Last weekend, my family drove about an hour out of the way to meet family for ice cream. We weren’t coming from home, so we took a different route than we were used to. Things were looking familiar until out of nowhere, a beautiful valley opened up revealing a farm that looked like it might […]
Browsing Posts in Fantastic Friday
In 9th grade, I had an Earth Science teacher who told us that “books change lives,” and although I believed him, I didn’t understand what he meant until I was older. Without my realizing it, books have been changing my life since I started reading. Reading Gary Paulsen as a kid helped instill my resourceful […]
Books, Books, Books! I blogged earlier this month about summer reading. It’s always been a favorite activity for me since I can remember. Today, my county library was having a huge book sale set up in one of the middle schools. The sale spanned the cafeteria, two gyms, and several other rooms—and it was packed! […]
This week marked my kid’s last day in the “bees” room at pre-school and a very long two-day week wrapping up the school year (the shortest weeks are always the ones that seem the longest). As I struggled through early-morning (and very hot) graduation and stressful end-of-year deadlines, including packing up classrooms for summer construction, […]
Happy Summer! Okay, so summer may not be here officially given the date on the calendar, but it is June, and school is out, and I’m already halfway through my first summer reading book. For today’s Fantastic Friday post, I wanted to give a shout-out to the students at Catoctin Elementary School, who invited me […]
This post comes a bit late, as for the real Mother’s Day I had to do a little sleuthing to make sure my mom had actually finished reading the book mentioned in the post. There is a portion of The Girl Who Flew Away that is undeniably influenced by my mom. In the book, protagonist […]
I came upon an article about Fingal’s Cave, a unique cave near Scotland. This article from Outdoor Revival contains lots more pictures and a brief explanation of how it formed. What I find most fascinating about the cave is not its unique layout or the otherworldly sounds produced in its recesses; it’s the way it’s […]
I’m excited about my new release, The Girl Who Flew Away. As I was finishing final edits on this young adult novel back in 2015, I was invited to participate in Loudoun County’s high school Battle of the Books competition with my novel The Scarred Letter. What an amazing day—to see students coming together to […]
Okay, so it isn’t Friday. The weather has been so amazing that I’ve been spending my time outside. But now that it’s raining—and 11:30 at night—I decided to sit down and write this post. Anyone who knows me knows that I dread winter. I remember distinctly the moment when I fully realized how much winter […]
I’ve always loved imagining the fantastical within the realm of everyday life. As a child, I became intrigued by The Dark Crystal¸ a movie in which a main character harbors hidden wings. For several months—if not years—I checked my back every morning to see if my wings had sprouted yet. I’ve always been fascinated with […]
