Southern Belle View

Surprises and Strong-willed Characters by Beth Webb Hart

2012-02-28T03:00:00.004-08:00

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two-pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” - C. S. Lewis

I love to write for the same reason Lucy was so eager to show the back of the wardrobe to Susan, Peter and Edmund in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: because entering another world is a thrill beyond thrilling. And you never know who you’re going to run into next.

There’s often a misconception about writers. Those who don’t write imagine that the writer is in complete control - shaping the story with our sheer will, maneuvering the characters as if they were marionettes, their strings held firmly between our finger tips.

Most of the time it’s not like that at all. In fact, the story is at its best when it is writing itself. That is, when the plot is set, the setting is painted and the characters – some of who are downright unplanned – take the reins and tell you what comes next.

For me, this usually happens around the fifth or sixth chapter. Until then, it’s more like a wrestling match than a puppet show. I’ve got this idea in my head, I’ve got a conflict, I’ve got a place, and I’ve got these lively characters who I can hear and see. However, getting them all to cooperate on the stage is a bit like herding cats – just when you turn to deal with one element of the story, another leaps off the stage or slinks quietly away behind a curtain.

I once read an interview with Leif Enger about his beautiful novel, Peace Like a River, and when he was asked about my favorite character, Scout, he said that he hadn’t planned on having her in the story at all. Instead, she just appeared one day and refused to be written out no matter how hard he tried. She just kept showing up and bringing so much life with her, he finally relented and said, “You win, Scout. You’re in.”

One other time I heard a famous southern novelist talking about a discussion she’d had with her editor about an important show-down scene with the protagonist and her nemesis in her manuscript. The editor told the author the protagonist should do x instead of y and asked if she could rewrite it that way. The author, in all serious, said to the editor, “Well, I’m not sure about that. I have to go to the character and ask her permission. Then I’ll get back to you.”

Writing a book is a lot like reading one: the best parts are in the surprises, the twists and turns that you don’t see coming. The “A-ha” and “Well, of course” moments that are unexpected and yet – upon reflection – inevitable.

I didn’t actually start writing with pen and paper until I was in high school, but in a sense I was writing long before that: lounging on the hammock on a screened porch at the age of six or seven, making up stories in my head, realizing that magical experience that William Faulkner speaks of when he says, “All I have to do is get a character up and moving and then it’s all I can do to chase after them and write down what they say and do.”

I love to write for the same reason I love to read. Because of the surprises and the eternal truths that become utterly original with each new and unexpected character that writes themselves into the story.

Question for the Day: Name a book you’ve read where you kept thinking, missing or wondering about the characters long after you finished the story.

For more information on Beth Webb Hart and her novels click here

Love Of Story (from Lisa Wingate)

2012-02-26T20:10:00.007-08:00

Happy Monday, everyone! It’s almost time to kiss February goodbye, and we’re finishing off the Month of Love here on BelleView, by talking about the Love Of Story – what do we love about reading or writing? Why, when the world today has so many glitzy pastimes to offer, do we still enjoy a fine tale of things that never happened to people who don’t exist?

Why, indeed?

Because stories are, quite simply, magic in unassuming packages. Is there really anything better than being lost in a story—living an adventure of the mind that seems so real you find yourself thinking about it even when you don’t actually have the book in your hands?

As a reader, those are the books I love—the ones that draw you into the mind, and heart and body and soul of another person. The only thing better than curling up in a quiet corner with great story is getting together with friends and sharing the journey. When we talk about books, we delve into ourselves, into our own experiences, our own lives, our own struggles, hopes, and dreams.

As a writer, I’ve learned that, as much fun as living in a story really is while you’re writing it, the story really isn’t complete until someone reads that story. Stories begin with the writer, but they take flight in the hands of the reader. The reader’s interaction with the story causes that story to grow in new directions, and the most magical thing is that you can never predict what those directions will be. As twelve different readers combine their own experiences with a story, it becomes twelve different stories… or a hundred… or a thousand. The possibilities take on the quality of those repeating numbers from long division in elementary school. Quite simply, limitless.

In the end, the characters aren’t really just characters. For any imaginary life that can be created with page and pen, there’s someone out there who has lived it, at least in part. By extension, when we’re discussing stories, we’re not just discussing stories—we’re sharing bits of ourselves and our own lives. We’re rolling out our own issues, examining them, and gaining the perspectives of others. Sometimes that’s easier to do, in the context of discussing a character in a book than it is in discussing our struggles in real life. I think this is one of God’s most beautiful ways of using characters. They walk us through an experience and show us what life looks like on the other side.

In the end, that’s the most amazing thing about writing and reading. Real-life stories come to the forefront when we read together, or share as writer and reader. God uses story in deeply profound ways--to connect us, to tie us to pieces of our individual pasts, to cause us to examine, to consider, to dream. To teach us about life, about the world, about the created and the Creator.

We live, we learn, and then we open yet another book, or put pen to yet another sheet of paper, and begin to live again. Another life, another lesson.

Another extraordinary miracle in an ordinary life.

Question for the day: What are you reading right now?

Blue Moon Bay Is New In Bookstores!

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Wherever You Call Home

2012-02-23T23:04:00.003-08:00

Hey, y’all. It’s been such a pleasure to listen to my fellow belles extolling the charms of our beloved South this week. As you might imagine, what with my being known as The Belle of All Things Southern, this is a topic I’ve been addressed to ask more than a few times in recent years. With that in mind— honest confession straight ahead— and because it’s been another very busy work week and I’m finger-chatting with y’all from yet another hotel room with yet another early morning meeting looming large, I’ve decided not to try and reinvent the wheel tonight! Instead, I thought I’d pull an excerpt from my book Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On and invite y'all to join me right smack in the middle of one of those discussions. I do hope you enjoy!

