Turned over in bed this morning and noticed the sun had not yet risen. It reminded me that the earth is rotating slowly as it prepares my part of the world for the engulfing winter months ahead. Autumn is here; the more we move out of it, the cooler it gets. The temperature in my bedroom made me aware that winter patiently stood at the door, waiting to enter, and I covered my head and snoozed for fifteen minutes before I got up.
The seasons of the year we humans cannot change, and I’m happy about that. Our man-controlled abusive interference with nature is limited to manipulating the time so that we gain an hour in summer, and the day is longer, but we get that hour back in winter, making the days long, dark, and sometimes dreary.
The environment is a mystery. Its wonders are secrets hidden in the pockets of the Heavens. This morning, I had the opportunity to snooze for fifteen minutes and then the pleasure of seeing the Heavens light up and unfold as the sun rose, and for that, I Am Thankful.
It doesn’t seem like seven years, but it is—many thanks to the administrative team at RRBC and the entire RRBC Organization for your support. It is much appreciated.
Today is Monday, and I asked myself what this week would bring. As a woman who contemplates the elusiveness of time and how difficult it is to grasp, I have long realized the wheel of time doesn’t move by weeks, months, or years but by seconds, minutes, and hours that make a night and a day into twenty-four hours. What we do with our twenty-four hours is up to us. We choose. Knowing that, I have decided to take the seconds that turn into minutes, the minutes that turn into hours, and the hours that sum up the complexity of the earth’s rotation around the sun and see time as a one-day gift to live and enjoy. Each day I awake is a new beginning, and I am thankful for that one night and day.
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ENIGMA TRACER
Breakfield and Burkey like lively, believable banter between characters. We took an instance between Gracie and her twin brother JJ to help the reader know they gently tease now and then but genuinely care for each other in this deadly sleuthing game of digital cat and mouse. JJ and Gracie are seasoned pros who know their trade but are new in their leadership roles for CATS and R-Group. They know what they must look for and the next steps of covert detective work. They are uncertain of the end game and the risks. Mentors can’t teach their wards how to handle every threat they will encounter, but they can teach them how to think. Stumbling into new important roles teaches the young heirs how to adapt their thinking and change direction. Gracie’s role is to orchestrate digital covert operations to help people. JJ’s role is to provide operator support at ground level to the problems Gracie needs help with. They must be decisive and calculating because the criminals they are up against are cold and ruthless.Listen to how she and JJ conduct a planning session in this YouTube segment:
BOOK BLURB:The clock is ticking … can Gracie uncover the truth?Phillip Pliant is the wealthy opportunist plastics dealer and CEO of Pliant Industries. He’s also a master thief—creating a pervasive threat to the manufacturing infrastructure in the Caribbean islands markets. With the cartel as his stealth client, the naïve city leaders have been seduced, enabling the production of more than 3-dimentional building materials.
And set the stage for massive chaos and destruction.
Pliant has locked up contracts, assets, and control of any future expansion. His contacts and clients salivate over their probable financial reward—the expected profits are monstrous.
Is the R-Group, now led by Gracie and the family heirs, strong enough to win against this predator? Can JJ’s CATS (Cyber Assassin Technology Services) act on the root-cause analysis in time?
Will the R-Group and CATS sabotage Pliant’s plan before it’s too late?
Can Jeff and Keith use their covert skills to put the bad guys away for good?
Will Gracie be able to squash Pliant and the cartels?
Can the chain of islands survive the underhanded tactics and threats?
Gracie never considered that their lives would hang between winning and losing. Will the devious plot be uncovered in time? The clock is ticking. Five … four … three …
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the authors’tour pageon the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to schedule your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please clickHERE. Thanks for supporting this author and her work!
I’m going to miss this Challenge. It challenged me. Within me, it has removed reservations that I had pushed deep within the dark corners of my soul. After the first week, I thought I was going to buckle under. The possibility of facing weaknesses and being drowned in recriminations brought up good old Vincent Lombardi, who sits at my imaginary round table as one of my advisors.
He said two simple statements. “Adversity is the first path to truth. Prosperity is a great teacher: adversity is greater.” For me, the adversity was the distress of having to change.
I like quotes from people who talk from experience. Lombardi built a winning football team, and they were the very first to win the Super Bowl.
So, I moved into the second week prepared to face myself.
Joy rose as I read the blogs from the rest of the participants. With some of their postings, I laughed, and with others, I was amazed, and then there were some posts where tears flowed and others that brought me into deep contrition, contemplation, and repentance. The articles were all that good and inspiring.
If you have read my postings during the 30-Day Challenge, you know I had doubts, frustration, and regrets. Yet through all of what I felt, I am delighted to have stuck with it. Vince was right. Facing my adversity is more remarkable than never having done it at all.
Would I do it again? YES! Undoubtedly. Not this year, but whenever I see it offered again.
Does this mean I am going to blog every week to prepare myself? NO! However, I have decided to blog on my author’s website once every two months to release some new SNIPPETS. 🙂
Therefore, on this last day of the Challenge, I leave you with another quote by Vince: I do my best to walk with this quote every waking day of my life.
“When we place our dependence in God, we are unencumbered, and we have no fear. In fact, we may even be reckless insofar as our part in the production is concerned. This confidence, this sureness of action, is both contagious and an aid to the perfect action. The rest is in the hands of God–––and this is the same God who has won all His battles up to now.” (By Vincent Lombardi)
My list of new and open items for this week includes the following:
Revising the first 10K of my new novel. It usually takes me at least four to six days to fix 10K. I like to send her my final draft so that she understands the direction I’m moving in.
Answering emails and text messages, Daily
Finishing the last revision of my first novel.
