The Comfort Of Old Familiar Books by Stephanie Suesan Smith

 I am writing for Caroline Clemmons today as she is under the weather.

I love books.  I have a bedroom lined with bookshelves, with more bookshelves in the middle of the room, all full of books.  I have books stacked precariously on top of the bookshelves, and more all over the house.  Some, maybe most, of my books are reference books.  However, I keep some fiction books to re-read over and over.  They are comforting, like mac and cheese, and a nice fire.

Some of my favorites are the entire J.D. Robb In Death series (too gory for Caroline) and others like Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy.  I am looking forward to the next In Death book, Random In Death.

Of course, Caroline Clemmons books have their own bookcase.  Here are some favorites of her books.

The Surprise Bride series has new covers.  Caroline wrote Jamie, about the oldest boy.  His Mom sends for brides for him and his brothers.  He knows she sent for the other brides, but as a widower, he doesn't want a new bride.  Surprise!  He gets one too.

I enjoy The Texan's Irish Bride, where a man gets tricked into marrying the daughter of some Irish Travelers brought to the United States.  He ends up taking in the whole family after the leader of the group wants the daughter for himself.

I also enjoy the Texas Hill Country Mail Order Brides series.  It is set in a fictional town near Bandera, Texas.  When I was a kid, my parents took me to a dude ranch in Bandera, hoping to cure me of my horse addiction.  A kid was horsing around and fell off his horse.  I was determined to catch that runaway horse and ran after it.  Everybody thought the horse ran off with me, but I was having a ball galloping instead of the plodding walk we had been doing.  I didn't catch the horse but did have fun.  I got a horse when I was twelve.  We sold her when we moved, but my sister and I got horses when Dad bought a peach orchard between Weatherford and Mineral Wells when I was fifteen.  I helped my Dad irrigate the property with drip irrigation, pick peaches, fertilize them, spray them, and prune them until I left for graduate school.

What are your favorite old books?  Tell me in the comments so I can check them out.

Vegetable Gardening From The Ground Up by Stephanie Suesan Smith

 

By Stephanie Suesan Smith, Ph.D.

Ebook https://amzn.to/3GMafkU 

Paperback https://amzn.to/3qHHfFi

Darling Daughter One has a new book out so I am letting her use my blog today.

Produce you just picked from your vegetable garden tastes much better than produce you purchase. For new gardeners, however, establishing a garden can be daunting. You don’t want to waste all that money and time only to have everything die. 

This book was written for you. The author addresses all the steps in picking a site, getting it ready to plant, taking care of the vegetables, and caring for the site after the season is over. Vegetable Gardening from the Ground Up covers: 

• Understanding basic climate factors for your site 

• Choose a traditional, raised bed, container, square-foot, or lasagna garden 

• Ready the garden plot 

• Order the seeds and plants 

• Start the potential vegetables correctly 

• Fertilize the plants 

• Mulch your flourishing plants appropriately 

• Control pests, diseases, and other problems 

• Safely use organic or synthetic pesticides 

• Harvesting your bountiful produce 

• Safely storing the harvest 

• Save seeds and/or trade them 

• Caring for the garden plot between seasons 

Using this book:  You should read through the book once in its entirety. After that, you can refer to the chapters on the step you find yourself at as a reminder of what to do next. Happy Gardening! 

Stephanie Smith, PhD., is a Master Gardener who was born in Dallas, Texas, longer ago than she cares to mention. Stephanie began gardening as soon as she could stick an onion start in the ground. Her father taught her to grow things to eat, and that is her specialty. She has advanced training on growing vegetables and entomology. She is a member of the Texas Master Gardeners Association and the Dallas County Master Gardener Association. She was awarded 2014 Master Gardner of the Year for Hunt County, Texas. But things of beauty are also important, so she also grows African violets, is a member of the African Violet Society of America, and a member of the Alpha African Violet Society of Dallas.  

Stephanie was first published by a national magazine in 1990 and has since been published in several periodicals. Gardening articles have appeared in Animal Wellness, 903 Magazine, and the Greenville Herald Banner, among numerous other places. Articles and technical papers in psychology make up the balance of her periodical publications.   

Dr. Smith received a B.S. in psychology from Texas Christian University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in psychology from Texas A&M University. Currently, she resides in Dallas with her toy poodle, Jewel.   

