May 24, 2013
“Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit.” ~ Frank Borman
My travelogue of Newport, Rhode Island continues today. I had the opportunity to tour the Marble House, one of the mansions. High up on the Cliff Walk, overlooking Rhode Island sound and the Atlantic Ocean, it was home to the Vanderbilts who made their fortune as venture capitalists in the NY Central Railroad and steamships. Their investments and other wealthy families foresight in our country’s future, brought more prosperity through expanding commerce.
The opulent stone palace, now a National Historic Landmark, was designed by Richard Morris Hunt and was constructed during the years 1888-1892. Once complete, it was a 39th birthday present to William K Vanderbilt’s wife, Alva. How do you wrap a present like that? In gold, of course, inside, rather than out. She loved to entertain and saw the Marble House as “her temple to the Arts in America.”
Husband and wife, had separate private reading rooms filled with books, on opposite sides of the mid-level landing of the enormous, two story marble stair case. It is where they went to get away, relax from all their social entertaining. They also built a Chinese teahouse on the property with a magnificent view where guests could go for peace and solitude away from the hustle and bustle of the Marble House activities.
Alva and William K Vanderbilt had three children. Their son, William K, Jr. was a pioneer in auto racing. Their son, Harold pursued his passion of yachting and sailed in the America’s Cup three times. Their daughter Consuelo became the 9th Duchess of Marlborough.
Photos are not allowed to be taken inside the mansion. To read more about the Marble House and to see a photo of the gold room in the Marble House, please visit this link. http://www.newportmansions.org/explore/marble-house.
It was a fulfilling weekend in New England, exploring art, history and architecture.
Return on Monday to www.AllThingsFulfilling.com where independent thoughts, words and views are all part of the business. This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.

Another “summer cottage” along Belleview Road


Above: Marble House, the Vanderbilt’s Summer Cottage by the Sea.

Chinese Teahouse on the property of Marble House

The Backside of Marble House – facing the sea

Above: Me with the Babcocks, my niece Kara & Her husband Joe – two architects!
Above: Gates of Salve Regina Univ in Newport, RI – it was graduation day!

Above & Below Images: Stopped by the International Tennis Hall of Fame – it was neat!


Newport Harbor
Goodbye, Newport! Can’t believe we saw all these sites in Newport in one day. Well worth the stop!
Signed, Grateful, that I returned to this area once again. Loved every minute!
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Posted by sueleonardCFS
May 23, 2013
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” ~Warren Buffett
A stroll along The Cliff Walk and Bellevue Avenue was a beautiful place to be last Saturday. Sunny skies and flowering trees added to the charm of Newport, RI, a city filled with mansions from The Guilded Age.
Many of the homes were built with embellishments found in European castles and cathedrals. The structures, fit for kings and royalty, are now museums because they are so expensive to maintain, and they are open to the public for touring. The mansions were once “seaside cottages” for wealthy families who came to Newport, RI, their summer playground. Life by the sea for the Vanderbilt’s, Astor’s, Webb’s and Dupont’s was more glitzy than it is today for most ocean resort dwellers. The families came with a full staff of servants, and house help who helped orchestrate the entertainment of other notables of great wealth and social standing. These prominent society people can be thanked for paving the way for prosperity in the United States. Through their investment in the railroads and steamships, commerce spread westward across America. They were the same individuals who were great patrons of the arts, and invested in magnificent paintings and other art installations, such as sculpture, in their mansions.
Enjoy your tour of Newport, through my photos:

Photo above & below: At the start of Cliff Walk in Newport, RI
with my twin sister



The Breakers, Newport, RI

Another summer cottage by the sea on Cliff Walk

Graduation Day at Salve Regina University, Newport, RI http://www.salve.edu/

Tree on Campus of Salve Regina University – Rooted in two different places!

