Author Spotlights and Winners

Are you looking for the Author Spotlight? It's posted over at Reflections and this week is Cathy Bryant and her book, A Path Less Traveled.

Last week's spotlight was on Linore Burkard and her giveaway is still open. You can find Linore's spotlight and her interview at Reflections.

WINNERS!
Holly Heisey is the winner of Paul Baines' book, Alpha Redemption and
Rita has won A.K. Arenz's book, Mirrored Image.
Congratulations!

How do you deal with stress? Do you deal with it like Jesus did? Yesterday I posted at the Internet Cafe on Dealing with Stress Like Jesus. I'd love for you to stop by!

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Book Giveaway Winners!

Now that October is over, I'm finally getting caught up and we have some winners!
Some of these are review, but I'm posting ALL of them for the fun of it! =]

Merry = A Memory Between us by Sarah Sundin
Anne Payne = Making Waves by Lorna Seilstad
Carole = The Perfect Blend by Trish Perry
Sunny = Letters in the Attic by DeAnna Dodson
Joanne = Love Finds You in Golden, NM by Lena Nelson Dooley
karen k = Facelift by Leanna Ellis
CarolNWong = Just for the Moment by Deanna Klingel
Apple Blossom = First Love by Michelle Sutton

From now on, the author spotlights and interviews will be posted at The Barn Door, a midwest group blog that I'm excited to be a part of. We're opening the doors at the Barn Door on Monday and I hope you join us there.

There are still two book giveaways going on here at Patterings:
spotlight with Alice Arenz
interview with Alice Arenz
spotlight with Paul Baines
interview with Paul Baines

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Changings Coming Soon!

I really and truly did not forget about the winners. =] Really. I was collecting them. =]

Rita is the winner of DiAnn Mills' book, A Woman Called Sage.
Kelly is the winner of Nicole O'Dell's Magna and Making Waves.
Congratulations, ladies!

I left one giveaway open: Jim Rubart's Rooms. Scroll down the page and enter the giveaway, if you haven't already. I'll announce that winner next Tuesday.

Tomorrow I'll be spotlighting and giving away a copy of Vanessa Miller's book Yesterday Promise and next week is Gail Satler's The Narrow Path. (Which I might add, is excellent!! You really, really won't want to miss that one!) =]

After those, I'll be taking the summer off from author spotlights. I'll be doing a Bible study with some of the ladies at my church and I want to have a little more time to focus on it. What study? LoL, I'm so glad you asked! It's Kay Arthur's Choosing Victory - Overcoming Defeat. It's her study on Joshua, Judges and Ruth and I've wanted to do this for years!

To replace my author spotlights, I'll be writing and posting about what I'm learning in the study. I am so excited about this!

When I read, I've found that I get very distracted by highlighting and anything more than simple underlining, and as some of you know, Kay Arthur uses all kinds of marking in the text. So, I invested some of my "earnings" (so strange after 17 years of no personal earnings! LoL) and purchased a new wide margin study Bible. It's the hardback version of the Bible I've used for several years and I cannot wait to get my hands on it. I loooove my Bible but I want to make sure I can still read it without distraction for many years to come, and since I want to do more than just this one study, I invested in a copy I can mark up. Really mark up. Not only that, but once I have it in my hot little hands, I can jump in and start working on the first lesson. =] I know, the logic is a little sketchy, but it makes perfect sense to me. ;-)

And it's special for a couple more reasons which I want to record inside the cover. It's my Ebenezer for these first months of 2010. So much has already gone on this year! Things I never, ever would've imagined! Things that are major for me and totally out of my comfort zone and totally unexpected. But God has been, and IS, soooo faithful. This Bible is my Ebenezer, to remind me of His faithfulness whenever I begin to panic in the future. =]

Do you know what I mean by calling it my Ebenezer? I wrote about just that in May's issue of Exemplify. =] You can read it here, "Rocks in My Pocket" on page 60, but trust me, you'll want to read your way there because Exemplify Magazine is so good! It blesses me every month.

