Resilience – in gardening and writing

If you’re a gardener, ‘Lacecaps’ and ‘Mopheads’ will likely be familiar terms. They describe the two main groups of hydrangeas within which there are several different species and varieties. And that’s just about all I know about hydrangeas! On second thought, that’s not entirely true. I know that many of the varieties are sensitive to soil

Putting the ‘friend’ into cyber friendships

On her blog a few years ago, author Jody Hedlund questioned if our modern cyber world is distorting the meaning of the word ‘friend’. She asked, “How would you define a true friend and can you find that kind of friendship in the cyber world?” I’ve often thought about that question but never really come

Confidence-building TLC for Writers

My lack of gardening skills isn’t news to most of you. I regularly mutter about the invasion of weeds and wild things throughout my rural garden. We’re on a well, so after their first year, most plants don’t even get watered unless the weather decides to rain down on them. It’s no wonder things barely survive from

Wednesday’s Words of Worship: Life Shadows

Writers know a lot about insecurity, rejection, disappointment and discouragement, but I don’t suppose there is anyone whose life at some time hasn’t dipped into the shadows. The reassurance and confidence expressed in this hymn remind us of God’s promises. He said he would always be here for us even when shadows make it difficult for

What will this New Year mean for your writing?

It begins again… this cycle of seasons bundled into the whirlwind called Time.  We’re perched on the cusp of 2013, wondering how the past year – for me it’s more like the past decade – could have swirled away so quickly. The last page of the 2012 calendar will fall away tonight. There’s a new

The View from Here

Have you ever yearned to be somewhere else… to see something other than the everyday ordinary? “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” is a saying with more truth in it than I care to acknowledge. With our lake-to-lake and through-the-mountains travels concluded, I could be mourning the lack of

I. Am. A. Writer.

. K.M. Weiland says a lot of things that grab me when I think I can sneak past with a cursory glance at her site. It’s that moment when time is limited and I promise myself I’ll just snatch a brief look at her topic du jour and get back to work. She never lets

Sunshine, Shadows and Moving On

. As much as we might wish it, life isn’t full of blue skies. There are clouds and shadows, too — a lot of mountaintop and valley experiences. We know that. Blog posts from fellow bloggers illustrate that many have faced staggering obstacles and struggled through difficult times. The internet has made it easier to

The effect of nurture… in a landscape, on a writer

. When I’m struggling through a bad writing day I’m always amazed at what happens when someone unexpectedly blesses me with a bit of encouragement. It’s nurturing. It’s like irrigation to a barren landscape. Nowhere is the impact of water more evident than in arid locales near Cache Creek in south central British Columbia. My

Challenging Changes

. Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. Our trip home from the Okanagan mid-week was one of those things. The afternoon’s drive started out pleasantly enough. Sunshine. Picture-perfect clouds. Hardly any traffic. I barely noticed as more clouds snuck in… … until suddenly, well along the mountainous Coquihalla Highway, the darkened skies dumped their