Mountain Top Experience

My husbaqnd had a great analohy about our detour up the mountain.

At the top, the scenery is gorgeous. It's ahigh of God's glory. To get there, however, one has to suffer through the twists and turns and near misses with drop offs that can kill.

We want those nountain top experiences in our lives, but they don't come easily. Going up under our own power is treacherois and nould lead to disaster. We need to leave God to the driving, as He knows the way and the safest route.

Laurie Alice Eakes

A Little List

We had the pleasure of spending the night with my sister and family last night Got an early start, but made a wrong turn and ended up going over as mountain with hairpin turns and all. I panicked considering giung back down. We didn't have tom, praise GoTennesee is gorgeous, but we couldn't get the 3g for the network.

Ware entering Alabama right now.
Laurie Alice Eakes

Guest Blogger Louise M. Gouge

Today, I have invited Louise M. Gouge to give a brief talk on her newest book, Love Thine Enemy, which releases to bookstores all over the country today, July 14.

Before I post her comments, I want to say that this is quite appropriate to release on July 14, for this is Bastille Day, the start of the French Revolution. Louise's story is an American Revolution story, which helped fuel the French Revolution, so the connection is quite serendipidous.

Even though I've lived in Florida for almost thirty years, Love Thine Enemy is my first Florida book. Kristy Dykes, another Floridian who wrote wonderful Christian love stories, challenged me to write a historical novel about our home state. Everyone knows that Florida belonged to the Spanish for over two hundred years. But when I looked deeper into our history, I discovered this was a British colony for about twenty years right during the time of the American Revolution. Many Loyalists from the other colonies fled their homes and came to St. Augustine, where they stayed until Florida went back to the Spanish. So I took this footnote of history, created a Loyalist hero and Patriot heroine for conflict, added some customs of the times, and out came Love Thine Enemy. I love the era and my characters so much that I've written a sequel, The Captain's Lady, due out in March 2010, and I'm working on a third book in the series. I hope readers will pick up my book and discover what a fascinating time and place this was.

For anyone who leaves a commnet, you get a chance to win a copy of Love Thine Enemy. I'll run this until the end of July, but you ahve to post to comment on this post.

It Worked!!!

Hey, this is cool. I can blog while on the road.

 

Or is that roads?

On our way to our new home.

Counting down to M Day.

Testing

To see if I really can blog from my email.

 

I’ll believe it when I see it.

You'll Find Me On

the Avalon Authors blog today

http://www.avalonauthors.blogspot.com

Buying a Car

A used one. New is out of our budget.

But what I'm really out of--or was by the end of Saturday--is used car salesmen. I apologize to those who break the mold, but those with whom we dealt deserved every bit of their reputation.

Especially the last one. He tried all sorts of tricks. Well, guess what, my husband got the highest grade in his negotiations class in law school, and I'm not so bad at it myself. Between the two of us, we're a formidable team, and my mother-in-law, who was helping us, is no mouse either. We had this guy on the defensive. Oh, I'll give you a few hundred off for those little dents onthe body. Then he slaps on this ridiculous servicing fee.

We walked out and out and out, then went to IHOP for some good wholesome food. I love pancakes and will eat them at any time.

Anyway, I digress.

I think selling used cars for inflated prices was easier in the old days. Now we have the Internet. We have cars.com, which hooks in with Yahoo Auto. We have vehics and Craig's List.We can side by side compare. Hmm, this dealer is selling this 2003 Dodge Carivan for X and this one is selling the same model for Y. Why is there a $1,500.00 price difference? No, you don't know until you look, but it makes one wonder who is trying to get away with something.

Any advice welcome. We will be back on the war path--I mean shopping spree--later this week.

Moving

So we are moving. Now I am convinced that moving companies are evil. Well, at least not quite honest. They get the estimate, you give them the job, then they tell you about all the extra fees, despite you asking them to include those in the estimate up front. Not illegal, not lying, but surely unethical.

What the Mail Brought!

My Revell contract. I am still stunned. How could an amateur like me sell to a publisher like Revell?

My Guest Blogging

I didn't get this posted sooner because of my trip, and I was a guest blogger last week on Lyn Cote's blog, writing about a woman who had a great deal of influence on my life, my values, my writing, and my heroines.

http://www.strongwomenbravestories.blogspot.com