Donna Hechler Porter

On my last last blog I shared my Chocolate Buttermilk Pie recipe, which is great comfort food even if its not good for your waistline. I mentioned I froze my pie crusts ahead of time so that I always had them handy. Doing so is a great time-saver. So this week, after several requests, I am sharing my frozen pie crust dough recipe. And, let me say up front, I have no idea where I got this recipe from, so credit, unfortunately, cannot be given.

Two weeks ago the Porters did the Great Room Shuffle once again. Two adult boys in one bedroom just wasn’t cutting the mustard anymore. In the process, I lost my “office” room and am now back in the dinette in the kitchen. It’s not so bad. I get to look out the backyard. I can open the windows a tad (not too far or Fuego will push through the screen . . .

I don’t watch a lot of television. Having said that, I will admit I have had a run lately on good quality shows – Poldark, When Calls the Heart, Victoria, and Mercy Street. These are all, of course, on PBS with the exception of When Calls the Heart which is a Hallmark show. So yea – you see the sort of stuff I watch. Not much different than the kind of stuff I read. So it was a little odd when a friend hooked me on This Is Us. Me watching a major network show is like seeing

It’s really hard being a historical writer. We work for hours, sometimes years, learning as much as we can about the period we are writing in – from speech, to food, to dress, to religion, and on and on. Even then, there is always someone who knows more than you and things trip you up. When they are pointed out you cringe and make a vow to not do THAT again. One of the easier things to get, however, are the social mores and constraints. These, in my opinion, are biggies . .

Recently an article came over my Facebook feed from a fellow homeschooling mother. (You can find it here.) It was a mock poem from a little boy begging his teachers to let him keep his recess because he was jittery enough in class and had a hard time focusing. Needless to say, this boy was one that had been diagnosed with ADHD. He is, sadly, one of thousands. And the number of boys medicated into “submission” is growing by the day.

I am waiting for the day I get a review that disputes the education level of both David and Annie in my book Keeping Secrets, as well as the historical context of the school they attend. The fact of the matter is, members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) placed a higher value on education in the 18th century than the average colonial citizen. They had more schools, with more teachers, than the average colonial community. What is even more remarkable is that they educated t

Okay, so my boys are learning to drive. Actually, we’ve been at it a while now. But yesterday, while one of them was driving and I was sitting in the passenger seat, I thought for the first time “Geesh, why do I have to live in this time period where it is dangerous to even let them leave the house alone?” Then, I heard a voice in the car, and no, it was not from the kid in the backseat – “life has always been dangerous. Two hundred and seventy years ago . . .