“…Love can find you at every time in your life.” The last line in the quote inspires my muse. Age is only a number when it comes to love. Yes, I can agree with this because, once, love found me at a time later in life when I never expected it.
#laterinlife #Romance
Oh, boy. Get ready!
A Grateful Heart.
This is a topic I didn’t want to write about because it puts my heart on the spot. With our 52-Week Blog Challenge almost over, I didn’t want to skip this week, so here I am.
There are so many things I’m grateful for each day.
Where shall I begin without making this an autobiography? Haha. Don’t worry, I’m teasing.
Strength: Since my early beginning—I learned in order to survive—I had to be strong. I’m grateful for that strength. Basically, I’m grateful that I know God, and that he has, and does protect me in life or death situations.
Each Day: Some years ago, I had a severe back injury and again two years ago. Ten months ago, I had some scary health news. I’m grateful for each day I can rise and shine to a normal life.
This one gets to me and can make me cry bittersweet tears. It might sound silly to you. I’m grateful for my empathy—that I cry over Kodak Moment commercials, humans being kind to one another and to animals. Happy endings. This stuff melts my heart in ways I can’t control, nor do I want to. I’m grateful to experience this emotion.
Children: I’m grateful for my oldest son. He’s one of the first best things that happened to me—he changed my life. To this day, I’m grateful he can live his life with strength and passion in whatever he does.
I’m grateful for my youngest son who changed my life in other ways. I’m grateful for his compassion and joy for life. I’m grateful that he has found the most wonderful woman to go through life with—my daughter-in-law, Christie.
Friends: Of course, I have to say how grateful I am for the fantastic friends I’ve had and still have in my life.
Love: I’m grateful to have known true love and to have been loved.
I didn’t know I could go on and on with this topic until I put my fingers on the keyboard and started typing, but I’ll only mention a couple more things yet I’m leaving out so much.
Reading and WRITING: I’m grateful for my READERS, and those I work with in my writing career. Every single day, I’m grateful and thankful for this gift I get to do full-time, and yes, I call it a gift.
However, concerning writing full time… I’ve learned that dreams can come true, and I’m learning now that dreams can end. If I have another publishing year like 2018, I’ll reluctantly force myself to be grateful for a new kind of job. I’m not a quitter, and I’ll never stop writing, but my days of writing for publication will come to an end if that happens. I’ll still finish the book commitments I have planned for 2019. No matter what though, I’ll always be grateful for the ability to put sentences together to create a story.
I hope it goes without saying, but I’m grateful to have you here visiting and reading my posts. Thank you.
Check out this week’s post about the Kindle Book Review #Giveaway where I’m one of the sponsoring authors. No purchase necessary to enter for a chance to win a $500 Amazon eGift Card.
This Blog Hop Challenge is counting down. If you haven’t visited the other authors participating, I’d say this is a good week do check them out.
Enjoy your weekend.
Featured and Top Image is from Pixabay.
Week 28 – MFRW 52-Week Blog Challenge ~ Blog Hop #MFRWauthor
Week 28: Life Lessons in My Books
Well, folks, this has been an awful week. Last Sunday I had to have my dog put down. She was fourteen. My son got her when she was ten months old. She’s been mine 24/7 for the last seven years. We are all devastated, but she deteriorated rapidly the last two days of her life. I miss her like crazy, and it feels like she’s pressed up against my office chair as I sit at my desk. I still look so I don’t roll into her. I check the floor beside my bed before stepping down. I wrote her into my book, Whispers of Forever, as a tribute because I knew our days together were limited. She’s on the cover, too.
RIP my sweet girl, Kasha.
As if that wasn’t enough, on the same day before we knew we’d be putting her down, my son and daughter-in-law told me they’re moving to Virginia. They now live seven miles from me. My older son lives on the other coast. I’m going to miss him so much. If I’m not crying over the dog, I’m crying over them leaving. Deep breath. I know life goes on. That should be my life lesson.
So…
I wasn’t in the mood to write a post this week but the topic is kind of important. Life lessons? How do I get the point across to readers in my books?
Here’s an example. In my Bull Rider Series, the first book shows that my heroine, 
Velia, is living with an abusive husband. How ironic for her since she is on a plane returning from a funeral for her aunt in Italy who died at her husband’s hands. She left three children behind. Velia has an awakening, and begins her plan of escape and she carries it through.
This is one life lesson I want my readers to get.
No one needs to live in a mental or physical abusive relationship. Do I speak from experience on this topic? Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Do I think it’s easy to walk away from an abusive relationship? Hell no. It isn’t. After a while it seems like the normal way of life. That’s all I’ll say about that. Referring to the book and in reality, I wrote a short post about Domestic Abuse.
I’m talking for women though men are abused too in a relationship, but I know most of my readers are women.
