A Family Episode

This week was my youngest sister’s birthday. Like Hobbits, we are very fond of birthdays in my family and we celebrate everyone’s no matter what their age. My father had a little birthday party in the summer as he turned 69 and for my youngest sister’s birthday in October, my next-youngest sister (I have 3 sisters) took her on a day of shopping around Waco. They visited consignment stores, flea markets, and boutiques, picking up an assortment of small gifts as well as random purchases. It was a very fun day for both of them and it was a lot more about the bonding and friendship than about the gifts. Additionally, they brought back some munchables like good old-fashioned licorice all-sorts and homemade wild plum jam. They remembered reading about how children in the vintage era would have licorice all-sorts. I’m not sure if the candies of that time tasted like the ones we had—which varied from great licorice flavored ones to strange ones that tasted like a collision of laundry detergent and anise. 😊 But we had fun trying them!
​
My gift to her was a multi-screen (including digital edition) of Sleeping Beauty and Maleficent and some earrings. She recently got her ears pierced so earrings were actually a necessary purchase as she has to wear them 24/7 for 6 months and I chose ones that were understated and elegant to match the DVD. We’ve recently almost doubled our digital movie collection by using an inexpensive program called Disc to Digital. We were slow to use digital at first and lethargically redeemed codes that tagged along with DVDs, rarely watching the digital. But once everyone in the family upgraded some of their DVDs, a great variety of movies started to pop up in our phone app and the app was suddenly more interesting. I didn’t know we had even owned some of these movies before! However, Sleeping Beauty is not available via the program we’ve been using and it’s one of my sister’s all-time favorite movies. So of course—I was really glad we do birthdays in our family.

 Review copies for the next 2 weeks are Consuela and Facets of Fantasy. If you complete a 5-star review and put it on 3 or more retailers, you can email me with your mailing address and links to the reviews and I will mail you a complimentary signed paperback copy of the book you reviewed. This isn’t an “incentive” just a thank you, and should not encourage you to put up a favorable review unless it is your real opinion. (Consuela is one of the most light-hearted and family-friendly of my books. Facets, on the other hand, has only mild content but heavy undertones that deal with death, grief, and anger. So, if you are triggered by any of those things, be aware before taking the book.)

Consuela Review Copy
Facets of Fantasy Review Copy

And there will be more updates