…Honestly, we don’t mean to imply that our customs are better. We simply value their uniqueness. I once made that distinction for a visitor who dropped by my cyber porch with a bur under her saddle. Curious in Connecticut demanded to know why we southerners go on and on about being southern. It’s a fair question, (when it’s not thrown down like a gauntlet opening a duel,) and while many much more talented southern writers than I have put pen to this one, I’d be honored to take another stab at it.

To be frank, we go on about our manners because we have some. Most every time someone drops by my cyber porch brewing for a fight, trying to convince me how happy they are not to be from the South because of our “backward-redneck-mama-obsessed-hillbilly-ways" they reveal an embarrassing lack of etiquette. You’d be hard-pressed to find a southern child who has reached the age of accountability without being removed from the room and disciplined for making such insensitive comments to the host. Once returned, said child will either discover a new fondness for whatever is being served or he might realize he isn’t hungry— but he will never again abuse the gracious hospitality of the host or hostess in their own home.

As for our food, for the life of me I don’t see how anyone could blame us for going on there! With special thanks to the Good Lord, the land, and the skills of our afore-mentioned mamas, the list of mouth-watering southern dishes is endless. ‘Nuff said.

Let’s see... We go on about our language because we’re proud of taking the necessity of communication and dressing it up ‘til it doubles for entertainment. We go on about our family trees because we know we’re a composite of every branch. We study their faces and their stories and try to hold onto what is best and improve on what is not.

After considerable thought it seems obvious to me that we go on and on about such things because we see in our lives something worth celebrating. It’s my hope, dear reader, that my simple words will inspire you to find and treasure the similar beauty in your own life, regardless of where you call Home.

Hugs,
Shellie

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson is an author, speaker, and radio host living, loving, and celebrating the unique charms of All Things Southern with her family and friends on a weekly basis at her little corner of the web. Please consider this an open invitation to join the fun!

Dearest blog readers, I'm wondering if y'all will humor me. Being the belle come lately around here, I'm not as familiar as I'd like to be with our readers. Would y'all mind participating in a little roll call, noting your state? I'd sure love it!

The smell of pine, the scent of SPF 15

2012-02-23T03:00:00.001-08:00

There are many things I love about the south.

The sweet sent of pine on a hot August night. Swaying Spanish moss catching the light of a golden sunset.

Hot beaches. The roar and relax of ocean waves. The dewing scent of palmettos cooling after a day in the sun.

Fried chicken. Fish fries. Kenny Chesney or Charlie Daniels blaring from an old Ford pick up.

Walking a pine needle path. Blue skies with not a cloud in sight. Riding my bike on a January evening toward a streaming reddish pink sunset.

The crickets singing a nightly song with the cicadas chasing. The thin but burning spring sun on my shoulders.

Saying "hey y'all" and not thinking twice of it. Being in a land of Faith and Publix. Adding "shug," "darlin'" and "sweetie" to my every day language.

The fragrance of SPF 15 all year long. Driving in winter with the top down on my car. But the best part of living in the south?

Home. It's home. Praise God.

***

Rachel Hauck has lived in the south since she was a wee child. Her next book is The Wedding Dress, releases in April, a Romantic Times TOP PICK! Read more about her at www.rachelhauck.com.

What I Love About The South

2012-02-22T03:00:00.002-08:00

This week we're talking about what we love about the south. I have a few things to share...

The Words We Use: Bless your heart, my lands, I swan, fixin to, y'all... all words I throw out without thinking-- unless I'm around some Yankees who remark on the quaintness of my word choices. They find such colloquialisms amusing. And I guess they are. I love that we have our own phrases that are distinctly southern. I love that those phrases have stood the test of time and hung in there like kudzu. The southern accent is not easy to replicate, as is obvious in this clip from Friends.

The Weather: I love that where I live we usually have one good snow per winter-- and it's almost always gone the next day. We can enjoy it falling, remark on its beauty, delight in a day off school, and then get back to normal in short order. I lived in Wisconsin once and was dismayed to see that the snow there stays... and stays... and stays. We've had a warm winter this year and been in short sleeves just about as often as we've been in long. If I had to choose, I'd choose warm over cold, so I'm glad I live in the south.

The People: I love that we'll carry on long conversations with total strangers, that we're known for sharing our life stories at the slightest provocation, that we put our crazy people on display instead of hiding them away, that we are known for our hospitality, that we might say ugly things about each other but we couch it in sweet language like "bless your heart" to make ourselves-- and each other-- feel better, that we talk funny and act funny and just do life different-- but we do it with our friends and families and neighbors and somehow that makes it all okay.

The Food: I love pecan pie, biscuits with honey, tomato sandwiches, peach cobbler, livermush, barbecue, sweet tea, fried chicken with gravy, grits... nuff said.

The Heritage: faith, family, food, fellowship, fiction (that might be true)... We really do love to gather around the table and tell stories. That image persists because it's true. I have such fond memories of sitting at the table with my relatives long after the meal was over, listening to some pretty salacious stories, hoping they'd forget I was there and keep talking... and they usually always did. I learned quickly that the good stuff wasn't to be found off playing with my cousins, it was where the adults gathered. Some of my children have discovered the same truth. And I try to resist the urge to send them away. I treasure the insights about life I gained at the adult table. And I think they will feel the same when they grow up.

No matter where you hail from, it's good to be proud of it, to find things you love and focus on those. It goes a long way towards loving who you are, and where God put you, for better or worse.

Marybeth Whalen is a native North Carolinian who married a guy who hails from Memphis, TN. They debate often over which side of the family is more crazy. The jury is still out.

Sunday Dinner Down South by Beth Webb Hart

2012-02-21T03:00:00.006-08:00

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” -J. R. R. Tolkien

Sunday dinner – a meat and three gathering in the late afternoon following church - is a ritual that still takes place in many a pocket throughout our country and around the world though it is particularly tasty in the south.

