My blog

My kids went to the town pool for the first time last weekend… a sure sign of summer. This weekend, I raided the local nursery like mad, crowding my steps with plants that need to find [...]

My children should be fruit inspectors, because the instant any produce shows the slightest blemish, they refuse to eat it.  It may have just come in through the door, but if they perceive it as [...]

Squeezing out one last post before I get on a plane later this morning. Yesterday I was delighted to read the news that the legislature of Nebraska passed a law banning the death penalty, [...]

I have a thing for container gardening.  For all gardening, really, but there’s just something about creating a whole self-contained garden in a beautiful pot that makes me all giddy [...]

It’s always interesting to me when I have a connection (even if tenuous) to something that’s going on in the news. This week, I’m traveling to Ohio to a homeschooling convention [...]

Sometimes old lines from my favorite movies start running through my head and won’t stop (you can imagine how much fun it is to be me).  This is from Legends of the Fall, one of the movies [...]

Hello, darlings. Apologies for so completely neglecting you these last few days. I had a jam-packed weekend without a moment to breathe (or write). I hope yours was as fun as mine was!  Mine was [...]

Here’s something kind of hilarious I found by accident.  There’s someone on Ebay selling “a signed first edition” of THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY, complete with a picture of [...]

I love my daughter madly, but as she firmly settles into her adolescence, she has begun to ask for things.  A lot of things.  Not only stuff but a variety of things, most of which need to be [...]

One of my bookish friends posted this graphic on Facebook yesterday.  It points to something we all know: most people aren’t reading books.  For my book-loving crowd, this is cause for [...]

The release of the paperback version of THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY has been pushed up to July 28th.  The cover hit the streets yesterday (and I’m totally in love).  I can’t wait to hold [...]

Today I am so excited that the cover for the paperback edition of THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY is being released out in the world at the wonderful YA Books Central.  They’ve got a little [...]

I am a dismal cook (like, really bad.  Like… remedial cooking classes would be too advanced for me).  So, about once a year, I involve myself in collecting something that lulls me into [...]

It’s iris season!  I want to post a gazillion pictures but I’ll spare you and post just a few (below).  They’re so pretty and they’re popping up everywhere! I am adding a [...]

Iris season is in full swing and I couldn’t be happier.  Every morning I can’t wait to rush outside to see what new variety is blooming.  This morning I was particularly delighted to [...]

This week I spoke to a journalist with the Latin Post who asked me some questions about writing, immigration and what I hope readers get out of THE SECRET SIDE OF EMPTY. Check out the interview: [...]

I love it when I get a chance to just guffaw out loud.  This morning, I got that chance at CVS. Here’s the Daily News cover about Deflate-gate.  I don’t understand a thing about it [...]

It occurred to me while watching the new HBO documentary, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck: I am old.  Not only am I old, but I’m okay with it. I have always been on the side of the young, [...]

The CYBILS Awards  (which stands for Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Awards) has just released a list of nominated and winning books with Latino characters.  It’s a [...]

So, apparently I make hi-la-rious faces when squeegeeing the windows.  Unbeknownst to me (since the reflection kept me from seeing in the house and since I was clearly involved in a very [...]

All I wanted for Mother’s Day was an iris bloom… and I got one!!! My lovely Aggressively Forward decided to give me my wish and grace me with one single, gorgeous bloom.  It was a [...]

It’s true, I am a terrible attention hog on my birthday.  I start spreading the word around March that the most important day of the year is on its way: June 14th, Flag Day, otherwise known [...]

Do you ever wonder what goes into naming a book?  I’m always surprised by how many readers don’t realize that authors don’t always get to name their books… or that, at the [...]

Alone, I love silence. When I’m with loved ones, I don’t do well with it at all. I am a person who yearns for connection. I don’t do small talk. I do deep, interested, [...]

I took a fun dialect quiz yesterday.  You answer about five minutes’ worth of questions about how you pronounce certain words or what you call certain objects (those things you run in, are [...]

I have been on a years-long quest to get one of my iris plants to bloom by Mother’s Day.  Thus far, I have been thwarted.  But this year it’s looking SO GOOD.  So close.  This is my [...]

Being at a birth this week has thrown me out of the ordinary rhythm of my life in the best possible way.  Nowhere am I feeling it more than when looking at my own children. Parenting teenagers is [...]

I just had to take a picture of this most gorgeous of tulips that has somehow, improbably, has survived in my front yard without being chewed up as a snack by a hoofed menace.  Is it not [...]

Someone very special just came into my life and I am over the moon about it. Her name is Hazel and she’s 7 pounds 3 ounces.  I performed her mom and dad’s wedding ceremony a year and [...]

This was a weekend in which I felt I did EVERYTHING I wanted to do.  I usually try to have all my major garden changes done before Mother’s Day – window boxes freshened up with new [...]