I’ve been eagerly awaiting this new book, Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley, to come out and arrive at my local bookstore. Today was the day! In the car Miss Gidget and I hopped, and tried not to speed the ten minutes to Book Heads Book Store.
Normally I don’t recommend a book until after I’ve read it, but I’ve heard sooooomany good things about this book. And come on! It’s got a dachshund on the front cover – it’s just got to be good!
I can just feel it’s one of those books that will make me shed a few tears (okay, probably A LOT of tears!). One that I will resonate with. One that I won’t want to end. But one that will stay in my heart forever.
A snippet from the inside flap: This is a story about that special someone: the one you trust, the one you can’t live without. Lily and the Octopus reminds us how it feels to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go, and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all.
Yup… I already need tissues. Okay, here we go…… open the cover and begin!
Thank you for sharing and subscribing to my blog updates.
This hard working construction guy of mine before heading out this morning to our driveway where he is working today on completing walls and window frames for a She Shed that will be delivered on Tuesday to be assembled on site, had to take a little time to snuggle with his girl, Gidget.
Let me count another reason why I’ll always want this handsome man in my life and why I’ll always want a dachshund in our household. It is tender moments like these among many others, that I count my lucky stars for the life I have.
Enjoy your Sunday everyone and take time to snuggle with those you love.
P.S: Don’t forget, today is the last day to enter for a chance to win a signed copy by me of the book She Shed-A Treasure Trove of Women’s Creative Spaces where my writing cottage is featured. Enter by midnight cst tonight. I’ll notify winner tomorrow! Here’s the post link to learn more and enter (or click on the book cover below). Plus get a fun and inspiring bookmark I made just for you!
Thank you for sharing and subscribing to my blog updates.
I was thinking about the cycle of life today. How things come and go. Another Mother’s Day has come and gone. Spring, for the most part, has sprung, and before we know it, we will be in the heat and humidity of summer.
The cycle of life, how at times speeds by, but then other times feels like it is crawling slowly along like a snail.
My manuscript for Wisdom Found in the Pause, my second memoir, has been with my editor almost three months now.
A book that took me over three years to get to the point of feeling comfortable and handing it over to my editor. A hurdle I wasn’t sure I’d be able to jump. But yet, I did.
Just like many things in life, there are always hoops to jump through. Some we can do without a thought, some we ponder for what seems eternity.
It felt that way, writing my second memoir, like trudging through very thick muck at times. My own fear and questioning if it was “good enough” was the mud I was trying to see through.
My vision for it not quite clear yet, as I still have some doubts. But I’m hopeful with my editor’s feedback I will find that opening of freedom all writers strive for- that moment they know without a shadow of doubt the book that won’t not let them rest, will make its way out into the world.
Writing has so many cycles like life – the idea for a book – the endless hours of writing – the courage summoned to release it to an editor – the thoughts that invade at the oddest times- the wrestling of doubt, fear, and questioning during the waiting game.
I’m in the waiting game right now, which for awhile was a comfortable place to be. I was relieved to let my manuscript go to my editor when I did in February, and take a break from it. There comes a point when you just have to do this in order to make it better.
But now, I find myself in the not-being-so-patient process of wanting to know that all my devotion and hard work can actually be a book I release to my audience.
Waiting for confirmation from my editor that the manuscript, which will no doubt need lots more work, but hope I rest in the arms of that it is doable.
And the place in the cycle I am now is that I am eager to get back to work on whipping it into the shape. But I must wait.
And I envision when I can say it is complete…and I can let it go…and it moves out into the spaces and places it needs to go.
But now, in this moment, suspended in time, hanging slightly off balance, I await the fate of what it will actually be.
Not yet fully knowing, but leaning heavily into my faith that a divine plan is already in place.
And just like I had to do when things unfolded so rapidly in my dachshund, Joie’s, short-lived life with me, of which I write about in this book. How it seemed to spin way too fast, but yet stopped me dead in my tracks when I had to make a gut wrenching decision to do what I felt was best for her.
How that decision led to the next phase which was a period of transition for me – and that was a whole process of cycles too. And a cycle I had fought against the whole year before. Until I knew I had to look it straight in the face or let it continue to disrupt my inner world.
Days come and go. We create, struggle, fly high, let go, look back, look forward, and search for peace in-between…where peace is always faithful in that it resides here always beckoning us to see that this is truly the only cycle that matters.