The idea is that you set the dining room table and put some meat in the oven before leaving for your worship service. After church is over you cool the entree, prepare some gravy with its drippings to put over some form of starch (always rice in the lowcountry), cook up a few seasonal vegetables, maybe bake a pie or cobbler with seasonal fruit and then have the family and the neighbors over to break bread together.

In Charleston this meal usually takes place around three in the afternoon. In fact there is a wonderful old novel published in 1945 by Josephine Pinckney titled Three O’Clock Dinner about two families coming together from opposite sides of the tracks for one incredibly explosive meal together.

Recently, my daughter - after hearing all sorts of tales from my husband about the “good old days” of his youth which involved Sunday dinner (and many a rascal-pack of thrill seeking cousins) in the home of his aunts or grandparents – insisted that we reinstate the ritual in our own home, and we agreed.

So for the last several weeks, we’ve put a turkey breast in the oven or a roast in the pot and returned home to find the house smelling delicious and the meal in need of some final touches. My daughter, willing to do her part in making it all happen, sets the table and entertains her little brother while I rustle up a salad and dessert and my husband, the real chef in our house, makes the gravy, the rice and the vegetables. Then we sit down in the dining room and have a nice chat about the week behind us, the week ahead, the sermon, and anything else that comes to mind. It’s been truly delightful. And it makes Sunday evenings so simple. No big meal. Just a sandwich or the traditional Charleston cold boiled shrimp to tide us over until morning.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll get this down to a point where we can actually invite others over for Sunday Dinner. A warm roast. Fresh biscuits. Some rice and gravy or some red rice and sausage. That’s southern hospitality at its most delectable, but it’s always more delicious if it can be shared with others.

Question for the day: Do you have any traditions or rituals connected to your childhood?

Gotta Love That Weird Southern Fried Food! (From Lisa Wingate)

2012-02-19T21:34:00.000-08:00

Happy Monday, everyone! Valentine’s Day may be over, but here at SouthernBelleView, we’re still feelin’ the love, so this week we’re celebrating with a Love of the South week.

Okay, I admit it, one of the things I love about living in the South is that eating in the south is pretty much guaranteed to be an adventure. Southerners will fry practically anything that doesn’t get up and run away first. Around here, you don’t have to go far to come across UFOs (Unidentified Fried Objects) of all sorts. If it’s Friday, you’ll find cafes all over Texas frying up catfish, green tomatoes, okra, sweet potato fries, peaches, and whatever else you can cram in the fry basket and submerge in hot oil.

Mr. Cholesterol, we laugh in your face. We really do.

Almost year around, street festivals throughout the South celebrate the art and science of fried food. In Texas, we’ve refined it to the point of both an art form and a competition.

Throughout the summer, creative fry cooks everywhere hone their skills on the hometown folks, then proceed to Dallas in the fall for the State Fair of Texas, where they can compete for the honor of having their creation named as the fried food of the year. Never let it be said that these lovers of all things fried lack imagination, either, because over the years this cutthroat competition has included everything from fried cookie dough, to fried Coke (don’t ask me to explain that one, because I can’t), to fried bacon (just rush me to the emergency room right now).

While we’re on the subject, I thought you’d enjoy seeing some of the finalists from last year’s fair, whose creators are undoubtedly still rolling in the glory of their deep-fried crowing achievements:

Finalists for 2011 Big Tex® Choice Awards:

• Buffalo Chicken in a Flapjack

• Deep Fried Pineapple Upside Down Cake

• Deep Fried Texas Salsa™

• El Bananarito

• Walking Taco

• Fried Autumn Pie

• Hans' Kraut Ball

So, there you have it, folks. Just one more thing to love about living in the South. Good food cooked up by creative people who are not afraid go where no fry cook has gone before.

I have no idea what the rest of the Belles will have to offer for Love of the South Week, but I can’t wait to find out, can you?

In the meantime, I’m feeling the need to hop on the treadmill… or we could run down to the café, grab a basket of sweet potato fries, and throw caution to the wind. Want to? While we're there, we could pick up the first-place award winner from last year's state fair -- FRIED BUBBLEGUM.

Don't ask... really. You don't want to know, I promise ;o)

Question for the day: What's the strangest fried food you've ever eaten?

Blue Moon Bay Is New In Bookstores!

Click here to read the first Chapter and learn about how YOU COULD BE IN LISA'S NEXT BOOK with the Join the Cast contest!

Click here to order!

What's a Smile Got To Do With It?

2012-02-16T23:30:00.000-08:00

Keep love alive. I must say, in a world that seems increasingly willing to ditch a relationship at the first sign of strain in lieu of the effort required to shore it up, I've been delighted with this week's conversation. I just wish I would've been able to participate more! My apologies, y'all. I've been fighting alligators here. Not real ones, although with all due respect to the Swamp People I almost wonder if that wouldn't have been easier. I finally toted my sick self to the doctor, who took one look at my throat and ears, wrung his hands, and pointed at the red hazardous container box to indicate the less that acceptable color of my poor passages. Like most women, I'm guilty of taking anybody and everybody to the doctor before hauling myself in. I'm not totally up to par, but comparatively speaking, I feel like the Energizer Bunny. It's a a good thing. There's more work left than week and tomorrow I leave for a weekend retreat with the ladies of my church where yours truly is bringing the devotionals. But, right now, I'm bent on weighing in here with one of my favorite marriage tips. As I said earlier, I love this topic!

I've been known to pull newly engaged couples aside to share this tidbit because I've seen it's power to renew and sustain a relationship, firsthand. I've even known some of the couples by name. Just kidding. Sort of. That's how important I think this bit of advice is. So, now that I've got you completely salted, here goes. Smile. That's it. Smile at each other. It's bigger than it seems.

