A Writer's Life Archives - Page 3 of 10 - View from the Front Porch

3 04, 2023

Hand-me-ups

By judythemorgan|2023-04-01T08:43:10-05:00April 3rd, 2023|A Writer's Life, Writer's Life|0 Comments

Growing up hand-me-downs and mended defined most of our clothing.

There were everyday school clothes, play clothes, and Sunday/dress-up clothes. You didn’t wear a Sunday outfit to school unless it was a special occasion and you never ever wore your good things to play in.

Dresses, jeans, shorts, and shoes were passed between siblings and cousins, and friends. We’ve carried that tradition down, always passing good clothing and stuff we can’t use on to friends and family.

Whenever our family gets together these days, we still exchange what we call the “obligatory bag.” Inside can be clothing, shoes, magazines, food, or any manner of re-useable household items to pass along.

In a recent exchange, my youngest daughter passed on some sneakers for me.

I have to smile. As the youngest child, she wasn’t always excited about her hand-me-down, homemade wardrobe. She rarely got brand-new, store-bought things. Now she’s carrying on the tradition in reverse—hand-me-ups.

I love my “new” bright pink sneakers.

27 03, 2023

The Garden

By judythemorgan|2023-03-27T09:11:30-05:00March 27th, 2023|A Writer's Life, Writer's Life|0 Comments

Gardens are gifts to ourselves and wildlife. The once sadly neglected gardens at our home are once again a place of refuge for humans as well as animals and birds. It’s taken time, back-breaking labor, and lots of patience.

The previous owners hadn’t been able to keep things up, but since our house was a designated Certified Habitat for Wildlife, the beginnings were there. Over the last six years, we’ve trimmed, removed dead trees, cleared brush gone wild, planted, and watered until we had a garden and could sit on the porch and enjoy the view.

There were times of throwing our hands in the air and shouting what’s the point? We wrestled with hoses and tripped over shovels. Our backs hurt. Our shoulders ached.

But we persevered.

What began as pitiful patches of sickly grass, haggard shrubs, sad old crepe myrtles, a neglected dogwood, and a sad tulip magnolia, returned to life. The birds and butterflies came back. Our backyard became a busy wildlife place again.

Then Mother Nature stuck with four days of below-freezing temperatures and crippled our efforts. Our garden sanctuary was once again dead and desolate.

Ugly brown foliage was all we saw from the porch swing. The creek fountain sprung a leak. The birdbaths were abandoned. Gone was the respite of sitting on the porch.

Spring-like weather finally arrived but the yard wasn’t the same. Missing the birds and the blooms, we started over.

We found the pond leaks and sealed them. The fountain flows again. Water trickles over the creek bed into the pond. A helper cleared the frostbitten plants and weeds, removed dead shrubs, and dug holes for new shrubbery, then spread mulch. College boy neighbors, on spring break and needing cash, cleared the roof and raked debris into thirteen bags.

Weeks later zinnia and marigold seeds are sprouting. Four o’clocks and Cardinal plants are popping up in the dirt behind the patio and fountain. The Angel Trumpet has new growth and the freshly planted Arbor Day seedlings have tiny leaves. Our sanctuary’s begun to emerge again.

Soon we can sit on the porch swing and watch butterflies and hummingbirds feasting on blooms. Birds will bathe in the tricking pond again.

I can’t wait. Come on warm weather.

13 03, 2023

Country Living

By judythemorgan|2023-03-11T11:12:23-06:00March 13th, 2023|A Writer's Life, Make Me Think Monday|2 Comments

Living in the country means living with wildlife. Raccoons, possums, deer, gophers, and armadillos are always roaming around, tunneling through the property.

We see them cross the yard late at night and/or early in the morning. Usually, it’s no big deal.

Unless there’s a major rainstorm and four inches of rain falls in an afternoon for two days in a row.

When that happens, this happens.

Fence posts washed out.

Deep ruts through the yard.

Gigantic dirt washes where the tunnels were.

It’s a mess and dangerous to humans and pets.

We had the holes filled and contacted a wildlife relocation company to trap the armadillo we’d seen in the yard multiple times.

Traps were set around his most recent dig sites.

The wildlife relocator assured us the armadillo would be guided into his traps by the interesting construction.

