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Ladonna Armstrong

September 11, 2019

Partnerships are sometimes like marriages – some make it; some don’t.

Over the summer my business partnership split up, and I am happily publishing Bella on my own now. Getting this first solo issue out has been difficult, but at the same time it has exceeded my expectations. Once again I have received an overwhelming amount of support from the community with comments like “You got this!” to “Let me know if there is ANYTHING I can do to help you out.” Bella has been everything I thought it would be, and I have been connecting with the community just as I hoped I would! That partnership is working!

Back to Basics

For quite some time, inside me, there has been a “pull” to this magazine, something I needed to do. When faced with multiple challenges over the summer, it took everything I had in the way of perseverance and tenacity to get this issue out. I had a pure love of Aiken behind my efforts and at every crossroads, I chose Bella.

I had a vision that I had to go back to basics. First, I had to define those basics, and keep them in front of me as my warrior shield for every challenge I took on. It turned out to be very simple:

God is good. He shows up, right on time.

I love my four daughters.

I love Aiken.

And right now, that’s enough.

During the summer, I also learned something about accomplishment. For my father, now deceased, I knew it was all about status and money. However, I just found out that for my mother, it means setting a goal and attaining it. I am following my mother’s example, and that’s why you’re reading this column right now.

Back to the Future

Publishing a magazine means always looking to the future one issue at a time and also looking at the big picture. I want Bella to have a multimedia presence – print, online, blogging, social media, and even YouTube. I want to expand distribution beyond that invisible 50-mile radius to draw more people into Aiken, so we can share this wonderful place we have.

Of course, there are lots of other things and experiences in life I want to add as I go along – for Bella and for myself. I have a feeling those will happen naturally.

Thanks to my Bella “Backers”

I want to thank the many people who have supported me in pursuing this dream and making it come true. I feel very accomplished right now, and I couldn’t have done it without you. There are too many to mention here, but the following were my heavy hitters, the ones that helped keep the game going:

Ladonna Armstrong

Publisher of Aiken Bella Magazine.

Ladonna Armstrong

Publisher of Aiken Bella Magazine.

In the know

The Case for Chocolate

How is it mothers always know what’s going on behind their backs, especially when it’s something naughty? I loved sugar as a small child. When no one was looking, I’d get into the sugar bowl. There usually wasn’t much activity or supervision in the dining room, and the sugar bowl tempted me. I would use the spoon in the bowl to scoop up the sugar and put it in my mouth, and then wait in bliss while it slowly dissolved on my tongue. Evidently this was very naughty, and my mother always knew. It took me a long time to find out how. The spoon was sterling silver, a souvenir

Taking Action

“Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long,you miss them.” ~ William Arthur Ward This year has me wondering — is there more? More to life perhaps? More I can do? More I want to do? Many of us have had more downtime in the past year that we’ve ever had before. Lots of thinking time, lots of planning time. We all know that time is not finite, but when life comes to a jarring halt as it did in 2020, maybe it’s time to reassess what we want the rest of our lives to be. Most will probably want more travel, more family, more normal. This time of

Dogs Riding in Cars

I suspect it may be the reason most dogs keep us around. We can drive cars … and trucks and motorhomes and motorcycles. And, as a result, we can seemingly create the very wind itself. To the senses of dogs riding in cars, I suspect it seems we can also somehow make all the best smells float on the air at once, with a cacophony of new and familiar sounds intertwined and changing every few seconds. We magically bring farms with fields of horses into view before they dash past us with glorious speed. We find new people to watch walking and riding bikes, and other dogs to call out

Why I Love Daffodils

There is something magical about daffodils. The mere shape of the flower seems to trumpet the arrival of spring, announcing something new and exciting. Imagine March in the Lowcountry with a sea of yellow daffodils covering a yard that stretches all the way down to the banks of Abbapoola Creek. My grandmother Lou would sit on the green porch swing and watch her grandchildren de-daffodil her yard. I can still hear the rhythmic creaking of the chains from the old swing — it almost sounded like a familiar song. She loved watching us pick every flower but there was always another prized daffodil hidden in her yard. The goal was