Small Pleasure: Finding Grace in a Chaotic World

By Justine Toms Reviewed by The Brussats Small Pleasures: Finding Grace in a Chaotic World By Justine Toms Hampton Roads Hardcover $18.95 ISBN: 9781571745866 Reviewed by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, authors of “Spirituality & Practice: Resources for the Spiritual Journey.” You can find their work online at www.spiritualityandpractice.com. Justine Toms is cofounder and managing…

Musical Learning Model by Approximation. In 7 Easy Steps.

Yesterday, after we’d played old-time music for hours at the Alton Sesquicenntential, 12-year-old N. and I came back to the house for a classical music lesson, and worked for 1 1/2 hours more. Here’s a method I’ve figured out for learning a piece of music by approximation. You can use the same learning method on…

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Blog Action Day: Poverty in the Great Depression. “The Kind of People that We Are”—a poem by Erwin A. Thompson

Blog Action Day is today, with a focus on Poverty. Currently 9,394 Sites with an audience with more than 10,612,112 readers are registered in Blog Action Day 2008. Last year, I participated when bloggers focused on the Environment. Read my post on how it’s “Easy to be green at the Carelton Hotel in San Francisco.”…

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Alton Sesquicenntenial. We’re playing, folks!

Pop and I were musicians in public this weekend. We played both days at the Alton Sesquicenntenial. Just so you don’t have to look it up, that’s 150 years, the anniversary of the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates in Alton. Click here for a schedule of the weekend and more information on the Alton Sesquicenntenial. On Saturday…

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“The Spirit of a Woman” anthology released…and launched with Women’s Spirit website

Click here to go to “The Spirit of a Woman” website to read about the newly released book “The Spirit of a Woman: Intimate Stories to Empower and Inspire” created and introduced by Terry László-Gopadze with 31 storytellers…women writers you’ve read and heard of and some you’ve never met in print. My story “Sliding Glass…

Audiobook “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music” update: mechanical licensing completed

Good news! We’ve completed the mechanical licensing phase for the music used in the upcoming audio book “Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music”. Now, onward into the production phase! For those interested, the phases in creating and producing your own audiobook are: 1) creative phase: recording, editing, fileswapping, decisionmaking, “notes” back and…

Journeywoman Shares 55 Travel Secrets…including 2 Riehlife tips

Journeywoman is sharing 55 travel secrets from women writers who travel around the world. Click here to READ FIFTY-FIVE FABULOUS TIPS. Each year Journeywoman connects with female writers around the world and asks them to send one or two of their best travel secrets for their female readership to enjoy. This year they’ve harvested a…

Where in the World is Janet? Re-design Time. Join the Riehlife Community Here.

Readers have written—even called!–wanting to know what’s going on with me and with the Riehlife site. As to both, I can say, “We are under construction. Pardon our dust.” First, as to the site, because that’s more simple: We’re in the process of shifting from a standard blog-column with a website sidebar to a visual…

Twittering away…9 months of microblogging…in 140 characters or less

“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” Twittering is like sending a telegraph or writing a haiku. Over time, the messages accrete, and the rhythms of a life become discernable. At least, that’s…

Republican “Change” examined through piercing metaphor in Brody’s Press-Citizen Opinion Article

Spare Change? In an opinion article titled Republican tactics for collecting spare ‘Change’ written for the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Alan Brody nails the Republican “Change” strategy with an on-point metaphor. I hope you get a chance to read this…quite entertaining and shows the power of metaphor and imagination at work…to illuminate our current political process.