Currently, as with any other rabid knitter, I have many knitting projects in progress.  One I just completed was a set of baby hats for our newest (twin) grandchildren.  The second picture is a shawl I am in the process of knitting, in hand painted yarn in colors that you see in gardening in the early spring.  The third picture is of a zig-zag scarf in hand-spun yarns from our alpaca fiber which is almost complete.

I started writing as a child.  Frankly, I don’t really remember when I didn’t write. Even when I didn’t actually put pencil to paper (or use a computer) to write it down, stories were always swirling around in my head.  When I gave birth to my first son, I started to write in earnest, spending time each day writing down the stories.

As I said in one of my earlier posts, currently I have three romance novels in various states of completion, as well as a sort-of memoir.

The first romance novel, The Phone Call, is being copy edited right now.  The second, That One Small Omission, is about a woman named Maggie, a single mom in Vermont raising her two young sons, who meets the perfect man.  Unfortunately, the perfect man wants her, but not her children.  That novel is in its final set of my editing it before it goes on to be professionally edited. The third, tentatively titled Keeping Away, is nearly complete in its first draft form.

Finally, I am also in the midst of writing a personal memoir or non-fiction book, Of Grief, Garlic and Gratitude about my journey in grief and gratitude after the death of our middle son.  More than anything, it’s the story of how, eventually, I began to be able to see the love, beauty and the wonder that continue to be all around us, and to realize how grateful I am for the incredible people in our lives.

We have been so blessed to have much of our extended family live nearby.  Our daughter and her family live only an hour or so away, our youngest son goes to college nearby, our oldest son lives just twenty minutes away.  Both sets of our parents live very close by, meaning that our children grew up with grandparents around them.

We also have been blessed to have incredible friends around us.  In 2013, our middle son passed away unexpectedly, and after that loss, we became cognizant of the incredible family of friends we have around us.

I also love our land, our gardens, our beehive, our chickens and alpacas, our fruit and nut trees, and our garlic beds.  All of them give us sustenance or usable products, and all feed my soul.