When my mom had emergency surgery in 2017 to repair a ruptured colon, I was hopeful that she’d recover easily enough, move back into her two-story house, and get on with her active retirement life. That wasn’t meant to be. The long surgery brought about post-operative delirium and the end of her days of […]
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Welcome To This World
To say the last month or so has been busy would be an understatement. Five weeks ago, I had to relocate my mom to a new assisted living facility. Three days after she was settled in I flew to Columbus, Ohio, to help our daughter Samantha out by watching our 2-year-old granddaughter and working on […]
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Don’t Ever Bet Against Me
My 86-year-old mom has been in assisted living facilities since she underwent emergency surgery in 2017 for a ruptured colon that caused her to have short-term memory loss. After she was released from the hospital, she stayed at the closest nursing facility to our house, just .5 miles away, so that I could visit her […]
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Biking Reinvented
I can still remember the first time my husband brought up the topic of investing in an e-bike for me. He claimed that it would help me keep up with him on our longer bike rides. Being the competitive person that I am, I was actually offended that he was implying that I was struggling […]
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Our Walk to Remember…
I’ve been a goal setter as long as I can remember, and I truly believe in the power of written goals. Many times through the years I’d written down goals, and, without even consciously working on them, in time they were reached. Recently, I dug out a goal list from 2010. Out of […]
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Anatomy of a Novel
When my first book, A World Such as Heaven Intended, came out in October of 2014, I thought it was “one and done.” God had other plans. Here I am, nine years later, and yesterday I sent my 10th book off to the publisher. One of the most asked questions I get is, “How […]
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No man is a failure who has friends
So, this thing happened a couple of weeks ago. I celebrated my birthday. Which, coincidentally, happens to fall one day after my husband John’s birthday. We’re a day and a year apart. Part of the fun of celebrating birthdays for me is all the birthday wishes I get every year. The vast majority come […]
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The Habsburg Way
So, I have this friend who had a new book published this spring, and he sent me a note several months ago asking if I’d like an advanced hardcover copy mailed to me that I could review. Just going to say, when an archduke asks me a favor, I seldom say no. Besides that, I […]
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Review of The Miracle Club
The first week in July I received this message from a professional in the film PR industry: Hi Amanda. I’ve been meaning to reach out to you for some time b/c I really enjoy your entertainment coverage and commitment to faith. My name is Corby Pons and I work on the pr side for films. […]
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That’s All She Wrote…
After 24 years as a freelance journalist, I made the decision last fall to give up my gigs with the last two newspapers that I’d been writing for. My final story in The Business News came out at the end of 2022, and the last story for The Compass newspaper (published by the Green Bay […]
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