Introducing My Other Blog: Regency Reflections

Today I wanted to introduce you to a relatively new blog that I participate in. It's named Regency Reflections, and it exists for readers who like Inspirational Regency Era Fiction.

The Regency Era in fiction usually covers from 1800-1830 in British history. This has been a rather popular setting for romance novels in the general market. With authors like Julia Quin, Eloisa James, Mary Balogh, and Jo Beverly all regularly hitting the bestseller lists with their dastardly Regency heroes and sheltered Regency heroines.

The inspirational book market is starting to see more novels set in this time period as well. Julie Klassen's award winning Regency novels always seem to hit the inspirational bestsellers lists, and other authors such as Laurie Alice Eakes, Ruth Axtell Morren, Regina Scott, Mandy Goff, and Linore Rose Burkard are seeing success with their Regency novels as well.

Some of you may be wondering why an author with a book set during the French Revolution like Sanctuary for a Lady would be blogging with a bunch of Regency enthusiasts. Well, that's because the Regency Era is the closest popular setting I can find to the French Revolution.

France and England were anything but friendly during this time. In fact, the two countries warred from 1793 (during the middle of France's Revolution) until 1815 when Napoleon was defeated. So their are a lot of connections between England and France. Furthermore, if I'm able to keep writing novels about the Belanger family, they will soon find themselves caught in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars. I might even be seeing a British character or two on the horizon.

Today I'm blogging about Paris and British aristocrats and the Treaty of Amiens over on Regency Reflections. (Bet you never would have guessed I'd find a way to work something about France into my Regency blog!) I'd love for you to stop by, check out the blog, and meet some other great European fiction authors.

The Runaway Bride Smoothie Recipe from Author Noelle Marchand

On Monday we visited with Noelle Marchand, author of the newly released novel, The Runaway Bride. Noelle is giving away a copy of her novel to one lucky winner from Monday's post. So if you haven't stopped by to enter the giveaway yet, be sure to do so. In the meantime, here's a recipe to share:

The Runaway Bride Smoothie  



Ingredients:
1 ½  cups frozen strawberries
1 banana
6 ounce cup of raspberry yogurt
½ cup of cranberry-raspberry juice
 2 ounces of pineapple or orange juice

Directions:
1.    Place ingredients in blender.
2.    Blend until smooth.
3.    Serve and enjoy. Makes about 20 ounces.



Goodness, does this sound like the perfect summer treat. Thanks for sharing, Noelle!

The only husband Lorelei Wilkins ever wanted was Sean O'Brien, but she's wasted too much time waiting for him to love her back. When another man proposes, she accepts—until she stands at the altar…and realizes she can't marry without love. Bolting out of town toward a fresh start, she never suspected her parents would send Sheriff O'Brien to bring her home!

After an innocent mistake leaves Lorelei and her reluctant rescuer with compromised reputations, marriage is their only option. But first they must triumph over suspicious locals, shady characters, an inconvenient groom and the bride's own stubborn heart. Will it take putting their lives on the line for Sean and Lorelei to realize that only love can conquer all?

Interview and Giveaway with Author Noelle Marchand

I'm delighted to have one of my good author friends with us today, Noelle Marchand. Noelle's love of literature began as a child when she would spend hours reading beneath the covers long after she was supposed to be asleep. Over the years, God began prompting her to write. Eventually, those stories became like "fire shut up in her bones" leading her to complete her first novel at fifteen. Now, at the age of twenty-three, that fire of inspiration continues to burn.

Noelle is a Houston-native who graduated from Houston Baptist University in May 2012. She received bachelors degree in Mass Communication with a focus in journalism and Speech Communication. The Runaway Bride is her second published novel. (I reviewed it both on Making Home Work and on Amazon.) She will be giving a copy away to one lucky winner, so be sure to leave a comment below with your email address to be entered in the drawing.