Outside of abuse, I want to let readers know through my heroines, they are allowed to be independent and have their own minds and opinions. Through my heroes, I want to show that, sure, they can get mad about something, and maybe not approve, but no matter what, they will respect their heroine, and vice versa in this scenario.
Someone close to me wasn’t allowed this in her life. She had to live under her husband’s thumb to a certain extent. She accepted it because he provided for the family, and she didn’t feel like she deserved to have more than she’d like to have. My mother lived a hellish life with my dad, and he tried the same thing with me growing up. He realized early that I was an independent soul whether he liked it or not. He eventually embraced the idea that I stuck up for myself. I try to relay this message in my books.
Shouldn’t everyone have a right to an opinion in a relationship? MJ McCoy-Dressel
A friend had turned all finances in their family over to her husband. He gave her a small allowance each month. I mean small, and some of the income had been her earnings. She scrimped for months to buy an outfit when her husband didn’t have to ask permission to buy a new…anything. How is this fair? Fairness isn’t an option. Is it? Am I wrong? Maybe it’s my own independent mind thinking love should be fair.
I hope the life lessons in my books show that a person should expect to be treated with:
Thanks for reading today.
Remember, this is a BLOG HOP. Please visit the others.
Week 28 – MFRW 52-Week Blog Challenge Participants #MFRWauthor
Participants, I’ll do my best to get around to your blogs. If nothing else, I will share your posts. Thanks for understanding.
For twas not into my ear you whispered
But into my heart
Twas not my lips you kissed
But my soul
~Judy Garland
I put a lot of time into a post I’d written a long time ago, and I still like that post for Valentine’s Day. It’s titled Alone on Valentine’s Day?
Why would a romance writer want to write about being alone on Valentine’s Day? I believe in Happily-Ever-After, Love at First 
Sight, and being Swept off my Feet, and I have been, and have experienced, each of these. I continue this in my writing…live for it, in fact. ❤ Many are alone on Valentine’s day for many different reasons, so why not write about being alone on this day for lovers?
Many of you long time followers have read the post I’m directing you to, but many of you are new, so if you’d like to read my suggestions for being alone on Valentine’s Day, please enjoy at the following link:
Many of you have already read the interview I did for Valentine’s Day with the legendary cover model, C.J. Hollenback. If you’re new, you can read it yourself right HERE.
Author note:
I’m considering asking another cover model for an interview. He’s on an upcoming book. It all depends on his time and my time, so don’t hold me to this. He’s too adorable and friendly not to be introduced. Plus, he was a great inspiration for my Randy in Lassoing the Last Dance. I hope you think so when I do a cover reveal.
Last but certainly not least:
You have to try this cake by Suzanne at A Pug In The Kitchen Food Blog. Her recipes 
send my brain into a lip-licking tizzy! The photographs of her dishes alone make my mouth water. Image used with permission from Suzanne. And, you’ll see why her blog is called what it is called:
Hello! This little cutie is my muse. I call her Ms. Sexy Innocence. You’ll see her here in future Inspiration for the Muse posts. I’d put a cowboy hat on her if I could, but I don’t own the image. In fact, she came from Glitter-Graphics a long time ago.
Here we are with another Monday upon us, and it’s also the day for my Inspiration for the Muse post. Do you have a special image, picture, painting, etc., that inspires you? Today I’m posting a couple of special images that speak for themselves. This is the kind of thing that inspires me to write about what I love. I can’t write it, if I don’t feel it in my heart…
What else could it be, but LOVE
Ah, yes, to me (and my muse) the image below just says it all. *Sigh*
Do I love you because you’re beautiful,
Or are you beautiful because I love you?
~Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Cinderella
Thank you for stopping by today.
Photo credits: Definition of Love– © Laila Sandberg Love Story- © Anna Yakimova
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Today’s post could be considered an addendum to one I wrote in the past called “Love Without Limits—Our Fur Babies.” When I mentioned that post to my son, and told him what I’d like our furry family member to know, he came up with a twist. Instead of being able to tell her one thing in particular, what if we asked one thing?
Sorry about the blur.
If you could get one answer from your furry family member, what would you ask?
Our gorgeous Austrian Shepherd/Chow mix has a torn ligament in her knee. My son isn’t sure he wants to put her through major surgery, and neither am I. She’s had a couple minor surgeries already, and had a hard time coping afterward. She’s close to nine years old and isn’t bothered by this most of the time.
Some evenings I will notice her limping if she’s had an active day. It doesn’t stop her from doing things. In fact, she’ll fly off the back deck after a squirrel like a puppy, giving no thought to a sore knee.
I think it’s strange how both of my boys have had torn ligaments in their knees and now our dog has the same problem. Yes, between two boys there’s been three ligament repairs and multiple torn meniscus repairs. We’re quite familiar with the recovery process after knee surgery.
