(The) WRITING LIFE--THE FIRST BOY I LOVED Is In The Top 100 In The Paid Kindle Store...

In the Top 100! Yaayy!!!!   (Thank you all so much!)

THE BOOK TRAILER FOR THE FIRST BOY I LOVED...

My theory is this: If you like the book trailer, you just might like the book. So give it a try. If you do like it, there are assorted "buying" links over there....on the right side of the page. Scroll down:





The Book TraIler for THE FIRST BOY I LOVED

GET LOST IN A STORY Blog/January 31-February 2/Book Giveaway

I'm delighted to be a featured author all this weekend on the GET LOST IN A STORY Blog. Drop by and leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of my new BelleBooks release, THE FIRST BOY I LOVED.

Click HERE

NEW RELEASE: The First Boy I Loved...

THE FIRST BOY I LOVED

now available 

in print and in ebook format at

amazon.com:   http://tinyurl.com/l6xwkys

bellebooks.com: http://www.bellebooks.com/shopexd.asp?id=313&bc=no

Kindle For Christmas? Classic Romances by Award-wining Author Cheryl Reavis...

(Writing as "Cinda Richards")

Fill your new Kindle with these Classic Romances:

(Please be advised that these romances are rated "PG.")

CLICK ON THE DESCRIPTION OF THE HERO.

The Scotsman:

The Marine:

The Cowboy:

                                                       

The Other Cowboy:

The Cop:

Writing (About) Life--Reprising the Family Christmas Eve Eve Story...

As I've said before, on Christmas Eve Eve I always remember our family's "Almost Christmas Stranger." And, in keeping with that, once again I'm going to post an excerpt from one of my newsletters about it--a re-re-post, if you will. The memory is especially strong this year, because the weather is much the same as it was the night she suddenly appeared on our doorstep. Dreary. Off and on rain.  Such a long time ago, and I'm still wondering what happened to her.


(Oh, and the excerpt also includes my late sister-in-law's wonderful Lemon Fruit Cake recipe.)



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Today -- since it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here -- I thought I'd post an excerpt from a past newsletter about a long ago, sort of Christmas Stranger incident and the person my mother and I always make a point to remember this time of year. I'm also going to re-share my late sister-in-law's recipe for lemon fruit cake. She made one every Christmas, and like all of her holiday baking, it was wonderful. (Don't let the words "fruit" and "cake" scare you.)

But first, the excerpt:


"...She was my family's slightly early Christmas Stranger. She arrived on our doorstep on Christmas Eve eve many years ago, and my mother and I can no longer remember her name. It was cold and dark. My mother was sewing my angel robe for the Christmas pageant, and my little sister was a baby. The pounding on our front door was so abrupt and urgent that I was afraid for my father to open it, and even more afraid of the young girl who ducked under his arm and rushed inside when he did. She was barefoot -- and clearly in distress. 

She lived in Charlotte, she was eventually able to say, and she was on her way to a party her father had forbidden her to attend, something she regretted even before the party-goers had become too drunk to drive and had lost control of the car they were in and ended up in a ditch. They managed to get the car out, but they had driven off and left her there in the dark.

She had no money. No way home. No shoes. My mother searched her closet to find some shoes for her -- gray suede penny loafers that were a couple of sizes too big. Getting her home was a little more difficult. We all piled into the car and took her to the bus station in nearby Salisbury. I remember how strange I felt, wearing my winter coat over my flannel, nursery-rhyme print nightgown. I didn't get to go to town at night very often, and at that time of year it was dazzling with Christmas lights, the kind you don't see anymore. Everything was so beautiful -- a real treat despite the strange young girl in the car who was still trying not to cry.

My father bought her a bus ticket to Charlotte -- which literally took all the money he had -- and he insisted that we would wait with her and make sure she got onto the bus all right. It seemed to take forever for the bus to arrive, but eventually it came. She got on it, and that was that. We never saw her again, never heard from her. But I always think of her this time of year and wonder what happened to her and whether she ever thinks of us in return...." 


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GAZIE'S LEMON FRUIT CAKE


1 pound butter

6 eggs at room temperature

2 and 1/3 cups of sugar

3 ounces of pure lemon extract ("pure" is underlined twice so I'm guessing it matters)

4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1 and 1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1/2 pound candied cherries (red)
1/4 pound candied cherries (green)
1/4 pound candied pineapple, diced
1/4 pound white raisins

4 cups of chopped nuts


Lightly flour fruit and nuts with a couple of tablespoons of additional flour.

Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar.

Add eggs one at a time and beat well.

Add lemon extract and beat well.

Mix dry ingredients together.

Beat it into creamed mix a little at a time.

Fold in candied fruit and nuts.

Pour into 10" greased and floured tube pan.

Bake at 300 degrees for 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours or until cake tests done.

Writing (About) Life--Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here...

Christmas in the Foyer 2013--which looks a lot like Christmas in the Foyer 2012.

And 2011, come to think of it.

And Christmas in the Den--Lights on the tree and not much else. But..

The bubble lights are bubbling.  

(Love bubble lights.)

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm wishing you a Charlie Brown kind of Thanksgiving, where it is all about the company.

Family.

Friends.

Love.

Writing (About) Life--Meteor? "Meteor-ish? or...What Is It?

My son texted me this morning, asking if I'd find the odd rock he'd found in a creek near the house when he was a boy, take pictures of it and send them to him. Oh, sure. Why not? So I found the rock. I took the pictures. I sent them to him. And I thought I'd show them to you, while I was at it. All I know about it is that he found it in the creek, it has several flattened "facets" on the surface, it's not magnetic, and it's noticeably heavy for its size.

What do you think it is?

Writing (About) Life: 50 Years Ago Today...

Like most people who were around when President Kennedy was assassinated, I remember where I was. I'd been in the operating room doing my student nurse thing since 6:45 that morning, scrubbed in and sterile, passing instruments, threading curved suture needles with cotton suture, suctioning,retracting, retracting, retracting some more. The muscles in my arms were still "trembly" from keeping the wound open wide enough for the surgeon to see whatever he needed to see. The smell of "surgery" was in my nose despite wearing a mask (yes, surgery has a smell), and I was walking back to the nurses residence, specifically to the ground floor classrooms for afternoon classes, so glad to be out in the fresh air, albeit briefly. When I opened the back door of the residence, the school secretary came running down the hallway toward me. Her hair was very long and oily and full of dandruff because she rarely, if ever, washed it. I remember thinking that it didn't fly out behind her as one might expect when a person is at a full run. And then she was saying the same four words. "The president's been shot! The president's been shot!." I have no memory of what happened after that, where I went or what I did. Were classes cancelled? I don't know. It's all blank now. I do know I went home for the weekend, because I was sitting on the arm of the couch in my mom's living room watching live television when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. (Why do we always refer to him by all three of his names, I wonder? Because of John Wilkes Booth?) And my next memory is of the funeral procession, everybody walking, a little boy saluting--which seemed so staged and out of place to me because he was only just three--and the drums, and the high strung skittish horse. Such a long time ago. The images fade from my mind, but not the emotion.