I've put together a new list of interview questions that I'm very excited about for today. We'll be looking at things from a daughter's perspective and learning about the impact Noelle's parents had on her.

What decade were you born in, and what era do you remember growing up in? 

I was born in 1988, narrowly avoiding any memories of that decade. I guess I’m a millennial girl. I remember ringing in the new millennium with my family for the first minute or so then sitting down to wait for the world to grind to a halt. Thankfully, the Y2K scare was only that and we could drain the water from the bath tubs and giveaway some of our canned goods without fear.

Ah yes, I remember those stockpiles of canned goods. So glad we never ended up needing them! Where were you born?

I was born and raised in Houston, Texas—the land of skyscrapers and cowboys.

Hmmm... That's a fun combination to imagine. In fact, I think I'm getting the idea for another novel. :-) Share one of your favorite childhood memories.

When I was really young my Dad worked at home. Since I am the youngest, he would take me with him to drive my mom to work after my older siblings went to school. Afterward he’d take me to the park to feed the ducks and ride the miniature train, eat breakfast at a restaurant, or drive home and let me sit on his tummy to watch Barney. I loved having that special one-on-one time with my dad.

That sound so special. I'm really happy you were able to forge such a tight bond with him. Does your family take part in any traditions that you plan to continue in your own home one day?

Every year my sister and I take my mom to see a performance of the Houston Ballet for Mother’s Day. We all really enjoy it. It would be nice to do the same with my daughter(s) one day…assuming I have some. Lol.  

That sounds special as well. I certainly hope you're able to include your own daughter a few years from now. What do you enjoy most about your parents?

They are hilarious! My mom has a sly sense of humor while my dad’s is very in your face but they are both funny. They passed that trait along to all three of their kids. If you put all of us together in a room, there is bound an overabundance of jokes, hijinks, witticism, physical comedy and a lot of laughter.

After reading two of your novels, I can totally see that sense of humor in you! ***Warning to readers, be prepared to laugh if you pick up a copy of The Runaway Bride*** What’s the best life lesson your parents have taught you?

I can sum it up in two small words—have faith. Have faith in God. Have faith that His word is true, active, and powerful. Have faith that nothing is impossible for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. Have faith that you can achieve every dream He places in your heart.

Oh Noelle! What a precious lesson to learn from your parents. You sound like you were really blessed with with an amazing mother and father. Now for one of the fun questions: What single chore did you hate more than any others? Why?

Folding. I hate folding. It feels like such a waste of time. I’m going to have to unfold the clothes to wear them soon anyway. I’d rather hang than fold. That’s all I’m saying.

You know, that's why I love my ereader. I download a book and put it on text-to-speech so that I can listen while I fold laundry. But unlike you, I'd rather fold than hang. How do you think your upbringing and the way your parents raised you prepared you to be a writer?

They never limited my creativity. They encouraged me to use my talents and didn’t force me to live my life in the box of their expectations. They also encouraged me to participate in and appreciate the Arts. I was constantly going to museums, listening to or singing a variety of musical genres, watching classic movies, taking dance lessons and checking out stacks of books at the library. 

And now your interest in books and creativity has morphed into you being an author. How cool is that! Thanks for being with us today, Noelle.

The giveaway will end on midnight on Saturday, July 28. To enter, leave a comment and email address below. Now here's a little more about The Runaway Bride:

The only husband Lorelei Wilkins ever wanted was Sean O'Brien, but she's wasted too much time waiting for him to love her back. When another man proposes, she accepts—until she stands at the altar…and realizes she can't marry without love. Bolting out of town toward a fresh start, she never suspected her parents would send Sheriff O'Brien to bring her home!

After an innocent mistake leaves Lorelei and her reluctant rescuer with compromised reputations, marriage is their only option. But first they must triumph over suspicious locals, shady characters, an inconvenient groom and the bride's own stubborn heart. Will it take putting their lives on the line for Sean and Lorelei to realize that only love can conquer all?

