December already? #giveaway

Hi me again !!  

We're here on a midly chilly December 2nd in Michigan.

I can't say i'm thrilled to be living in the Great White North but it is what it is :)
At least it's not white right now !

Our theme for December is:

Birthstone and Flower

Turquoise (or zircon/tanzanite) - aid to love and a gentle nature

Narcissus (faithfulness, modesty and respect)
OR 

Theme

Been there, done that and don’t/do want to do it again

*   *   *   * 

Hmmm...does that have your brain thinking?
 The meanings of Turquoise and Narcissus actually bring one thing to mind rather quickly!

Aid to Love and a gentle nature...faithfulness, modesty and respect, 

My mom :)

This month is her birthday, the 8th to be exact.

My mom is my rock and my best friend.

And she is all those things listed.
She's been there for me since day one, as a mother should.
She was even there on the day when i first became a mother, giving her guidance and support when i had no clue what i was doing.  I have to say she was a great teacher though.

Happy Birthday early mom !

** ** ** ** **

Krista Ames is a full-time author, mom and wife and resides in northern lower Michigan with her husband and 4 children. Krista loves to hear from readers feel free to drop her a note at krista@kristaames.com.

Current giveaway for a KINDLE can be found here :)

Sign up to host HERE !

Questions I Need To Ask My Mother...

Mom will be eighty-two this year but you really wouldn’t know it to look at her. She still has a bounce in her step and a twinkle in her eye and is determined to deal with whatever life hands her. Unfortunately, life has recently dealt her a blow that we’d all been expecting for some time now.

Losing my dad last month was difficult but it made me realize that after all of the times we discussed his family (mostly through humorous anecdotes) that I never really wrote anything down. There is family scattered through several states and Italy that I will probably never meet or know anything about.

The older I get the more I wish that I’d paid more attention, remembered more names and events. One of these days, very soon when mom is in the mood; we’re going to drag out the photo albums and she’s going to identify all of those relatives on both sides so that I can put faces to the names and pass down the knowledge to my own children.

Every spring, usually in May, my husband pots my mother’s herbs and plants tomatoes and peppers. This past weekend we spent a wonderful day just reminiscing while we watched hubby work. Trust me; he’d rather do the planting himself without any interference and we spent much of that time and dinner talking about some of my dad’s relatives that were originally from Iowa and Paris, Kentucky.

My mother is second generation Croatian/Polish and has her own family stories, some of them handed down from her own mother who was always ready with both humorous and cautionary anecdotes. The thing is, while growing up, I was politely listening to most of these stories without realizing the impact they were making.

What I remember most was that the happy memories were enough to balance the sad.  

I’m lucky to still have my mom. We spend a little more time on the phone these days and my niece, who lives close to mom brings her to visit so that she doesn’t need to drive so far and we all spend more time talking about the people who have influenced our lives. I watch my five year-old niece who comes with her mom and ‘gramma’ and wonder how much of our conversations she’s picking up. How much she’ll remember.

I wish her enough happy memories to balance the sad but I think that’s the message we all impart to the next generation. I’m looking forward to many more conversations with my mother, both about the past and whatever she has planned for the future because she is always up for something new and different. She called to thank us once again for coming to spend the day planting her herbs and such but she couldn’t stay on very long; she and a friend were headed to exercise class. Go mom!

Until next month, I’m sending you all a big hug. Feel free to pass it along…

Paris Brandon

http://parisbrandon.com

The Little Bird by Jeanetta Rockholt

Since it's Memorial Day weekend and Mother's day is just past, I thought I’d post a poem my mother wrote. It has been printed in a small newspaper, and you get to see where I get my writing talent. 

The poems about when my dad was very ill with colon cancer. It was near the end of his life when he was the sickest and couldn’t watch TV or read.

Really he couldn’t do much at all, and we had to be quiet for him.

Then this little humming bird came and built this tiny, little nest. My dad watched it and it seemed to take him away from the pain he was in.

I really think that little bird was a gift from God.

A little bird

by Jeanetta Rockholt

My first husband was very ill,

we all had to be very quiet and still.

A mother bird flew by our house.

Since we were so quiet, she decided to stop.

She began to build a house.

Our porch she decided to adopt.

Underneath the porch’s ceiling, on the TV wire,

nest material she began to acquire.

Such a worker, you wouldn’t believe.

A beauty of a nest, she began to achieve.

Three tiny, beautiful eggs, she began to lay.

She was a humming bird, so the tiny nest she made.

Three little birds began to hatch.

They were all humming birds, so each other they matched.

The first birds that grew

Up and out of the nest it flew.

Out to the shade tree and then,

There were two.

After a while, one was left to grow fat, and there he sat.

On the nest like a chair, just like that.

He licked the ceiling, as we watched, amazed.

His mother worked so hard to feed him, she was dazed.

So off he flew, one day, like the others,

whether they were sisters or brothers.

What a joy, my husband, and we all exclaimed.

Only a tiny little nest on the wire remained.

Now for my book:
 
Buy Now

 Blurb: The sole survivor of a plane crash, Megan is alone on a deserted island in the Bahamas until she finds a nearly-drowned man washed up on shore. Another survivor, this time from a boat wreck. With only meager survival skills between them, will they survive and can they find love?

Janice's website: http://janiceseagraves.org/

Janice's depute book, Windswept Shores: http://pinkpetalbooks.com/Windswept-Shores-Janice-Seagraves.html

Windswept on kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Windswept-Shores-ebook/dp/B003URROMW

Windswept on the nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/windswept-shores-janice-seagraves/1025707130