Happy first birthday to The Cottage at Firefly Lake!

 This week I marked a very special anniversary. It’s been a year since my first book, The Cottage at Firefly Lake came out, and I realized my childhood dream of becoming a published author. Publication day, 31 January 2017, was a day of excitement and a profound...

Courage…and “learning to dance in the rain”

If you read my first blog of 2018, you know that the word I’ve chosen to guide me this year is “courage.” Like all of us, my life has had its ups and downs. It’s through troubles, though, that I’ve found hope and inspiration to help me...

Books on my nightstand

Confession time. To my husband’s dismay, and as the teetering pile of books on my nightstand  attests, I’m the kind of person who reads multiple books at the same time, happily skipping from one to another as the mood takes me. I’m also the kind of...

Family ties

My mom grew up in a picturesque Canadian village in rural eastern Ontario—twelve miles from where I now live.   Dotted with stone buildings and tucked into a rolling landscape of century farms and historic waterways, it’s a place that shaped me as a person, as well as...

In search of comfort food

“When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.” Or in my case, shopping for comfort food. As the weather cools, and darkness comes earlier, it’s the time of year for comfort food. However, in addition to childhood favorites like chicken pot pie,...