Award winning author, columnist, and blogger; editor of the Hot Apple Cider Books; teacher and encourager

Call for Stories for a New Hot Apple Cider Book

I can’t wait to start reading the submissions we’re going to get for our new book! Get all the details at: https://thatslifecommunications.com/callout/

18 Tips for Looking After Curly or Wavy Hair

No, I’m not a hair stylist. Just someone who suffered for years because I had no idea what to do with my unruly hair. So I’m offering some thoughts for anyone out there with curly or wavy hair who feels the way I did. I so wish I’d known these things when I was 5 […]

How I Discovered I Have Curly Hair

If you missed part one of this blog “My Hair Has a Mind of Its Own,” go here. Some days, I look back and wonder how I could have been so obtuse. I mean, as you can see by my picture when I was three, my hair was trying really hard to be curly. And yet, […]

My Hair Has a Mind of Its Own or If Only I’d Known Years Ago That It Was Curly!

I don’t think I’ve ever actually hated my hair, because I was always glad I didn’t have hair like my mother’s, but sometimes I came close to hating it. Age 1 When I was very young, I blamed my mother. Not for my hair, but for hurting me when she washed, brushed, or combed it. […]

An Unexpected Pregnancy, a Difficult Birth, and Easter: a True Story

This might sound strange, but I never really expected to give birth to any children. I don’t know why. I didn’t expect to get married either. Didn’t anticipate it. Didn’t plan for it or anything. But I did get married, and I did get pregnant. And the whole time, I felt as if it was […]

Am I Weird? A Children’s Book Made Me Feel Better About Being Me

For most of my life, I’ve thought I was kind of weird. Or maybe that there was something wrong with me. Perhaps the easiest way to explain is to tell you how I write my short stories and novels. People are always talking about how to make fictional characters seem real. And there are lists […]

The Wisdom of Madeline L’Engle

According to some people on Facebook, this is National Book Week. All over my feed, people are picking up the closest book and posting the 5th sentence from page 56. Which, for me, is “All light was gone.” However, I’m going to do a little more than that here. For the last eight or so months, […]

Gone to an Aunt’s: Remembering Canada’s Homes for Unwed Mothers – Part 3

Click here if you haven’t read Part 1 or Part 2 At some point, the unwed mothers of Canada’s Baby Boom (1945 to the early 1970s) went to a local hospital to deliver their babies. Going to the Hospital Most of the women Anne Petrie interviewed, including some young girls, had no idea what was […]

Gone to an Aunt’s: Remembering Canada’s Homes for Unwed Mothers – Part 2

If you haven’t read Part 1, please click here. Thirty years after she was a resident at a home for unwed mothers, Anne Petrie interviewed a number of other women from across Canada. In addition to telling her own story, Anne profiles six other birth mothers in detail and also mentions comments from other interviews […]

Gone to an Aunt’s: Remembering Canada’s Homes for Unwed Mothers – Part 1

A couple of years ago, I had a character in one of the novels “go to her aunt’s” when she was young. I’d heard the phrase somewhere along the way and remembered it was a common cover story for young, unmarried women who were pregnant. In my novel, the woman is old, and she’d “gone […]

The Girls Who Went Away, part 2 – the effects of adoption on baby boomer birth mothers

If you haven’t read part 1 of this post, click here. 6. In the years from 1945 to 1973, closed adoption was virtually a given for most unwed young women. Prior to 1945, illegitimate children were usually given to a family member or someone the family knew—either to be raised as their own, or until […]

The Girls Who Went Away: Part 1 – the treatment of unwed mothers during the baby boom

When I was four years old, my mother told me I was adopted. I said something along the lines of “Okay.” And that was, essentially, that. Forty-four years later, I met my birth mother. But even after meeting her, I really didn’t think much about it. I wasn’t angry or upset that I’d been adopted. […]

Musings About February and My Love/Hate Relationship With It

With all the cold and dreariness but neither the excitement of January nor the anticipation of March, February used to be a depressing month for me. I’ve never liked Valentine’s Day. When I was in elementary school, I found Valentine’s Day somewhat terrifying, because I was always afraid none of my classmates would give me […]

New Release: The eBook for A Friend in Need

The third book in the Circle of Friends Series is now available as an ebook or as a paperback book. Just before Valentine’s Day, seventeen-year-old Glen Sauten, who is reeling from his first break-up, jumps headlong into a new relationship. Maybe not the smartest thing he’s ever done. At the same time, he’s trying various […]

Putting the Heart Back into Valentine’s Day

Every time I think about Valentine’s Day, I remember the inevitable Charlie Brown cartoon with Charlie dreaming of all the Valentine’s cards he would get and then finding his mail box empty. I always sympathized. I still remember Valentine’s Day in elementary school. We put our cards into a decorated box, and then the box […]

Read Chapter 1 of The Best of Friends, the First Book in My Circle of Friends Series

Luke’s text said, “Not this weekend, Glen. Taking Jamie to the movie tonight.” “We haven’t been there all summer. This might be our last chance.” “Sorry. Taking Jamie shopping in Stanton tomorrow. And there’s a party tomorrow night. What can I say?” No more explanation needed. I was getting the picture. “Okay. See you at […]

A Birthmother Remembers – My Review of the Book, The House of the Broken Two

After deciding I wanted to learn more about what it was like for a woman in Canada’s prairies to be an unwed mother in the late 1940s to the late 1960s, I was pleased to discover our local library had a book written by a woman who grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 1968, I […]

The Need We All Have to Grieve During Sad Times

While researching the effects of adoption during the late 1940s, 50s, and 60, I kept reading that many of the young women who had given up their babies were never able to fully grieve their losses. Some, in fact, had managed to keep their pregnancy a secret from everyone in their lives, including their spouse and […]

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