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This was sent to me by a friend of mine. Wish I could claim to have written it! I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: “There is no Santa Claus,” she jeered. “Even dummies know that!” My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her “world-famous” cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true. Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. “No Santa Claus?” she snorted….”Ridiculous Don’t believe it. That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!! Now, put on your coat, and let’s go.” “Go? Go where, Grandma?” I asked. I hadn’t even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun. “Where” turned out to be Kerby’s General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. “Take this money,” she said, “and buy something for someone who needs it. I’ll wait for you in the car.” Then she turned and walked out of Kerby’s. I was only eight years old. I’d often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping. For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for. I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church. I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock’s grade-two class. Bobby Decker didn’t have a coat. I knew that because he never went out to recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn’t have a cough; he didn’t have a good coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that. “Is this a Christmas present for someone?” the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. “Yes, ma’am,” I replied shyly. “It’s for Bobby.” The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat. I didn’t get any change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas. That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) in Christmas paper and ribbons and wrote, “To Bobby, From Santa Claus” on it. Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker’s house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially, one of Santa’s helpers. Grandma parked down the street from Bobby’s house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. “All right, Santa Claus,” she whispered, “get going.” I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his door and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma. Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby. Fifty years haven’t dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker’s bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were — ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team. I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside: $19.95. May you always have LOVE to share, HEALTH to spare and FRIENDS that care… And may you always believe in the magic of Santa Claus!         Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! 0 0

Just want to let all of my blogging friends  know I have managed to rig something up with a lap top that suffices for the time being in terms of emails and posting. I have still not figured out how to avoid neck stiffness if I sit there for more than an hour or two, no matter how many books I put under the lap top or how I raise or lower my chair. I also need binoculars to see the screen. Computer returns tomorrow, a blank book of empty files.  However, I have sent the fried hard drive off to CA and am hopeful the company on the receiving end can recover everything. Until then, I’m baaaack although intermittently, sort of like cell phone service in certain areas. Christmas is looking up, although we discovered a leak in the roof yesterday… 0 0

It’s been a truism in our family that Christmas always brings a disaster: the car throws a rod, a roof starts leaking, termite damage suddenly appears. This time my computer crashed, and at such an importune time: I’m starting the serious edit of my third book. The hard drive can and will be replaced, but I’m going to have to pay $$$$ to recover my files. Before you ask, yes, I do have an external hard drive, but I don’t always remember to save things to it and all of my pictures never made it there. I was told that our homeowners policy may cover the recovery (after the deductible, of course!), so there is a little light here. So, my dear friends, if you do not get messages from me on your blogs, please know that I have limited access to a working computer, especially for the time I need.  I hope to be back soonest. In the meantime. I’m giving you a picture of one of my Christmas camellia trees and its lovely pink blossoms to lighten the mood! 0 0