Iced Coffee Recipe

With our summer stretching on as hot as can be and no real end in sight, I've often found myself too hot for a midday cup of coffee. Yes, I sniffle as I say this, because I've truly come to relish the cup of coffee I have after lunch every day. However, after about a month or so of experimenting, I think I've come up with an excellent iced coffee recipe that cost only a fraction of the price as the fancy iced coffees for sale in coffee shops.



Ingredients:
1 packet of instant coffee (You can use flavored coffee, in fact, my favorite is Starbucks's instant mocha)
1 cup of milk
 6 ice cubes
1/8-1/4 cup of sweetened coffee creamer ( I use the white chocolate mocha creamer, which complements the instant mocha coffee).

** Note: How much sweetener you add depends on how sweet you like your iced coffee. If you're going for a Starbucks or McDonald kind of sweetness, then you'd want to use about a quarter cup of creamer. If you just want your coffee a little sweet, use less.

Directions:
Throw it all into a blender and pulse it on the setting that crushes ice (usually the highest setting). You might test the taste and consistency before pouring the mixture into a cup, as both can vary from day to day. Add more milk if the coffee taste is too strong or the smoothie is to thick, and add more sweetener if it's too bitter.

Have fun:
To change the flavor of your iced coffee, try different flavors of instant coffee and creamers combinations. For example, I mentioned mocha flavored ingredients above, but you could try French vanilla coffee with French Vanilla creamer for vanilla flavored coffee. Feel free to experiment with other flavors like hazelnut and caramel as well.

And you can always garnish your coffee with chocolate or caramel syrup on the top for an extra sweet touch!

Activities for Kids in the Summer Heat

With summer in full swing, and a lot of states experiencing warmer than usual weather, I decided to list some summer friendly activities to do with your kids:

1. Go swimming. Whether you head to a little lake, a big ocean, a swimming pool, or a river ideal for tubing, getting your kids to some water (and sand, if possible) is always a fun way to spend an afternoon. It gets the kids loaded up on Vitamin D from having all that skin exposed to the sun, and it's sure to bring smiles to your kids' faces. Just remember to pack the sunscreen so your kids don't accidentally get fried.

2. Have a water balloon fight. Do you remember summer days filled with water balloons and neighborhood kids? I'll admit water balloon fights are one of those simple, fun activities that I'm often prone to forget. But for a couple dollars, you can buy a bag of balloons and let them have a blast.

3. Play Marco Polo, but with a water gun instead of a swimming pool. Give the person who's it the gun, and let him spray the other players to get them "out."

4. Wash the car--and let the kids help. This is a good way to ensure EVERYONE will end up soaked and smiling. (Just don't tell your kids that most adults consider washing the car a chore.)

5. Make smoothies. You'll need a half cup of ice, fruits of your kid's choice (like strawberries, oranges, or bananas) and a touch of water or unsweetened juice. Poor it into a blender and pulse the ice. Then your kids end up with a snack that's fun, cooling, and healthy. Who knew such foods existed?

Hopefully now you've got some cool summer ideas to help occupy both you and your kids. And now I'm curious about you. What were your favorite summer activities growing up? Does anyone have a really fun game to share that will keep the kids entertained in the sun?

Bad to the Bone

Babies exude innocence. After all, they are quite helpless, needing someone to feed, change, dress and do a host of other things for them.

But contrary to popular wisdom, babies are not all sweetness and light—they are, frankly, bad. They can’t help it because they—and everyone else—are born that way. It’s hard to look at your baby and think of him as a heathen in every since of the world.

Especially as mothers, we learn early on how to differentiate our baby’s cry, classifying it as hungry, sleepy, unhappy and angry. And boy, do babies get angry sometimes. They might not have words to express their angst, but they certainly have a good set of lungs and can fill the air with their angry cries.

