Back here to post again after a few weeks. The delay really was just prosaic - the home Internet connection had been out for quite awhile, which meant that in practice I could only post entries at work while I was off the clock. (Technically I could post from my phone, but non-physical keyboards and I don't get along all that well. That's the one ( Read more... )

Oh, right. I was actually a little nervous logging back into Live Journal for the first time in forever - well, about ten months, with my last entry posted in mid-February - as if I was going to be met by a screaming mob at my threshold. Here I am, poking around, running my fingers along the walls, turning on the lights room by room, as if I'm ( Read more... )

Along with doing some writing chopping today as I try not to examine the Camelot Book's Amazon ranking, plus sending out my first large check to the bank towards this idea of buying a house, I figured it might be a good time to remind myself of some simple but fundamental truths ( Read more... )

In 1997, the year after my grandmother Ruth Andre Knepp died, my mother and I traveled to her hometown of Burlington, Iowa, and spoke with a lady named Marcella Norling, who'd been both her closest friend in childhood and a rediscovered friend in later years. I grabbed a sheet of paper and scribbled down as many of Marcella's memories of my ( Read more... )

Creatively speaking, that is ( Read more... )

I'm not dead, as the saying goes, I'm just mostly on Facebook ( Read more... )

This is a memorial to my Aunt Rose, who passed away yesterday. Essentially it's an expansion of this memorial.

ROSA LILLIAN ADAMS SMITHRosa Lillian Adams Smith, 92, of Roanoke and Woodhaven Nursing Home, died Sunday, April 15, 2012 ( Read more... )

Today would have been my Uncle Walt's 100th birthday. Happy Birthday, Uncle Walt!

For some reason, of all the things he did over the course of his 85 years, the one I oddly remember most often was that he taught his younger brother, my grandfather, how to drive.

Circumstances kept us from getting up to the Peaks of Otter yesterday...but among other things, Laurie and I were still able to take my 10-year-old niece Alex hiking at my favorite spot along the Blue Ridge Parkway: where it meets the Roanoke River. And this is my newest favorite picture of Alex and me, snapped by Laurie.


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Finally getting these online. Most in this sampler were taken a month ago today.


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