Pass the Traditions to the Left
My fondest memories of the Thanksgiving season comes from a family tradition of a “women’s baking day”. A few days before or after Thanksgiving (I was younger so I fail to recall the specifics of the date), all of the women in my family got together. If you know anything of my family, this is no small task, we could easily populate our own large island! For an entire day we made every type of cookie, cake and browny recipe known to man, in bulk! It was always such an awesome day full of laughter, learning and the most amazing smells that even if I were to write a million novels I don’t believe I could ever learn to properly put any of it into words. Sad

The Snowflake Method — Writing A Novel Is Hard Work!
One of my most visited (non RSS) links in my bookmarks folder is Randy Ingermanson’s web page that details his “Snowflake Method” for writing a novel. I love the organized way he goes about his writing process and how every step of the process helps build up the steps to come. I’m still sick so my brain really isn’t letting me process words large enough to explain how much his writing method has helped me in my own fiction writing. What were once vague ideas are now starting to take shape and the method has really helped me see the bigger picture of the fiction writing process.

Child’s Play 2009
Support the gamers’ charity! Since 2003, over 100,000 gamers worldwide have banded together through Child’s Play, a community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. Over 5 million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children’s hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception. This year, we have continued expanding across the country and the globe. With almost 70 partner hospitals and more arriving every month, you can be sure to find one fr

Biography of a Real-Life Superwoman!
This isn’t my typical “omg the kids are driving me crazy” or “random tidbits about my gaming habits” kind of post but I think it’s probably one of the coolest things I’ve blogged about… ever. My great-grandmother, Inez Hanes, hand-wrote an autobiography of her life, spanning approximately 90 years, and gave that precious gift to my aunt Janice. Jan did something awesome by publishing the story in a small pamphlet-size booklet, printing as many copies as she could and then distributing those copies around to our family members. These booklets have been passed around to family members all over the country and a few years ago

Give a Child a Ticket to Read
Hey Tayluca! I’m a single parent with a low income. I do have a computer though and my daughter spends a lot of a time on the internet playing web games. She’s eight years old. I want her to have fun but I want to know she’s learning. I can’t afford all that learning software you see at the store. What can I do?  ~Janice Yay! My first question! Janice, here’s a quick and dirty list of some of my favorite sites for kids and parents that are super fun but also free and educational. I’ll make a different post that will go into more depth later but for now, check these out: