Hallelujah I made it through another year. No looking back on 2012. Just moving ahead into the unknown. Who knows what treasures I’ll uncover in the weeks to come?

Every day is a gift. Each new twenty-four hours is bound up tightly in colorful paper and tied with a flamboyant bow. Hour by hour we un-wrap a piece of our day and behold the magic. Don’t we wish every day would be all bright, bubbly and full of fun?

I know that 2013 will hold many treasured…

...a new year arrises,

        and I wonder what this means.

...a chance to begin again?

        but every new dawning contains this seed.

            maybe, just maybe

...a first and new glimpse,

        a quivery legged rising.

....…

"I managed to…

What’s Your One Word?

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34

I was getting one of those blinking neon sign messages. You know the kind—the same message over and over, everywhere you turn. Eventually, you realize you have to pay attention.

That’s the way it was for me with this idea: Choose just One Word for the New Year. I read through a number of emails and…

My dog Susie says

Out with the old.... in with the new

Ring out wild bells to the wild sky

The…

Tonight’s full moon is the wolf moon. The last full moon I honored was the blood moon. Blood and wolves, they go together like Scotch and ice, hugs and kisses or meat and bone. (Read a great post about the wolf moon.)

Tonight I would open my throat to that moon and let it take my voice. I would lie down under the stars and beg the wolves to take me—make an…

Happy New Year! As a special 2012 offer, this week only, buy my new book Best Sex Writing 2012 and I'll send you any of my Cleis Press anthologies in print free, and signed! Offer good through Friday, January 6th, midnight EST, US only. You can preorder the ebook or purchase the print book from any store selling it, or directly from the publisher, Cleis Press (some helpful links are below); send proof of purchase to…

Christmas Day has come and gone. Gifts have been opened and now wait to be exchanged for the correct size or color. All the decorations are down, except for the Christmas cards. I like to keep them up until I have time to take each one in my hand, and again read what has been scribed inside. Then I’ll store them away until next year when my granddaughter and I will make bookmarks out of them.

As the end of the year draws to a close my mind wanders back through the year 2011.…

"Your someday is now." ~ @bodyheart

This time of year brings a lot of anticipation. We've been buying gifts, making travel arrangements, setting holiday dinner menus, planning time to see dear friends and family, reflecting on the year that's almost over, and pondering the landscape of the year to come…

The Dress and the Snake

Here is the link above to my blog, which has the story, as well as, photos.

This is an essay I wrote in the midst of the happiest and saddest time in my life:  preparing to get married and my father dying. 

 …

Never put off for tomorrow what you can do today. Oh come on, who thinks like that? No writer I know. Start an assignment days before deadline? Pshaw!

It’s early Sunday morning and I’ve accepted a Monday deadline for a little 600-word post on putting things off, doing everything else except the writing. Piece of cake. This is my specialty. Plus, there’s so much time between now and the deadline, which every…

A new edition of a periodic feature, Facts, New or Not, offers items on Nabokov, International Year of Chemistry, a Website devoted to Joan of Arc medals, Tom Waits' second printing of his poetry, a student's art conservation tool, and Calder's delighted Cirque.

http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/2011/02/facts-new-or-not.html

The New Year means different things to different people. For some, it inspires change for the better, for others it’s just another year, and the rest of us fall somewhere in between.

For the inspired, great successes will ensue. For the pseudo-inspired, great intentions will ensue for about 30 days instead of 365. Nevertheless, they TRIED and that counts for something, right?

Sometimes our resolution passion masks our tendency to procrastinate. When you couldn’t…

This year is all about "connections" for me. See if you can find my word for 2011 in the Wordle at my post.

http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/2011/01/2nd-annual-give-me-word.html

 Matthew 6:19

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth…

Several years ago I bought my husband Jerry a gun safe for Christmas. Inside you’ll find odds and ends but not many things of actual value. Sure there is a shotgun or two, and the 410 my daddy gave me when I was

a little girl. I can also find a few other…

This is post #6 of Be Brave. Lose the Beige’s 12 days of New Year’s resolutions.

Adventures don’t always have to be big and bold. Who said the definition of adventure is climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or back packing through Europe? Adventures come in many sizes and forms and help us feel young all over again. As we age into our 50s, 60s and 70s, let’s take a sip or two from the Fountain…