New Year’s Wish for 2012

As the holiday bells ring out the old year, and sweethearts kiss, and cold hands touch and warm each other against the year ahead, may I wish you not the biggest and best of life but the small pleasures that make living worthwhile.

Sometime during the New Year, to keep your heart in practice, may you do someone a secret good deed and not get caught at it.  May you find a little island of time to read that book and write that letter, and to visit that friend.

May your next do-it-yourself project not look like you did it yourself.  May the poor relatives you helped support remember you when they win the lottery.  May your best card tricks win admiring gasps and your worst puns win admiring groans.  May all those who told you so, refrain from saying “I told you so.”

May all the predictions you’ve made for your future come true.  May just half of those optimistic predictions that your high school yearbook made for you come true.  In a time of sink or swim, may you find you can walk to shore before you call the lifeguard.  May you keep at least one ideal that you can pass along to your kids.

For a change, some rainy day when you’re late, may the train be waiting for you.  May you accidentally overhear someone saying something nice about you.  If you run into an old school friend, may you both remember each other’s names.  If you are on a diet, may someone say “You’ve lost some weight” without knowing you’re on a diet.

May that long and lonely night be brightened by a telephone call.  When you trip and fall, may there be no one watching to  laugh at you or feel sorry for you.  Sometime soon may you be waved at by a friend, smiled at by a stranger, wagged at by a puppy, run to by a child, and counted on by someone you love.

More than this, no one can wish you.

Happy New Year!

Holiday Traditions

Image via Wikipedia

This weekend we had our annual tree-trimming party with all of our friends.  It is a chance for all of us to have some cocktails and nibbles, and to enjoy each other’s company.

It started with just six of us, right after college (i.e. longer than we care to admit), and we have picked up many more friends along the way.  We now numbered thirty and that will no doubt still grow in the coming years.

One of our traditions (in addition to Jessie doing his infamous Bing Crosby imitation) is to exchange tree ornaments so that every year everyone has a brand new-looking tree.  And at the end of the night, I give everyone a popcorn ball to take home.  Not to store-bought kind but the gooey homemade kind.  It’s not the best or most expensive gift we give to our closest friends, but it is one that everyone knows comes from the heart.

This year, I “adopted” five troops serving in Afghanistan.  An email a week seems the least I can do for those half a world away from their families so that we can be safe here at home.  The holiday boxes I sent to them included the same popcorn balls I gave to friends here – a dozen to each instead of just one.  Needless to say, I am now the best friend of those five troops and all of their friends, too.  The warm and fuzzy feeling from the thank you notes will last long into the new year.

Do you have a holiday tradition – new or old – that you would like to share?  Inquiring minds would like to know!

What’s New on My Website

Image by Rookuzz via Flickr

Have you ever met someone you knew you could love forever but you never got the chance to say it? Or perhaps that someone special is not who they appear to be. Everything is a simple twist of Fate.

Follow the lives of five couples as they find their way on this winding path. The journey begins with Another Love Will Find Us. Jack and Annie meet one rainy afternoon and find that you can miss out on a chance for love if you are too cautious.

During the month of July, Taps will make its debut. Brooke meets Chris while they are in Paris. The secrets he harbors could bring their romance to an abrupt end, so he hides the truth in hope that love can really conquer all things.

In If It Takes Forever, Taye loses his heart to Cassie. Can he make her see beyond the dangerous life he leads to see the man he really is?

On the last day of her vacation, the paths of Jessie and Liam cross. Forty Shades of Green tells story of their long distance romance and the obstacles they have to overcome along the way.

Madison learns that being in the wrong place at the wrong time can have a very unusual result in Upon a Midnight Clear.

And don’t worry if you miss a part of your favorite story, the entire So Close collection will be available as an eBook late 2012.

Don’t hate me but …

We women tend to be very conscious of our age at different stages of our lives. When we’re young, we want to be older and therefore more mature. When we reach “a certain age” we want to be younger.

One Red Rose
I have the unique dilemma of looking pretty much the same ever since I was in college.Back then, I was able to get into bars and clubs without showing ID; which made it a real downer when I actually turned the legal age and was eager to prove I was old enough. No one asked me, and I never had to lie.

Since then, my face (thanks to some excellent genes) has not aged all that much. Even now that I have reached that magical “certain age”, When someone shaves ten years off the birth certificate, I simply smile and tell them the truth. Why should I lie? It doesn’t make me feel any younger (or older). I am who I am, and I wouldn’t change anything about me.

So what’s my real age? Those of you who know me personally know the truth, and for the rest of you, well … keep guessing 😉

Soul Friends

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. 

Have you ever looked into someone’s eyes and seen something there that you just can’t explain but is just so familiar?  Something that pulls at you and says “I know you” even though you’ve just met that person?

In the movie Hook (Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman), the Lost Boys look at the grown up Peter.  The others don’t believe he’s Peter Pan, but one boy looks long and hard and squishes Peter’s face a bit.  After considerable observation, he looks deep into Peter’s eyes and says “Oh!  There you are, Peter!”

Energy doesn’t die, it is merely transformed.  I believe the same thing of the soul.  I also believe we develop deep connections to other souls over lifetimes spent together.  Perhaps we were friends, lovers, family or enemies, but we have a connection that never dies.  While we may not remember our past lives, the soul remembers who we were and recognizes past connections instantly. 

I call these people Soul Friends.

I have been blessed with the opportunity to travel far and wide and to meet many people on this earth.  Some of them I’ve forgotten while others I’ll never forget.  So many were soul friends!  People who I instantly knew that I liked but had no idea why.  People I was drawn to without any reasonable explanation.  People like Karen, Rose, Kevin, and too many others to list (but you all know who you are!). 

While they always disappear into their lives far apart from mine, we still share that connection – a connection forged over lifetimes.  No matter how long we are apart, we always seem to pick up again as though no time has passed.

When one soul cries out for help, the Universe delivers.  Usually, it is just a matter of one soul saying to another “We are very old friends and I am here for you.”

Priceless

Yesterday I was given a priceless gift by a very dear friend.

The day started badly and remained that way until I got home and checked the mail. My friend Rose, who is more like a sister than a friend to me after all the years we’ve known each other, sent me a card.  It was one of those generic kind of Hallmark cards that allows you to write your own greeting, and inside her granddaughter had written: “Can’t wait to see you on TV!”. To this, Rose had added: “She’s telling all her friends about you and she wishes she was old enough to read your books.”

I stared at those words for a long time, speechless. And then I cried. It was one of those MasterCard moments – priceless. But the more priceless gift is my friendship with Rose and her family. I hope each one of you has at least one friend whose friendship is beyond price. I have several and count myself a very lucky woman, indeed.

What are your priceless possessions? Is it a child’s artwork, a handwritten note, an old loveletter, a photograph from a special moment? Has anyone ever given you something priceless that you will carry with you throughout your life? What are some priceless acts of friendship you’ve done or received?