Generations
Are differences among generations insurmountable?
Available Now . . .
Take a dive into history . . .
Tag along with World War II pilot George Geib as he sails across the Atlantic on a luxury-liner-turned-troop-transport, drops glider planes across enemy lines, is fired upon by anti-aircraft weapons, and attends the Nuremberg Trials.
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MY MOTHER’S KEEPER: ONE FAMILY’S JOURNEY THROUGH DEMENTIA
My Mother’s Keeper: One Family’s Journey through Dementia is a memoir that follows the last three years of my mother’s life. I kept a journal throughout the experience and afterward, I realized that it was a story worth sharing.
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Most people, at some point in their lives, confront issues with aging parents. Whether the problems are medical, financial, logistical, or emotional—or some combination—it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless.
When my journey through parental dementia began, I didn’t know how much I didn’t know. I should have sought information about Alzheimer’s disease earlier. At first, I didn’t even recognize it as an illness. Once I found myself up to my neck in a nightmare, I had no time for research. I spent every waking moment coping, reacting, and scrambling. I was simply too exhausted to do more than try to put out each fire as it flared.
Later, once the crisis subsided, I found several books, articles, and websites that contained helpful information about dementia, its associated behaviors, and care suggestions for patients. What I didn’t find were stories of how families coped with it. By sharing my experience, I aim to help fill that gap. This book tells my family’s story of rapidly accelerating personality changes, aggression, violence, fear, mistakes, hopelessness, helplessness, and eventual closure. I hope it will help readers who find themselves embarking on a similar journey understand that they are not alone.
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Note to bookstores and libraries: This title can also be ordered through Ingram Spark, ISBN 978-1-7370206-0-8. Order HERE via Ingram Spark.
August 2026
Morning at the Cove
Okay, I’m a word nerd. I love playing with words, examining multiple meanings, putting nouns, verbs, and adjectives into paragraphs, stories, articles, and even an occasional poem. But some words run deeper than I give them credit for. “Cove” is one of those.
Saving Cottontail
Sometimes nature literally throws a haiku at me during my morning walk. This happened today:
July 2026
Too Young to Die
Last Sunday my husband and I learned that Christine passed away July 22 at the age of thirty. She is the second of our eight former foster children to die. Montoya’s life ended at the age of 31 on June 11, 2021. The mother of two of our other kids left this earth in 2007 at the age of 38. Their brother passed just a few years ago, in his early thirties. I am heartbroken.
Kindness Lives
There’s been a lot of construction traffic lately along the streets in my neighborhood. It’s noisy and sometimes dangerous.
Common Sense
July 2026 is turning out to be the strangest Independence Day celebration I’ve seen in my 71+ years on earth. My country seems turned upside-down and cattywampus. I’m worried but still have hope that the America I thought I knew will pull together to make it through these trying times and continue to strive to make our nation a better place: one that embodies the ideals of those who signed the Declaration of Independence.
June 2026
Revisiting “Found”
After the Persimmon Tree literary journal picked up my short contribution to their summer forum, I reworked the piece into a longer essay and presented it last Thursday on the Cherokee County Arts Council stage in Murphy, NC. The event, Poetry, Prose, and Pie, is a series sponsored by Common Ground, a grassroots organization dedicated to peace, justice, and community building in Western North Carolina. Their efforts emphasize education, advocacy, and bridging divides within the local mountain communities. This is the third PPP event I’ve participated in, where local authors share their work around a theme. This time, the theme was “Found,” and here is my essay:
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
The hostas have fully recovered, three years after we fenced out the deer, who thought this garden was their personal candy store. Come dormant season, we'll do some transplanting to spread them out a bit. The astilbe plants in the lower terrace are recovering, too. They all love the shade under the oaks.
Home again!
It’s nice to be back home after two weeks on the road. More about that later, but for now I’ll just share my homecoming haiku:
May 2026
Foxy!
When I first looked outside this morning, I saw a red fox trucking along the edge of the yard, apparently wrapping up his nighttime hunting expedition. He paid me no mind, although I stood less than 20 feet from him. Any day that begins with wildlife is a good day. Here is the haiku I wrote about it:
Fun at the Senior Games
Several of us in the Ridgeline Writers group received medals in the Literary Arts division yesterday at the Cherokee/Clay Senior Games Silver Arts awards ceremony. I won gold for a fiction story, and silver in the essay and life experiences categories.
April 2026
Tall Tales & Good Eats
Lies and Pies was a hit last night at the Peacock Performing Arts Center in Hayesville, North Carolina. I shared my "Seagulls with a Side of Fries" story, with a twist. What an honor to be asked to present a tale alongside a wonderful roster of storytellers and musicians!
Where the Mountains Speak
I’m “a day late and a dollar short” with this announcement. Last fall I submitted my entry, Not a Ghost of a Chance, to the Gilmer Arts Literary Anthology (in a neighboring county in north Georgia). They didn’t notify me that it was accepted, so I assumed that it was not and I forgot all about it.
Artemis II
Seeing the Artemis II splashdown on TV last night felt like a breath of fresh air. Newscasters focused, for the first time in months (or maybe years), on something other than politics and war.
Easing into Spring
I am partial to North Carolina’s state flower, flowering dogwood (Cornus florida).
March 2026
Spears and Roots
The white oak trees behind our home produced a bumper crop of acorns last fall. I didn’t think much about it, figuring that such plenty would result in a happy and healthy gray squirrel population. When the tree leaves dropped, our asparagus patch snuggled in for the winter.
Making a Difference
Most mornings, I pour myself a cup of coffee and then check my email, the headlines, and Facebook to see who’s having a birthday today so I can send well-wishes. Much of that routine has become grim during the troubled times in which we live.
Happy Spring!
Yesterday marked the first day of spring. Today's morning walk inspired a haiku trio to start the season out right!
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