Hope Darby Writings

I’m a fan of quotations. I enjoy the feeling of stumbling across a sentence, a phrase, a disjointed thought that resonates with me and makes me want to jot it down before I forget all about it. There have been many times when I’ve seen a quotable, not stopped right then and there to put it to paper, and find myself later remembering the general gist of the words but not the complete thought. Today, I was indulging in one of my guilty (extremely guilty) pleasures: Dancing with the Stars.... Continue to Full Post →

Yes yes yes it’s that time of year again. The time of year when the weird kids get their mojo uniforms out of the closet, brush off their coffee pots, invest in large quantities of espresso, chocolate, and severely high-octane Mountain Dew (well, if you’re in the South, that is), and start trying to accomplish a nearly impossible feat: writing a 50,000 word novel in one month. Even worse, a 50,000 word novel that makes sense.   That’s right. It’s NaNoWriMo time.   Last year,... Continue to Full Post →

The past few days have been intensely chaotic. My uncle unexpectedly passed away on Wednesday night, sending a shock wave through the family. My little brother called at 10pm to tell me about it, and I could hear my mother in the background, crying while she dressed to go to the ER to be with her sister (wife of the uncle who passed.) I left a note for my husband, who, having to wake up for work at 3:30am, was already in bed asleep, and I drove out to the hospital. A large gathering of my extended... Continue to Full Post →

Rather against my will — and definitely against my better judgment — I recently began “Twittering.” I know, how late to the game am I? Actually, I joined Twitter way back in the spring, but as of today I have only made 8 or 9 “tweets.” There is something a bit liberating in attempting to express a complete thought in 140 characters or less, but I have to wonder how history would have looked had society been Twitterfied long ago. Like any overly curious, too-nosy-for-my-own-good... Continue to Full Post →

Hello…my name is Hope…and I am an ellipsis junkie.   The first step is admitting the problem, yes? Now to find a support group for my particular sickness. You see, I just can’t seem to help myself. I know grammar rules, I know which funky-looking bits of punctuation belong where, and yet I am finding myself in constant violation of ellipsis abuse. If I were to read some of my emails and forum postings out loud, it would sound like a horrible tenth-grade drama student auditioning... Continue to Full Post →

While touring through Romania, I made it my goal to capture a flower in every town we stayed in. Everywhere we turned, the streets are lined with splashes of red and orange, flower boxes serve as medians through lanes of traffic, and every single house has a leafy, canopied garden filled with knots and circles of the most amazingly fragant bulbs of color I’ve ever seen. Here are just a few to serve as appetizers for the rest of our travels. These are from as far south as Bucharest, through... Continue to Full Post →

…when one is away too long, Smurfs take over the whole darn place… Luckily, I am home now and will be updating this smurftastic place with pictures and stories galore. Grab your pointy teeth, capes, cloaks, and favoritest snuggle-bunny, things could get a little scary…  Read More →

I have officially Cheezburgered two of our cats…   Go give them a good vote!  Read More →

For the past many days, I have been battling with my peepers once again. You see, my right eye has apparently launched an all-out war against me, and has opted to use germ warfare as its primary tool of aggression. Thanks to this unprovoked attack, I am now the victim of a particularly vicious set of ocular atrocities: iritis and scleritis. In layman’s terms, red-pain-ohmigoshhurtssomuchcan’tstandit-photophobic eye woes.   For this reason, I’m having to seriously limit my time... Continue to Full Post →

There is much excitement in the land of Hope!  As many of you who don’t know, in the early part of September, my husband and I will be embarking on “The Dracula Tour” of Romania. Essentially, we’ll be touring places frequented by Vlad Tepes (a.k.a. Vlad the Impaler, a.k.a. Vlad Dracula), including his ancestral home and actual fortress and castle. We’ll also be visiting Castle Bran, the castle that inspired the American versions of “vampire” castles. Think... Continue to Full Post →