Friday, November 29, 2013

Thanksgiving and Beyond


Where ever you are, however you celebrated, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The kind that fills your heart with peace and joy over all your blessings. We ate too much, laughed hard, and thanked the Lord above for blessing us so, and then came home for an evening of quiet time. A blessing too. 

To those of you braving the stores today, I hope you were successful! I crossed that off my bucket list years ago—not that it was ever on my list, but because others wanted me to join them, I participated. Now I can sit back and listen to the almost frightful tales of others, and be thankful that I don’t have to be a part of all that.

However, we will soon be out the door. Hubby is best man in a wedding tomorrow and today is the rehearsal with a dinner following. A fun time will be had, I’m sure of it. 

I’m wrapping up the ending of my story. At the point where I can’t type as fast as the story appears in my mind. It may sound silly, but characters have known to surprise me, and these two, Ty Bradshaw, a federal prohibition agent, and Norma Rose Nightingale, a bootlegger’s daughter, have given me more than one, ‘REALLY?’ moment.  

Stay warm. Stay happy. And keep smiling!

Saturday, November 23, 2013

It's a Wonderful Life


Yes, I love that movie, always have. And I’d like to share how that movie touched my family’s life. 

First, I’ll start with this little guy. Our grandson born on July 31st of this year. I do believe he’s utterly adorable, as are his two older sisters. And I’d like to tell you how they all started…

Several years ago I was the Central Minnesota Division Director for the March of Dimes. One of the fundraising events I was in charge of was held in November and that year the committee decided we would use the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” as the theme for the event. We transformed the entire event center, with the help of many local stores, into Bedford Falls. To put the event ‘over the top’ we hired Karolyn Grimes, she stared as Zuzu in the movie, to be the emcee. She is a terrific lady and did a wonderful job, and the event was marvelously successful.

So…To pull off the event which had many aspects including live and silent auctions and raffles, I needed the help of many volunteers and contacted the local college to recruit several. I also recruited my family, which wasn’t anything new. All three of my boys had helped out at many, many fundraisers over the years, and even the ones no longer living at home still stepped in when I called for help. (They truly are good people.)

My middle son was in charge of a particular raffle, and asked me to find ‘cute’ girls to work him and the friend he’d recruited to help out. Before the event started, I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, but happened to notice a group of college students arrive. I directed them to where the volunteers had to check in, but specifically told two of them to tell the volunteer check-in person that I already had jobs for them, and that I’d meet back up with them in a few minutes. Of which I did, and escorted those two girls to where my son and his friend were getting ready. 

My parents were also at that event and at one point during the evening asked me who the adorable girl helping my son was. My mother claimed both my son and the girl had stars in their eyes when they looked at each other. That was proven later in the evening when my son put his arm around me and whispered, “Oh, mom, you so know where it’s at.”

And here we are, years later, and those two, my son and that adorable college student—now working on her PHD and teaching for two colleges online while raising three of my grandchildren—still look at each other with stars in their eyes. 

Papa teases that I hand-picked our daughter-in-law and couldn’t have done a better job. I can’t take all the credit, but I do believe “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

I wish you all a wonderful thanksgiving, full of family, friends, and love.

Friday, November 15, 2013

New Contract


It’s almost Thanksgiving, and I haven’t posted since before Halloween. Sorry about that, but I had to prioritize and dedicate every spare writing moment to a new contract—a free read for Harlequin. The opportunity was very exciting, even with the quick turnaround timeline. The story will be released on Harlequin’s website, one chapter a day, for twenty days in January-February. I had a wonderful time creating a story closely related to The Major’s Wife, which will be released in February.  

WILL THE TRUTH SET THEM FREE?  

Major Seth Parker knows his wife, and the woman standing before him isn't her. The manipulative vixen who tricked his hand in marriage could never possess such innocence—nor get his heart racing like this! 

Millie St. Clair has traveled halfway across the country to pull off one of the greatest deceptions ever. But with everything at stake it soon becomes clear that the hardest part might be walking away from the Major when it's all over….

We had a fun Halloween with all of the grandchildren. Even Bear, the granddog, went trick or treating dressed as Bat Dog.  And last weekend we had a family gathering for my brother’s surprise birthday party.

There was also the Bootlegger’s Ball last weekend! Here we are, having a wonderful time! I will have to return to the history center to actually ‘see’ the exhibit. There just wasn’t time with everything else they offered for attendees to do that evening.


My focus is now set on completing my second roaring twenties story, and getting ready for Thanksgiving of course.

Be happy. Be thankful. It’s all good.