There came a day in my marriage, many years ago, when I realized that the way I was smiling at my man was different than how I smiled at other people. I didn't mean to, I wasn't doing it on purpose, but I was doing it all the same. During the day, whether meeting new people or visiting with old friends, I was giving them my "bestest" smile-- while back at the home place I was giving Phil the leftover me, the tired me, the forced smile me. It wasn't right. It didn't reflect my deep love and appreciation for him at all. I knew it and I was determined to change it, and I did. Ever since that day, I've made it my determined purpose to give my man my most heartfelt smile as often as possible every single day of our lives.

This is what I learned. The more of my heart I put into that smile, the more engaged I became in us, the couple. It's simple. As far as cost cutting goes, it's incredibly cheap-- but the effect on your relationship will be priceless. Smile, like your marriage depends on it. I think it just may. And if you don't mind, get back to me with the experiment. I'd love to hear from you!

Hugs,
Shellie

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson is an author, speaker, and radio host, who lives and smiles with her husband in Lake Providence, LA. You're invited to visit her at All Things Southern,

Is there anything you plan on doing differently in your relationship after this week's conversation?

Romance: Starting Out As Friends

2012-02-16T03:00:00.002-08:00

At the end of the movie, The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston's character, Rachel, says goodbye to the man she loves, her bodyguard, Frank. (Kevin Costner.)

As the plane starts to taxi away, she looks out the window and he's just standing there, watching.

My heart yearns at the moment because for a second, I saw my husband standing in Frank's place and I couldn't do it.

I could never leave. So when the movie Rachel hollers, "Stop!" the real Rachel, me, exhales.

Good deal, movie Rachel. She is with the man she loves. Just like me.

Hubby and I started out as friends. For three years. By the time romance broke in, we knew each other so well the jitters, the butterflies, the romantic excitement kind of wafted by us.

We had them, just not for as long as most newly engaged couples.

Right after we got married, a more experienced married man said to me one day after church, "Just wait until the honeymoon's over. You'll come crashing down."

I looked at him kind of funny. What crashing? Our friendship had so rooted us that we didn't have the extreme "highs" and "lows." A few adjustment bumps, but for the most part it was smooth sailing.

I hear a lot of folks say, "Oh, we don't want to date and ruin our friendship." I say "Date! And if you ruin the friendship, you didn't have much of one to begin with!"

When you meet someone you like and are attracted to, it's hard to be friends. The hormones are raging, love is in the air and you can think of anything or anyone but that person... Friendship is an easy step to blow right past.

We probably wouldn't have done the friendship thing either if God hadn't stepped in. Long story...

But at the end of the day, whether you've had highs, lows, smooth sailing or rough sailing, marriage has to come about to friendship. Do you like each other? Like the same things? Have the same goals and life passion? Do you want to end up in the same place in life?

Even with all the feelings flaring, couples have to pause and carry on an honest conversation about who they really are and who they want to be. Not what they want to do, but who they want to BE.

I knew my husband was for me because he was very passionate about Jesus and living for Him. I knew he was for me because we had similar backgrounds and experiences.

I knew he was for me because he made me laugh. And oddly enough, he found me quite humorous too.

I knew he was for me because he challenged me. Because I challenged him. I knew he was for me, even as a friend, when I flew home from a trip to Venezuela dying to tell him everything, even the semi-date I had with a cute Latino named Luis.

Long before we said, "I do" our hearts were connected in friendship. We'll be married twenty years next month and while we've had our dry times, our irritated times, our passionate times, the core and foundation is friendship.

I like him. A lot. I'd rather be with him than anyone.

So how can you build a friendship in the midst of romance? Here are some ideas.

1. Be around other people more than being alone. Visit friends, family, group date. Initially, this will help keep the romantic feelings and desires at bay.

2. Talk on the phone. I travelled a lot when I first met my husband and 75% of our relationship was forged by telephone conversations.

3. Write letters. Not emails. Not text. Letters. Let your heart and mind flow out. See what you feel free to confess on paper, what you don't mind your intended reading. Sometimes those hard confessions are first made in writing and talked about later.

4. Keep your head out of the sand. Don't want a relationship, love, romance, marriage so much you go into a commitment with your eyes wide shut. Be honest about him, about her, about yourself.

5. Listen to others. Let wise counsel into your lives. We had a girl in youth once dating a really nice boy from another state. He moved down to be near her after high school and while I loved both of them individually, I hated them as a couple. They were horrible together. I prayed and prayed, and but I don't generally interfere in matters of the heart. But finally, God said, "TELL HER!" And through a set of divine circumstances, I was able to speak to her in a way she heard completely. She broke up with him that night. It was the best for both of them.

6. Speak up. Friends are honest and kind and loving. If you have to hide a piece of yourself so that the other person will like you, you might have issues later.

7. Determine to be friends. Just do it!

Question of the day: How has friendship played a role in your marriage or relationships?

***

Rachel Hauck is an award winning author, living in the south, writing books from her tower, and living large for Jesus. The ultimate Bridegroom and Friend! Her latest release is Love Lifted Me with multi-platinum recording artist, Sara Evans. Read more on her web site.

Love And Marriage

2012-02-15T03:00:00.002-08:00

Last week I wrote about how remembering our love story was helpful to me when reality threatened to suck the love right out of our marriage. This week at SBV we're giving tips on keeping the love alive in marriage. And I have to say the single best thing we do on an ongoing basis is to go on dates regularly.

I know all the arguments for not doing it because we've used them all: it's too expensive, there's no time, we can't find a sitter, etc. There were years we never went out without kids. But after our marriage took some serious lumps, we knew we had to get intentional about investing back in it. And the way we did it was to start dating again. Since that time we've gotten dependent on our date nights as a way to reconnect and to-- as I wrote about last week-- remember why we fell in love in the first place. With a housefull of kids, we operate in family business/parent mode most of the time. It's good to leave the house-- and the kids-- and remember that we are people apart from those roles we must play most of the time.

