Archive for the ‘This and That’ Category

A beautiful blanket of snow may cover the quaint town of Deep Haven each winter, but it can’t quite hide the wreckage of Noelle and Eli Hueston’s marriage.

After twenty-five years, they’re contemplating divorce . . . just as soon as their youngest son graduates from high school. But then an accident erases part of Noelle’s memory. Though her other injuries are minor, she doesn’t remember Eli, their children, or the tragedy that has ripped their family apart. What’s more, Noelle is shocked that her life has turned out nothing like she dreamed it would. As she tries to regain her memory and slowly steps into her role as a wife and mother, Eli helps her readjust to daily life with sometimes-hilarious, sometimes-heartwarming results. But can she fall in love again with a man she can’t remember?

Will their secrets destroy them . . . or has erasing the past given them a chance for a future? Read the story behind the story here.

My Thoughts…
Susan May Warren delivers yet another redeeming story and continues to keep me reading book after book. I’m always looking forward to future stories from her yet to be written.  I’ve had quite a year in 2011 and 2012 was starting out a bit bumpy too with overwhelming amounts of clutter, family issues, surgeries, and never ending strand of colds. The Shadow of Your Smile was the perfect read and exactly what I needed to inspire, inform, and remind me that my God is a God of second chances.

I felt and was drawn into the lives of these characters, each dealing with their own issues revolved around a single event that tragically changed their entire worlds.  Susan beautifully intertwined the lives of five characters in such a way. I loved how descriptive the surroundings were brought to life and felt as if I could see the beauty of Deep Haven as vast and rugged as it is.

This is story filled with tragedy, humor, love, separation, hidden secrets,  and forgiveness. There are scriptural references of which I always love to see in Christian fiction book. The story felt real and I am sure we can all relate in one way or another. There’s a good amount of Book Club discussion questions in the back too!  I like this book a lot and highly recommend it! Now to get my hands on the other Deep Haven Titles!

Read reviews by other readers in the Blog Tour at: http://litfusegroup.com/blogtours/text/13448479

More about Susan:

Susan May Warren is the RITA award-winning author of thirty novels with Tyndale, Barbour, Steeple Hill and Summerside Press. A four-time Christy award finalist, a two-time RITA Finalist, she’s also a multi-winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice award, and the ACFW Carol Award.

A seasoned women’s events speaker, she’s a popular writing teacher at conferences around the nation and the author of the beginning writer’s workbook: From the Inside-Out: discover, create and publish the novel in you!. She is also the founder of www.MyBookTherapy.com, a story-crafting service that helps authors discover their voice. You can find her online at: www.susanmaywarren.com.

Sometimes love requires a little forgetting … Come back to Deep Haven and find out what’s been happening in your favorite quaint hamlet. If you’re new to the Deep Haven series – this is the perfect book to start with – each book in the series is a stand alone story.

Susan is celebrating the release of The Shadow of Your Smile by giving away a prize pack worth over $200 from 1/9-1/28.

One grand prize winner will receive:

• A $200 Visa Gift Card (Use that to rekindle a little romance, treat yourself to a spa day, snap up those shoes you’ve been eyeing, or purchase a few great books!)
• The entire set of Deep Haven Books

The winner will be announced on 1/30/12 on Susan’s blog,Scribbles!
Just click one of the icons below to enter and tell your friends about Susan’s giveaway
on FACEBOOK or TWITTER and increase your chances of winning.

Disclosure: I received the above mentioned book in exchange for my opinion of it. This review is 100% my opinion and has not been edited or reviewed by anyone. I was not compensated in any other way for this book review.

Last week, I finally dove into the world of Thrift and Consignment stores and boy what a discovery it has been! I mean, I’d been to our local Goodwill and Salvation Army stores on occasion but this time I checked out some local smaller thrift stores and a quite larger one a few miles away. Since I didn’t start my post with “I’ll never do that again or I was in shock!” you can guess that I had a fairly decent experience in thrift store shopping.

