the blog

My Secret musings

Fifty-Eight and Counting My kidney transplant took place on April 9th, 2024. I thought I’d describe a little about the process (what I remember anyway) and my progress so far. I checked into the hospital early that morning and was brought to the nurse’s station where they got me ready for surgery. I changed into […]

May 5, 2024

You might ask, like so many before you, “How do we cope?” The answer is prayer! Lots of prayer, including our own.

December 10, 2023

My husband, the love of my life, has lots of interests and I am often amazed at how varied they are. I thought I’d put together a little compilation of favorite moments and surprises for your viewing pleasure. Some I was a part of, some I knew about in advance, and  and some I was […]

Airplane Project

October 18, 2022

Never did I ever think that I would find myself in my fifties needing to lose a lot of weight.  Afterall, I fought that demon in my early forties, and I thought I won when I took up cycling.  It wasn’t that long ago that I rode 120 miles a week on my Pinarello carbon […]

September 22, 2022

I live in central California in a home that was built in the 1960s.  Not many homes of that era were built with central air conditioning, and ours is no exception.  For the most part, we get along just fine.  We have a couple of portable air conditioners in our home that take the edge […]

Family Dinner

September 5, 2022

Steve's Stairwell DIY

September 3, 2022

The global book market in 2021 was 138.3 billion dollars.  I was surprised to learn, according to Global Books Market Size & Industry Trends Report, 2022 – 2030 (grandviewresearch.com), that by 2030, it is estimated to be 164.22 billion.  Let’s do an over-simplified calculation; at an average book price of $15, that is 9.2 billion […]

How do You Choose?

September 2, 2022

Me and Lola

I found some older photos today and I chuckled because nothing has changed.  Lola doesn’t go far, and when I am writing, she is right next to me.  My husky mix, Clarabelle, is usually at my feet.  In the comments below, post pictures and tell me stories about your animals!

August 30, 2022

Luka Volkov is the Renegade in my book The Renegade’s Daughter – The Life She Never Knew.  He is from Russia, but with all the suspense and intrigue, we do not explore where he is from or where he lives in the first book.   We know that he and his brother Oleg operate a factory […]

Perm, Russia

August 28, 2022

Power of Perseverance

As I wrote and published my recent book, it became clear how important perseverance is when you are working on a large project.  When you self-publish, you are responsible for all aspects of the process.  Obviously, you write the material.  Then, you need to ensure that the material is formatted correctly for both print and […]

August 26, 2022