Where Faith, Healing & Homemaking Meet
Remember how your mom used to tell you not to make up stories? Well, she had a point, but now I want you to do exactly that. In this exercise, we are going to take a single event that happened to you (good or bad) and begin writing a narrative about it. This exercise takes several steps, which I detail below, but before embarking on this mental exercise of pulling a story out of your mind, I would like to explain what a Journey Journal even is.
Continue reading “Create Your Own Journey Journal”
January 2026 is substantial in a number of ways. First, it is my husband’s and my very first wedding anniversary–HURRAH! Second, we are wrapping up a huge, several month project of renovating our first home together. We repainted the whole house, tore up old carpet, worked on countless repairs, and have begun trying to recover a lawn that was not cared for by the prior owner. It has been months of hard labor, but it has been greatly worth it. When I look over all my work, I feel a flourish of pride, and the words come to mind, “Look at that…I painted/fixed that thing.”
Continue reading “2026 – The Year of Health”
This is an ever-expanding gallery of downtown St. Augustine, which is where I happen to live. With every visit I make, I add more photos and findings to this gallery as a visual log.
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, you rolling river
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Away, we’re bound away, across the wide Missouri
-American Folk Song
This week-long trip I took to Massanutten, Virginia was simply magical. The resort is located near the Shenandoah National Park, Skyline Drive, and Monticello . It is an ideal location to visit for skiing, snowboarding, zip-lining, hiking, and fishing. Of course, photographing was my preference.
Continue reading “A Trip to Massanutten, Virginia”
Every couple of months, my husband and I take a short drive north of Saint Augustine to visit Amelia Island and Fernandina Beach. It is one of the prettiest locations along the north Floridian coast, and boarders closely to Georgia. Every trip, we return home with the most amazing seashells.
Enjoy my gallery of photos from this magical location. I continue to add to this collection with every visit.
Continue reading “Amelia Island, Florida | Gallery”
This was such a personal trip – I had not been back to Dallas (my hometown) in over a decade. Instead of visiting important landmarks or museums, my destination had childhood routes. With my own roadmap, my husband and I circled up to the Oklahoma border and back, visiting locations significant to when I was a little girl. Many of the pictures I took were just for my own personal archive, but I would like to share a precious few.
Continue reading “A Trip to Northeast Texas”
As a girl, I would draw lighthouses every Sunday during church. My sermon notes were often filled with my imagined scenic views of lighthouses. Although I had only seen one lighthouse in Corpus Christi, Texas, from a fishing boat, I had never climbed one until I was a teenager. Although I have since forgotten the exact location, that lighthouse was located on the coast of North Carolina, doubtless not far from the Outer Banks. I remember being impressed by how far I could see 30 miles out to sea!
Continue reading “A Visit to St. Augustine Lighthouse”
This is a gallery of my trip to the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Dominican Republic – but it is also photos from my husband’s and my honeymoon!
Continue reading “A Trip to the Caribbean”
Written in 2021 as part of a school writing project. Like the main character, I was also once a kid working in a little home décor store. While this piece is not my best work, it is a story that lies close to my heart. AND, this will someday serve as a base for a comedic retail drama novel.
Continue reading “When Someone Cared | A Short Story”
Based on the actual events of my own childhood, the characters and names of this tale are fictionalized for the sake of coherency. Someday, I will expand upon this story and write a book that explores how the relationships of children develop underneath the iron fist of Christian fundamentalism.
Continue reading “Of Beautiful Girlhood | A Short Story”