A configuration that looks like giant wooden Xs leading to the no-kill traps.

Right…

It’s been three weeks since the traps were set.

No armadillo inside either trap.

The question now is: Do we leave the traps? Or assume Mr. Armadillo has moved on to more fertile ground because we spread stuff to wipe out all the ants and grubs he’d been munching on?

If we remove the traps, I’m sure the creatures will, no doubt, return to dig tunnels again. They have that inbred sense to know when danger is gone and dinner is available.

So the battle of living in the country goes on. I’m thinking the traps have been up so long the yard will look funny without them. We’re gonna keep trying.

27 02, 2023

Scents of Spring and Dirt

By judythemorgan|2023-02-26T07:44:05-06:00February 27th, 2023|A Writer's Life|3 Comments

Spring must seem lost for many of you who are buried under mountains of snow from blizzards. Down here where I live, the scents of spring are already in the air. Green sprouts dot bushes and trees and temperatures are pushing eighty degrees…in February!

We spent a day clearing winter’s carnage of dead leaves and pine needles from the flowerbeds and unlocked the pungent earthy aroma of the black earth. I inhaled the promise of spring’s colorful blooms as the scent of dirt filled my senses.

Memories floated in my head.

~Helping my grandmother weed her gardens.

~Making dirt mud pies and cakes for my siblings to sample.

~Planting seedpods so my children could watch a plant sprout and then produce something edible.

~Hiking in the woods with the pungent smell of years-old decaying leaves and stumps.

I still enjoy feeling dirt. The texture of lumpy clumps of rich, moist black dirt on my hands, with maybe an earthworm wiggling through. Powdery dirt flowing through my fingers when the ground is dry. Gritty dirt dying on my jeans after I’ve wiped my hands.

The earthy smells and memories make me smile.

This morning tiny tentacles of green, freed from all that weight, pushed upward through the dirt. There’ll be another wave of winter and the weeds will return, I’m sure, but today I see the promise of spring.

If you’re looking at snow, hang on spring will come. It always does.

23 01, 2023

Shivering

By judythemorgan|2023-01-20T13:08:54-06:00January 23rd, 2023|A Writer's Life|1 Comment

Another freeze snap came our way in December. What we call a hard freeze in Texas. Three nights of temperatures below freezing. But no precipitation. That was good.

Nothing like the great Ice Apocalypse of 2021 when we had subzero temps for days and ice came down in sheets. Resulting in no power for days.

This time the power grid paid attention to the weather forecasters. Homeowners made ready covering plants and dripping faucets.

Many still lost electricity as dead tree limbs fell.

Attention, people: You have to keep the limbs away from the electric lines. They break transformers and power lines in any weather or wind if you don’t.

Winter ice storms are uncharacteristic for our area and when they happen the whole place shuts down. Severe cold days for long periods can shut things down too. Ice and snow freeze freeway ramps and turn roadways into ice rinks. Most people stay inside trying to stay warm.

Rain can be as bad as ice. Heavy rainfall leads to flooding. That’s why we have flood stages predictions with rain forecasts here. Water has no place to go. It sits on roads and in fields for days.

Problem is, most local drivers don’t manage either ice, snow, or rain very well. Southerners know how to sweat. Not slip, skate, and slide.

But let me tell you, the Gulf Coast Texas can get COLD. Very cold. We’ve lived in the high mountains of Colorado where temperatures drop below zero but the humidity here makes even thirty degrees feel like -30.

I spend every winter cold snap shivering. But I don’t let shivers stop me. I bundle up, grab a mug of hot chocolate, and let the words blaze.

Don’t let cold weather shivers keep you from what you need to do either, hang on Spring will be here in sixty-four days. Click here to check how many days and hours.

16 01, 2023

The Fitzpatrick Series is finished so why am I sad?

By judythemorgan|2023-01-08T12:10:00-06:00January 16th, 2023|A Writer's Life, Book Release Announcement|0 Comments

When Love Comes Home, the last of the Fitzpatrick Family Series, released in December 2022. I should be excited and anxious to plunge into a new manuscript, only I’m not.

I do have a sense of relief along with exhaustion considering the amount of energy and focus it took to “birth” Sammy and Tiffany’s story.