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Winner on Wednesday

Happy Wednesday!
Sunday was the Super Bowl and we went to the Super Bowl party at church—and like 75% of the others at the party, visited and played in the gym instead of watching the game. LoL The time with friends was far more important than the game. =)

All that to say, I didn't get the winner selected on Sunday. Sorry about that. The winner of Jill Eileen Smith's novel, Abigail, is Linda! Congratulations, Linda, and thank you, Jill!

Next week we have Diane and David Munson with their novel, Hero's Ransom, and let me tell you, it's good! It will keep you on the edge of your seat—and I mean that literally, it really will make you sit on the edge of your chair. My daughter, Abby, posted a review of it on Bookworms, be sure to check it out. This is a book I had to almost pry out of her hands so others in the family could read it—Abby had it stashed in with her favorite books. It's that good! I cannot wait to introduce you to this couple. They're ones that it would be interesting to hear the stories they could tell. Wow. So be sure to join us next Tuesday and Wednesday to meet the Munsons and hear about their newest release, Hero's Ransom.

This week I've been hard at work writing the blogging course Clearing the Blog Fog. Last night I finalized plans with Tracy Ruckman of Pix n Pens and WIES Workshops and I'll be teaching Clearing the Blog Fog through WIES Workshops August 23 – October 1 of this year. I'll also be teaching it before then, but I don't have anything finalized for that yet.

Here's what Clearing the Blog Fog is about:
Blogging is more than a web journal, it encompasses everything from marketing to ministry and so much more. If you're thinking about blogging, but don't know where to start, or why you should start now, Clearing the Blog Fog will get you going. You'll learn the benefits and the basics of blogging, and how to set up a blog from start to the final tweaks. When you're done, you'll have a blog that's ready to roll.

I've been amazed by how God is working things out in relation to Clearing the Blog Fog. Totally amazed. And I have no doubt this is from Him.

What are you up to this week?

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Winner!

Happy Sunday!
We have a winner for Stephanie Morrill's book, Out With the In Crowd, it's faith4u7. Enjoy!

Life kicked into high gear again this last week--unexpectedly, and I'll tell you about it tomorrow. =) I'm excited and cant' wait to share what's going on!

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Language & Missionaries

It's a winner of a day
here at Patterings.
LoL--sometimes saying that just totally cracks me up. *eye roll*

Aaaaanyway...today's winner of Diana Brandemeyer's book, Hearts on the Road, is Karen K. Enjoy! =)

In other news, I've been working on my missionary romance this week and had a piece of the puzzle fall together yesterday. I'm beginning to get excited now that more and more pieces are fitting together. =) I reached my writing goal each day, and I'm sloooowly making progress. Granted, those words majorly stink--but that's okay! I'm making progress and moving forward, which is very important after last month!!

So tell me, what's a missionary to do when they have an extremely hard time learning the language? If he's there to tell people about Jesus, and he butchers the language, is there any hope for him or should he just pack his bags and head for home?

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Winners

Wowzers! I feel like my boat's been swamped by a tidal wave, but I'll tell you about that later this week. =) Right now it's time for the winners of the last two author spotlights we had here.

The winner of Amber Stockton's book giveaway is Cherie J. Cherie can pick her choice of Amber's six books. Thank you, Amber!

And Merry is the winner of Margaret Daley's book, Christmas Peril. Thank you for being with us again, Margaret.

I hope each of you had a wonderful Christmas. We did. It was a really nice day, and Christmas weekend. =) I'll be back later on this week to tell you about my December and plans for January...

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Christmas in Hebrews

Did you know the Christmas story was in the book of Hebrews? I sure didn't and I've read that book many times! But it's there! This morning Pastor Mike preached about the reason for Christmas, from Hebrews 10:5-13. What a message! My sermon notes are full of asterisks and exclamation points and even a few wowzers thrown in—it was that good of a sermon!