We all have moving stories, right? Moving as in translocation – but do let me know if these move you to tears! This is the first of two moving stories for us, this first from Cleveland to Irvine, California. When I had finished my graduate work at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland and graduated with my Ph.D., Hubs and I moved to Irvine, where my husband’s thesis adviser was now the Dean of Biological Sciences and in whose lab Hubs needed to work for another year to finish up his thesis work. We were still impoverished students – I didn’t have a job and now that I had graduated, our $466. 66 combined monthly salary was now halved. So we sold everything we owned except for one chair and our bed, which we placed on a moving van to be delivered who knew when. We had signed a lease for the downstairs of a duplex near Newport Beach (a low rate winter rental) – we were determined to enjoy the beach life in California, if only for a season. In the meantime, we were going to live with the head technician of Hubs’ adviser and her husband until September. Before we left, our Jewish neighbors treated us to a meal with so many delicious dishes, we lost count. Our neighborhood in Cleveland Heights was Jewish Orthodox, and we frequently were asked to come over and turn lights on or off or raise the heat, after sundown on Friday night. If it snowed on Friday and Saturday, we would shovel our neighbors’ walk. In return, we would find a large box of bakery goodies on our stairs when we came home from church on Sunday morning, since the husband worked in a local Jewish bakery. We left Cleveland at the end of May. The cats were being taken care of by some friends, to be flown out to California once we’d settled in. Since we were going to be camping along the way to save money, the cats didn’t figure into our plans. We spent our first three nights of the trip with friends in Milwaukee and then Northfield, MN. In Northfield, we visited the bank, now a restaurant, that the James gang had robbed and saw the bullet holes still in the walls. From Northfield on, we were on our own. I recall camping by the side of the road, along a river, one night, but other than that, I can’t recall where we camped until we got to the Grand Tetons. I know we visited the famous Wall Drug, in Wall, South Dakota, visited Mount Rushmore, and crossed the Bighorn Mountains, stopping at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument . Then we headed south into Wyoming to Grand Teton National Park. At that time, you didn’t need a reservation for the park, but we arrived late in the day at the Jenny Lake Campground, where we wanted to stay, and there were no campsites available. So we drove to Lizard Creek Campground on Jackson Lake, a more remote campground for tenters. We spent a really cold night in our little two-man mountain tent, complete with icicles hanging on the inside in the morning, and left to get to Jenny Lake early. Luck was with us, because a couple of guys from Ohio were leaving and gave us their site, based on our Ohio license plate! We took a hike that day, and that’s where things changed. I’d been having pain in my legs for about two months and it became severe by the time we hit the Tetons and I couldn’t deal with it any more. So we found an MD in Jackson Hole, who told me I had deep vein thrombosis. He warned if I took any more hikes into the mountains, I’d probably have to be carried out, maybe dead. His recommendation: five days in bed with my legs up. We scrounged up a bunch of change and called my parents on a local pay phone (no cell phones back then) to tell them what had happened. I remember crying on the phone about the move. They sent us money via Western Union (no instant bank transfers then either) for a motel. I did spend five days in bed with my legs elevated, watching soap operas on TV and eating take out. Hubs tried to amuse himself, but I could tell he was bored. At the further recommendation of the MD, I rode the rest of the way in the backseat of our car, with my legs up. Our next stop was Zion National Park. We arrived there in the late afternoon, pitched the tent, got some dinner, and decided to hit the sleeping bags early. We figured the warm temperatures would drop at night, forgetting we were now in Utah. When it failed to cool down, we first lay on top of the sleeping bags, then stripped down to our underwear, and finally removed even that. About 10 PM, two large RVs pulled in on either side of us. Lights came on, doors opened and kids clambered out, using flashlights to find their way to the bathrooms. When they passed out tent, they stopped to look inside. Of course. Then we heard, “Mom, Dad, there’s some naked people sleeping in the tent.” I don’t recall what Mom and Dad replied, but thank heavens the lights quickly disappeared. Cutting south from Zion to reach US 40, we stopped in Needles because our engine was overheating. The car we had at the time did not have air conditioning, and we drove with the windows down and two large containers of Cool Aid to drink when we got thirsty (no cooler – an added expense). We sat in a cafe chilled to about 60o, drinking coffee and shivering while a mechanic analyzed the problem. It turned out to be a radiator leak, the very last thing we needed. I could have cried. Since we were about to cross

