Writer for Young Adults
A few nights ago, B finished dinner early, but she wasn't quite ready for bed. So we sat on the floor of our living room in front of the Christmas tree, classical radio playing softly in the background, and read through Peter Spier's Christmas!, one of my favorite childhood books. There are no words, only… Continue reading Slow Fall
The book situation in our house has always been a bit...precarious, mostly thanks to my habit of acquiring more books than our shelves can hold. Josh keeps books, too, but he's much better about borrowing from the library and only holding onto those he receives as gifts. No, the problem is mainly due to me. There's… Continue reading Building a Little Library
Thank you for all your kind thoughts and wishes about my previous post. I'm thrilled to be moving on to the next stage in my writing adventure. After I finalized things with Laura, I took one last swing through revision-land with my project. This time it was solely to focus on historical accuracy: checking the… Continue reading The Kindness of Strangers
Veterans' Day is one of those holidays that are easy to forget. Josh and I have the day off from school today, and as we were driving to a local coffee shop for a leisurely breakfast, we reflected on our midweek break. Rhode Island gives us the day off to celebrate our veterans, but how much… Continue reading Remembrance
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
Happy December! I've just returned from a whirlwind trip home to Cleveland for Thanksgiving, and it was wonderful to see family and take long walks and eat lots of delicious (modern) food. Around the holidays we often reflect on the past--not only our recent past and childhoods, but the "family past," stories about my grandfather's… Continue reading Afternoon Adventure: The Tavern Club
Thank you for all your wonderful comments on our news! It can be scary to put big announcements out into this void of the internet, so it meant a lot to read your good wishes.We're knee-deep in fall over here in New England. Leaves turning color, crisp and clear afternoons, days growing shorter. Sometimes I… Continue reading Spiced, stewed pears
A few days ago, I started thinking about the difficulties of looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. Let's face it: life without electricity, equal voting rights, or antibiotics would be way harder. To explore this point further, let's look at life without two rather nice appliances (albeit just for the two weeks that we… Continue reading Hand wash only (II)
It's easy to wax nostalgic about the "good old days," that halcyon golden age when kids didn't do drugs or drink underage, and life was simpler, without cell phones and social media complicating things. (Yes, I'm guilty of this!) There are a few things wrong with this kind of thinking, though: first, the "good old… Continue reading Hand wash only (I)
Yesterday I celebrated my birthday! I turned 27, just a few weeks after this blog turned 2. In between melting in the 90-degree heat and dashing through torrential rainstorms (yes, it was an eventful day, weather-wise), I enjoyed a pastry from my favorite bakery, assembled a Settlement birthday cake, and tried out a new restaurant with… Continue reading Devil’s cake no. 1
Abby Murphy 