Hebrews 10 is tells us of a conversation between Jesus and God the Father just before Jesus came and was born in Bethlehem. Jesus said that all those animal sacrifices did not please God, they were to be a reminder to the people of their sin (Heb. 10:3). But Jesus came to earth to do the will of God (Heb. 10:7). Jesus offered Himself for the remission of our sin, of my sin, once and for all.

The priests of old, that we read about in the Old Testament, offered countless sacrifices, and kept offering them. When the high priest went in to the Holy of Holies once a year, he presented the offering and got out of there fast—but not Jesus! Jesus made the sacrifice and sat down, right there at the right hand of God. Wowzers. Nothing needs to be added or altered or adjusted or even tweaked when it comes to Jesus' sacrifice. It's complete. It's perfect. And He gave us a perfect and permanent standing with God (Heb. 10:14). That's what Christmas is about—Jesus offering Himself for us and the remission of our sin. That's why He came and that's why we celebrate Christmas.
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We have some winners from last week's author spotlights. Terra H. is the winner of Shirley Kiger Connolly's book I See God in the Thistles n Thorns. And Deborah (holycamp09) won Roseanna White's A Stray Drop of Blood. Congratulations, ladies! Be sure to get me your snail mail addresses.

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Winner!

This week in the author spotlight we've had Lauralee Bliss with Love Finds You in Bethlehem, New Hampshire. The winner of her book giveaway is joann4us --which is really cool since she grew up in New Hampshire!

Thank you, Lauralee!


Coming up later this week we have a double header with Vickie McDonough and Janice Thompson. Don't miss out! =)

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Who Needs Windows?

Ay yi yi! What a weekend it was and today was the crowning jewel. Oh. my. goodness. This weekend snowballed on me, like weekends do to all of us occasionally—not a big deal, just more going on than I anticipated, with a twist thrown in there for fun. *eye roll*

But before something else comes up in my day, the winner of Erica Vetsch's book, The Bartered Bride, which is an EXCELLENT book (I'm reading in every spare moment I have, which hasn't been much this weekend!! *rats*) is Karen K. You're gonna love it, Karen! I know I sure am! =]

And our winner for Maggie Woychik's book, I Run to the Hills is Jean Fischer. Use the Email Me button in the side bar and send me your addresses ladies. =]

Then this morning started with this...

This is almost 5 gallons of broken glass from the window beside my computer area. The seal on the thermal pane broke and my dear hubster changed the window out...which meant taking in out (thank God for storm windows!) and breaking the glass to get it out of the frame.

He was also trying to repair the window on his work van, which refused to go up and down. So his van door is disassembled and we learned we need to take it in for the part to be installed--which is unusual because normally my hub can repair almost everything. So that was two windows in the works first thing this morning.

This weekend, when we could, we worked on doing those last few things before the weather turns nasty again and stays that way for the winter, and the result of that was this:

This is the side window of my 15 passenger van as it looked this morning. Of course we didn't discover it until my daughter closed the back doors this morning and the window sagged out of the van. (Quite startling for her! LoL) It was completely shattered.

Yup, that's me reflected in the window, and if you check out just under my fingers on the right side of the picture, you'll see the root of our shattered window: a little bitty spot where a stone hit...a half an inch from the very edge of the window. We figure it happened while the guys were weed-eating yesterday. Gotta love it.

You know, even with a snowballed weekend and a day that has gone NOTHING like I planned, and even 'needed' it to go, God is still in control. He's still good! As I stood looking at my van and adding up the cost of that big side window and my hubster's window and the other window in my dining room that needs fixing, I happened to look at the glass around the tire of my van.

The sun was glinting off the shattered safety glass making it look like jewels. That's what God does with the broken and shattered pieces of our lives. He makes them glitter like precious jewels when He shines on them.

Our brokenness glitters for His glory if we just let Him shine on the shattered pieces.

That's been my day...How's your day been?

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Diligence in Sounding Out

Whooo-ey! What a weekend! We were out of the house all day on Saturday (I'll post some pictures of what we were doing this Saturday *g*) and Sunday I GOT to work through extreme tiredness and a brain that was AWOL to meet a deadline--which I met, and had the right attitude about! =] Today started with a bang and now we're finally hunkered down to school work. Finally.

