It's been a crazily long time since I blogged here... and I am feeling guilty.  In fact, so guilty I am scared I'll be rejected...

Though please don't - I am nice really!

However, it has been a crazy time too.  If I'm honest, probably the worst couple of years of my life.  Not that you need to know about those.

And also the best too.  

I have now published a novel, and I am really excited.  You can follow links to find it if you so wish (it is warm and funny and…

It was a simple quest.



Andrew and I were going to take a relatively quick 5 1/2 hour road trip to the Capital District so we could get India from college for the summer. 



But someone had decided her van wouldn't make the 30° grade of the Driveway From Hell over the winter and parked it. Not in the barn on the hill, where it would be protected. Nooo.  I parked her in the driveway and let her sit - under 3 feet of snow…

People often ask me what it is like to be mum to 7 children and I generally answer that it's not as hectic as you'd think, quite calm really, you just have to be organised. I look at my schedule today and think that last statement has never been so true.…

BRAVO Angelina! She underwent elective double mastectomy because she was given such a high risk factor for both breast and ovarian cancer. Though she has not said so in so many words, I do believe she did this for her 6 children. I TOTALLY relate! AND - I applaud her decision, her courage, and her 100% positive attitude and outlook. Such a rare and controversial decision, but at least and at last not as rare as it once was AND I no longer feel so isolated!! …

This time last year, Youngest was gearing up for the dream of a lifetime… going to the Junior Olympics National Championships for Tumbling and Trampoline. After going and placing 6th in the nation in Tumbling and 12th in the nation in Double Mini Trampoline, she decided to retire. Why? She’d been doing this all her life, she achieved her dream of going to the Olympics, and now wanted to try something new. Something that she’d always wanted to try. Cheerleading. It was…

Well, tomorrow I am so going to pay the price! LOL! I am going to be so sore and stiff, that I will have to roll out of bed. Despite that today was an amazing day, from start to finish. The morning started out by getting up and stepping on the scale, so that I could start my fitness program. And I stuck to it, and did forty minutes of DDP Yoga, and followed it up with a brief intro in the Turbo Jam program that I bought the other day. By the time I finished those two, I was ready for a…

Any parent will tell you - it is a well-known fact of life that your children are always sick at the most inconvenient time.

Take DD#2 today. Normally while the children are at school I don't venture far from home. To the nearest town five minutes away for grocery shopping or to pick up new school tights or for a stroll round the charity shops, to local friends for coffee and cake. Maybe as far as the two bigger towns 15 minutes away from the…

“Life is the messy bits.” I love this quote from Letters to Juliet!

The messiness of life is inevitable. And it’s needed! During my first writing course, I can’t tell you how often my instructor asked, “Where’s the conflict?” I didn’t want bad things to happen to my characters, any more than I wanted bad things to happen to my daughter, or any loved one.

But a life without conflict is a life without victories. It’s in the messy bits of life that we find

Strength we never…

2.30

An image…