Co-hosting the IWSG on Wednesday
Releasing my new short story. (Na-Doo is still jumping for joy, and I’m laughing. She’s a sassy woman, but I love her the way she is.)
Yes, it is evening here, and I have just ended my sabbath day. I enjoyed the rest.
I’m in my office now. Even with the change in my Sabbath day and time, I start slowly getting in gear to work. As I’ve said before,I don’t like hectic. I never have.
I kick off my work week after envisioning how I want my week to run. I don’t order what I plan to do, but I write down what I want to do in no particular order.
Today has been a pretty cool day for me. I meditated, had breakfast, and read up until dinner time. After dinner, I read again.
Reading is medicine for my soul. I am finishing up a book entitled Soulful Spirituality by David G. Benner, a Christian Canadian Psychologist. I have almost every one of his books, and they have enriched my life.
My list of new and open items for this week includes the following:
Revising the first 10K of my new novel. It usually takes me at least four to six days to fix 10K. I like to send her my final draft so that she understands the direction I’m moving in.
Answering emails and text messages, Daily
Finishing the last revision of my first novel.
Co-hosting the IWSG on Wednesday
Releasing my new short story. (Na-Doo has just jumped for joy, and I’m laughing. Even though she’s pretty sassy, at times, she has a big heart.)
I am ready for this Challenge to end. It has demanded more of my time than I expected. My characters are asking me if I ever will return. Especially Na-Doo, the main female character in my upcoming short story that is not yet released, keeps accusing me of forgetting her. When I told her I didn’t realize the burden the Challenge would have on her story, she advised me to think before I leap the next time, and she tapped her toes on the floor.
She is patiently waiting for the last story that will go out on Tuesday. To keep her happy, I applaud her patience every day and thank her for being so kind to me.
I am laughing. If you think that my characters are my muse, then you’re wrong. My characters are facets of me and would feel insulted if I thought of them as muses.
It’s Sunday, and my Sabbath starts at 6 pm. Typically, at this time of the morning, I am in church. However, I changed my Sabbath’s beginning and end so that I could continue participating in the Challenge and have 24 hours of rest, which I wholeheartedly admit I need.
Since I was up late last night attending a writing seminar on Using Character Emotion to Wow Reader by Becca Puglisi on Zoom, I’m dragging today. But I still have a few more things I want to accomplish before I call it quits at 5:45 pm.
Revising the first 10K of my new novel. It usually takes me at least four to six days to fix 10K. I like to send her my final draft so that she understands the direction I’m moving in.
This morning, after my contemplation, I read Nonnie Jules’ blog posting for Day 26. After reading her poem, I went to the blog posting of Shirley Harris-Slaughter and read her Day 26 posting.
Shirley’s article is entitled How Do You Say Goodbye? Her question, along with Nonnie’s poem, threw me into contemplativeness again.
John Donne and his Meditation 17 rose within me. Especially the line that says, “any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell toll; it tolls for thee.”
We are all a part of humanity, whether we accept that or not. No one can guarantee they will make it through the day or wake up the next morning. Yet, we treat life as something we dictate, which is sad.
How do I say goodbye is the question that Shirley asked.
I don’t have an answer to that question. Living on another continent, far away from my family and extended family, I do everything within my power to love them in the now with phone calls, text messages, video calls, and visits when I am in the USA.
I tell and show them that I love them every chance I get. Who knows if I will have the opportunity to say or show that tomorrow?
I want to know that whenever one of them leaves this world, if they go before me, and step into eternity, I will have given them the most precious gift I possess, which is to love.
Knowing I have loved them doesn’t take away the sadness or the pain, but it comforts me.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”* (New International Version 2011, Zondevan, The Gospel According To John John 15:9-13)
(NONNIE JULES’ POSTING is linked to this posting, and Shirley’s article is linked. You are welcome to read both postings. The links will take you directly to their blog articles.)
My list of open items includes the following:
Revising the first 10K of my new novel. It usually takes me at least four to six days to fix 10K. I like to send her my final draft so that she understands the direction I’m moving in.
Before my morning block of time could end(usually, it ends at 11:30 a.m.), but since I am optimizing my schedule, I changed it to 11:00 a.m. I got in my beetle and was on the road by 10 a.m. I am smiling because I went to one of my favorite bakeries in our village. They are all my favorites, but each bakery has delicious tarts different from the others.
As I lay in bed looking out of my bedroom window, which is a sky window, I thought having pretzels and pastry for breakfast would be a scrumptious idea. It only took me about fifteen minutes. The pastries smelled so good. I would be big as a house if I went there every day, so I have a hard limit of twice a week to visit them.
Baking is still a work of art here. Fresh bread tastes heavenly. The cakes and pastries are not sweet and are excellently made. You can’t compare buying a cake from a real baker to a store-bought cake from Kroger. There is a difference, or maybe I have just fallen in love with the European Style of life. So, my breakfast was yummy, and I am still smiling.
Since I’ve been in my office, I’ve taken care of an invoice and conducted a telephone call with the people installing new communication cables in our village that will increase internet speed.
At one p.m. my time, I have a Zoom meeting. People on the East Coast conduct the forum, so I am very thankful for their consideration of me so that they get up early for our meetings.
After my forum, I will work on my excerpt for my developmental coach and then bring wood in from where it is sheltered into the house for the fireplace.
It is Friday, and I will enjoy a hot cup of gluhwein while I read a book or look at a movie that fascinates me and engages my mind.
My list of open items includes the following:
Revising the first 10K of my new novel. It usually takes me at least four to six days to fix 10K. I like to send her my final draft so that she understands the direction I’m moving in.