Now that my brain has returned I realize I didn't get a winner posted yesterday. The winner of Leann Harris' book Guarded Secrets is Sunny!

Don't forget that Maggie Woychik's book giveaway is still going on and will be open until late Saturday night. Leave a comment to be entered in her drawing! =]

On deck for tomorrow: an Author Spotlight with Erica Vetsch and her debut novel.

These days my mind is full of school work, and much of my time is spent at the table doing school--so here's a post from last year that centers on school and looking for God's will. Two things I'm doing a lot of even now. =]

~*~*~*~*~*~
My youngest has been reading to me lately, and it's been a learning experience. Many times I've had to tap the word and even remind him to look at the word he was sounding out. I asked him, “How can you know what the word is unless you look at it?”

God's special neon 'Duh' sign flashed at me.

It was as if He was asking me how I planned on knowing what His will for me was unless I kept my eye focused on Him and sought it out. Just like my son can't sound out a word he isn't looking at, I can't sound out or decipher a plan I don't have my eyes on. I'm as bad as my little boy. I'll look at the word, then at the picture, then fiddle with the corner of the page and wonder what's on the next page, then scratch my ear and rub my nose, all before I even realize that my attention has wandered from the direction from God that I'm trying to seek out. I need to constantly refocus and remind myself to seek God in this matter, not just be content with my wandering thoughts and wandering life.

For if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding; if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; then you will discern the fear of the Lord, and discover the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. ~Proverbs 2:3-6

Lord, help me to focus on You and seek diligently what it is You want me to be doing. I want to do Your will, please help me to fix my eyes on You and seek it. I love You, Father, in Your name I pray, amen.

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Puddled Ducks

Driving past an empty field the other day I saw a pair of ducks floating in a puddle. I wanted to stop and tell them that there was a beautiful farm pond only half-a-mile away, but I realized the silliness of the thought even as I sped past.

I think I'm like those ducks--contentedly sitting in my muddy puddle, satisfied with so little when God has so much more for me. I sit and twiddle my toes in mud instead of moving to the place God wants me to be—a place of blessing and great riches. A place where God can use me.

Why do I do that? It's easier to stay in my cozy hole than it it to face the unknown. It's easier to sit in my puddle than to spread my wings and fly to a spot I've only heard is 'just over there'. It's easier to mind my own business than to possibly embarrass myself.

I cannot know the riches of His glory while sitting in my little mud puddle. I need to move to the pond God has for me in order to experience the surpassing greatness of His power.

Father, open the eyes of my heart that I may know the hope of Your calling.

“I pray that the eyes of your heart
may be enlightened,
so that your may know what is
the hope of His calling,
what are the riches of the
glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what is the surpassing greatness
of His power toward us who believe.”
Ephesians 1:18-19 (NAS)

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We have two winners today, wrapping up the final Book Bonanza giveaway! But never fear, (LoL, that's such a fun phrase to use!) we'll still have one or two giveaways each week. :] I have authors scheduled through the first week of January and some even beyond that, so be sure to drop by each week for the Author Spotlights!

The winner of Christina Berry's book, The Familiar Stranger is Joanne.

And Abby is the winner of Susan Page Davis' book, Hearts in the Crosshairs.

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Pictures and Winners

Pictures!

This last week was wonderful! My parents were visiting, and, as always, we had a great visit with them. We spent time sitting and visiting, playing card games and speed scrabble, and shopping.

Oh. my. goodness. I forgot what it was like shopping with Mom! It was FUN!! We were hunting for a few specific things and managed to find what Mom was looking for, and I found some things, too! And the socks! My mom and younger daughter are fun sock junkies and they had a ball at the sock racks.

