the list is a blue moon. To take that literally you might think that the moon would be blue then but that is not the case. It has to do with the number of full moons in a year or in some cases, a month.

There are actually two definitions for blue moon. One was created by an amateur astronomer named James Hugh Pruett who referred to the blue moon as the second full moon in a month. His article appeared in a magazine, Sky and Telescope, in 1946 and the definition stuck but it actually had nothing to do with the seasonal blue moon that was originally defined.

The name blue moon was given to the full moon that was actually not one of the original twelve named full moons in the year like the harvest moon, wolf moon, etc. This blue moon only occurs in the years when there are thirteen instead of twelve full moons. Apparently that only happens every two or three years.

This year, 2018, there were two blue moons (in January and in March) when we had two full moons in a month. On May 18, 2019, there will be a seasonal blue moon meaning it is the thirteenth moon of the year or a moon without a traditional name for its season.

So, after all that, you can see that once in a blue moon could mean a long wait for something to happen. Oh, and don't look to see if the moon is actually blue. That all depends on atmospheric conditions and happens even more rarely when a blue moon occurs.

Mind Your Own Bee's Wax!

While off exploring the origins of idioms in our language, I came across one that not only was intriguing but in light of a Ladies' Picnic Luncheon we are planning at our church, it seemed to fit the theme of my week. "Mind your own bee's wax." Now I always thought that the bee's wax part of that idiom had to do with a funny way of saying business. Not so.

Back in the day. . .before all the breakthroughs in cosmetics and acne treatments, ladies would use a thin layer of bee's wax to cover over their skin problems. Of course once the bee's wax was applied and dried you had to be very careful that it didn't crack. If done right apparently, the wax was a great cover-up. Of course you always had those who would study another lady's face closely to see if she had used bee's wax to make her look so good. Being scrutinized so closely might elicit the phrase, "Mind your own bee's wax!"

The practice of using the bee's wax also led to some other phrases. You couldn't move your facial muscles too much or the bee's wax would crack. So, your expression would have to be very somber. Thus is could be said that she "didn't crack a smile."

A girl wearing bee's wax would have to distance herself from the fire in the fireplace. Get too close and the wax would melt and she would be in danger of "losing face."

Now doesn't that make you more thankful for today's makeup?

This Isn't My First Rodeo

This weekend I went to get my nails done. Almost anywhere you get your nails done the staff is Vietnamese. The nail salon I frequent is not any different. The nail tech I had this time was chattier than most are and he struck up a conversation. When I went to put my hand in the light box that sets the gel polish I did it correctly to which he remarked, "This isn't your first rodeo."

I laughed. It sounded strange coming from someone whose first language isn't English. I answered, "No. And I hope I don't fall off the horse."

Then ensued a conversation about the origin of "This isn't my first rodeo." I had no idea but did offer that the "Goodnight, don't let the bed bugs bite," probably came from cowboys whose sleeping bags would get bugs in them when they slept out on the range. Maybe the rodeo phrase did too?

Well, inquiring mind that I am, I got home and started searching the phrase. It had nothing to do with cowboys directly. The best I could find was that it originated with a movie, Mommie Dearest, staring Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford. The movie was based on a book written by her step-daughter that was a memoir and did not put Crawford in a good light. In the scene where Crawford is dismissed from the Pepsi board, Dunaway's line is "This ain't my first time at the rodeo." The remark is not in the book so really must be attributed to the writer or writers of the screenplay.

The movie was in 1981 but several years later, in 1990 a recording artist, Vern Gosdin wrote and recorded a song, This Ain't My First Rodeo. He claimed to have heard some construction workers say that and jotted the phrase down to make into a song.

Now the research got a little more interesting when I read that in some parts of the country instead of the rodeo reference, you might say, "I didn't just fall off the turnip truck." And if you were from the UK, you might say, "I didn't come down with the last shower" (or yesterday's shower).

Every language has its sayings and idioms. The idioms drove me crazy learning Spanish. Our Hispanic friends went into peals of laughter when I messed up the idiom for feeling chilly. I had literally said I was frozen solid or perhaps worse--they did laugh a long time.

Got the T-shirt And The Novel Idea!

[Almost ten years ago we made the trip I describe below. It was the catalyst for the novel I am now working on. I still have the T-shirt.]