Here are a few date night tips I can share:

You don't have to spend a lot of money. A cheap dinner at Chick Fil A and a walk around a lake is nearly free and still gives you time to talk and laugh. It's about reconnection, not what you had for dinner.

Sometimes a date night can be used for goal setting, planning, financial talk, etc. Those are good to intersperse with other date nights-- but achieve a balance of fun date nights and businessey date nights.

It's fun to go to a movie, but be careful that you don't only go to movies. You can still avoid talking in a movie.

If you have a budget, make a category for babysitting and restaurants and put intention behind your desire to go on a date. Date nights can be just once a month at first, with an ideal of building towards weekly.

If it's hard to get out at this stage of life-- for whatever reason-- remember, this too shall pass. When we had a lot of small children it wasn't feasible for a lot of reasons to go on regular date nights. But it did come back around.

Do fun things together. I had a friend who went through a divorce later tell me that when she looks back at her marriage, she realizes they just stopped trying. They didn't have fun together. They didn't go out dancing or try something new. They got in a rut and stayed in it. Her words were sobering to me. They gave me a goal-- to be a couple that still knows how to have fun, that is intentional about building fun into the marriage.

The other day I saw an ad for Couples Archery Lessons. Of course my writing mind ran with that idea-- a couple who takes archery lessons, learning to aim for a target in tandem?? Oh, the imagery, the symbolism! Am wondering if I could talk my husband into that idea...

Today's Question: Do you have a date night tip I didn't mention? A creative date night you'd recommend for the rest of us? Please share!

Marybeth Whalen's favorite date night with her husband is a long dinner complete with good food and the chance to finally finish a sentence. She and Curt are the parents of six children and live in North Carolina. Her upcoming novel, The Guest Book, involves a character who goes on dates with three different men during her two week beach vacation-- but which guy is the one who has been drawing her pictures in a mysterious guest book all her life? Set on the North Carolina coast, this novel is one to include in your beach or pool bag this summer.

Simplicity in Love and Marriage by Beth Webb Hart

2012-02-14T03:00:00.000-08:00

Finally, be all of one mind, having compassion one with another, love as brethren, be tender hearted, be courteous. – 1 Peter 3:8

Ever heard of Occam’s razor? It’s the scientific principle that recommends that the simplest explanation will be the most plausible until evidence is presented to prove it false.

It has taken my husband and I over a decade to figure this out, but we now believe that Occam’s Razor applies to our marriage. That is, if we are simply kind and courteous to one another, if we are compassionate and tender-hearted, if we give each other the benefit of the doubt, then our marriage will be strong and our romantic love for one another will build. Wow. Why didn’t we see that before? In the words of an adolescent of my generation: DUH!

Of course, all sorts of things get in the way of this, don’t they? There are past hurts that haven’t quite healed all the way, there is the hectic-ness of life, and there is that other simple explanation: we are human and therefore selfish and self-centered by nature.

But God calls us to call on Him in order to change our natural inclinations. And once we go through the hard work of forgiving our spouse for past wounds and then putting their needs ahead of our own (not being a doormat, but being generous) then our love blossoms and all of those butterflies and weak knees we had during our courtship do return, but with an even deeper joy: the joy of our shared history and our promise to be devoted to one another by the Grace of God.

I have two little vignettes that illustrate this:

There is an older couple in our community who are very much in love after many decades of marriage. I once even saw this man racing after his wife’s car when she returned home from a weekend away. He was that excited to see her. In fact this man is an Episcopal priest, and he was once my boss when I worked in a local church. He and his wife had both been married previously and their marriages had ended in the worst kinds of ways, breaking both of their hearts and leaving them wondering what went wrong. When they found one another after several years of singleness, they were determined to make it work. When asked what their secret is, the priest said, “It’s really simple. I just find out all the things that she loves most, and I make sure that we do those things over and over regardless of whether I like them or not. And you know what? I’ve come to like them all because they bring her so much joy.”

So I started to ponder this. What does my husband love? Music, college football, a back rub, a cup of strong coffee in the morning, a conversation at the end of the day about how work went, taking an exciting trip every few years, the old Tred Barta hunting shows, The Godfather movie trilogy (over and over)… and now I try my best to do these things with him. And when I do, he starts to do the things I enjoy: discussing a good book, travel, the Today Show even if there's a fashion segment instead of a hard news one, shopping, a nice meal out from time to time, a sweet conversation that includes some words of praise. (That’s my love language.) It’s simple. But it really, really works.

Here’s my final illustration. Last week was one of the biggest of my husband’s life. He wrote a violin concerto that the Charleston Symphony orchestra performed, and it was played on a beautiful and historic instrument: The Ex Nachez Stradivarius violin built in 1680. There was a lot of press, there was a big dinner we hosted and others we attended all to benefit this event. I had a lot of my own stuff going on, but I knew I needed to put it all aside to support him that week. I cleaned the house from top to bottom, I cooked, I picked up his dry-cleaning, you name it. By the end of the week, he came to me a bit misty-eyed saying, “Thank you for all you have done for me this week. I can’t tell you how much it means.”

It was simple. It was obvious. Now my prayer is that I don’t forget Occam’s razor and St. Peter’s words about how to make a relationship work: be kind, compassionate, tender-hearted and courteous. It ain’t rocket science, is it? Happy Valentine’s Day, Y’all!

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: How about you? What is one simple thing you have done in a relationship or friendship that seems to help build it up?

To learn more about Beth Webb Hart and her novels click here

Take a Time Travel Weekend With Your Sweetie! (From Lisa Wingate)

2012-02-12T16:40:00.000-08:00

Ah, the weeks is here! Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Have you planned something special for your sweetheart yet? Just in case you haven’t… we’ve gathered on the porch to have a little girl talk about keeping the home fires burning. In a high-activity, high-stress world, that’s not the easiest thing to do. Schedules fill up, jobs are demanding, kids have activities, family members need care, and before you know it, you’re penciling in time for everything but each other.