Okay, okay, my son tells me I’m too old to engage in such dangerous activities, but the truth of it is: I was never scared and it was the most awesome thing I’ve ever done. Why did I do it? It was on my bucket list, along with a hot air balloon ride (done, in Africa, over the Masi Mara), and bungee jumping. That last one I’m still thinking about, but might swap it for white water rafting. So I asked my husband to pay for skydiving for my birthday, then had to lose some weight to make the weight limit. That took a while, so it was last Saturday when we finally drove down to Piedmont Skydiving in Salisbury, NC, along with some longtime friends, Billie and Dana Staats. I had to sign or initial pages and pages of release forms before I could get harnessed up, all the while listening to the people who had gone ahead of me – whoops and chattering away after they landed. At the last minute, Dana jumped in and decided to join me – what a surprise. So we jumped from the same plane.         My tandem partner was a big strong guy named Ian, who is British with strong Aussie accent from living Down Under for several years. We had to be sure to take off anything that might blow away (there’s a You Tube video of a lady who loses her false teeth in a jump), so I shed my glasses and earrings and emptied my pockets. After some brief instruction on how to place our feet on a ledge just outside the plane’s door before jumping, we took off and climbed to 10,000 feet. Inside the plane, Dana and his tandem partner were seated  on the floor to the side and front on the floor to the side and front where the passenger seat had been where the passenger seat had been removed, while Ian and I sat where the rear seat had been, facing back, with me seating between Ian’s legs.       It took a while to get to the right altitude and during that time, Ian attached my harness to his and spent a lot of time tightening the straps and checking the harness. Then it was time to go. Dana left first – I didn’t see him leave the plane because Ian was dragging me attached to him forward into the side space. With the door open the noise from the wind was deafening. I swung my legs out of the door, got one foot on the ledge and then, with a push off from Ian, we were tumbling and then straightened out into a free fall.           It was cold, and the wind rips away at your face, but what a wonderful feeling and beautiful views of North Carolina in all directions. All too soon, Ian inflated the parachute and we were surprisingly gently tugged up and then settled into a slow descent. What can I say? The adrenalin rush was intense (I got an immediate headache) and the harness cut in, but what an experience! A 360o view of the world and rather quiet – flying without wings.         All too soon we were coming in for a landing. Ian tightly circled us with my inner ear canals objecting, then we glided toward the ground very quickly. I was told to raise my legs and let Ian land, which we did amazingly smoothly, then we both skidded on our rears and came to a halt. WOW!             We celebrated out jumps with lunch at Porky’s in China Grove, a famous barbecue place. North Carolina is famous for its barbecue and I felt I deserved to go off the diet. I’ve been flying high for the last week, and it’s only now that all those endorphins, prolactine, cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline, and thyrotropin have dissipated.  They make you feel great, and I can see why one could become a sky diving junkie. When Dana jumps again for his birthday in June, I’m planning to join him…so the diet will continue. If I could figure out how to load the video, I would – but it’s a million plus KB!     0 0

I wanted to publish the list of new followers, some of which I have delayed responding to because of time constraints. I went to each and every one who had a blog and found the MOST amazing people out there. What an incredible blogging world I belong to – and many thanks to each of you for finding saylingaway interesting enough to follow. Please visit these sites. They are worth the time! Rina ♥ (avatar only) Susan Kotch at https://susankotch.wordpress.com Smiling Notes at (https://smilingnotes.wordpress.com/about/) A Momma’s View at (https://amommasview.wordpress.com/about/) lbeth1950 (http://nutsrok.wordpress.com) Thomas M. Watt (https://thomasmwatt.wordpress.com) loriant@hotmail.com Maja at http://travelingrockhopper.com Philippou at https://cphilippou123.wordpress.com Amarose Inghazi at https://amirhoseinghazi.wordpress.com Karen O at https://mytrainofthoughtson.wordpress.com SashSelfLove at https://ny59th.wordpress.com Mukhamani at https://mukhamani.wordpress.com Mithai Mumbelezz at https://mithaimumblezz.wordpress.com Etak at http://averageamericanwhitegirl.com/ Kendell F. Person at http://thepublicblogger.com Petrel144 at https://dearkitty1.wordpress.comr readers+writers journal at http://readerswritersjournal.com Eric Klingenberg at https://erick79.wordpress.com Zigma at http://zikken24.com/ Coleen Chesebro at http://silverthreading.com Harsh Reality at http://aopinionatedman.com 0 0

