The Door in the Wall

 

This post is in response to Sue Vincent of Daily Echo‘s challenge to write a post of 100 words or less telling what lies beyond the door in the photo.

hobbit-door

The little door intrigued me. What or who is on the other side? I’ve been watching for weeks and no one has entered or exited the door.

With much trepidation, I eased the door open. The other side was thick with trees and undergrowth, but I shored up my courage and stealthily ventured in.  Suddenly, the undergrowth rustled and a funny looking little man pushed it away from a portal to an underground world.

“Boo!”

Trembling, I ran for the door. The coblynau chuckled until it grew to an all out belly-busting laugh.

“Hugh’s Photo Challenge: Week 9 – Stripes”

StripesStripes? I thought about what I might have close at hand with stripes and came up with nothing.  It is in the single digits today and not a good day to go out and search for stripes. I had just about given up on joining in Hugh’s Photo Challenge when I swiveled around in my desk chair to look out the window, trying to think again if I had stripes anywhere. And there they were, right in front of me!

To check out the challenge, visit Hugh’s post.

If you’d like to join the fun, here’s what you need to do.
1. Take a photo of anything that has stripes.
2. Create a new post on your blog entitled “Hugh’s Photo Challenge: Week 9 – Stripes.”
3. Add the photo(s) you have taken to the post and tell us a little about what you are showing.
4. Create a pingback to this post or leave a link to your post in the comments section below so that other participants can view your post.

Entries for this week’s challenge are open until Monday, January 25, 2016.

 

First Post Challenge

Colleen of Silver Threading challenged me to bring back my first blog post.  Since that first post, I have learned a great deal about blogging and writing.  Most important to me though, are the many friendships I have made along the way.

Here are the rules:

  • Copy-paste, link, pingback or whatever way you want to, your first post.
  • State what type of post that was. G. Introduction, Story, Poem
  • Explain why that was your first post.
  • Nominate 5 other bloggers. Five because I know the pain of opening a lot of tabs at once.

 

My five nominees are:

Booknvolume

Colline’s Blog

Between the Lines

A Woman’s Wisdom

Stephanie’s Book Reviews

 

I started blogging on June 6, 2013. My first post was a book review with an introduction to the reason I was starting a blog.  Later, I removed the introduction and made it part of my About page.  Here is that original post.

I am a reader, not a writer.  So why am I blogging?

I am a reader, and this blog is about sharing the books I love whether romance, historic fiction, chick lit, biography, memoir, fantasy, classic, contemporary fiction, or even an occasional children’s book.  What I will never read are thrillers (I even hid behind a pillow during JURASSIC PARK). This blog is a place to talk about current reads, and many of the wonderful books I’ve read over the years, as well. I invite your comments and recommendations, and hope that you will find this a place to return to often.

 

Let’s talk about books.apple_orchard

Recently I read Susan Wiggs’ THE APPLE ORCHARD. Wiggs’ main character, Tess Delaney, considers her life well planned out – she is up for a substantial promotion, has great friends, an apartment she enjoys – everything, except the closeness of family.  Tess’s mother Shannon traveled while her grandmother raised her; her father was never a part of her life, in fact, she knew nothing about him. As a result, Tess, like all the women in her family before her, felt she didn’t need a permanent relationship with a man. Then one morning when she had a very important meeting scheduled with her boss to discuss her promotion, her life changed forever in ways she could not have imagined when Dominic Rossi, an attorney for the grandfather she didn’t know she had, showed up in her office. Rossi informed Tess that her grandfather Magnus Johansen was in a coma and she had been named in his will and needed to come back with him to Archangel, a small town in the Sonoma country. This was the beginning of a journey filled with many unanswered questions and Tess didn’t want any interruptions in her life. She certainly wasn’t interested in traipsing off with a strange man to her grandfather’s orchard when she had such a rewarding job in San Francisco.

Tess is confronted with many unsettling issues after she arrives in Archangel, but she doesn’t want to stay to sort through them. However, as each day goes by, she is more drawn to the life and family she discovered there. There is also Dominic Rossi who keeps turning up, but Tess definitely doesn’t need a relationship and a ready-made family to alter her life. Will she stay or return to her former life?

Wigg’s characters were extremely well developed and the plot had many twists and turns to keep me turning the pages.  Long after I finished the last page, my mind wandered back to Archangel, Tess, and the other characters. I highly recommend this book.