We’ll be chatting all week about little ways to keep the flame of love burning strong. Here’s a stay-in idea that’s cheap, easy to do, and fun.

Why not take your sweetie on a time-travel weekend at home?

Here’s how it works:

-- Grab a few DVDs of movies or TV shows that you enjoyed together back-in-the day. Weekly TV shows that were part of your regular routine together or movies that are connected to a special date are especially fun. (For us, shows like Home Improvement and Coach or movies like You’ve Got Mail take us back to those young married days)

-- Pick up CDs of music from the time period.

-- Pull out the photo albums from the good-old-days and set some of your favorite photos around the house. Pull out old love notes, cards, or mementos and use them to decorate.

-- Why not go all out and greet your sweetie in an outfit that fits the time period too? (Parachute pants and leg warmers, or headbands and love beads anyone?) Visit a thrift shop and pick up an outfit for your fella too, and you can get into the groove together.

-- Consider shopping online for a few magazines from the time period and set them around the house.

-- Laugh, enjoy, remember, reminisce. Giggle at the hairdos. Make fun of the clothes. Dance to that funky music. Talk about who you are and where you’ve been. Order the same cheap takeout you survived on in the early days. Travel back in time, hand-in-hand.

But most of all, remember your love story… together.

For a few more ideas, I asked some of my Facebook friends to chime in. Here's are a couple sweet ideas from Facebook friends, Carol Ann, Rita, and Teresa:

Carol Ann: Kidnap your husband. We've escaped to local places for the night and even managed to kidnap him to NYC at Christmas. He didn't suspect a thing until I handed him the airline tickets and a travel guidebook to NYC. What fun. Don't know who enjoys it more... Me planning or his surprise!

Rita: Play the S.H.M.I.L.Y. game. There was a grandson & grandpa at the grandma's funeral. The grandson asked about the SHMILY banner on grandma's casket. Grandpa said that for his entire marriage he and his wife would take turns writing SHMILY anything and hiding it everywhere for the other to find. Next it would be the other spouse's turn to do the same. One time grandpa even unrolled a roll of toilet paper, hid the SHMILY note & rolled it back up. The grandson asked, "But what does it mean grandpa?" "It means, 'See How Much I Love You!'" What a game to play!

Teresa: Don't forget about collecting up the love songs from the various albums on the MP3 player and dumping them into just one folder for "Love Songs".

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: What would your "stay-cation" time travel weekend look like? What era would you travel to and who would you take with you?

Blue Moon Bay Is New In Bookstores!

Click here to read the first Chapter and learn about how YOU COULD BE IN LISA'S NEXT BOOK with the Join the Cast contest!

Click here to order!

Thanks for Joining Lisa For Thursday's Book Banter on Facebook!

2012-02-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

And the Winners of Thursday's Bethany House Book Banter Giveaways Are...

Five Lucky Winners won copies of Lisa Wingate's New book, BLUE MOON BAY during our Book Banter chat on the Bethany House Publishers Facebook Page!

** If you're on the winner's list, email Lisa's publicist, Noelle Buss, at Bethany House, and send your mailing address. She will put your package in the mail. Noelle's email is:
noelle.buss [at] bethanyhouse.com**

Thanks for coming to Book Banter. What a fun way to spend a lunch hour!!

And... dipping hand into the hat... (drum roll)... the winners... (shuffling tiny slips of paper)... are...

Karen Mahon Mullen
Janice Treadwell Burzlaff
Angela Chesnut
Paula Osborne
Jenny Albrittain

** If you're on the winner's list, email Lisa's publicist, Noelle Buss, at Bethany House, and send your mailing address. She will put your package in the mail. Noelle's email is:

noelle.buss [at] bethanyhouse.com **

Come back and visit us on the Southern BelleView porch next week. We'll be talking about how to keep the home fires burning on Valentine's Week, and all year long ;o)

A Love Story

2012-02-09T23:31:00.000-08:00

I was midway through my senior year of high school, counting the days until I could start what I considered my real life in an out-of-state college. I planned to study broadcast journalism and travel the world telling important life changing stories. I remember telling my mother that I'd never marry a farmer and I'd never live in our small town. (As a farmer's daughter who was weary of praying for it to start raining and then praying for it to stop raining, I was bent on marrying a nine-t0-fiver and living some place else, any place else.) Mama cautioned me not to be so adamant about what I wouldn't do because I might end up eating my words. I laughed. Mama laughed last.

I write these words from my home in that same small town, the wife of one hard-working farmer. At any given time of the farming season you can find me praying for it to start raining or stop raining-- and I would do it all over again. But to tell that story, we'll have to go back to that senior year and the girl who fell in crazy, instant got-to-be-with-this-one-forever love with a college boy who had graduated mid-term and came home to join his dad on the family farm.

The Blond caught my eye driving around town in his blue pick-up truck. Who was this?! Soon I was circling a few extra times after cheerleader practice with my eyes peeled for his vehicle. I may have even begun stalking him, but no one has ever produced proof on that.

One night shortly thereafter I was warming up before a basketball game when one of my classmates told me The Blond was coming to watch me play. Me! Somehow he had gotten wind of my interest. Imagine that. I accused my buddy of lying just to aggravate me. (There was plenty of precedent.) He assured me that he wasn't. I dismissed him but I couldn't dismiss the thought, which is why I continued to scan the crowd during the game. It's also why I managed to catch a glimpse of The Blond standing at the gym entrance while I was dribbling down the court! By now I had the scoop on my mystery man. I knew his name. I knew his life story. I knew he had graduated from my own alma mater as a multi-sport star athlete. This was my moment. I would shine, I would score, (the goal people, the goal), I would dribble the ball off of my own foot and watch it roll slowly, embarrassingly straight towards The Blond. Sigh.