Visit Stephanie's vegetable website, https://stephaniesuesansmith.com and read her blog, view her photographs, and participate in the conversations going on there. Feel free to ask gardening questions or leave a comment on one of the blog posts. Her garden content writer website is https://gardencopywriter.com. She has many gardening articles online and her portfolio is at https://gardencopywriter.com/garden-writing/. 

THE CASTLE ON THE HILL, WEATHERFORD TX

Several weeks ago, my daughter, Stephanie Smith, attended a weekend women’s conference near Weatherford, Texas. One of Stephanie's serious hobbies is photography. On a free afternoon, she took photos of the Pythian Home, also known as “The Castle on the Hill” and “The Castle That Love Built.” Since we combined our info with her photos (unless otherwise noted), we’re sharing credit on this post.

If you're driving west from Fort Worth, Texas on Interstate 20, when you reach the exit for Bankhead Highway, look north and you'll soon see a castle on the hill. This is The Pythian Home.

Pythian Home on Bankhead Highway
Weatherford, Texas

The Castle was proposed in 1895 and construction began in 1897. The Texas Pythian Home opened on March 1, 1909, as a home for widows and orphans of Knights of Pythias members. Three hundred acres were donated to the Pythians to build the castle-like structure. The castle was designed to house 250 people. At its peak, 500 people lived there. The administrative staff had their offices and quarters on the first floor. The second floor housed orphaned children, matrons and teachers along with classrooms and a large auditorium. The basement was divided into apartments for widows with children. The castle was designed with the intention of adding additional wings for housing as needed.


In 1914 all of the boys were moved into their new dorm. A girl’s only dorm was built in 1925. By the early 70’s the last remaining widow had died and there was no longer a need for widows to live at the Pythian Home due to the completion of a retirement home for aged Pythians in Greenville, TX.

 

From the beginning, the Home was designed to be totally self-sustaining. The Home had a large dairy operation and livestock was raised to provide meat for the residents. There were also huge vegetable gardens, orchards, a laundry, a hospital with a full-time Doctor and nurse on staff, a power plant generator and a water tower - even their own cemetery. The staff and children living at the Home kept busy maintaining all of the operations. Extra produce, fruit and milk produced by the Home was sold and provided substantial regular income.



By 1972 the FDA changed the regulations and most of those facilities, including the hospital and dairy, were shut down. They were no longer allowed to participate in the canning of their own produce and fruit, and by 1976 they were not self-sufficient. Some of the land has been sold. Once it reached to what is now Interstate 20. There is still some livestock on the grounds, for occasional income and meat. New child labor laws prohibited children from working the farm and kitchen.

 

Gatehouse is in need of repair.

The Home has suffered over the years due to the economy, but about 50 children still remain on site. Children no longer need to be related to a Knights of Pythias member, but are accepted as the need arises. The Home is not State funded and is operated mostly via donations and volunteers. The Pythian organization supports and organizes fundraises for these children, and most renovations are usually through volunteers and the generosity of the community and others. 
 

Knights of Pythias Meeting Hall.
 Second Floor
Weatherford, Texas Downtown Square

The Weatherford Knights of Pythias meeting hall is on the second floor of this building located on the southwest corner of the downtown square. Note that the crenelated roofline and the stationary knight facing east carry out the castle theme with a Templar flair. Meeting “castles” are located all over the United States, though many have been destroyed or are in sad repair.

Faith, Charity
Benevolence

The Knights of Pythias was the first fraternal organization to receive a charter under an act of the United States Congress. The order was founded by Justus H. Rathbone, who had been inspired by a play by the Irish poet John Banim about the legend of Damon and Pythias. This legend illustrates the ideals of loyalty, honor and friendship that are central to the order.


The order has over two thousand lodges in the United States and around the world, with a 2003 total membership of over 50,000. Some lodges meet in structures referred to as Pythian Castles. The order's auxiliaries are the Pythian Sisters, the less serious Dramatic Order Knights of Khorassan, The Nomads of Avrudaka, and two youth organizations: the Pythian Sunshine Girls and the Junior Order, Knights of Pythias for boys.