To keep tradition, Mom, my two daughters and I went out for..."lunch." We can call it that because we had hamburgers, but those were simply camouflage. We were there for frappes and fries. (Translation: Milkshakes and french fries.) It took us THREE restaurants, but we finally found what we wanted. :^) We didn't like the price at the first stop, the shake machine was out at the second and the third stop was a winner. We had fun making memories and eating our frappes and fries. :^)

Mom is a quilter and her quilts are treasured by her family. We call them Grammy Quilts and here she is after giving my youngest his first big-boy quilt. His baby quilts are still on his bed, too...unless they're on the couch. :^)


We also spent time watching the turtles and honey bees. ROFL Now isn't that something that most families do together?

The turtles came home with us from the second fair we did--courtesy of the animal show that was at both fairs with us. They're funny little creatures that have entertained us for hours now. True, but sad. We're easily amused. It's incredible seeing God's creatures up close like this. Only God could make them so perfectly! Wow! :^)

This scary picture is me.
Let it be known that I'm posting this under duress so some of my friends don't slide yucky things to me through the floppies. LoL

This is the first tye dye shirt I've ever owned in my life and I made it at the first fair, at the coolest tye dye tent ever! I have a devotional for you...sometime soon, but I also have a story idea from it--so this is a monumental shirt for me that's packed full of memories, ideas, and meaning. I chose to make it with my colors: pink, purple and green. Why? Because of Patterings and how it's evolved into so much more than I ever would have dreamed.

Now, on to the rest of this post! LoL

We have three winners today!

The winner of Nikki Arana's Through the Eyes of Christ is ~Tami.

The winner of Debbie Fuller Thomas' Raising Rain is Sunny!

And the last winner for today is Abby. You've won a copy of Amber Stockton's Hearts and Harvest.

Thanks so much for participating in the Book Bonanza! We'll go back to our normal schedule of author spotlights and interviews on Tuesday & Wednesday, with an occasional extra thrown in because I can't resist. :^)

So there you have it: Pictures and winners!
Love you guys!

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The Runaway

A big thanks to Kathy Fuller for being with us this week! Kathy did a book giveaway of her new release A Daring Return and Lady Araujo is the winner! :)

This weekend and through Labor Day we're at the State Fair, manning a booth, so things are crazy here for me. This is something I wrote for kids, but it works for more than just kids. :)

The Runaway

Have you ever run away? I have. I was about 8 and I packed my little suitcase with a book and a dolly blanket and left. I went over the hill and found a comfy clump of tall grass and read for a loooooong time. Then I got hungry. Guess where I went? You got it. Back home.

But you know, that's not how Jonah did it.

Jonah knew what God wanted him to: go to Ninevah and tell them about God. So what did he do? He ran the opposite direction.Was he happy? NO!

Jonah's disobedience put a lot of men's lives in danger. Think about the storm that blew up. The sailors were very experienced in their job, they weren't just fair-weather sailors. But these guys were scared—really scared! They were throwing the cargo—the stuff that would be sold so they could get their paychecks—overboard in the hopes that a lighter ship would help them survive the super-storm they were in.

So what has God told us to do? It's similar to what God told Jonah. We're to tell our friends about Jesus. Are you obeying or are you running away?

If we don't tell them about Jesus, we're putting their lives in danger. Just think about it: if a person hasn't accepted Jesus' gift of forgiveness and salvation, where will they go when they die? They'll go to hell. They'll never get to be with Jesus. And not just that. When they go through hard things in their lives they won't have Jesus who can help them through that hard time. Our friends need to know about the wonderful friend and treasure we have. They need to know about Jesus.

How do we know that God wants us to tell our friends about Jesus? Because He tell us to. In Mark 16:15 it says, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” Our friends are part of 'all creation' so let's tell them that Jesus is the Good News!

So, what are you going to do?Are you going to be like Jonah and runaway, or are you going to obey God?Was Jonah happy? NO!
Don't be like Jonah!!
Be like Jesus!

ps--You can read about Jonah's runaway attempt Here

Don't forget to check out the giveaways still in progress:
Joyce Magnin and Judy Gann.
Those giveaways will be open until Wednesday night and the winners will be posted on Thursday.

Have a wonderful Sunday!!

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Two Winners!

