The Seventh Day of Christmas: New Friends

For the seventh day of Christmas, I want to highlight some new friends I’ve found via blogs, comments on blogs, Twitter, and various web sites.

Doug Spurling. Doug lives in Minnesota. He has a blog called Spurling Silver (I like that name), where he writes about family, grandchildren, life, faith and God. He had two posts last week, one entitled “Frozen” and the other “The First Christmas Tree,” which will give you a good indication how he can surprise a reader, and take you where you didn’t expect to go. You can follow him on Twitter, too.

Susan Etole. Susan lives in Minnesota, and posts about the “three Ps” on her blog, Just…A Moment – poems, prose and photos. She’ll take the simplest of ideas and combine a few words with a photo to blow you away, like she did with “No Storm Here” and “The Riven Heart.” Susan and I have at least three things in common – faith, a love for poetry and a love for good mysteries.

Randall David Tipton. Tipton is an artist in Oregon, and he posts his oils and watercolors on his blog, Painter’s Process. He does some beautiful work, painting in a luminous way. His subjects are often nature – woods, trees and other natural settings – but he also did this recent work of “Steam and a Mill” on the Willamette River. And thanks to my friend Maureen Doallas for introducing me to Tipton’s work.

Phoenix-Karenee. Phoenix-Karenee is an artist, a poet and an author. I don’t know her or his real name or (obviously) gender; the blog site is something of a mystery and that’s part of the enjoyment. I suspect it’s a she, but I could be wrong. But I really enjoy the poems and the art that’s posted occasionally.

Claire Burge. Claire, who lives in Ireland, writes a blog called My Memoir of You, and she posts her poetry and photography. She also has a tutoring business, a blog devoted to her photography, and a blog about family, where she posts occasionally. I tweet her poems whenever she posts one – they’re good.