According to www.pythias-tx.org, “The Fraternal Order of the Knights of Pythias are pledged to the promotion of understanding among men of good will as the surest means of attaining Universal Peace. We believe that men and women, meeting in a spirit of goodwill, in an honest effort of understanding, can live together in a spirit of peace and harmony. We seek those who agree with this belief, and have a personal belief in a Supreme Being, to join our ranks in an effort to reach ‘Peace Through Understanding.’"

Knights of Pythias Castle, Fort Worth TX
Houses upscale business, offices
photo from Pythian website

In 1881 the first building ever built specifically for use as a Pythian lodge hall was erected in downtown Fort Worth. It was a three-story affair, a rarity at the time, costing a magnificent fifteen thousand dollars to construct. The cornerstone ceremony was presided over by Justus H. Rathbone, who had founded the Order Of The Knights of Pythias in 1864. The building is a Texas and National Historical Site.

Notable Pythian Knights include:
Hugo Black, U.S. Supreme Court Justice,
William Jennings Bryan, U.S. Secretary of State     and Presidential candidate
Warren G. Harding, U.S. President
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, U.S. Vice President
John Ellis Martineau, Governor of Arkansas, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas
Richard Irvine Manning III, Governor of South Carolina
William McKinley, U.S. President,
Nelson A. Rockefeller, U.S. Vice President
Joe Rollins, Texas Attorney General, Houston Asst. City Attorney, Prominent Private Practice Attorney
Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. President
Sun Ra, Jazz Musician, Composer, and Band Leader
Lew Wallace, Territorial Governor of New Mexico, Major General (U.S. Army), Diplomat
Freddie Martin, Musician, Band Leader
James E. West, first professional Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America
Francis E. Warren, First governor of Wyoming, long time senator of Wyoming
Louis Armstrong, Jazz musician, actor

As times change, all fraternal orders have seen their membership dwindle. I sincerely hope the Knights of Pythias’ efforts continue to support the Weatherford, Texas Castle on the Hill.

Does anyone in your family belong to a fraternal order?

Thanks for stopping by!

CAREFUL, OR YOU WILL END UP IN MY NOVEL

By Stephanie Suesan Smith

It is a cliché that when an author has a new book released those around her rush to read it and see if they are a character in the book.  It is a cliché because it is often true. The muse doesn’t throw a plot into our brains using things totally unfamiliar to us.  “Write what you know,” we are told.  That is correct, up to a point. The saying doesn't imply you should spill everything you know.

The caveat applies because sometimes what we know is too emotionally laden to allow us to write objectively.  Although we pour our blood, sweat, and tears into our writing, we must edit ruthlessly and eliminate anything that does not further the plot.  Characters or situations we are too close to make editing hard.

Recently my parents and I were discussing a book I had read by a well-known author.  When asked for my opinion of the book, I replied, “It's a spite book.”  I meant the book was obviously a plot taken from a relatively recent and still painful event in the author’s life and had real venom in it. 

Spite doesn't
serve authors
well

I do not know if the book was written to exorcise the event or retaliate, but the book was not very good.  Spite doesn’t allow us to be objective and know when the plot is thin, worn, or just needs to go somewhere else.

Erma Bombeck,
American humorist
who mentioned her
family in books
and columns

Things, or people, we love can also cloud our judgment.  Erma Bombeck was a famous humor author who wrote about her domestic disasters in columns and books.  Sometimes, her family objected to the things she wrote, considering them too personal.  She always replied that if they didn’t like what she wrote they could get their own columns and write what they wanted.  Fortunately for us, most of our loved ones do not write humor columns.

Thinking about how what we write will impact family and friends is a consideration.  If you model a character after someone then have the character do something evil, the real person might suffer repercussions.  Better to make up your villains, or at least model them after someone you do not have to live with every day.



We love our pets
 but don't gush
 in print

 Love can make us paint a hero or heroine as perfect or gush over a dog or cat. Somehow these emotion-laden characters always come out as two dimensional figures that do not ring true.  I have a drawer full of dog stories that are just too mushy to use.  Many romance authors have similar drawers with heroines that are, as my mother puts it, “too stupid to live.”  These are like the kids in horror movies that open the door to investigate the strange noise even after seeing a friend eaten.

