Writer for Young Adults
For a long time I haven't known what to do with this space. As you've probably noticed, I haven't featured a recipe in quite some time, and my posting is sparse. Partially this is due to the amount of time it takes me to settle into a new school year and a new set of… Continue reading Transitions
AKA: That time we went to Downton Abbey. We saw all sorts of wonderful things on our honeymoon. The Churchill War Rooms, the Tower of London, Stonehenge, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, a play with Sîan Phillips...and yet, now that we're back, every time someone asks us what we saw, the first thing out of my… Continue reading Afternoon Adventure: Highclere Castle
We've just returned from our honeymoon and family vacations (nothing wrong with a month away!), and I'm excited to share some of our adventures with you. But today I'm thinking about World War I (known as the Great War by most English-speaking historians until the second war broke out), which began at the end of… Continue reading Reading World War I
This summer we're trying out a CSA, or "Community Supported Agriculture." Each week we pick up a manageable amount of fresh vegetables (and sometimes a potted plant!) from a nearby farm. Having paid the farm in advance for the season, we receive a certain amount of credit that can go towards any of the produce available… Continue reading Carrot pudding
Last summer I participated in a fun blog hop for writers and illustrators and generally interesting folk. The inimitable Shelley Sackier tagged me to participate in this year's hop, and I was excited to join. Shelley Sackier is a bone-tired woman who faces a daily insurmountable amount of laundering and cleaning of crockery. These tasks… Continue reading Spring blog hop!
I really like to listen to stories while I cook. Sometimes it's books on tape (Jim Dale narrating Harry Potter? check!), sometimes it's NPR, and lately it's been dramatized mysteries. My sister and I grew up listening to dramatized Agatha Christie books and the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes radio plays from the 1940s, so much… Continue reading By Timothy!
I promise this isn't going to become a blog about weddings. But it turns out that when you're planning a wedding, you end up thinking about weddings a lot. Sometimes it's fun, and sometimes you want to plug up your ears and sing "I can't hear you!" when the next person asks about your colors.… Continue reading Wedding dress, 1920
It's hard to come back after a long hiatus. February started busy and things just kept on getting busier, and here we are in the middle of March. Maybe I should have guessed that planning a wedding, revising a book, and teaching middle school all at the same time would be pretty hectic. (Thinking about it… Continue reading Teaching history
Happy Valentine's Day! I've been hunkered down at home with a nasty virus, and the wintry mix outside isn't doing much to make things feel more festive. So instead, I've been daydreaming about our summer honeymoon in England. Josh and I have been studying guidebooks galore, making lists of places to see and trading visions… Continue reading Personal reading history
But really, it's here.Last weekend Josh and I hosted two separate gatherings of friends to play the Game of Thrones board game. This is a complicated, multiplayer game where folks play as the houses (House Stark, for example) from the books by George R.R. Martin. Each house aims to capture seven castles, all while dealing… Continue reading Winter is coming
Abby Murphy 