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Hi friends… I’ve missed you.

As I age, I find I have less to say. I’ve been waiting to write this newsletter, hoping I could tell you when my next novel River of Mercy will be published, but I still don’t know. It’s been a year of rewriting and lots of walks in these dunes. We still live on our farm in the Sacramento Valley but escape to Ten Mile Beach above Fort Bragg, CA. whenever we can to enjoy the solitude. I love writing by the seashore. I just read that the greatest quality to instill in your children to ensure their success in […]

By Paula October 22, 2022

Baby JJ Is Here!

Life has been a roller coaster lately but I’m so happy to share that on February 7th, three weeks before his due date, Baby JJ (Jacob Jedidiah) arrived weighing 7 pounds 15 ounces. I still feel at a loss for words. This has been such an emotional journey. And our extended family has also been battling covid this past month as well. We continue to pray that Lacy, Jake, Lily, and Baby JJ stay healthy. And everyone gets well so we can all enjoy meeting and holding Baby JJ. We want to thank everyone for all your love and prayers […]

By Paula February 11, 2022

Looking for Happiness in 2022?

I hope 2022 brings you some good old-fashioned happiness. I never used to be that big on happiness. It seemed frivolous with so much more important matters, work to accomplish, children to raise, chores to do. But after 2021, I’m ready for some simple happiness. I’m asking myself this month what can I do to make myself happier? I want to be more happy this year. I know “more happy” isn’t good grammar, but one thing that makes me happy is breaking writing rules if I can break the rules in a meaningful way. I’ve been working with a fantastic […]

By Paula January 14, 2022

Merry Christmas 2021 from our family to yours…

What a year it has been. I thought 2020 was hard, 2021 proved even harder. Many of you have suffered losses this year as well. I’m so sorry for all the sadness. And yet as I looked over our family photos, trying to put this letter together, I realized in the midst of all our sorrows, we’ve had an abundance of joy. Sorrow did not win the year. Joy won. It’s nearly impossible to get a family photo of all our kids with work and life schedules, plus the kids don’t like posing for my pictures, but they humored me […]

By Paula November 29, 2021

So happy to share some good news…

Lacy and Jake’s wedding seems like yesterday and yet a lifetime ago. I so cherish these pictures full of love and hope from four years ago this past June. Who knew their happily ever after would include a heavy dose of sorrow. Losing baby Benjamin in January was so hard. And yet, here we are in October with the happy news of another baby on the way. With great joy, we introduce Jacob Jedediah Winship. This little baby boy “JJ” is due in Febuary on big sister Lily’s third birthday. We are beyond thrilled and so thankful to all of […]

By Paula October 11, 2021

A Season of Sorrow

We are still in a season of drought. Fire. Covid. And grief. When the quarantine began our family was recovering from what I thought was a bad flu. In hindsight, I realize it was Covid. It took me about two months to really recover my strength. Scott gave us about a week of hunkering down and then he opened our doors wide to any teenagers who wanted to come over. This scared and frustrated me. As a mom, I was trying to keep everyone safe. Especially my aging parents who also refused to stay away from us. I pleaded with […]

By Paula September 20, 2021

Harvest Season Miracle

We finished our apricot harvest this past week. It was the best apricot harvest we’ve ever had thanks to social media sharing and the Good Lord’s grace. We sold every apricot in our orchard, which seemed like a miracle. We thought we were going to lose our Lorna apricot crop due to a blight that made us unable to sell them to our stores this year. There are different kinds of apricots and we have about three varieties in our orchard but our main variety is the Lorna. To be transparent, I am not a fan of Lornas. They are […]

By Paula June 27, 2021