Maelstrom: turbulence, tumult, turmoil, chaos, confusion, upheaval. A perfect title for this book, which is based on a concept from her mother, but given form and substance by the author. Ms. Guenette’s mother worked on Maelstrom off and on for most of her life, leaving a two thousand page manuscript when she died. When Ms. Guenette found it, she was determined to get it published, making it hers in the process of winnowing, rewriting, expanding characters and giving it life and shape. Maelstrom is also a perfect example of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world mythologies, as described by Joseph Campbell in his seminal work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The hero starts in the ordinary world and receives a call to adventure; along the way he or she must face tasks and trials either alone, or with assistance. If the hero survives, he or she may obtain the gift of important self-knowledge, which may be used to improve the world. The hero in Maestrom is Myhetta, a young man also called the Breed, because of his mixed heritage. Born of the rape of his mother by the all-powerful Bert Calder, Sheriff of the isolated mountain town of Haddon, Myhetta and his mother Ahya, escape to the estate of Rafael Destino, head of Destino Enterprises. Rafael and Ahya become lovers, and Rafael raises Myhetta as his own son, schooled to take over his money, power and influence. Rafael is now dying, but is still determined to ruin the man who married his sister Serena, then killed her; he is pushing Myhetta to exact his revenge. Myhetta is an imperfect hero: he is tormented by being his adopted father’s instrument of revenge and he drinks to excess and womanizes. But he has a generous heart and an intelligent mind. As the story opens, the reader is immediately drawn into the world ruled by the Sheriff: Calder shoots and kills a young woman on Suicide Ridge, a murder that Myhetta witnesses. She is killed because she came to Haddon to investigate the rumors of corruption, and with Myhetta’s help had come too close to the truth. Haddon is populated with colorful, well-drawn characters, whose lives are tragically influenced by the evil of Sheriff Calder, who has raped, maimed and murdered anyone challenging his absolute authority. His reign of terror is abetted by the mayor of Haddon, Amos Thatcher; Thatcher’s first wife was Serena Destino, sister of Rafael and she gave him a son, Casey, before her death. Calder is the center of the maelstrom. One by one, the people he has harmed are helped by Myhetta, thus bringing down the wrath of Calder and stoking his determination to eliminate the Breed in a deniable way…when he can reach him. Myhetta is safe behind the gates and perimeter of the Casa Destino estate and is only vulnerable when he ventures into town. An element of the supernatural touches the story in the person of Casey, who as Rafael’s nephew, has the gift of “second sight” – the ability to see the past and the future of those to whom he is emotionally attached. After Casey and his friends steal liquor from a local store, he is taught a lesson by Sheriff Calder at the behest of his father – he is beaten and the palms of his hands are each cut with deep X. In his physical agony and with the emotional impact that his own father had this done, Casey is inextricably drawn to Myhetta as a source of comfort and protection, For his safety, Myhetta brings Casey to stay at Casa Destino as Rafael’s ward, fulfilling Rafael’s wish to bring nephew into the fold. An additional interest to this reader was the existence of a family of wolves Myhetta has trained. They play an important role in search and rescue and in the protection of Myhetta, Casey, and those closest to them. True to the hero myth, as Myhetta helps the people of Haddon, he gradually comes to accept his role as the new Patron of Destino Enterprises and the requirement that he care for the people who make it run. If there is a fault in this saga, it lies with the number of characters and their complicated interrelationships. It took me a while to figure them all out, but once done, their stories wove into an intricate web of lies, deceit, gossip, and danger. Most of them are strongly written, although I found one of them, Casey’s mother and wife of Mayor Thatcher, to be a mass of contradictions, not all of which were clear. This is a fairy long novel, but superbly written by an excellent wordsmith whose talent clearly derives from that of her mother – so there is a ghost who accompanies the book! Once I had the characters straightened out, I couldn’t put the book down and read deep into the night. I recommend it highly. An excellent and compelling read. About the author: Francis Guenette has spent most of her life on the west coast of British Columbia, finding inspiration for writing in the beauty and drama of the northern end of Vancouver Island. She shares an off-the-grid home that employs a combination of micro-hydro and solar power with her husband Bruce. She has a daughter and a son – both happily married and pursuing interesting careers – and two beautiful and wildly funny granddaughters who provide her with inspiration for writing and living. For most of her working life, Francis has been an educator. She has worked with special needs children and youth and taught at the undergrad level at the University of Victoria. She has a graduate degree in counseling psychology and has worked as a trauma counselor, a researcher, and a graduate student supervisor. During her academic life Francis published articles accepted to peer-reviewed journals as well as contributing to chapters in two published books. Disappearing in Plain Sight was her first novel, and has recently

