Posted in acting, authors, Baer House Inn, blogging, books, breakfast, food, friends, humor, innkeeping, Jansen Schmidt, sports, success, theater, theatre, tv, writing, tagged A Piece of My Heart, actors, All-Stars, autographs, award shows, baseball, celebrities, community theater, Dark Shadows, Dharma and Greg, fangirl, film, Hollywood, Jessica Chastain, Mitchell Ryan, movie stars, movies, politics, Sacramento, tv on September 30, 2019| 6 Comments »
Thanks for sticking with me. I hope my teaser last week inspired you to come back today. Cooking For the Stars is a little like Dancing With the Starts, except it’s cooking instead of dancing, and “for” instead of “with,” and there’s no audience phone-ins, or Judges scores, or a giant set, or dazzling bright lights, or microphones, or celebrity hosts, but other than that, it’s exactly the same. So, since I promised good things, let’s not waste any time. (more…)
Posted in blogging, cancer, Family, friends, goals, humor, inspiration, Jansen Schmidt, laughter, love, motivation, redneck, resolutions, success, writing, tagged don't give up, don't quit, drop out, faith, family, father, fathers, Goalcast, inspired, keep standing, love, On Common Ground, On Hallowed Ground, school, smart, third grade, video, wisdom, wise, wise man, Youtube on September 16, 2019| 4 Comments »
My blog today comes courtesy of YouTube (Goalcast). I didn’t have anything prepared last night so I consulted the internet for inspiration of some sort to share with you and I found this amazing video. It’s long (about 10 minutes), but so worth it. (more…)
Posted in blogging, Family, fingers, friends, health, Jansen Schmidt, sports, success, writing, tagged analogies, baseball, caregiver, crisis, emergency, Home, home run, life, life change, little league, normal, parents, pitching, sports, surgery, unexpected, upheaval on July 22, 2019| 8 Comments »
Life is a lot like baseball. I’m not a fan of baseball really, although I did play little league when I was around 12 or so. It was fun. I played second base. I was pretty good. Our team took the second-place trophy the year I played. (I still have my trophy.) I’d like to think it was because of me, but really it was because of our short stop. She was really good. She was the reason we won many of our games. Baseball used to be a normal childhood thing for me. (more…)
Posted in beach, blogging, Family, food, friends, Holidays, Jansen Schmidt, resolutions, success, travel, vacation, words, writing, tagged America, American Civil War, American flag, BBQ, confederate, fallen soldiers, family, heroes, history, Memorial Day, military, patriotic, patriotism, picnics, remember, sacrifice, servicemen, soldiers, veterans on May 27, 2019| 4 Comments »
I believe I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating, I am very patriotic. I love patriotic songs. The patriotic holidays are some of my favorites. I have the utmost respect for our country, our flag, and the incredible people willing to sacrifice their lives to protect the freedoms of everyone living in this country. And I don’t mean just the Americans either. I mean EVERYONE living in his country.
I believe patriotism is in my blood. Why? Well, because “Patriotism or national pride is the feeling of love, devotion and sense of attachment to a homeland.”(en.widipedia.org) That’s how I feel. Despite the flaws, I love this country. I feel a sense of devotion to the homeland that I have grown very attached to. I consider myself lucky to be living in this great nation. (more…)
Posted in blogging, Disney, Disney World, Family, Fiction, friends, goals, gratitude journal, health, humor, Jansen Schmidt, laughter, social media, success, travel, vacation, Walt Disney World, writing, tagged complainers, complaining, complaints, Disney, Disney busses, Disney hotels, Facebook, parking, travel, traveling, ungrateful, whiners on May 20, 2019| 11 Comments »
I don’t like perpetual complainers. I don’t understand people who always find something to complain about. I don’t get it. Why go through life looking for the negative stuff? How depressing. How much nicer it is to see the silver lining even in the darkest places. It’s not always easy to see the positive side of things, I get that, but there is always something to be thankful for. The truth is, most of us have some challenges in our lives to deal with. But, we don’t have to harp on them. We all have good things in our lives as well. (more…)
Posted in authors, blogging, books, Family, food, friends, humor, Jansen Schmidt, success, Uncategorized, words, writers, writing, tagged book shelves, boxes, categories, categorizing, classifications, classify, compartments, files, filing, gadgets, groups, Home Depot, new-fangled, outside the box, random, shelves, Shopping, supermarket on May 13, 2019| 6 Comments »
Have you ever noticed that people like to put things into categories? It’s just human nature I think to want to classify stuff into known categories. Everything needs to go into a box, or a file, or on a shelf. Ever look at something and wonder what the heck it is? If someone tells you it’s a new-fangled object designed to do thus and such, your brain automatically wants to file that information into a group of knowns. That’s usually when people say something like, “Oh, it’s sort of like a thingamajig?” We ask because we have an inherent need to relate the new thing to an old thing. (more…)
Posted in April, authors, awards, blogging, books, Fiction, friends, goals, grammar, humor, Jansen Schmidt, reading, romance, success, words, writers, writing, tagged awards, contest, finalist, literary award, On Common Ground, please help, please vote, RONE awards, vote, vote for me, western romance, western writers, WILLA Awards, winners, winning, women writers, Women Writing the West, writing contests, writing groups on April 29, 2019| 4 Comments »
That’s right folks, I could very well be a winner in not one, but two contests. A couple of months ago, I entered my book On Common Ground in the Willa Contest. What is the Willa Contest you ask? I’ve never heard of it, you say. Well, neither had I. Here’s the blurb from the Women Writing the West (WWW) website: (more…)
Posted in authors, Baer House Inn, blogging, breakfast, Family, Fiction, food, friends, health, humor, innkeeping, Jansen Schmidt, resolutions, success, vacation, writing, tagged bacon, bad day, Baer House, Baer House Inn, burned bacon, candied bacon, Cooking, dinner, dinner party, dinner theater, distractions, food, having a bad day, phone, pilgrimage, salad, smoke, Vicksburg Pilgrimage, wedge salad on February 25, 2019| 14 Comments »
You ever have one of those days when it feels like nothing is going right? You know the days I’m talking about, you get up on the wrong side of the bed or the planets don’t line up or whatever. This past weekend I had one of those days. It was more like two of those days in a row, but it just felt like I should crawl back into bed and stay there until, oh I don’t know, summer. (more…)
Posted in Amazon.com, authors, blogging, books, Family, Fiction, goals, grammar, humor, Jansen Schmidt, reading, resolutions, short story, social media, success, writers, writing, tagged advertising, authors, books, computers, Facebook, Facebook ads, marketing, marketing plan, novel, photos, photoshop, pixels, sales, software, technology on February 11, 2019| 7 Comments »
So I’ve been spending a LOT of time lately learning how to market my book. For those of you who are not writers, let me just say that when you write “the end,” you’re only about a third of the way done with that story. Next comes rounds of editing and proofreading to get it exactly right and then comes the selling part. This is the hardest, yet most important part. After all, what good is a really good book with an amazing cover if nobody knows how to get their hands on it? (more…)