The rest is history that The Blond and I are still writing. We've had to overcome our share of hurdles, beginning with my parents' early resistance to an Older Man wanting to date their baby daughter-- remind me to tell you how he charmed their socks off, too. It wasn't the last hurdle in our relationship, of course, but thirty years into this thing we've gotten pretty good at clearing 'em.

I'm not a famous journalist but through the unwavering, loving support of The Blond, I have found a way to tell my stories, and the last few years I've done a whole lot of traveling while I'm at it. Dreams do come true. Sometimes our job is just to recognize when it happens.

Hugs,

Shellie

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson lives with The Blond in Lake Providence, LA. They have two happily married children and four beautiful grands. You're invited to her place on the web to hear her stories.

Have any of your dreams come true?

Love Means Never Having to Say "I Told You."

2012-02-09T03:00:00.000-08:00

My maternal grandparents met at a party.

My paternal grandparents met while doing a play.

My parents met on a blind date.

I met my husband at a most holy of places. Church.

He was the handsome, young, single Youth and Singles Pastor.

I was the hip, vibrant, (Hey, this is my blog) and very '80s career girl.

I wanted to get married, but after my career had a good boost. But when I first walked into my church twenty-four years ago, and felt instantly at home, I never imaged just how much of a home it would be.

I met Hubby there. Was married there. Have spent nearly half of my life there.

But, back to the romance. Hubs liked me but I traveled a lot so my church appearances were hit-n-miss. But we finally connected when he asked me to lunch after church.

Since we were in our mid-20s, he was ready to settle down and didn't want to date for dating sake game. Neither did I. He spent three weeks praying before asking me out.

After our that first lunch date, I was talking to the Lord about the situation and was so shocked to get a sense in my spirit he's "the guy."

Really? A single woman hearing God tell her the single pastor is going to be her husband. How weird. That, like, NEVER happens. Please, Lord, don't make me be one of those ladies. Please....

But, I was.

Meanwhile, after a few dates, Hubby felt God told him we're supposed to be friends. Just friends.

So began our unique and wonderful journey. After a few awkward months, we confessed what we felt God was speaking about our relationship, found we were diametrically opposed and decided on a compromised.

We went with Hubby's direction. Just friends. In the next three years, we became best friends and ministry partners. I joined his Youth Church leadership team. Attending other functions and ministry meetings with him.

But as I approached the big 3-0, I couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone but Hubby. Yet our relationship remained completely on the friendship level. Romance wasn't even an option.

I could write volumes about those three years, but I can sum it up with this: God is such an amazing God. He had a plan for Hubby and me all along.

It's hard being a single woman in the church, trying to follow the Lord, listen for His voice and direction, surrendering every part of her heart.

In those three wilderness years, I heard so many notable Christian teachers from Dr. Dobson to Charles Stanley poo-poo the idea that the Lord could or would interfere in romantic relationships. Even mock women who "hear" God tell them some man is going to be there husband.

Well if God's going to be involved in any aspect of a woman's life, I hope He's involved with how she chooses a man to marry!

During Hubby and my "friendship" years, I heard the story of a young woman with a heart for the Lord and one day in prayer, the Lord spoke to her. "Your husband will have more markings in his Bible than you do."

Some time later, she was at a prayer meeting and a tall, gangly young man entered the room, tripped and dropped his Bible at her feet. She glanced down at the open book to see his Bible so marked up she couldn't read the text.

"Noooooo!" she cried to the Lord.

But sure enough, they married and were known for their love and devotion to each other.

Isn't that awesome.

But I know even more stories of loving, devoted couples who simply met, fell in love and got married.

One of the girls in Youth Church who watched my relationship with Hubby develop and changed, wanted to have God "tell" her the man she was dating was her husband.

The man wanted to marry her, but she'd not heard from God. Finally one day her mother said, "You can choose who to love."

Those wise words set her free and she's married now with two pre teen beautiful daughters.

Relationships are complicated. Some more than others. But loving someone out of commitment and faith, is so valuable. Where would we be without love?

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "If I have all knowledge but do not have love, I'm just a noisy gong."

Despite the trial of those three years, I wouldn't trade them. They taught me that love is patient and kind, bears and hopes all things, does not seek it's own.

When Hubby finally proposed, I wasn't tempted once to say, "I told you."

***

Questions of the day: How have you see the Lord working in your relationship?

Our Love Story

2012-02-08T03:00:00.000-08:00

My husband and I met when we were kids. Kids, I tell you. But we thought we were grown. Grown enough to make the kind of monumental life decision that transforms everything. And though our parents kindly warned us that this was a BIG DECISION, we were CRAZY IN LOVE and could not be deterred. So we got married the summer before our senior year of college, and prepared to live happily ever after.

But happily ever after was harder to come by than we thought. Obstacles started popping up almost immediately. We had to fight to get to the love part of our love story. It helped to remember it-- to remember how we felt about each other, that passion and desire that led us to make the crazy decision to get married. As children were born and debt mounted and demands were made on our time, we threatened to come apart. We had to remember the very fibers that held us together.

I had to remember that warm summer night on a front porch when the possibility of forever seemed so close I only had to reach for it.

I had to remember the moment when we agreed that our goals were the same-- family, children, faith, future.

I had to remember the cards he left me, the notes promising love I could depend on, the words that made me trust him with my future.

I had to remember the love of music we shared, a link forged in melody and harmony.

I had to remember the anxious proposal that was expected, yet surprising. The giddy announcement to friends. The ring on my left hand ring finger, sparkling as though it held all our hopes and promises in its facets.

I had to remember that summer we spent planning our wedding, swept away in our own whirlwind of whispered imaginings of this shared future.

I had to remember what it felt like to pick up the phone and hope it was him, the sound of his voice so different than any other voice that had ever spoken my name.

I had to remember what it felt like to look up and see him coming in the door, a novel thing.