I went out this weekend without my husband or the kids to shop. And wow, I really need to do that more often. It was nice not to have to keep up with wandering children, feeling rushed as my husband stands around bored out of his mind, or my son trying to pull down my shirt to nurse in front of a crowd of people. My friend Lindsey and I had been wanting to start shopping for the kids next sizes and also for the spring and summer seasons way ahead of time. I think we are really just eager for the Spring to arrive. Living in Oregon where it rains for almost the entire Fall and Winter can be pretty taxing at times and is known to cause some real cabin fever!

The first consignment store that my friend I checked out is called The Red, White, and Blue.  And I really think I need to leave a review about it on Yelp because the ones on there are enough to make you not even check it out! We went on Saturday so we’d prepared ourselves for a crowd. I was only hopping I wouldn’t have to fight for items, get accused of eyeing somebodies merchandise in their carts, get jostled, and all the other scary things you can think up in crowded place to shop! It honestly wasn’t too bad and it was nice to be able to look around without constantly correcting my preschooler (stay at my side, don’t touch that, get off the floor, …the list goes on)  and making sure my baby didn’t grab or rip anything down while in his Ergo carrier since he’s at the perfect height for that while attached to me.

As we entered the store, I was pretty confident that I was going to find exactly what I was looking to get for my son and daughter but I was shockingly wrong! I could find almost nothing in my daughter or my sons size and I wasn’t being picky either, it just wasn’t there! One thing I really disliked was how the items in the store were organized, the clothes mainly. Instead of sorting them by size, they instead choose to group them in sections by color. And that was a pain to dig through. I was in shock to see a boys button down shirt for 3.95 with all the buttons missing! I mean I guess you could replace them yourself but it’s not worth the price of almost 4.00. I could easily get a brand new shirt off a clearance rack at Target for that much.

On a more positive note, I loved their toy/craft/book section! They had some awesome deals on toys and books that  I’ve actually seen on e-bay for much more in price! I have recently been looking to collect the Leap Frog fridge magnet sets and there was one there BUT my friend Lindsey got to it first! She was also looking to get these sets too. I let that one pass because I did have a Word Whammer coming in the mail and she saw/touched it first. No fighting among friends for toys or clothes. It’s funny though because we are both looking for similar things and the same sizes for our kids! I did happen to score a nice lot of five Preschool books for $1.95! One of the books is wipe-able so my daughter can practice writing her letters and numbers. I’m so happy with that find!

Honestly, I still can’t believe there was nothing there for my children clothing wise! I’ll have to check back when they restock and make sure the next time I go, it’s not on a weekend. It was pretty busy but at least the lines moved quickly to check out. I’ll have to always remember to keep cash on hand for spontaneous trips to that store because they don’t accept credit/debit cards. I did find their prices on used clothes to be a bit high at 8.00 for a ladies top and 10.00 and up for a pair of pants. After scoring an entire box of Ann Taylor clothes for 25.00 through Thred Up, I’ve become a bit picky at prices of used clothes!  So, after an almost unfruitful trip to the first thrift store, we headed to a much smaller thrift store in our area that is owned and run by a Christian family that I’ve visited by myself a few times now.

I think getting vaccinated is very important. Both my three year old daughter and my 1 year old son are up to date on all recommend vaccinations. I believe vaccinations are very important in helping  prevent in spreading and also coming down with horrbile diseases that could lead to life long impairments and sometimes even death.

I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone these days that parents not vaccinating their children has been on the rise. I think is a very dangerous and can cause potentially harmful results not just in the child not becoming vaccinated but to others they come in contact with.  This is one reason why I jumped on board when I was given the opportunity to inform my blog readers about Infant Meningitis  and  the non-profit organization Meningitis Angels behalf of Mom Central

About the Meningitis Angels…

Meningitis Angels is a national non-profit organization founded in memory of Ryan Wayne Milley, the only child of Bob and Frankie Milley. Ryan’s life was taken at age 18, as a result of meningococcal meningitis/meningococcemia.

Hundreds of families from across America and around the world make Angels one of the largest meningitis organizations globally.

Meningitis Angels educates the public, health professionals, child care facilities, schools and universities on not only meningitis but other vaccine preventable diseases and the preventions including vaccines, though personal stories, our educational brochures, posters and videos.