Friday, April 21, 2017

THE PANTRY is 10 years old!

I will never forget that moment when I held and opened a copy of my first book, The Pantry–Its History and Modern Uses, for the first time. It was more euphoric than when I saw my first published article, back in the January 1990 issue of Victoria Magazine (the original Hearst version) on my several years living and giving tours at the Victorian-era Gibson House Museum in Boston, Massachusetts. But it was a similar, once-in-a-lifetime experience: because there will never be a first book, or a first article, again.

The comparison to writers opening up their published books for the first time to holding their first child, or any of their babies, is very apt. The labor that goes into a book, the timeframe, the expectancy, the wondering, the fretting (the "will other people like it?"). All of it. It's very similar because, as with a child, you are birthing something from your heart and soul and mind. And unlike a child, a book has a longer shelf-life. It might exist for centuries and it is its own kind of legacy.

But yet, no, nothing is like holding your newborn for the first time. That is in its own special realm!

I am working on several other books right now and will keep this blog updated and at my more active blog on our farm life in Kentucky, Farmwife At Midlife.

The Pantry is still available via my website, only $20 postage paid (USA). The original cover price was $16.95 and is still that, if not less when you consider that postage has gone up in the past decade (even media mail, which is the most affordable way to send and actually quite quick, too).

I am happy to sign your copy, or inscribe it, and send it out as soon as possible (which is faster now that spring is here and the roads are clearer...well, or as life is less complicated as it has been).

Today, April 21st, is also the 12th anniversary of this very blog, started while researching and writing the book. A lot has happened in social media since that time and I still enjoy blogging over at "Farmwife at Midlife" which has had a recent revival of sorts.