“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely,” and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

“Alice in Wonderland” – Lewis Carroll

Once upon a time, I had a blog called Subscription Therapy that focused on my somewhat unhealthy obsession with subscription boxes. I used to scour the interwebs for box reviews and when I couldn’t find them, I thought it would be fun to try random subscriptions and share my thoughts. It was just supposed to be a way to keep a regular writing schedule. Cue my surprise when people actually started reading it. Over time it got bigger and encompassed more interests and when my book, The Ice Maiden’s Tale was released in 2017, it needed to be my author site as well. With my demanding day job, never-ending home renovations, novel promotion and writing–plus the rehabilitation of a sick wolf (more on that in the future), updating it became an overwhelming prospect. I couldn’t figure out how to make it everything it needed to be, so I just stopped trying. Years passed.

Despite being distracted by so many things, in the back of my mind it always bothered me that the little blog I’d once poured so much time and care into, sat dusty in a corner of the internet, most of the information on it no longer useful or needed. I’m not exactly sure what made this year different than the ones before, but I was ready to transform the blog into something new. I knew I had to have an author site. I’m still trudging away writing book, but writing itself is a slow and solitary process, there’s not really much to share while I’m in the trenches. My one little book published years ago doesn’t have a ton of news to share each week. So, what should the rest of this blog be about?

I’ve always thought of writers as magpies – gathering the shiny bits of the world and weaving them into a story. So, I decided to make this blog a place for all those inspiring crumbs—like books, or DIY projects, or recipes, or music, or random adventures with the most adorable and friendly wolf in the world. I kept some of the pertinent posts from the old blog but removed the outdated content to make way for new things.

I’ll be the first to admit my life is sort of a strange little fairy tale—just more woodland witch than enchanted princess. And since I spend most of my time negotiating with a stubborn wolf, am a natural ginger, and own an inappropriate number of red hoodies, “Red in the Hood” was born as the new iteration of my blog. (It was also a conveniently available domain name.) We’ll see how it goes and what sparkly bits I can gather and share with you.

So here’s to new beginnings &
journeys through the woods with friends.