Recently we made the trip to Florida to see grandkids and catch a couple Indians' spring training games. While in the area, there was an extra stop I wanted to make. About a half hour out of our way was a small area know as Fort Lonesome. There has never been a town there to my knowledge, certainly not a fort, and the most I could find when I researched it was that it had two grocery stores--one of which has since met the wrecking ball.

In my internet search I also discovered that it was considered a ghost town. Well, now isn't that just the juice a novelist needs for some ideas? We arrived mid-morning at the Fort Lonesome Grocery--the only building in sight other than a shed on one corner of the intersection. A couple of large trucks were parked in the gravel lot when we pulled in with our rental car.

Walking inside the store was like walking into a movie scene out of the 50s--the one where the unsuspecting tourists make a stop at the wrong place. We stuck out like sore thumbs. With a half-dozen truckers (all standing with drinks and sandwiches in hand ready to checkout) as an audience, I asked the lady behind the counter if she knew anything about this place being a ghost town. Her answer: "We got live people here and we got dead people here. . .and that's all."

I bought the T-shirt anyway.

Graduate From or By or. . .?

'Tis the season of graduation. Preschool, kindergarten, middle school, high school, college and the list goes on. A question was posed to me by a friend as to the correct usage of the verb graduate. She wondered if "graduated high school" was the correct way to explain this passage in life. Off the top of my head I said no but I got to thinking that maybe I had it wrong. Once I dug into the search engines of the internet I realized it is quite a common question.

Needless to say the English language evolves and we Americans especially seem to find new ways of saying things that are not necessarily grammatically correct. In school we were taught to diagram sentences. Most kids hated the exercise. I was weird. I loved it and the longer and more complicated the sentence the more fun I had. So I went back to my training to try to answer her question.

If you break down the sentence, She graduated high school, you have She as the subject, graduated as the verb and high school as the object of the verb. In my simple way of understanding, graduated would be an action verb therefore the object of the verb, high school (actually school as high would be an adjective), would be receiving the action. Huh? She is the one getting the diploma.

What is missing from the sentence is the preposition from. Insert the preposition and it makes sense that She is moving on from the high school. She is not giving a diploma to the high school. 

There are all sorts of more correct ways to describe this right of passage and if you get deeper into the dissection of the English language and start into transitive vs. intransitive verbs it can get a bit more complicated. In an era where so much is reduced to 140 characters for communication, I can only imagine what our language will look like in another fifty years.

If you would like to drive yourself a little crazier, here are a few links I found discussing the issue of "graduate vs. graduate from vs. graduated by."

Poetry and Contingency (this one has lots of charts and graphs)
Visual Thesaurus 
Grammar Girl (probably the easiest to understand)

Writing for a Postmortem Audience?

[One more chuckle from an earlier post]

I've been at a writers conference for the past week. I was looking forward to sunny California but 4 out of 5 days it has rained. I think it affected my brain function. As I surveyed the list of workshops, my eyes caught one titled "Writing for the Postmortem Audience." I blinked twice and read it again but it stayed the same.

A postmortem audience? What is a postmortem audience? Is it one full of dead people? Is it an audience of coroners? Morticians? Forensic scientists? The questions bounced around in my head for the afternoon and the next day. Even though my mind was beginning to go into overload mode with all the information being crammed in, the question would still surface. What is a postmortem audience?

When the world of critiques, workshops, keynotes, and networking slowed a bit, I got out my notebook with the scheduled workshops list and looked again. Writing for the Postmortem Audience was right there. Or was it? The fog lifted a bit. I think the sun may have even peeked through for a moment. It wasn't "postmortem" it was "postmodern"!

Oh...

What's a postmodern audience?

A Storytelling Heritage

Discovery of the treasure of my mother’s stories came a little late to me. I remember as a child rolling my eyes as she would take off with another tale and let it unravel in twice the time it would take anyone else to tell it. You see, Mom was quite a storyteller. Her stories were always true—well, except for the one she told us about the stray dog. We had fallen in love with him but he wouldn’t let my dad in the house in the evenings. He had to go. To soften the blow, Mom told us about the disabled child who had lost his dog and needed him back. It soothed our feelings at the time and we bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Just because the stories were mostly true however didn’t mean they couldn’t be embellished. And embellishment was Mom’s forte. She included details, the kind of details a writer could hook up to and create the scene, the feelings, the expressions, etc. Perhaps she should have become the writer in the family. Instead, when I began to write, I suddenly realized what a treasure trove of storytelling I had growing up. Mom had set the example of telling a good story.