But there’s also this lonely feeling that keeps creeping in. I found comfort in knowing I had a Fitzpatrick sibling romance to work on every morning and dream about at night.

I miss the arguments where the siblings tried to persuade me to change my outline. I must admit, sometimes what they came up with was better and more interesting than what I’d planned.

After sharing my feelings with writer friends, I’ve discovered I’m not alone. Sluggishness, a lack of motivation, and energy are common when a writer finishes a book. When an author finishes a series that has taken years to complete the feelings are stronger.

It will subside they assure me. Time for me to move on and do the next thing they advise, reminding me all the Fitzpatrick siblings – Andy and Darcy, Becca and Ethan, Sarah and Nick, Josh and Mara, Faith and Blake, Sammy and Tiffany – have found their soulmate.

And that’s true.

So I’ve started a new manuscript. The new characters and I are doing that first 50- or 60-page dance of discovery. Soon they’ll begin to talk to me, and argue, then I’m sure I’ll be able to bid Sammy and Tiffany and the others farewell.

Want to meet the Fitzpatrick Family? Click the links below. Each novel can be read as a standalone story.

If you have an Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscription, you can read all the books for FREE.

5 12, 2022

Christmas Stockings – Tradition and Legacy

By judythemorgan|2022-12-04T10:20:59-06:00December 5th, 2022|A Writer's Life, Holidays|1 Comment

Why do we hang stockings at Christmas? The origin of the tradition comes from a folkloric story. The Cliff Notes version goes like this:

A kindly Saint Nicholas learned of a penniless widower with three daughters and no dowry for them. St. Nick came to the widower’s house and filled his three daughters’ stockings, hanging on the fireplace to dry, with gold coins.

Different versions, each with its own twist, have continued to fuel Christmas decorating for hundreds of years. You can read more details here.

Our family’s Christmas stocking tradition started with my Irish grandmother, who made stockings for each of her grandchildren.

Every Christmas morning we’d go over to her house to find Santa had left our stockings. We never questioned why there and not at our house. Instead, on Christmas morning we piled in the car with our mother and went to her house to find our stockings stuffed with small gifts like jewelry or nail clippers, an orange, an apple, Hersey kisses, pecans, almonds, walnuts, and Brazil nuts.

The orange supposedly represented the gold coins the three impoverished girls found. The nuts, I think, were merely filler. I never ate them as a child.

That ritual continued until I got married. Then Grandmother made a stocking for my husband soon to be followed by three more for our children.

We always hung the stockings and opened them on Christmas morning along with “Santa” gifts from under the tree. Because we never lived nearby, we never got to continue the stockings at grandmother’s house tradition.

Time passed and our children married and had children. We’d lost Grandmother so making Christmas stockings fell to me.

I made four stockings for children’s spouses and twelve grandchildren. Plus, a couple for nieces and nephews.

Our grandchildren started getting married which meant more stockings to make for spouses and three great-grandchildren. I’ve made seventeen!

Grandmother would never make stockings for pets. I couldn’t say no and have stockings for granddogs and grandbunnies.

She’d shortened long names like Stephanie Jean, to the initials S.J., which troubled my youngest all her life. Remembering how she felt, I don’t shorten names on stocking instead I substitute nicknames like Alex for Alexander and Theo for Theodore. I’m hoping the guys won’t mind when they’re older.

Making Christmas stockings is a labor of love, a family tradition, and this Nana’s Christmas legacy.

29 08, 2022

Bye, Bye Summer

By judythemorgan|2022-08-28T12:58:17-05:00August 29th, 2022|A Writer's Life, Writer's Life|1 Comment

Another summer is about over. Labor Day is coming.

Fall will officially arrive on September 22, 2022, at 9:03 pm EDT.

Every year at the end of August this one-time schoolteacher becomes a little nostalgic. I’m not saying I’d want to be back teaching in a classroom again. Not with the challenges teachers face today.

Once the back-to-school chatter begins, I can’t stop a part of me from missing the excitement of setting up my classroom and seeing the eager young faces.

I swallow the lump in my throat from memories when I spot a school bus and send up a prayer for a “really good year” for the bus driver, the kids, and the teacher waiting in the classroom.