Another of the Mansions along Cliff Walk

Dogwoods, Azaleas, and other flowering trees were in bloom



Sue, Jan and my niece, Kara in the middle
Return tomorrow to All Things Fulfilling, where sharing independent thoughts, words and views is all part of the business. I will show you a few more of the sites in Newport, RI from my travels. My trip to Rhode Island was not my first, but I found plenty of fulfilling things I had never seen before. Come back to see the mansion we toured.
This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com. A Company Specializing in e-Commerce and e-Marketing for Independent Publishers.
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Posted by sueleonardCFS
May 22, 2013
All that I know of tomorrow is that Providence will rise before the sun ~ Jean Baptiste Lacordaire
It’s a city rising, moved by philanthropists, architects, artists, bankers, shopkeepers and others who have engaged in The Providence Portrait Project http://providenceportraitproject.com/ to revitalize Providence, R.I. a city full of history, art, architecture. I enjoyed a day in this city last week when I went to visit my niece who is an architect at Union Studio Architects, and is currently involved in the design of a new library in Tiverton, Rhode Island. http://www.unionstudioarch.com/ .
I encountered so many wonderful sites in Providence that had to do with architecture, history, libraries, books, art, design and education that I will share what I saw through images, rather than words. Enjoy the pictures!
My next stop will be in a city of mansions where wealthy bankers, investors, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs lived in the early days of our country. Many of them invested in the railroad which allowed for westward expansion of commerce and thus, more prosperity for citizens of our country. Many of the castle-like mansions have become museums, open to the public for touring.
Do return to All Things Fulfilling tomorrow.


Above two images – my niece Kara explaining about the Providence Portrait Project http://bit.ly/14tLl1w.

The roof top garden above Union Studio Architects

Image above: Symposium Books, Providence, RI www.symposiumbooks.com
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)

Image above & below: Athenaeum Library http://www.providenceathenaeum.org/


Twin Sisters (yeah, I know, it’s hard to believe) together at the List Art Center

Walter Feldman Book Arts Studio http://brown.edu/academics/visual-art/facilities

At the Gates of Brown University, Providence, RI http://www.brown.edu/

Image above: John Hay Library http://library.brown.edu/about/hay/
Three Images Below: Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology
http://bit.ly/YXjcPb




Above: Catherine Bryan Dill Center for the Performing Arts http://bit.ly/16MpQN5

Above Image: The Edna Lawrence Nature Lab in Providence, RI http://naturelab.risd.edu/

Photo above & below: Strolling the streets of Providence looking at church architecture and steeples.

A beauty, isn’t it?
Image below: Grace Episcopal Church, Providence, RI

I found providence, grace and many more fulfilling things in Rhode Island! Thank you Kara, for being a tour guide and showing the sites.
Please return to www.AllThingsFulfilling.com tomorrow.
This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com, a company specializing in e-commerce and e-marketing for independent publishers.
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Posted by sueleonardCFS
May 20, 2013
“Each day I am thankful for; nights turned into morning, friends that turned into family, dreams that turned into reality and likes that turned into love.” ~ Ritu Ghatourey
I’ve been swept up in a whirlwind of fulfilling things since arriving on the East Coast. It all began with attending a social event of a book club group with women who reside in and around the historic area surrounding TaylorsIsland in Dorchester County, Maryland. The Grace Foundation is restoring churches and doing work on the island to preserve the history of the churches and schoolhouses. http://bit.ly/16Ezcex.
“The Postmistress” by Sarah Blake, a book I recently read and adored, is on the reading booklist for the book club for this coming summer. Based on a small town sea-side community during World War 2, the post office was a hub of activity, and the spinster postmistress knows secrets which if told, will change the lives of some of the residents. If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it.
Then I traveled to the Boston area to attend the beautiful wedding of our niece on my husband’s side of the family. It was so wonderful to see the bride and her sister (our second Leonard niece), who are now both married adults.
We also spent a lovely evening in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and had dinner at Loretta’s. The harbor area in Newburyport has changed greatly since last time I visited many years ago. Full of wonderful restaurants with varied cuisine, we also went art gallery hopping. As a Mother’s Day present, my husband bought me a New England artisan-crafted necklace from Annie’s of Newburyport. Then we finished the evening with dessert at a fantastic coffee shop complete with musical entertainment featuring a sole independent musician playing the guitar.
Join me tomorrow on my journey back to Vermont, my state of residence for more than thirty years. I was greeted by “Miss America” of the independent publishing industry! She’s quite a package! Well-built, for future developments.
Here are just a few pictures from my fulfilling travels:

