I’ve Missed You!

It’s been a wacky, crazy Summer and Fall. Let me tell you why I’ve been MIA.

As many of you know, last Spring I launched God’s Best During Your Worst.(March, 2020, Bold Vision Books). It was a labor of love that challenged the reader to trust God during their darkest times imaginable. That’s what I had to do when a sudden seizure led to the discovery of a brain tumor and a grim diagnosis–I was given ten days to put my affairs in order.I

And we all know what that means.

Journaling about the brain tumor and following ten days help set the stage to encourage readers how  to seek God in their darkest times … because he’s there. I invite readers—no, challenges them—to enter the new depths of peace that await them.

Launching a book brings a roller coaster ride of emotions with it. I was happy that the time had finally come to publish, since I’d been writing God’s Best for over seven years. So I was very happy to know that God had prepared the manuscript … and me … for its unveiling to the world. I’m thrilled with the result. The book was well-received and even won Advanced Writers & Speakers Association’s 2020 Golden Scroll’s First Place in Christian Living. Yes, that was a highlight of my year! A companion journal to God’s Best was added and the project felt complete. Satisfaction of a job well done.

I wasn’t finished.

That’s when I got busy and finished my first novel, Ladies of the Fire (August 2020, Elk Lake Publishers). Edits. More edits. re-writes and more changes.

But the story came alive. Setting in the 1960s, newly-widowed Lily-Rose Pembrick flees Lincoln Nebraska with her children, only with the cash in the house safe  Only taking the cash from the house safe and what she can get her hands on at the family bank, she leaves the recently-inherited and successful Pembrick Transportation company behind. Fate brings her to Applegate Ohio and to a house on Norwood Street, where the meets Fiona Kasey, an African-American no-nonsense housekeeper/companion to an elderly white woman, and Sugar Bowersox, a Southern spitfire who has lost herself in motherhood. Together, they enjoy Lily-Rose’s backyard fire pit, where dreams are spoken and secrets revealed. As they embrace a kinship they never would have sought, Lily-Rose begins to think her past can finally be laid to rest—until someone ends up dead.

Whew!

In the midst of writing, my husband and I decided it was time to sell our house and move into a condo. We’ve watched this building for two years and asked God if it could be in his plans for us to live there. Finally a great unit came available, so we needed to box up what we wanted to keep from our three-bedroom house and prepare to move into a condo half its size. Boxing, sorting, and selling items on Facebook Marketplace (a real gold mine if you have never used it). There was painting, tearing up flooring, and ordering new that helped prepare the new digs for a new life.

Another whew!

Then there was more.

Then came time to set up the new office. I thank God every day for our wonderful new home … but I’m exhausted.

I’m still unpacking. (Moving note: the best boxes I found to use for moving are from the liquor store. They’re a perfect size to carry and are built to carry weight.) I’ve alphabetized all my books and am still setting up the electronics plus trying to figure out good Zoom angles. But I think I’ve turned the corner.

If I seem a bit frazzled, please offer me grace.

I’ve missed you all and look forward to writing to you again. I have a new view from my office window that I hope will give me direction and peace. The Susquehanna River has never looked more beautiful to me. But I know I’ll need to focus.

Thanks for your patience. I know I rattled on about me and how I spent much of my summer and fall. But what about you? What have you been doing?

I’d love to hear from you.