Mom did have a bit of trouble with words sometimes though. She could never pronounce municipal and maintenance correctly the first time. When she realized she had the accent on the wrong syllable, she would correct herself or at least try to. We would have to laugh when over and over again it would still come out wrong. After all, English was her first and only language.

The most endearing word mix up for my mother was between marjoram and marijuana. For some reason she would always ask for marijuana to season her roast instead of saying marjoram. The mix up was the catalyst for the story that formed in my head and eventually became In A Pickle. What if someone really did get mixed up between marjoram and marijuana and put it into a pickle recipe?

Of course, I had to include one of my mother’s famous stories as well. When you read In A Pickle, you will find that Annie Pickels’ has an intruder in her basement. It’s Mom’s classic tale that got longer and longer the more times she told it. Of course for my story I had to embellish it a bit too. I learned from the best. I don’t think she’d mind if she were here to read it. 

Futile Fridays

It's not just wandering the world that makes me a writer wandering. I also do a lot of ruminating. Writers need that. It develops plot lines, characters, and quandaries for characters. It also leads to thinking more deeply about life and the journey--or not. Take the case of Friday.

Friday used to be a great day. It was something to look forward to each week. It signaled the end to a lot of chaos created by kids, school, work, schedules, etc. On Friday everything seemed to ease off and even though there might be some things planned for a weekend, it still meant some time of rest or at least a break from routine was coming.

The kids grew up, left home, and routines changed--a bit. There was still a hubby to get off to work and Friday was still a time to look forward to. The weekend meant a couple of mornings to sleep in and time to spend together. And then came retirement.

Don't get me wrong. I love that we are retired. I love that we have all of our days together now--well, mostly I love that. Sometimes I do miss a little "me time" and pushing my own grocery cart around the store. But retirement has made Friday just a day like any other. Actually, it is less attractive because many of those working people are out and about and making popular places a lot more crowded.

Gone are the days of the Friday movie date. Instead we enjoy Senior Mondays at the movies. We sleep in whenever we want to although we do keep to a routine somewhat. Like Bob's favorite saying," When you're retired you can't tell when you are on vacation," it's hard to differentiate between a weekday or a weekend.

So you see Friday is kind of futile except for football season when it signals a football Saturday and usually a football Sunday. Go Bucks! Go Browns! Maybe Friday's not so futile after all.

Traveling Back In Time - WWII Nylon Stockings

I grew up wearing nylons. They were never silk stockings. By the time I was old enough for them, silk stockings were definitely a thing of the past and nylon stockings ruled. According to an article at American WWII.com, rayon was used as a substitute for a time but they didn't fit well and tended to sag and "form knees of their own."

A team of researchers at DuPont worked for a decade to find a suitable solution. One day Julian Hill pulled a rod out of a mixture of coal tar, water, and alcohol to find a filament stretched between the rod and the solution. Voila! Nylon!

The first nylon stockings hit the shelves in New York City in May, 1940. Of course once the war began, nylon went into use mostly for parachutes, ropes, and tires for the military.

The nylon stockings of the 40s and 50s had a seam running up the back of them that was always a challenge to keep straight. I remember in the early days of my teens, some girls just used an eyebrow pencil on the back of their legs to make it appear that they had stockings on. The "seams" stayed a lot straighter if you had a steady hand.

It wasn't long before garter belts (except for the fancy Victoria Secret type) were a thing of the past and, with the discovery of lycra, pantyhose became the popular norm.

Traveling Back In Time - WWII Margarine

Research for the historical novel, Ruby, I'm writing has been fun although it does slow me down. The little details are fascinating. I owe this discovery to a lady at our church who is just a few years older than I and remembered having to take what she called lard and mix it with a little yellow capsule of dye to make it look like butter.

Margarine actually got its start in France in the late 1860s in response to a challenge posed by Napoleon for a cheaper spread than butter that could be used in the military. Hippolyte Mege-Mouries responded with a combination of animal fats and a few other things. He named it margarine.