Writing what you know is good advice, but in-depth research to supplement your knowledge pays off.  When you know something backwards and forwards, your writing will have detail and depth that someone who has only a cursory knowledge of the same subject cannot match. Be careful, however, when writing about emotionally laden things in your own life as part of your character’s life. 

Vengeance and adoration are for poetry, not for plots.  The reader, especially the reader who knows your writing well, can tell when those emotions are too heavily involved in your books.  They detract from the plot and jar the reader out of their willing suspension of disbelief. Too much of that, and you lose your readers.

Stephanie Suesan Smith, Ph.D. avoids these problems by writing plotless nonfiction on gardening, woodworking, photography, and other subjects.  The brave can read her website, Information Central.

MAKING KILLER BOOK TRAILERS EASILY AND CHEAPLY

From www,TheWildRosePress.com/
caroline-clemmons-m-html

My dad and I tend to be Mom's technical support. When her book OUT OF THE BLUE came out, she lamented that she did not have a book trailer. Like the dutiful daughter that I am, I said it couldn't be that hard and I would make her one. Well, it wasn't that hard, but the instructions were written in Geek and not English. Now, I read Geek, but many people do not. I have written a pamphlet, in English, to show how to take still photographs and turn them into a killer book trailer. The best part is the pamphlet only costs $0.99 and the rest is free.


Windows Movie Maker is part of Windows 7. Earlier versions of Windows have it, but some features may differ. It is widely available and works on most contemporary machines. This is the program I show you how to use to make a video.


The basic steps to making a video are familiar to any author. You plot the video so it is around three minutes. Then you locate photographs to illustrate the plot. Some free resources are mentioned in the pamphlet. Then you put the photographs in order, put in titles and captions, and time the whole thing. Add an MP3 file of music, click the auto movie feature, and watch as it all becomes a video. All that is left is to tinker a bit with the timing, then upload the video to YouTube and publicize it.


The pamphlet includes screen shots so you can see exactly what to do each step of the way. Everyone should be able to construct a simple book trailer using these instructions. You can see the trailers I did for Mom at my YouTube channel.


I hope this pamphlet is useful. It is part of my series of POPCORN BOOKS: BITE-SIZED GUIDES TO THE UNIVERSE. What other topics do you need help with?

POPCORN BOOKS: EASY GUIDES TO THE TECHNICAL STUFF WRITERS NEED

Stephanie Suesan Smith, PhD

Please welcome my eldest daughter. Althought I refer to her as Darling Daughter One, her name is Stephanie Suesan Smith. Her degree is in clinical psychology, but she is also a Master Gardener, non-fiction writer, photographer, and wood worker. In addition, she has helped me with our family research and located legal documents no one else in the family could find. Stephanie lives in East Texas with her two dogs, Star and Sandy. Along with Hero, Stephanie is my tech support. Nice to have a 24/7 helpline since I'm definitely cyber-challenged. Here's Stephanie:

POPCORN BOOKS: BITE-SIZED

GUIDES TO THE UNIVERSE^TM

Just read the manual. For many people, that phrase ranks right up there with “You need a root canal.” At least a dentist gives you anesthesia.

Technical people like to play with the more arcane parts of a program as much as, or more than, the straight forward parts. We forget that writers and other people have actual lives and just want to set up their social media stuff so they can get back to writing. Fortunately, some of us have non-technical people in our lives that remind us of that fact.

To that end, I am starting a series of guides I call POPCORN BOOKS: BITE-SIZED GUIDES TO THE UNIVERSE^TM. They contain just enough information to get you going without all the technical gobbledygook. Better yet, they are only 99 cents each at Amazon Kindle.

The first guide is called HOW TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO MAKE YOUR BLOG WORK HARDER. Getting your blog on Kindle, an Amazon author page, a Goodreads author page, Facebook, and Twitter are covered. In one swoop, you have five bases covered. I include screen shots showing exactly what to do, so you can set things up with as little difficulty as possible.

No Twitter account? No problem. The next pamphlet is HOW TO SET UP A TWITTER ACCOUNT. This guide covers establishing an account and making a nice looking profile page. You not only want a Twitter account, you want to appear as if you know what you are doing and drive traffic to your webpage and mailing list. Screenshots help you with this task, as well.