I’ve always been amazed by parents who persist in viewing their children as angels who have to be taught to be disobedient, to steal, to lie, to cheat, to do bad things.

If you’re still not convinced, just think about your children when they were toddlers. Did you go around teaching them to scream and throw things when they didn’t get their way? Did you teach them to smack you in the face when they were angry? Did someone teach them to take toys away from other children and hit those kids over the head when they protested?

No one has to teach children to be bad—their sinful hearts can handle that task just fine. It’s our job as parents to teach them how to overcome their bad tendencies. In other words, to civilize them.

As parents, it’s much easier to get past our children’s misbehaviors and to the correction, or civilizing, if we cease to be shocked that they are behaving badly. Nothing our children do should ever surprise us—everything that’s in our own hearts are in theirs as well, and they generally lack the filters that we wear.

If we start every day reminding ourselves that our children are sinners just like we are, we will be able to react to misbehaviors in a more godly manner, and less feeling that we’re to blame for their badness.

Knowing that our children suffer from the same forms of heart sickness that we do goes a long way in helping us understand them. It also can help us stay the course in correcting their misbehaviors as we help them learn self control and to get along with others.

Our children might have been born bad to the bone, but the good news is they don’t have to stay that way.

Sarah Hamaker is a freelance writer and editor, and author of Hired@Home, a guide to unlocking women’s work-from-home potential now available on Kindle. Her stories have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Sarah lives in Virginia with her husband and four children. Visit her online at www.sarahhamaker.com, where she blogs about working from home.

Book Spotlight: The Runaway Bride by Noelle Marchand

Hi Everyone,

Today I wanted to introduce you to a new book by one of my special writer friends, Noelle Marchand. Noelle will be doing an interview and giveaway on Making Home Work at the end of the month, but I thought you all should get a heads up about her book . . . you know, before it's sold out of all your local stores and you can't find a copy anywhere.

Her novel is called The Runaway Bride, and it's a delightful story set in Texas about a spunky heroine named Lorelei. (Isn't that the most beautiful name?) And of course the story also features a rough-and-tumble sheriff named Sean. This is Noelle's second novel, and it dovetails perfectly with her first novel, Unlawfully Wedded Bride, telling the story of another member of the O'Brien family. Here's a little more about the book:

The only husband Lorelei Wilkins ever wanted was Sean O'Brien, but she's wasted too much time waiting for him to love her back. When another man proposes, she accepts—until she stands at the altar…and realizes she can't marry without love. Bolting out of town toward a fresh start, she never suspected her parents would send Sheriff O'Brien to bring her home!

After an innocent mistake leaves Lorelei and her reluctant rescuer with compromised reputations, marriage is their only option. But first they must triumph over suspicious locals, shady characters, an inconvenient groom and the bride's own stubborn heart. Will it take putting their lives on the line for Sean and Lorelei to realize that only love can conquer all?

I've read this story, of course, and posted a review on Amazon, if you're interested in seeing my thoughts.

So now I'm curious about the rest of you. Have you read any good books lately that you can't resist telling people about? Share them in the comments below. I always love to see what others are reading!

Celebrating Independance Day: Quotes from the Founding Fathers

 As we look forward to celebrating Independence Day, I thought I'd share some patriotic quotes from our nation's founders.

"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."  John Adams

"Political interest [can] never be separated in the long run from moral right" Thomas Jefferson

"Can the liberties of a nation be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are a gift from God?  Thomas Jefferson

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government." Patrick Henry

"We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government."  James Madison

"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."  Thomas Jefferson

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." Thomas Jefferson


"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Patrick Henry

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." Patrick Henry

 "I never ... believed there was one code of morality for a public and another for a private man." Thomas Jefferson

"There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent an sudden usurpation." James Madison

May you all have a wonderful Independence Day! And may you rejoice in the liberties granted to us first by God and second by our Great Nation. I'll be taking the rest of the week off from blogging, but look forward to seeing you again on Monday.