Our family recently returned from a two-week-long road trip to Europe in celebration of our oldest daughter's graduation from college and our 30th wedding anniversary. Here are my favorites from the trip, in the order in which we experienced them... 1. Nostalgic Frankfurt, Germany We began our trip in Frankfurt, Germany where I lived with my family when I was 9-13 years old. I'd never … [Read more...]

Our oldest daughter graduated from college this month! How it started.... How it's going.... Our family spent the weekend in California celebrating her graduation ceremonies. Despite all the Covid craziness that struck during the spring of her freshman year, she had a FABULOUS college experience. She loved going to school in southern California. She joined a sorority and … [Read more...]

I'm in California this weekend celebrating our oldest daughter's college graduation! Please give a warm welcome to my wonderful reader friends Joy, Crissy, and Amy. They're here to provide insight on a question near and dear to an author's heart. What elevates a book to a reader's "keeper shelf"? -Becky What Causes Readers to Place a Book on Their Keeper Shelf: 1. The characters move off … [Read more...]

My husband began investing in real estate more than fifteen years ago in addition to working at his full-time job. His first purchase was the house across the street, which he renovated and flipped. He barely broke even. But he learned a lot. Over the years, he invested in more residential homes in our north Dallas neighborhood--flipping many, keeping a few as long-term rentals. He succeeded at … [Read more...]

I recently asked, "How old were you when you discovered your love of reading?" on my Facebook author page. I found the answers fascinating and heartwarming! For this post, I'm hitting on the themes I saw repeated again and again. First Grade This was the most common answer! For numerous women, learning to read went hand in hand with loving to read. "I learned to read in first grade. I … [Read more...]