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone. I am particularly grateful for the fact I now have 300 followers – bless each and everyone of you! Also, I somehow missed my 300th post, and this one is 303. Now for the Blogaversary… 0 0

Thicker Than Water is the last book in the The Grayson Trilogy. I read the first book, a Single Step, and enjoyed it. I had not read the second book before accepting this one to review, but I took the advice of the author and read that one, too. Georgia Rose is quickly becoming the queen of romantic adventure. All of the characters that her readers have come to know are back, along with some great, semi-explicit sex, and the gradual revealing of answers to questions left from the previous two books: where did Emma spend her childhood? Who are her real parents? Who saved Emma, Grace, and the children in the attack on the manor? Can the Poltzin organization be eliminated without putting Emma, Trent or any of the other characters in imminent danger? In Thicker Than Water, Emma and Trent are married and life has settled into a calming routine compared to the tension and turmoil of Before the Dawn (book two). Trent and Cavendish are still trying to close down the Polzin organization, which requires weeks away for both of them. Returning home from one of these trips, Trent is overjoyed to find that Emma is pregnant. For Emma, the emotion is not so much joy as the reemergence of the pain she felt when she lost her first child, pain that drove her to take the job as the manager of the horses and stables at the Melton Estate. Her fear that she will lose this second child can paralyze her. Told mainly from Emma’s point of view, the reader becomes immersed in her emotions and the feelings she has for Trent and the entire staff of the estate. This book has more romance and more discussion of emotional turmoil than book two, and the reader has to wait a bit for the action because of it.   As the reader becomes engrossed in the day to day events of Emma’s life, the narrative slows, but the author more than makes up for it in the last third of the book. I can’t say more without giving much of the plot away! I am a stickler for all things medical (and the wife of an obstetrician) and found a few of holes in the description of Emma’s birth of her baby. The baby’s umbilical cord needs to be tied in two places to prevent bleeding from one end or another. Most important, after the baby is born, there is no description of the delivery of the placenta, which takes anywhere from five to thirty minutes. Emma starts nursing her baby with breast milk right after the delivery. Breast milk often takes a week to come in. Having said that, I doubt most readers would notice these gaps, and as I said, I am probably being a bit fanatical about these details. The story is very well written, develops smoothly, and fans of romantic adventure will love this book. It is a well-done finish for this trilogy, and I know the readers will be sad to say good-by to Emma, Trent and the other characters. I recommend you read this book, especially if you’ve read the first two! About the author (from Goodreads): Georgia Rose is a writer and the author of The Grayson Trilogy books: A Single Step, Before the Dawn and Thicker than Water. Georgia’s background in countryside living, riding, instructing and working with horses has provided the knowledge needed for some of her storylines; the others are a product of her overactive imagination! Following a long stint working in the law Georgia set up her own business providing administration services for other companies which she does to this day managing to entwine that work along with her writing. Her busy life is set in a tranquil part of rural Cambridgeshire where she lives with her much neglected family of a husband, two grown up children and two dogs. You can find the Grayson Trilogy and the individual books at: http://www.amazon.com/Grayson-Trilogy-3-Book/dp/B016DDW6U4/ref=sr_1_1_ha?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1448552372&sr=1-1&keywords=georgia+rose And Georgia Rose at: https://www.facebook.com/thegraysontrilogy/ @GeorgiaRosebook 0 0

Y’all might have noticed the emblem on this page indicating I am a member of Rosie Amber’s Book Review Team. The reviews I do on this site are largely for her blog (although I do write a few on my own!). I’d like to draw your attention to a post: 10 Statements – Rosie Amber If you ever wanted to know more about Rosie, this post will reveal all! She is an AMAZING woman and it’s been a pleasure working with her. 0 0