In Loving Memory

Dear Darlin’ Tamara Grace, You will be much more dearly and deeply missed by many more than you might have imagined. I hope you absolutely and profoundly know that now. You were my favorite cousin. Weren’t you everyone’s favorite? And everyone was your favorite. You loved everyone. You saw even the least goodness. You were…

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Got Grapes?

In our Seattle East-side eastward home, I had open shelves in front of the window above the kitchen sink, full of a blue glass collection: bottles and goblets mostly, in turquoise and cobalt blues. It was blue beautiful when the rarely-there sun shone in that window from our back secluded acreage yard. Almost like stained…

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One Stunning Portrait of a Lady

Years ago, I first saw this beautiful painting on a book-cover. It was another ‘Wuthering Heights’. I’ve seen it on a number of paperback novel covers since. I’ve long been captivated by this image and after its first discovery, had to know who the lady was, and perhaps more particularly, who painted it. With more…

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Composite Characters, Traits and Types

How many times has somebody asked me such as, ‘Is that character actually me?’ or ‘Is that her?’, ‘Did you base that guy on him?’, ‘Did you have an evil stepmother in growing up?’, ‘Were you an orphan or adopted?’ or ‘Is your mother-in-law the sweet one, or the horrid one?’ and any number of…

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To Nurture and Protect

I know this isn’t Mother’s Day, but this painting recently got me thinking. ‘The Lord of the Manor’, by Edmund Blair Leighton, reminds me of the indescribably profound protective love that I instantly felt for each of my children and grandbabies upon their arrival to this earthly sphere. To become a mother completely changed everything…

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Us, Man, Wife

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” In keeping with the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, here is another quote from that work, and in accompaniment is this ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ painting by Edmund…

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Generous, Sunday

“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.” In keeping with the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, here is…

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Love thy Neighbor

“Is not general incivility the very essence of love?” In keeping with the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, here is another quote from that work, and in accompaniment is this ‘‘My Next-door Neighbor’ painting by Edmund Blair Leighton, a Pre-Raphaelite artist who delved into some feminine romantic Regency themes.

Gossip, Sport

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?” In keeping with the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, here is another quote from that work, and in accompaniment is this ‘Gossip’ painting by Edmund Blair Leighton, a Pre-Raphaelite artist who delved into…

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Singing, Proud

“We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.” In keeping with the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, here is another quote from that work, and in accompaniment is the painting ‘Singing to the Reverend’ by Edmund Blair Leighton,…

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