Real Life is Better Than Fiction

To get you all in the Christmas mood this Flashback Friday, here is a little Christmas story from the past involving my brother and one of my sisters.   For some reason, Billy always held a special place in his heart for Sarah.   Maybe it was because she was the youngest and he was the oldest.   I really don’t know.             Anyway, Sarah loved it when M & M’s came in a new color:   green.   She would always pick out as many green ones as she could find.   We all let her because she couldn’t have been more than three or four years old.   She was cute then.             One day all the green M&M’s began disappearing!   It seemed like there were hardly any, if any at all, in the bags that Grandma brought us.   Most of us didn’t think too much about it; we just wanted candy.   Chocolate was a staple in our house.   More and more bags had only one or two green candies in them.   Mom said that they probably didn’t make a whole bunch because they were new and green M&a

I hope you are all enjoying the Ruby Christmas story so far. I also hope you are following the picture contest where you can win a prize. All you have to do is compare the pictures and see how they are different. You can find all the details on the WIP blog. Here is my picture. Do any of you recognize the location? Read the chapter to find out where Ruby is today. My chapter is featured today on the WIP blog . Please follow the link to read the continuing story.

Of all the Christmas decorations in my home I think my favorite is a basket of books. These aren’t just any books. These are special Christmas books that we only get out at Christmas time.   When the kids were little we would buy at least one new Christmas book each year and each day in December we would read one of those books to help us celebrate the holiday season. If you look too closely at the picture you will see that some of our books are a little worse for wear. I guess that's a sign of a well-loved book! That basket has pretty much collected dust last couple of Christmases as the kids are all too old to sit on my lap or cuddle up on the couch with the quilt and read book after book. In time, as grandchildren are added to our family, those books will once again be responsible for hours of enjoyment. Until then, I want to share some of my favorites with you. I've made it convenient for you by creating links for all of the books. If you see one you like, simply

Last year I had the privilege of being part of a Christmas story that was written by several different authors. We were Each given the basic premise of the story and that we wrote her chapters on her own. After that some amazing editors of the story altogether weaving the chapters making fit as if they had been written by only one author. That story was entitled "The Christmas Tree Treasure Hunt". You can find that story from Amazon by following the link below. This year I once again have the opportunity to take part in writing a chapter for a new Christmas story. This story is entitled "A Ruby Christmas. " If you enjoyed blasters Christmas story I think you will enjoy this year's just as much. Today is the first chapter of "A Ruby Christmas."  You can find the first chapter by following this link .  Come back each day to read the next chapter of "A Ruby Christmas."  You can share the links with all of your friends who like to rea

The bathroom may not be a topic may people choose to write about, But…not everyone has my bathroom. There was a game going around on Facebook where someone gave you a number and you were supposed to write down that many things that people don’t know about you. I’m a fairly open book and don’t have any deep dark secrets. I couldn’t think of ONE thing that people didn’t already know about me let alone nine. So, I turned the game around and had people tell me things that maybe not everyone knew about me. They came up with a couple of good ones. Nothing overly revealing. Except for…”You have a public bathroom in your house.” Yup, apparently my bathroom is the place to see. Believe it or not, people stop by to my house just to use my bathroom. Is my bathroom uber fancy? No. Is it spotless? Most definitely not. Why do people stop just to use my bathroom? When you gotta go, you gotta go…I guess. But then there was the friend who stopped so she could take a shower. It was the mi

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book! You never know when I might play a wild card on you! Today's Wild Card author is: Jerry B. Jenkins and the book: I, Saul Worthy Publishing (August 27, 2013) ***Special thanks to Leeanna Case for sending me a review copy.*** ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jerry B. Jenkins is a New York Times best-selling novelist (Left Behind Series) and biographer (Billy Graham, Hank Aaron, Walter Payton, Orel Hershiser, Nolan Ryan, Joe Gibbs and many more), with over 70 million books sold. His writing has appe

