Today, it rained all day. It seemed dreary but, on the other hand, the rain was a welcome sight. Small shoots are popping out of the ground that will grow to be lovely early spring flowers. All of our spring flowers are delayed because of the seemingly endless and excruciatingly cold winter.  I admit that

defining alliteration Today’s writing exercise is all about alliteration. Here is a definition of alliteration that I found on line: “the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connection words.” This is definitely the stuff of tongue twisters, such as “she sells seashells by the seashore” or “Peter

The exercise for today is a creative writing exercise. It’s a bit different than yesterday’s. Today, you’re going to go to an online word generator and you’re going to get eight words that will be randomly selected by computer. Once again, the idea is to use your imagination and have fun in the process.  The

Today is a day off from the alphabet blogging (the A to Z Challenge), so I decided to do a creative writing activity. I would encourage you to do the same activity. It is a lot of fun and has the potential to produce a lot of giggles. Before I get started on the activity,

I belong to a book club that meets at the Grand Island Memorial Library once a month. We read a variety of books, including fiction, classics, nonfiction, and memoir. The benefit of belonging to a book club is that you read books by authors who are unknown to you. There are books that I would

I signed up for the A through Z blogging challenge for the month of April and, of course, promptly forgot about it.  Fortunately, today, I received a friendly reminder. So I am a little bit behind schedule but I am used to being behind schedule (or battling with tight deadlines), so I am OK with

Note: The above picture was painted in August 2013 at Beaver Island State Park. It is a view of the river from the park. Before I tell you the tragic story of Strawberry Island, I want to tell you about one of my most favorite of children’s books: The Giving Tree, written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein

In October, documentary filmmaker Jackie Albarella gave a presentation to the Grand Island Historical Society about the history and restoration of the Hotel Lafayette in downtown Buffalo. I was so fascinated by the pictures of this Buffalo landmark that I bought Jackie’s book. The book was created from Jackie’s experiences at the hotel. She was

In Alabama, it is considered an offense to open an umbrella on a street, for fear of spooking horses.Horse: That works for me.Human: There are hardly any horses on the street. I have to open the umbrella on the street because opening it up inside is bad luck, which may be a bigger deterrent than the