Sharon Stephenson

I've not written a blog for 2 months. To be honest, I haven't written much in the past 3 months. Life,…

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As I write this, snow is continuing to fall at quite a rate at my home on the Eastern Shore. Having spent most of my life living in states…

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It's been a little over a week since our container was delivered to our door and our furniture and roughly 200 boxes were unloaded. We're all unpacked now and gradually getting our house in order. Writing has temporarily taken a back seat but I will be back at it very soon. But this doesn't…

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We're waiting for our ship to come in...literally! We packed up our house and moved to the USA from the UK in late June. Having done this ocean-crossing move…

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Ahh September. A month for beginnings. We're beginning to settle into life in Maryland, still living with a couch, a TV, a bed, and an outdoor table and chairs on loan from a dear neighbor. The container with our goods has finally left our UK removal company's warehouse and is sitting on a dock—in a UK bay—waiting to be loaded onto a container ship due into a nearby port in the USA at the end of September. I'm trying not to think about the fact this is hurricane season and as I sit here writing this on our porch I am noticing the wind picking up as we await the tail end of Ida…

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Well, we made it. After all the pre-move pitfalls (read June's BLOG if you're interested in the details) we made the trip from the UK to the USA. Halfway through our BA flight, the air hostess handed us a slip of paper from the New York Center for Disease Control telling us regardless of having had to take a Zoom Covid test conducted with a doctor and having the signed paperwork to prove it and having proof of having been fully vaccinated we still needed to quarantine for 10 days. Yikes! We were meeting family in Maine the very next day after landing at JFK. Family we hadn't seen for 20 months. With a fear of the…

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Note to self: don't make an international move during a pandemic. Unfortunately I didn't get the memo until after my husband and I had packed up and sold our UK house, bought a house in Maryland (over the internet) and just a week ago were halfway over the Atlantic with our dog. This was the first chance we'd had to take a breath and it almost came as a huge…

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I missed April and May—wanted to finish Taking the Sun and then we got busy! As I write this I am sitting between two tables laden with stuff to be packed into boxes and eventually loaded into a container for yet another trip of our belongings across the Atlantic—4th time! After over a year of discussing the pros and cons of doing this, we are planning to move to the USA. We both have dual citizenship (UK and USA) and some would say we are fortunate to have…

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It might have escaped your notice, but I didn't do a February Blog. I was 'on a roll' finishing up my latest book, Taking the Sun, and doing a blog seemed like an interruption. This lockdown in the UK (#3) has felt like the longest and the toughest. Maybe because we're in winter, with long, cold nights and dreary skies. Winter was also a time for planning our travel, something we're not confident about doing at the moment. Maybe it's because my days have fallen into a routine and I feel like I'm in a Groundhog Day movie with just a few twists—changing the bed instead of shopping, cleaning instead of cooking—you get the idea. Even those times…

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A new year. I'm hopeful we can keep all the good things about 2020 and never revisit the bad. My list of the good—clear, blue, pollution-free skies; hearing bird song and not traffic noise, helping to support folks in our village;…

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I flipped the calendar over to December and other than eating a chocolate from my Advent Calendar the day was lost on me. I was busy and forgot all the jobs I should have done on the first of a month--writing my blog, giving my dog her monthly flea and tick pill, weighing myself—the day came and went like any other. It wasn't until the middle of last night I realized it…

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I didn't do a blog for October. I was feeling quite agitated by the end of September and couldn't seem to focus my attention. September is usually a 'traveling month' and this year it was not going to happen. After much deliberation, my husband and I decided to head to Scotland—a much-needed trip. The empty distances and surreal beauty afforded by the moors and mountains and lakes of Scotland inspired me. I loved having a chance to try and capture the breathtaking landscapes with my camera. The vistas allowed me to breathe, to recharge, to think. At times I felt as…

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