"Love and service, with a belief in the future and expectation of better things in the tomorrow of the world, is a good working philosophy." ~Laura Ingalls Wilder Every so often, an author comes along who can make a piece of fiction seem so real that readers mistake it for unvarnished truth. Laura Ingalls Wilder… Continue reading Timeline: The Real Laura Ingalls Wilder
Category: The Narrator
Jen’s personal blog
Things that go bump in the night
"By developing a deeper understanding of what we believe is basic and understood, we are led to new, unseen frontiers." -Edward Burger and Michael Starbird, The Heart of Mathematics I've always been fascinated by the macabre. When I was a little girl, I couldn't find enough ghost stories to keep me satisfied, so I would… Continue reading Things that go bump in the night
Messy (A short story)
For Mom. Messy, messy, messy. She couldn’t be sure exactly who claimed to have cleaned the room last, but it certainly wasn’t done right. One of the new girls, probably. Little high school brats who cared more about spending their paycheck than doing a good enough job to earn it. Julie sniffed at the thought.… Continue reading Messy (A short story)
Things I do at work
So today my work partner for the past 3+ years is saying his goodbyes as he heads off to greener pastures. I'm not overly upset, because we're still in some of the same social circles outside of work, but I will miss working with him every day and having someone with a similar sense of… Continue reading Things I do at work
Little house in the backyard
As children, my younger sister Lisa and I would often play a game in the summer called Pioneer. Working partly from the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder and partly from books in the American Girls series, each morning we loaded our toy wagon with provisions, strapped our dolls into their sun bonnets, and slowly made… Continue reading Little house in the backyard
The girl in the front of the room
Well good times come and good times go, I only wish the good times would last a little longer I think about the good times we had, and why they had to end... -Social Distortion, "Story of My Life" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The most momentous decision of my life took place on a concrete bench in the middle of… Continue reading The girl in the front of the room
Pirate Scandal Leads to Guild Talks, Job Openings
Author's note: due to late nights the past few weeks at my paying job, I have a bunch of articles started but not completed for this blog that will be forthcoming over the next few weeks. In the meantime, the following is a parody short I did in April of 2009 for a project my… Continue reading Pirate Scandal Leads to Guild Talks, Job Openings
The portable rooftop garden
It is not particularly easy to grow a varied vegetable garden in pots on a top floor balcony.Certain plants, like tomatoes or herbs, take well to the confined space of the potted environment. Others may grow moderately well given the circumstances - one year I sowed carrots in an old dish pan and ended up… Continue reading The portable rooftop garden
“Futility” was a better name than “Wreck of the Titan”
So one of the books that made my reading list as a side quest to the book project was Morgan Robertson's Futility, or The Wreck of the Titan. For Titanic aficionados, this was the 1898 novel about a shipwreck that supposedly mirrored (14 years in advance) the sinking of the HMS Titanic, right down to… Continue reading “Futility” was a better name than “Wreck of the Titan”
Bouncing Baby Superstitions
It seems like everyone around me is popping out kids nowadays. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I have switched from drinking water to downing hard cider as a general precaution - not to avoid having children myself, but more to brace myself against the incessant Facebook posts about the ongoing… Continue reading Bouncing Baby Superstitions
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