Sigh.
I’d ask my dog why she hates the mailman so much. But if I could only ask once and get one answer, I’d have to give it some thought. My son said if he could ask one question, he’d ask if she wanted her knee fixed. Choke up time! ❤
Writing this now causes a lump in my throat to think of all the things he’d ask her, it’d be about her knee. This decision apparently bothers him more than her. At this point in her life, we do feel the surgery and recovery would be more bothersome than the problem itself. She’s healthy and happy in every other aspect of her life, so we don’t want to mess with something that doesn’t seem to cause her pain on a regular basis.
Your turn. What do you want to ask your Furry Family Member?
I’m updating this old blog post because of a recent incident with my dog. I woke in the 
wee hour of the morning to her standing beside my bed, panting as if she had run a marathon. I let her out, thinking that’s what she wanted. It wasn’t.
I went back to sleep and again she woke me, still panting. This told me she must have been in pain. I called my son because she’s really his dog, and he came to check on her.
By then, my concern escalated to fear of her having a heart problem. She ended up going to an emergency vet center, which is what her vet suggested. The vet at the emergency center suspected pain as well. In the past she had injured her knee–a torn ligament.
Earlier snowfall 2015. Nothing compared to the East Coast.
With the deep snow we’re experiencing, the vet said dogs with hip, knee, and spine problems are experiencing pain. She has a little path dug out for her in the backyard, but she still ventures out into the deeper part. She’ll be on a leash until the snow melts.
While at the vet center, they noticed tenderness in her abdomen. Lately, she’s had breathing issues, too, as in more rapid breaths being taken. This is noticeable while sleeping. They’ll do x-rays now and blood work. She came home with pain pills. As soon as the pain medication kicked in, the panting stopped and she rested peacefully.
This is the original blog post I wrote in response to a Plinky Prompt. If you could get your fur-baby to understand one thing, what would it be?
I’m sure my dog knows this, but if I knew for certain she’d understand one thing, I’d tell her how much I love and depend on her. Our furry family members love us without limits. When we’re having a bad day we might not smooth our hand down their furry coat. They still love us.
They’ll wait patiently until we take the time, because I think they know we’ll feel better if we do run our hands along their cuddly fur. If we come in the door and don’t acknowledge them right away, they still love and wait. I truly want my fur-baby to know how much I love her back. I show her by the care I give and by the way I pat my bed for her to come up at night. Not to mention the hugs and tennis balls.
With her knee injury, she can’t jump on the bed any longer or chase tennis balls like she used to. She might know by the healthy snacks I give her, but if I could look her in the eyes and say, “I love you. I honestly love you, and I’ll always take care of you…” To have her understand completely—that would be what I’d want her to know.
How about you?
A related Post: If Your Furry Family Member Could Tell You
First five minute brain dump of the year.
My oldest son is always on time for everything, but this year he was way behind in buying Christmas presents for his brother and I. Not that we cared, but he sure did. Keep in mind they have to be shipped from California so he’s always early. This year, he fell short of time. He’s been running half marathons and training in his running for a full marathon. But, guess what? When the package did get here, he went overboard for his mommy. He sent my first Kindle Fire. (Now, I have two and an iPad.)
I fell in love with it before bedtime and I still didn’t know much about it. It’s an amazing device. Everyone needs a tablet. The Kindle Fire is a tablet, whereas the other Kindles are readers. I can read, buy movies, music, apps, and surf the web, plus more. The 7 inch screen is just the right size for reading. Today I read while walking on the treadmill. Perfect distraction! I’m still learning things I can do with this thing. I love, love, love it.
It’s so much fun to play with when you don’t want to turn on the laptop. Now I can save my laptop for my writing and add apps to the Fire. Thank you, Chris!
This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…
Now…
1. Grab the button
(it’s over in the sidebar)
2. Write your post.
3. Link up here. All Things Fadra
Did you believe in Santa Claus when you were a child? I don’t know if I did. I remember picking out a lot of my own Christmas gifts, but that was when I was older. My earliest memory (I think)
was a snowy night in Detroit. It was my parents, my little brother, and me. We lived with my grandmother then. It was nighttime and the side street we lived on was covered with snow. There was only car tracks up and down the road with nothing shoveled or plowed; the snow was deep. I remember the snow covered street because that evening, Christmas Eve, my parents took my brother and I down the street to the hardware store before they closed. They bought us a wagon. A shiny red wagon. They pulled us home in it down that snowy street through the car tracks. It wasn’t easy to pull two kids in a wagon through the snow.
I don’t know if my parents believed in surprises. Wrapping my own Christmas gifts, and putting them under the tree was really the only way I knew Christmas at my house. I did it many times, and my mom did the same thing with her gifts even after us kids grew up and left home. She said that way she could choose
her own gift. Christmas morning was never a surprise at my house as a child. Christmas at my aunt and uncles was always different. We visited early and always had surprise gifts to unwrap. I watched as my cousins opened gift after gift and were surprised at each one. I envied them. I felt like Santa came to their house and not mine. I loved being at their house, whether it was Christmas or not.