My favorite home away from home, my favorite writing place in the lighthouse

Hope for a bountiful catch

Rode my bike to the vineyards on the Island
too early in the season for fruit on the vine


John the Baptist Church, Peabody, MA for niece’s wedding

Beautiful bride (above)
and her maid of honor – her sister


Stained Glass Window

Dinner in Newburyport, MA at Loretta

Couldn’t resist this photo http://www.imarc.net/ for our son, Marc R Leonard.
He seems to be showing up everywhere!

My Mother’s Day Present – New England Artisan Crafted

Left my heart in Taylor’s Island, Maryland
will be back to get it before my trip to the East Coast is over!
This blog brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com. Where independent thoughts, words and views are all part of the business!
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Posted by sueleonardCFS
May 13, 2013
I hope you will return on Tuesday. It will be celebration worth writing about. Readers, I hope you will help me spread the word, through social media about tomorrow’s monumental day.
Some people say they don’t have time to fool with social media and “all that nonsense.” But, someone once said ” everyone has same number of days that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, etc…” And look what they made of their days – a name for themselves!
You, readers, have found the time to visit All Things Fulfilling for your own reasons. Whatever has struck your fancy, whether it is information on the independent publishing industry or the other subjects we regularly blog about, it is has kept you coming back. I greatly appreciate that. You have given me incentive to keep on writing. “A true artist is not someone who is inspired, but someone who inspires others.”
Click on the link below and join me at the space below for a little pre-celebration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN2_ydMMeG8

See you tomorrow on All Things Fulfilling, the space where independent thoughts, words and views are all part of the business from www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.
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Posted by sueleonardCFS
May 9, 2013
“I want to write a book like Walk Two Moons,” my twin sister declared the other day. “Did you ever read it?”
“No, I haven’t,” I said, “Go ahead, what’s stopping you?” Frankly, she took me by surprise. It was the first I’d ever heard of her having any ambitions to write. For many years decorative painting was her “thing.” I would have expected a return to that craft, after abandoning it when her life got too busy with raising children and a career in project accounting for a prominent architectural firm that designs healthcare facilities. http://www.wilmot.com/.
“It’s the best book,” she said. “We read and discussed it in our mother-daughter book club many years ago when the girls were little.”
“So, what’s stopping you from writing?” I asked again.
“I don’t know where to start.” My sister replied.
“No one ever does. Just begin, and see what happens, and where the story goes.”
“I never thought of that.” She said. “I thought I needed to have a beginning and an end, in the first place.”
“Nope, how can you determine it, if you haven’t met the characters yet?” I said.
“What is it that was so good about the story?” I asked, turning the conversation back to her comment about Walk Two Moons.
“It taught the best lessons!” She replied.
“Then keep that in mind, as you write.” I said.
“Well, I didn’t say I was going to write! You’re assuming that I will.”
“Why not? I asked again. “Just start and see how it turns out. You might find the experience of creating a story, in and of itself, fulfilling.” I said, thinking of the joy I have gotten over the past year or so in writing my soon-to-be published narrative.
“I might,” she said. “I just might.”
After our talk about writing, I came across this adage. Is it not true that values determine how all stories, our own and others, end up?

