Linda K. Sienkiewicz's Blog, page 23
August 17, 2020
What, Why, How: Angela Barton
What:
In 2017 I signed a three-book contract with Ruby Fiction (a new imprint of Choc Lit Publishing). Two of my novels are contemporary women’s fiction and one is historical fiction.
Why:
Writing is like a therapy for me. For a long time I felt I couldn’t control my own life so I escaped into stories, which I could control. If I have a problem, I give it to one of my characters and help them work it out. Writing is good for mental health in other ways, too. It’s something I love do...
August 12, 2020
Out of the Doldrums
Finally. Today, trail riding felt different. Today it wasn’t grueling.
Lost mojo
Lately, I’ve been wondering where my bicycling mojo had gone. I delayed my start this spring because, due to the coronavirus shutdown, the trails near me were packed with walkers and bicyclists. It was just too peopley for me.
I started riding in earnest in June. I was really dragging butt, too. I’d start out excited, glad to have the wind in my face and the wheels under my body, but a mile or two into...
June 29, 2020
Setting Limits in a Pandemic
When visiting with friends during the coronavirus pandemic, most of us understand that “You are now swimming in the same pool with not just that person, but all the people those people are interacting with,” said Dr. Aaron Milstone at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
This is what contact tracing has taught us. If you’re hanging with your friends, you’re only as safe as they and all their friends, and those friends’ friends, and so on,...
June 22, 2020
What, Why, How: Cindy Frenkel
What?
The Plague of the Tender-Hearted is a small book of poems, which is part of a larger collection. It mostly centers around the biggest events of my life: my youngest brother’s suicide–he was my closest sibling, a family trapped in “the external locust of control,” a mother’s demise and death, a sudden divorce, and the best catalyst for change: mothering. It’s also a book about a woman telling her truth in her later middle years, finding unlikely love and realizing the utter joy of m...
June 1, 2020
Bookcase Credibility
If you are on Twitter, you must follow Bookcase Credibility @BCredibility for a hilarious, insightful review of people’s bookcases in light of the new reality of Zoom and at home conference calls.
I’m not sure who the owner of the account is, but they have 78.6K followers! They offer opinions on scanty shelves, sliding shelves, shelves full of toys but few books, stacked shelves, and even one poor woman who has no bookshelf, but you can see a photo of h...
May 25, 2020
Quarantine Experience Reviewed like an Airbnb-
Today’s post comes from my brilliant daughter
The Washington Post asked their readers and staff to review their homes like a hotel during the coronavirus quarantine, “and they did not disappoint.” I shared it with my daughter, and asked her to write a quarantine review for her own house.
Enjoy!
Airbnb this beautiful 1900 Century Farmhouse
A perfect prairie get-away! Escape virus ridden Metro Detroit and head down south to this charming, lovingly renovated 120 year old farmhou...
May 18, 2020
Anxiety Rising
Are you feeling stress? I am. Every time my phone dings with a text message.
Every time we spread a new puzzle on the table.
Every time I think about how much scientists still dont know about this virus
Every night when I lie in bed.
I love the quiet moment in the morning before dreams and awakening, before I remember we are still swirling in a pandemic.
I miss the freedom of being able to run out to the store whenever I feel like it.
I feel guilty that I used to run out to the store...
April 15, 2020
Happy Birthday Clementine
See that round white object? Its a welcome plaque from my late mothers yard. I propped it up there against the back fence a few days ago and it completely freaked Clementine. She planted her little legs in the middle of the yard, the fur on her back standing straight up, and barked at the house so we would come outside and witness this disturbing alteration in the landscape.
I had to go outside and lay it flat on the ground so she could check it out.
Shes just keeping the family safe, yall....
April 1, 2020
Love to all the underappreciated workers
I walk daily through my small town, so Im attuned to changes, like totally empty public parking lots that should be filled with the cars of shoppers and diners, and how cars are now parked in the typically empty lots of apartment and rental building. The two playgrounds in our city park are taped off and empty; just a few weeks ago they were filled with children. It seems as if people here are finally taking social distancing seriously.
As well they should. The Free...
March 21, 2020
Face Masks: Shopping in a Pandemic
In Dire Need Deaconess Hospital in Indiana recently called on home sewers to make washable fabric face masks.
According to the CDC, fabric masks are a crisis response option when other supplies have been exhausted. Prior to modern disposable masks, washable fabric masks were standard use for hospitals, said Dawn Rogers, MSN, RN, FNP-C, Patient Safety & Infection Prevention Office. We will be able to sterilize these masks and use them repeatedly as needed. While its less than ideal, we...