We have some winners for Nicole O'Dell's books! Esther and Cherie J! Congratulations, ladies! Send me your snail mail addresses. Thanks so much for participating in the Book Bonanza!

And Nicole, thanks so much for being here at Patterings this last week! It was wonderful having you!

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Winner!

We have a winner of Mary Connealy's book Montana Rose!
Stina Rose has won Montana Rose. How fitting is that? =) Stina, send me your (folks') snail mail addy.

Mary, thank you so much for being with us this week! It was wonderful and I hope we can do it again sometime. =)

On deck for this week: Nicole O'Dell, Mary Moss and Tammy Barley.
There's still a giveaway going on with Darlene Franklin. Be sure to scroll down to Thursday's post and check it out.

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Winner!

This last weekend I went to the Faithwriters writing conference and I was able to have some face-time with some very dear friends of mine. Here's a special picture of us--we missed you sooo much, La!


From left to right: Sunny, Me, Vonnie, Dee, Laury, Beth.
On floor: Sara, Joanne.

So that's why I'm so very late posting this winner. But I hafta tell ya, I'm excited about the winner! Esther G is the winner of Rick Higginson's book Cardon's Pod. Yay! :) Esther is a friend of mine from Faithwriters--and her family has some fun parallels to mine and she lives in Australia. Someday I'd love to be able to meet you, Esther! So, a Faithwriter has won another Faithwriter's book on the weekend of the Faithwriters conference. How cool is that?! And really, I did not plan that out. My fave random number generator picked Esther's number. :)

This is a picture Joanne took of me and Vonnie shortly after I arrived at the Faithwriters conference. In case you're wondering--that's the real me coming out. Those girls, for some strange reason, bring out this side of me far too often.

Tomorrow we kick off our Back to School Book Bonanza! Over the next 8 weeks we'll be meeting and chatting with 22 different Christian authors about their new releases. Be sure to join us and leave comments to be entered in their book giveaways. Remember, you can enter each giveaway twice now! :) Tell a friend!

Thank you so much, Rick, for being with us last week! It was a special treat having you at Patterings!

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Winner!

Happy Sunday!
Carole is the winner of Colleen Coble's book Lonestar Secrets!! Send me your snail mail addy, Carole and I'll get that to Colleen. :)

Colleen, thank you so much for being with us this week. It was a pleasure having you and I'm looking forward to reading Lonestar Secrets!

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Winner!

Happy Sunday!
The winner of Lena Nelson Dooley's Cranberry Hearts is LaDonna! Congratulations!

Thank you so much for being with us here at Patterings, Lena! I'm looking forward to hearing about your other books as they come out. :-)

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To Run Smooth

These last two weeks I've rediscovered just how essential my daytimer is to my life--at least if I want my life to run smoothly. Without my daytimer open, filled in and close at hand I tend to wander aimlessly and forget more things than I remember. Little things, big things. My brain turns into a sieve and only holds whatever is right in front of me at the moment. It's not a good way to live. It leaves me feeling harried, stressed and scatterbrained. All of which are not things I like feeling!

So today I've pulled out my handy-dandy daytimer and I'll be filling in the things that need writing down and holding on to it, making sure it's close at hand. That's today's goal.

There's something even more important than my daytimer, though. It's my time spent in God's Word. Without that continual refreshment I become dry and dusty enough to rival the Sahara Desert. Without my time spent with God, I fall apart even more.

Summer schedules tend to trick us and make us think we can coast—and we can, for a short time. If we let ourselves coast for too long life goes downhill fast. My short time of coasting has come to an end. I may run a lighter schedule for another week or so, but I'm making sure the framework stays firm and that the essential things get done.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~

This week's winner of Margaret Daley's book is Linda. In her comment Linda said, “Margaret is the lady who introduced me to the world of this genre of books by contacting me about being at the MOA in 2008. If not for her, I'd never have opened my horizon of books. She is one neat lady inside and out. Thank you, Margaret!” I've heard similar stories from others, also. What a great example and help she is to us! Thanks so much, Margaret. And congratulations, Linda!

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