Back-to-school this year meant three grandchildren headed off the college. One to Arizona, one to Missouri, and one to San Antonio. Two others continue honing their craft as electricians and auto mechanics. The youngest granddaughter continues her homeschooling toward high graduation.

The most exciting thing about this year’s back-to-school is another granddaughter follows her mom, Chicken Wrangler Sara aka music teacher, and me into her classroom as a first-year teacher.

Another granddaughter will continue her teaching career at a new school. Say a little prayer for both of them and all teachers.

August is more than back to school though, it’s the freshness of new beginnings. A time of changes. A mid-year New Year’s Day.

I’m looking forward to the new season. What about you?

15 08, 2022

And then came Cribbage

By judythemorgan|2022-08-13T08:41:53-05:00August 15th, 2022|A Writer's Life, Writer's Life|1 Comment

All the boiling hot, humid days where we live have forced us to spend more time than usual inside. We’ve read, we’ve taken siestas, but mostly we’ve stayed inside and played games.

We dusted off the Scrabble game and ordered a current Scrabble dictionary. You can read the blog about Scrabble and the Heat here. Our games are challenging and competitive The outcome often depends upon who draws the Q, Z, or J tile. Our vocabularies have grown.

Wanting a game to challenged our math skills, we rediscovered Cribbage. Our granddaughter taught us years ago but we’d forgotten the details and we didn’t have a game in our game cabinet stash.

We ordered a Cribbage board from Amazon. While we awaited its arrival, we learned about the game and watched how to play it on YouTube videos. The game seemed complicated, but we did agree that we needed a challenge.

The history of Cribbage is fascinating. The game has been around since the 1600s and the way it is played has not changed. Charles Dickens’s description in The Old Curiosity Shop helped with its popularity in Victorian England. The game is played worldwide now.

We also learned Cribbage is a favorite on American submarines. The O’Kane Cribbage board of Rear Admiral Dick O’Kane is carried aboard the oldest active submarine of the United States Pacific Fleet.

Cribbage vocabulary is even more fun than its history.

Hands consist of a deal, the play, and the show. You earn points for pairs, runs, and straights until the play totals thirty-one or a player plays his last card. Points of 15 or 31 are scored with pegs on the snake-like board design called streets. Games are played to 121. All the adding and analyzing is great for our brains.

Cards are cut to decide who deals the six cards. You discard two cards from your hand for your crib.

The unused card pile is cut again and the top card is used to total points for a hand, and if it’s a Jack, the dealer scores two points for his heels or his nibs.

Then you have your muggings and Lindbergh’s, and always a pone or opponent.

Cribbage has a non-profit organization The American Cribbage Congress, dedicated to making the game fun and fair for people of all ages.

And best of all, the fast-playing game keeps us entertained on hot days.

I’m thinking it’ll work as well on chilly winter days too.

18 07, 2022

Guest Book Tradition

By judythemorgan|2022-07-17T07:01:29-05:00July 18th, 2022|A Writer's Life, Make Me Think Monday, Writer's Life|0 Comments

When you read the blog title, bet you thought about a guest book at a wedding or funeral or the cute welcome books at bed and breakfast inns or Airbnbs. There are those, but that’s not our guest book tradition.

We welcome guests to our home with our guest book and a cead mile failte plaque, which is the Irish greeting that means “A hundred thousand welcomes.”

Asking our guests to sign our guest book is a tradition we started when we were first married, a long time ago. As we moved around the country and world, we’ve always had a guest book. Guests who come for dinner or stay longer have filled more than one.

When we lived in Colorado, every summer our home overflowed with guests escaping the heat of their hometowns. Now that we are back in hot, humid Texas the guest book pages aren’t filling near as fast.

We have other guest books. The one from our wedding, and all the guest books listing those who paid their condolences at family funerals. We rarely look at those, but I’m so glad we have kept our home guest books.

We have signatures of family and friends from far and near. We even have Earl Campbell’s signature from his days as the Houston Oilers’ star running back. It’s fun to skim through the names and remember the occasion. We smile every time from fond memories with our guests.

If you don’t use a guest book in your home, and you’re interested in starting to use one, there are some great ideas on Pinterest. A lot are for wedding guest books but are easily adapted for home guest books.

This is a cute blog about a young couple and their guest book. They share their reasons for having a guest book and how they chose from all the options.