Life Lessons

This year I have had an interesting encounter with an adult in my life. We don't see eye to eye with each other and thus we will never be best friends. But alas, we should still act like adults. This person when given the chance has chosen not to act their age. I was reflecting on this today because I just don't understand how some people can act the way they do. And then God gave me a reflection. I think some people are placed in our lives so that we can learn to be better people by not being as they are. I by no means will ever appear to be perfect as I am far from it. However, I sometimes realize that I see how other adults are acting and I catch myself saying a prayer that God will allow me to catch myself before I ever handle myself in the way they do.

Dear Emily Post, I Apologize for Technology

Etiquette. It's not just for people raised in the South. It's for everyone. And it exists to differentiate us from college fraternities. So, when the following happens it riles me up.

Roommate: Did you get the invite to B's shower?

Me: Huh?

Roommate: On Facebook

Me: Haven't checked.

So I log on and check and sure enough B has sent out an invite to her own baby shower. Now, based on the wording I am thinking she is just needed people's addresses. However, there is a proper way to go about this and a Facebook event is not the proper way.

Now, that being said, if the person throwing the shower (who should NOT be the bride or mother-to-be) decides to save paper and go with evites, I am totally ok with that. But receiving it from the Bride or Mother-to-Be is just wrong.

Here are my other two major pet peeves when it comes to etiquette.

1. Invitations are to be addressed by hand. Getting an invitation in the mail that has been sent through a printer is wrong. Even worse, when it's peel and stick labels.

2. White before Easter or after Labor Day. No way, Jose. I love Heidi Klum, but this is one rule that should not be broken either.

So, if any of the above apply to you then I will make fun and talk about you behind your back. I'm sorry, but it's just what I do. Except that is probably bad etiquette as well....

You Won't Catch Me

Nope. You're not going to catch me doing the following things this Summer.

1. Twilight. I don't do vampires. That also goes for vampire TV shows on The CW and HBO.

2. Harry Potter. The only potter I do is "Potter"y Barn. And I do enough there I don't need any other potter in my life.

3. The Bachelor/Bachelorette/or whatever lame reality show is currently on. In fact, I really don't do reality TV. I used to watch SYTYCD, but even that is lame now that they changed all the rules, etc. and so forth.

4. Tanning. You may see me at the beach, but that's just so I can burn. It's what I do.

5. Peeing on the beach. I leave that to More Lucy's kids. (There will be a whole blog post on this woman soon. If you're not reading her, start. She's the best thing blogging since sliced bread.)

6. Riding a bike. I don't have one.

7. Eating oysters. I don't like them. Raw or fried. Yuck.

Love Finds You in Golden, New Mexico

This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

Love Finds You In Golden, New Mexico Summerside Press (May 1, 2010)

by

Lena Nelson Dooley
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

For several years, Lena worked on the support staff of a church, but in November of 2002, God changed things so that she could stay home and write full-time. It has been the desire of her heart for a long time. In Proverbs 37:4, it says, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” She believes that this blessing is a result of her delighting herself in Him, and she praises Him for the opportunity.

She have been a professional writer with a free-lance writing and editing business since 1984. In that time, she has written curriculum for public schools, private schools, and three different denominations. For one company, I managed a writing team that produced a two-year American History course for at-risk students. One of her clients was a Christian comedian for whom she wrote several routines. An airline training company had her edit and design International business reports for them.

Her first novel was published by Heartsong Presents in 1992. Since then Lena Nelson Dooley has written more than 25 works of fiction and nonfiction.

Lena has been married to her husband James since 1964. Theirs was one of those love-at-first-sight relationships. They were married three months and three days after they met. He truly was God’s gift to her. They are absolute opposites, but that means that his strengths are her weaknesses, and her strengths are his weaknesses. Together they make a more perfect whole. She believe that is what God intends for all of us.

They have two daughters. Marilyn Van Zant is married to Roger, and they have a son named Timothy. Tim is now in Tennessee at Ft. Campbell. His son Sebastian is almost 2 years old. Jennifer Waldron is married to Eric, and they have three children—Austin, Marissa, and Amanda. James and Lena love to spend time with their family, and they are blessed that both families live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex, so they see them often.

ABOUT THE BOOK

All that glitters is not gold. It’s 1890, and Golden, New Mexico, is a booming mining town where men far outnumber women. So when an old wealthy miner named Philip Smith finds himself in need of a nursemaid, he places an ad for a mail-order bride—despite the protests of his friend Jeremiah.



Hoping to escape a perilous situation back East, young Madeleine Mercer answers the ad and arrives in town under a cloud of suspicion. But just as she begins to win over Philip—and Jeremiah himself—the secrets she left behind threaten to follow her to Golden...and tarnish her character beyond redemption.



If you would like to read the first chapter of Love Finds You In Golden, New Mexico, go HERE.

A Tailor-Made Bride

I loved this book! Karen Witemeyer really outdid her self with her first historical fiction novel for Bethany House Publishers.

Jericho "J.T." Tucker wants nothing to do with the new dressmaker in Coventry, Texas. He's all too familiar with her kind--shallow women more devoted to fashion than true beauty. Yet, except for her well-tailored clothes, this seamstress is not at all what he expected.

Hannah Richards is confounded by the man who runs the livery. The unsmiling fellow riles her with his arrogant assumptions and gruff manner, while at the same time stirring her heart with unexpected acts of kindness. Which side of Jericho Tucker reflects the real man?

When Hannah decides to help Jericho's sister catch a beau--leading to consequences neither could have foreseen--will Jericho and Hannah find a way to bridge the gap between them?

I loved how Karen wove Biblical value and Bible verses into the story and really told a story of how people can assume one thing about a person and turn out to find their inner person is completely different. The old saying is "you can't judge a book by its cover" but the inside of this book is as cute and clever as the picture on the outside. It will challenge you to really seek what is true without making untrue assumptions about all people based on a solitary experience with another person.

A Hopeful Heart

This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

A Hopeful Heart Bethany House (June 1, 2010)

byKim Vogel Sawyer
ABOUT THE BOOK

Dowryless and desperate, Tressa Neill applies to the inaugural class of Wyatt Herdsman School in Barnett, Kansas, in 1888. The school's one-of-a-kind program teaches young women from the East the skills needed to become a rancher--or the wife of one.



Shy and small for her twenty-two years, Tressa is convinced she'll never have what it takes to survive Hattie Wyatt's hands-on instruction in skills such as milking a cow, branding a calf, riding a horse, and cooking up a mess of grub for hungry ranch hands. But what other options does she have?



Abel Samms wants nothing to do with the group of potential brides his neighbor brought to town. He was smitten with an eastern girl once--and he got his heart broken. But there's something about quiet Tressa and her bumbling ways that makes him take notice.

When Tressa's life is endangered, will Abel risk his own life--and his heart--to help this eastern girl?

If you would like to read the first chapter of A Hopeful Heart, go HERE