Terri with her heroine Shira I am pleased to have Terri Gillespie, author of She Does Good Hair  here with me today. I have read her book that recently came out on Kindle and I loved it. Here are a few questions to help you get to know her a little bit and find out more about her book.     If you were to go to the Hair Mavens Salon, who would you want to cut your hair and why? Oh, golly. Don’t tell Shira, but I would go to Kathy for a cut and style. Why? Because Kathy is known for her cuts and styles. If I wanted color to die for—pun intended—then definitely Shira.   Why did you feel that you had to tell the Hair Mavens story? First of all, the mavens wouldn’t let me sleep. All that yakking in my head and hair teasing. Goodness. During a brief stint in sales, my specialty was salons. Since then, I’ve always loved that culture. It’s arguably one of the most intimate environments for women. A hair salon was a fun way to show how much good—or not-so-good—women c

P eople often ask me why I write. “Why do you do what you do?” Sometimes it’s thankless. Sometimes the pay stinks. Many times people don’t even know the extent of my work. This following is a story that really happened and I think it explains why it is I continue doing what I do. “Another gray hair!” I promptly yanked it out and flushed it. “Are you going to quit now?” My husband had heard my comment. I couldn’t quit. I had made a commitment and I wasn’t one to bow out after giving my word. I was putting on a play with the children at our church. I had done it a couple of times before and thoroughly enjoyed it. This time, however, I had the most unruly bunch of kids with whom I had ever worked. I spent more of my time trying to establish order in the classroom and sending troublemakers to sit with parents in the sanctuary. I didn’t know if these little actors would be ready to give their performance in one week. After the dress rehearsal, I decided the kids were going to em

Trouble Making Contest Today's Flashback Friday is a little different. You often hear about my life, now I want to hear about YOU! My next book is going to be about cousins who are best friends and cause a little trouble together from time to time. This is where you come in. I want to hear all about trouble you have gotten (or still get) into with your best friend. The age when you got in trouble doesn't matter. You may have been a small child or an adult. For the contest you will need to submit your trouble-causing story (please, keep it clean and preferably funny - at least it's funny now!). If it is short you can submit it in the comments. If it is a longer story you may send it to me by email at oneilruth@gmail.com . I will write a blog post with some of the best stories and announce the winner. Now you may be wondering what the winner gets. The winning story will be included (maybe with minor changes) to my new book. The winner will also receive a free digita

How Do You Fight Blogger Fatigue? I’m not sure I’ve had issues with blogger fatigue. In fact, it’s usually the opposite for me. I have plenty of ides, but implementing those ideas consistently is the issue. Fatigue implies burnout. One can hardly get burned out when there is a lack of regularity. As with any writing, most fatigue comes from a lack of ideas. How can anyone run out of ideas when there is so much going on in the world around us? Fatigue in writing can be solved by a change of scenery, a change of people to hang around with, or a change of whatever tires you out.   I usually have a running list of ideas and notebooks filled with scenes and characters for new books. No, I don’t recall ever having blogger or any other type of writing fatigue. Do you?

Show off Your Best 5 Blog Posts   This one is just funny and an example of a typical day in our household. April 30, 2013 - http://ruths-real-life.blogspot.com/2013/04/putting-fun-back-in-writing.html I like this one because it shows how much readers have enjoyed my book. That makes me smile! March 14, 2013 - http://ruths-real-life.blogspot.com/2013/03/reviews-of-come-eat-at-my-table.html I liked this one because I was able to give everyone a sneak peek. February 27, 2013 - http://ruths-real-life.blogspot.com/2013/02/and-nowthe-first-chapter.html I love my family and like to embarrass them from time to time. December 2, 2012 - http://ruths-real-life.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-dreaded-family-photo.html This is just a sweet story and I hope that all my kids can remain color blind. September 10, 2012 - http://ruths-real-life.blogspot.com/2012/09/colorblind.html 

On January 15, 1992 my mother walked into the Wednesday night church service, grinning from ear to ear, with a big announcement to make. She was waiting for the perfect moment to make that announcement.   She waited through announcements. She waited through the singing, feeling as if she was going to burst. She waited while one of her friends sang special music. That was all it took. My mother burst out in tears. Now, before you get too upset, you must realize these were happy tears. The woman who sang special music that evening was a mother of four little boys. The song she sang held a lot of meaning for her. The song was written from the perspective of a mother who was praying for some unknown little girl. You see, that girl would one day capture her son’s heart and he would marry her. B and her Grandma Doner The reason my mother was crying? It was the day her very first grandchild was born; a little girl. I was blessed to realize right from day one how important it is to