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A Family Road Trip: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Road trips are supposed to be fun, right? But often, they turn into a mixture of family togetherness and a series of disasters akin to National Lampoon’s Vacation. Here’s a recap of our recent family road trip—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Griswold Family GIFfrom Griswold GIFs Why we choose a road trip Initially, it was my husband’s idea. And, having just written a road trip games article for work, I was on board. Of course, Jonathan and I had different ideas of what a road trip was. My definition is driving to multiple places with a different route home to maximize stops at cool attractions. His idea was…
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Summer 2025 Writing Update and Sixth Novel First Chapter Teaser
The first draft of novel number six is… Guess what? About a week ago, I finished the first draft of my sixth novel, tentatively titled Four Hearts. It’s been a long process since I took some time off for personal reasons during the summer of 2024. The draft is with my four amazing beta readers as I type this. What now? I’m taking a well-deserved break from novel writing and editing (personally). I write and edit every weekday for my day job. I need the break to get away from my story so I can edit it with fresher eyes. I’ll take notes from my betas and begin the editing…
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Can High Goals Get in the Way of Contentment?
Having hopes and dreams for ourselves is healthy. But at what point can high goals get in the way of happiness? Dreams vs. goals It’s natural for humans to have dreams. They start when we’re little kids, dreaming of being a ballerina, a pro athlete, or just like Mom or Dad. It’s good to have dreams because they’re one of the things that set us apart as a species. Later in my childhood and early teen years, I dreamed of someday being a writer—an author of published novels. Goals are a bit different and less easily forgotten. As a child, I wanted to be all sorts of different things, but…