Later it was found that vegetable oils were even cheaper and hydrogenation made them into a solid. The new margarine was introduced into the United States in the 1870s. When the new margarine became an even less expensive alternative to butter, the dairy association protested and brought laws into effect that prohibited the use of yellow dye in its production to distinguish it even more from the butter product. The work-around was to package a capsule or wafer of yellow dye with the margarine and let the consumer add it to the margarine. Of course the job usually fell to the children of the home which is why my friend remembered it so well.

When butter was rationed during WWII, margarine became the alternative and was popularized even more in 1941 by the National Nutrition Council who declared it to be healthier. Lots of people objected to the flavor of the margarine however and I'm sure my dad had to be one of them. When the flavor was improved he still objected to not having "real butter" in the house. My mother insisted that she only used it for cooking when he found it in the refrigerator and then quickly unwrapped the stick and put it on a butter dish so he wouldn't know he was using the margarine. I'm not sure if he gave in or truly didn't know. I'm thinking he gave in. Dad grew up on a farm and while not in Wisconsin (who didn't lift the ban on yellow coloring until 1967), he still would have know the difference, I'm sure.

My Problem With Time Travel

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I've been working on a historical novel that takes place during the Great Depression and the start of World War II. The setting for the most part is Cleveland but with a trip to San Diego. It has been quite a challenge to travel back in time to do the research especially since I don't have a time machine. But along the way I've found some really interesting things.

Cleveland's Terminal Tower is still a landmark of the city and has the RTA rapid station that services east and west ends of the area located in its lower level. At one time, it was a passenger train station as well but did it exist in 1932 and 1942 when my character, Ruby, needed a train ride? A little traveling over the internet and I had my answer. Yes. Excavation was begun in 1924, steel construction in 1926 and the Terminal Tower opened in 1929. Of course back then it was all known as the Cleveland Union Terminal.

Okay, now I know she can catch a train from there but will she have enough money to get her to San Diego in 1942? As I traveled again through time on the internet, I struggled to find a list of fares for that time period. Lots of schedules--no fares. Then I came across a group of entertainers, all women if I remember correctly, who traveled cross country for less than $100 on a train. Unfortunately I didn't bookmark the reference (and can't remember the search words) but it was enough information to know that with a little fictional seeding, my heroine could make it to San Diego from Cleveland.

History was not my most favorite subject when I was in school and I can safely say there was only one small section of one college history class I found interesting. Some of the facts from the past I've waded through for the novel have been fun and interesting but I find myself slogging through WWII history now to connect my characters with some of the battles and put two of them in the same place at the same time. This part is not fun and reminds me of why I didn't like studying history to begin with. This may be my only historical novel.

The Last Cheerio

Once again the house is quiet. All the little feet (that are getting bigger each year) are home or on their way home. Grandpa is running the vacuum. Rule of the house says we don't wash fingerprints from window though until much later. They hold too many memories. A few years ago I wrote about our precious find a few days after the little ones had left. I thought it was worth another post. Here it is:

ONE LAST CHEERIO
It is Monday morning and I’m cleaning. Two little whirlwinds have spent the weekend with us. As a grandparent, I’ve learned that time is precious with little ones, so I don’t worry about a clean house while they are here. It’s funny how your priorities change when you become a grandparent.

Tyler is three going on twenty-one. He’s become a backseat driver.

“Be careful of those semis, Grandpa, they’re dangerous,” he warns. “Don’t drive too fast.”
His sister, Danielle, is 15 months old, doesn’t talk much but flirts her way into your heart. It was her first overnight stay, but I think Mom had more separation anxiety than Danielle. My son teases her. His perception is that his mother let him venture out easily, but then he was eager to go off with his grandparents, and didn’t look back to the woman shredding a tissue as the car drove off with its precious cargo.

Just before Tyler and Danielle’s visit, our youngest grandchild, Kotomi, came to stay a while. She’s only a year old, but she snacked on Cheerios, imbibed milk, and, just as efficiently as her cousins, spread toys all over the family room and into the kitchen.

After Kotomi’s visit, my husband graciously picked up the blocks, the musical toys, the balls and all the other entertaining elements of Grandma’s toy basket while I finished the kitchen cleanup. All too quickly the house was quiet and returned to its childless state. As we sat watching TV that night, I noticed a Cheerio under the coffee table. Reaching down, I picked it up, and then placed it in Bob’s hand.

“Missed one,” I said smiling. He held it for a moment between his thumb and forefinger and reminisced happily about our time with Kotomi.

My cleaning this morning includes wiping off fingerprints from the bay window in the kitchen where Tyler and Danielle watched the birds at the feeders outside. I smile as I recall Tyler’s exclamation, “There’s the ‘picker bird!”

I’m torn between the choice of having clean windows or having the visible reminder of the joy that was brought into our home by their visit. Clean windows win out this time and I spray them with window cleaner and wipe the fingerprint evidence from the panes of glass.

I look into the family room that still needs vacuuming. There is a trail of Cheerios from the sofa to the fireplace. I cannot bring myself to destroy all the evidence of their visit. When I finish cleaning today, I will leave one Cheerio on the rug—one Cheerio for Bob to find so we can sit and reminisce, and anticipate the next visit of the little whirlwinds that fill our hearts with delight.

[Note: Tyler is now 11, Danielle and Kotomi are 9, and Kotomi has a brother, TJ, and sister, Emiko. We also have three others, our Floridians, Caleb, Annalise, and Natalie. God has blessed!]

Traveling Through the Blog World

As well as posting to Writer's Wanderings, my personal blog, I have recently become a member of several new co-authored blogs. if you haven't noticed them yet, let me introduce you.

The Barn Door is a blog that is authored by writers living in the Midwest. Some live out in the country and others, like me, live nearer to more urban areas. The posts provide quite a variety of views of the heartland of our country. The traveler in me loves seeing that part of the country through another's eyes and finding new places to put on the travel bucket list. I'll be posting there once a month.



Related to the the Barn Door but with a different twist is the Barn Door Book Loft. Here is a great place to find good books for the road. The Book Loft will be spotlighting a new author and book every couple of days. Leave a comment on each post for that book/author and you have a chance to win a copy of their book! FREE! That word just jumps out, doesn't it? I'll be posting a little more frequently there. The interviews are a lot of fun. Authors are interesting people.

Meet Annie Pickels!

Creative Travel Journaling - The Journal

We've been looking into travel journaling for a time now and hopefully you've done some homework and have tried some of the things I suggested. Once you have collected your notes, your pictures, all the things you want to keep as memories you need--the journal!

There are lots of ways to compile all these things. If you only want a written version of your travel adventure, you could buy a nice journal with blank pages, a good pen and perhaps a box to store it in. If you like using a computer like I do (my handwriting is atrocious) you could simply use your word processing program to create a file for your travel entries. There are some fancier online journals that allow you to create and write to an online site that can be public or private. Try searching for "online journals" and you should find a few sites. The ones I did find were free. There is also some journaling software available. Again search for "journaling software" and you'll find it.

Blogging is an easy way to journal as well. Blogger.com is free and easy to set up and use. It will not be private but you can use it as a way to invite friends to see what you saw and read about your adventure. You can easily upload photos to the site and embed videos from YouTube. That would require a YouTube account as well but that's not difficult either. My blog evolved into my travel journal. . . well, one of my travel journals.

I love to make books. Could you tell? I'm a writer but I'm also a dabbler in photography. My favorite way to document our trips is through making a photo book. There are lots of sites: Shutterfly, Lulu, Picaboo, Snapfish, etc. My favorite and the one that I have had the best results with for a reasonable price is Shutterfly. The photo books are fun to assemble and allow you to add text so it can become a written as well as a photo journal. Here's one of my photo books:

Click here to view this photo book larger

Start your own Shutterfly Photo Book today.

Now stay with me. I want to put one more option out there for you. If you start a blog, there is also a way to have a photo book as well without assembling it yourself. Blog 2 Print will take whatever pages of your blog you designate and turn it into a written photo journal. They do a great job as well for a reasonable price.

And of course if you are a lover of scrapbooking, there is always that option.

Have I given you enough ideas? Have I missed a few? If so, leave me a comment and tell me what you do to keep your travel memories a treasure to be enjoyed.

Related posts:
Creative Travel Journaling - The View
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