Other planned guides are:

• Setting up a Facebook personal page
• Setting up a Facebook fan page
• Setting up your Google profile
• Getting started on Google +
• Setting up a self-hosted Wordpress blog

Are there other topics you would like to see? If so, please let me know. My email is stephaniesuesansmith@gmail.com. My website is http://stephaniesuesansmith.com, if you want to see examples of my work.

Stephanie's dogs, Sandy left and Star in the

corner, on a recent visit to Caroline and Hero.

Sandy and Stare are waiting for Stephanie to catch up

from their walk and open the door for them to come inside
from our curent oppressive heat in North Central Texas.

Thanks, Stephanie, for letting us know about your guides and those you've planned in the future. The pamphlets definitely fill a need! And thanks for all the help you've given my friends in the past.

If you love either historical or contemporary western romance, please check http://texasdruids.blogspot.com/ for Lyn Horner's series on western romance. She's invited a number of western romance authors to guest post and share different aspects of the genre. The series appears twice a week through September 1st.

Blogging, Multi-tasking, and Research

Today a magic fairy makes me three people. LOL I'm a guest on the blogs of my friend Skhye Moncrief and my eldest daughter, plus this blog. Authors are so good at multi-tasking, aren't we? My daughter Stephanie's blog is about my research trip to Johnson Bend Boy Scout Camp at Possum Kingdom Lake and other research for my time travel OUT OF THE BLUE. Does almost getting arrested count as research? I hope so. This area is not that far from my home--maybe an hour away--so getting there is not difficult. Skhye's blog discusses a lovely trip my youngest daughter and I took to Lost Maples State Natural Area near Bandera for the western historical THE TEXAN'S IRISH BRIDE that will be released Sept. 3rd. I love that area of Texas and always look forward to a trip.


Whether historical or contemporary, my books are set in Texas. I do a lot of research from books and online, of course, but I also rely on the way too many research books in my persoanl library. Contemporary research books include the Writer's Digest series. My favorite is DEADLY DOSES, which I also use for historicals. TEXAS ALMANAC is always handy, as is a Texas road map to help me visualize distances. Historical research involves the same books, but I also use a collection of severak memoirs written by early settlers. Fehrenbach's LONE STAR is the most easily read of all the history books I've found. I have several medical books, the funniest of which is DR. CHASE'S RECIPES FOR EVERDAY LIFE by A, W. Chase, MD, published by the author in 1866. This book includes not only his "recipes" for various maladies, but also notes on tanning hide, building furniture, and other things people of the time needed to know. The Writers Digest WRITER'S GUIDE TO EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE WILD WEST and THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO EVERYDAY LIKE IN THE 1800'S are helpful, but there are errors in these books and writers much be wary. Barbara Belding Gibson's PAINTED POLE: THE BELDINGS AND THEIR RANCHES IN PALO PINTO COUNTY is one I have used a lot. In addition, I was fortunate enough to visit the ranch a few years ago. What a treat.

I am a book fiend. I scavenge book sales, garage sales, Goodwill, and other places for books that fall in my fields of interest. One never knows when a seemingly odd book might provide just the details of authenticity to make writing credible. For instance, in case you've wondered how people entertained friends and relatives for weeks on end when living in a small one-room cabin, I found one possible answer in TEXAS TEARS AND TEXAS SUNSHINE: VOICES OF FRONTIER WOMEN (if I remember correctly). One of the memoirs talked of visiting a relative. Since the guest was a woman, she slept against the wall with the wife between her and the husband. If the guest had been a man, he would have slept on the outside, with the husband between the guest and the wife. Imagine having sex while there's another person in bed pretending not to notice! Definitely no thanks! That offers way, way too little privacy for me! Maybe those sleeping arrangements were not widespread, but the writer seemed to think it was normal. I haven't used this in a book and don't plan to, but you get the idea of how such knowledge grounds an author in pioneer life. It reminds me of the first part of Janice Woods Windle's TRUE WOMEN in which the little girl watches through cracks in the loft floor at her sister and brother-in-law "playing" under the covers in the room below. I believe there was almost no privacy for pioneer women. Which mans that, while I love reading and writing about late 19th century life in Texas as I view it but as it probably wasn't, I realize I am so blessed to live in a house with electricity, modern plumbing, air-conditioning, and doors on all the multiple rooms.

What are your favorite research books?
 
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