Did I carry on that tradition with my own kids? Not at all. Everything was wrapped and nothing got opened until Christmas morning. Everything was a surprise for my boys and everyone else. And they believed in Santa Claus. I encouraged them to believe in Santa. We’d go to the mall and have pictures taken with the jolly man in a red suit.
When we grew up, on Christmas Eve my brother and I always took our families to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. It was then we got to unwrap surprise gifts. I don’t know the reason behind us picking out our own Christmas gifts as children. I suppose it was 
something my parent’s agreed on and figured we would get what we wanted that way.
But, times changed when they became grandparents. The grandchildren had fun times at their house, and we did too. Even though all the kids are grown now and grandma and grandpa are both gone, I still carry many Christmas memories. Maybe they were different but Christmas was still Christmas. We still had gifts and food and love.
I had step-grandchildren for a time and Christmas with them was a joy, exciting, and filled with love. It was the true meaning of Christmas to see the sparkle in their eyes. When the day comes that I have my own 
grandchildren, they will know surprises and believe Santa Claus brought them. Of course they’ll always have their own Christmas memory of Grandma’s love.
Blessings to you all. Have a wonderful Holiday Season.
2009.
The other day I had an enjoyable lunch with six friends to celebrate a retirement. We sat on the deck at a beautiful golf course in the sunshine and a wonderful breeze. Before we knew it, three hours had passed.
Both ends of the table had different conversations going on, and it was hard to listen to everything, but fun to hear a little of this and a little of that. Finally, the retiree began talking about some very special moments she had during her years of working. They were all pleasant stories, and it was easy to see the pleasure she got from her memories.
After telling one particular story, she asked us a question: “If you could live your favorite day all over again, what would it be?” It made me stop to think about that question. At first, I couldn’t answer, for there were many things I could think of, but not just one special thing. Actually, only one other person could think of something right away.
This made me want to think of some happy memories. When she told the one special moment in her life, I almost cried, for she described it through the eyes of a thirty-two-year-old woman as if it had happened yesterday. Others cried.
Days later, I still tried to think of a special day I’d want to live all over again. It’d have to involve my two boys because they are my whole world. How could I choose one day out of all of them? I couldn’t, so I stopped trying to pick out one favorite memory with my sons. They are all favorites. Well, maybe not all of them.
Could it be my wedding? No. My sister-in-law was the only one there on my husband’s side. I’ve had two weddings. The other took place in a courthouse. Life when I was a child? No, a lot of childhood was sad, not happy. If she had asked what sad day stands out in life, I probably could answer that a lot quicker. Isn’t that sad in itself?
Now, I had it narrowed down to either talking about days with my grandmother, or my first love. My grandmother was my favorite person as a child, and she tried to protect and spoil me like most grandmothers do. It usually involved chocolate! But no, there wasn’t only one special day.
I asked this question to one of my writer forums. Some told of happy memories and wonderful days to live over, for them. I went over a lot of memories in my own life, and one finally stuck out from the rest. It was a time when I was an innocent nineteen-year-old.
Maybe we’d all love to live a day over from our eighteenth or nineteenth year of life. After all, we had the world by the tail and there was nothing we couldn’t do. Or not, right? But I did choose that year of my life, and one special day to live over if I could. It didn’t involve my boys or weddings–no that would happen in the future.
By picking this memory, does that make me selfish to choose something from so long ago, when I’ve had so many happy memories since? If you knew me, you’d know I’m not a selfish person.
It didn’t involve my grandmother though I think of her often. It is about the person in my memory and a time before both of our lives changed. It was a time before we were forced to grow up. It reminds me of a Hallmark Channel movie. All these years later, thinking of that memory evokes a warm feeling that spreads all over my body.
It’s been so long since that day, and if it still spreads warmth all over me, then it has to be special, right? It involves love. That’s all I want to say about it at this time. It’s only natural that I write romance it seems, because love and happy endings have always been important to me. I see “love” now when I remember this special day.
May I ask you?
If you could live one special day over, what day would you choose?
It’s not so easy to come up with something so quick, is it? Take your time, remember… Bring up your best memories. Reminisce about the best times you’ve had in your life. In this day and age, there can be a lot of sadness with stress and worry. Why not take a few minutes, or as long as it takes, to give yourself a pleasant memory to live over…if you could.
Feel free to tell us in a comment, or keep it tucked away in a special place. Maybe write it down.
I’m anxious to hear if it was easy for you to decide.
Image from Pixabay and glitter-graphics.com
Mary J. McCoy-Dressel 
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