See you next time on All Things Fulfilling, where sharing independent thoughts, words and views are all part of the business. This blog is brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.
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Posted by sueleonardCFS
May 8, 2013
There are a great many human souls whom we should accept more kindly, and even appreciate more clearly, if we simply thought of them as people in a story.” ~G.K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America
Yesterday, I went to a book club on the East Coast, and had a fulfilling experience with a group full of strangers. It made me reflect on how, in recent years, building relationships with others, through books and writing, has become part of my life story.
Books. They connect us to other people. Worldwide, it’s gotten easier for people to meet-up through web-based book clubs and writers groups to build relationships of common interests. I’ve have the opportunity to open doors and step inside the lives of all kinds of people that I ordinarily would never have had the chance to meet, if it hadn’t been for books.
The dialogue that an author creates in penning a book helps the reader to know the personalities of the people we meet between the covers. Whether a person is physically attractive or not, walks through life with an attitude or is kind to others is determined through the words a talented author uses to craft the story. How and where a person lives and what kinds of relationships they maintain, is revealed through a good narrative. Characters in a story can even help the reader learn more about themselves.
When you come right down to it, the way our personal tales go is a reflection of the people who pass through our lives. Whether we allow them stay, can be a determining factor in whether a relationship is fulfilling or not. Like the characters in each book we read, even when we let go of certain people, we are never quite the same for having let them in.
Meeting new people in life and in books is all about coming away from the experience learning something we never knew before.
See you next time on All Things Fulfilling, where sharing independent thoughts, words and views are all part of the business. This blog is brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.
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Posted by sueleonardCFS
May 7, 2013
Is this all it takes to write books? Smokin’ hot jamoke?
The hours I have spent pondering a good storyline, laboring over the computer, staying up late, getting up early, it’s all been for naught? Muggy thoughts have come because I prefer a cuppa tea over coffee?
Henry Fielding once said “love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.” I’ve taken his word as sacred and read heaps of romance novels, all in hopes of providing readers with a delightfully saccharine love story of my own. Creative non-fiction, in the form of a memoir, does that substitution work?
Had I known the key to prolific writing requires being a java jiving connoisseur, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache and hard work. A tall carafe of coffee and I could have been turning out “happily ever afters” faster than breeding rabbits? Really? No joke? Today, I’ll take a large order of smokin’ hot jamoke.
See you next time on All Things Fulfilling, where sharing independent thoughts, words and views are all part of the business. This blog is brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.

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Posted by sueleonardCFS
May 6, 2013
Over the next few weeks, I will be taking a business trip, going to new places and visiting old haunts, too. Ultimately, in my travels, my goal will be to find fulfilling things in my journeys. They may be unexpected, and I’ll share the content digitally. Perhaps it will mean more photos than writing. We will see what develops!
Whenever you frequent this blog space, I encourage you to stay and explore all the other 1,100+ blog postings on All Things Fulfilling. There’s a lot of information about independent films, music and books as well as educational information about the independent publishing process. Other subjects such as writings on the arts, career motivation, self-improvement, relationships and business, and they can be looked up by category, on the right hand side of the page.
I’m not exactly where I am going to find myself in my business travels. Whatever I encounter, I’ll assimilate the experience, enjoy it and share it like an open book.
Return tomorrow to All Things Fulfilling, where sharing independent thoughts, words and views are all part of the business. This blog is brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.
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Posted by sueleonardCFS
May 3, 2013
We have a whole group of individuals, right here in Routt County, Colorado, who are inspiring others through their independent publishing. I’ve gotten notice that we have several book contest finalists from our meet-up group, We Write Steamboat.
On May 18th in Lone Tree, Colorado the EVVY book awards will be presented by the Colorado Independent Publishers Association. Who will take home the prizes?
Each author has been a motivating force for others because they have pursued their passion for writing. Some share educational or career knowledge and experiences, others share very personal stories, others use their creative powers to craft a fictional piece of literature.
Today, I’d like to honor each one, award-winner or not, for having the perseverance to complete the writing process and publish it. Some have chosen to publish their books digitally (e-book), others, audio format, or a book in hardcover or paperback. Smart authors make their publications available in all formats, whenever possible.
I’d also like to thank our members of We Write Steamboat for supporting me and others in our group. Because independent publishers find community, rather than viewing each other as competitors, the industry is growing and so is our networking group. How fulfilling is that? It’s a beautiful day in our neighborhood of Steamboat Springs, Colorado and in living a life inspired by other independent publishers.
Look forward to your return to All Things Fulfilling, where sharing independent thoughts, words and views are all part of the business. This blog is brought to you by www.CornerstoneFulfillmentService.com.
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Posted by sueleonardCFS