I had to remember all these moments and more-- because what we had was threatening to become commonplace, expected, normal. I had to remember that our love story was special, as all love stories are.

Today maybe you need to remember your own love story-- first awkward conversations and butterflies in your stomach, uncertainties and hopes mixed together in one swirling, crazy time of life, the time that launched you from there to here. It's a time we can't go back to, except in our memories. But memory, as we all know around here, is a powerful thing. As powerful as a love story.

Put on the dress in which you were married
Pull down the veil til your eyes are hid
Can you remember where we both came from
Let us do as we did
"Make Tomorrow" Peter Gabriel

Question For The Day: Do you share your love story? With who? Your kids? Your friends? New people that come into your life? Have you ever noticed that sharing your love story helps you see your spouse anew?

Marybeth Whalen and her husband Curt have been married for 20 years. They look for their love story amidst the laundry, bills and chaos of a house with six children. Marybeth's new novel, The Guest Book, is a love story set in Sunset Beach, NC. It comes out this summer.

Memory and Love by Beth Webb Hart

2012-02-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. – Albert Einstein

This photograph includes my paternal grandparents, Joe and Lib Jelks, and their two children, Peggy (my aunt) and Joe (my father.) My grandparents were married over fifty years before they were parted by death, and yet they remained divided when it came to the story of how they first met and who made the first move.

My grandmother’s version went like this: I was attending the Wake Forest University football game with some college girlfriends. We were all dressed up for a day out on the town. Wake won by a narrow margin and when the male students in their cadet uniforms jumped up to cheer, your grandfather spun his cadet hat, like a Frisbee, in my direction making sure it landed in my lap. Then he came racing over and introduced himself and asked me out to dinner.

My grandfather’s version went like this: I was attending the Wake Forest University football game with a bunch of my fraternity brothers and classmates. We were all dressed up in our military garb. A group of gals from Greensboro College kept cutting their eyes at us, and you know, checking us out. At the end of the game all the men stood up, took off our cadet hats and threw them up in the air. Your grandmother, bless her heart, jumped three rows to catch my hat. She nearly took out one boy’s left eye with her elbow, and she toppled over an older couple happening across her leap. Once she had my hat in her grip, she collected herself, marched over to me, smiled and asked me out to dinner.

I suppose the truth lies somewhere in between. But one thing is for sure, someone wanted to meet someone. (They probably both did.) And I’m sure glad they did as they were like a second set of parents to my sisters and I, hosting us for the summer months at their beach home, always there for all of our major events growing up, imparting their faith and beliefs in us one loving story at a time.

Memory is a funny thing. It can morph over the years, it can rewrite history in the labyrinth-like corridors of our imaginations. My paternal grandparents went to their graves sticking with their individual stories, though they were united in this – they loved one another.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Do you have a good family love story? Do tell.

For more info. on Beth Webb Hart and her novels click here

A Love Story From Lisa Wingate

2012-02-05T17:52:00.000-08:00

I wished for nothing beyond her smile, and to walk with her thus, hand in hand, along a sun-warmed, flower-bordered path. -- Andre Gide

Doesn't everybody love a love story? It's that time of year again--the time for lacy Valentines cards, and red roses, and little heart-shaped chocolates with tender sentiments like, Be Mine... or in the modern venacular, Text Me. We're sharing our favorite love stories this week--stories passed down through family, or friends, or simply learned through experience.

When I think of favorite love stories in our family, several come to mind. I was blessed to have grandparents who shared sweet, lifelong loves, and who shared with us the history of how they met . We kids asked to hear those stories again and again. We loved the idea that these kindly-faced, gray-haired people who now bounced us on their knees and read storybooks with us were once young, once dashing and beautiful, and... OH MY GOODNESS... romantic! We giggled when they talked about first dances and stolen kisses. But on a deeper level we wanted to understand the mystery of love, of how it happens and how you know.

These days, the longest-running love story in our family belongs to MeMaw and Grandaddy Hutson, the sweet grandparents I gained when I married. Now both in their nineties, living in a cozy little retirement apartment, still driving, and still madly in love, they are an inspiration.

It's sweet to hear MeMaw tell the story of how she saw him during a bike ride one day, and... well... there was something special. He was so "cute", and she observed, "dressed neat as a pin." Even though she was actually dating another boy at the time, she gave this smartly-dressed young gentleman a second look. Soon, she'd traded dating one boy for dating another, and the rest is history--seventy-plus years of it, now. The last time we went out to eat with them, Memaw patted Grandaddy's hand, looked over at me and smiled and said, "Well, he just loves me so much, that's all."

There's still such magic in these two old-young lovers. If I had to pin down what's so special about their relationship, what touches me the most, or what I think has given them a long, peaceful, happy life together, I think I'd say it's because they are so incredibly kind to each other. They're tender with each other, careful with one another, generous.

I'm sure that over the years they've had disagreements and frustrations, but the closest I've ever heard them come to having words was a few summers ago. Grandaddy had been spraying for weeds around a property they still own, and shortly afterward, some of Memaw's prize flowers (and make no mistake, Memaw does love her flowers passionately) turned brown. The conversation on this issue went something like this in the car:

Meemaw: "Well, that spray must have gotten on them. There's no other reason they would die."
Grandaddy: "I didn't spray anywhere near them."
Meemaw: "The wind probably blew it."
Grandaddy: "There wasn't any wind that day. It was very still."
Meemaw: "They were fine the day before. There isn't any reason the leaves would turn brown."
(Short pause. Absolute silence in the front seat. Backseat passenger (me) thinking, uh-oh.)
Grandaddy: "Well, if the spray did drift onto them, it was an accident. You know I would never kill anything that you love."
Meemaw (slipping her hand over his on the console): "I know."
End of argument.

Such a lesson. Such a perfect picture of that word that has bewitched sailors, and playwrights, and poets. Love isn't just attraction and passion, it's "I'm sorry," and "I forgive you."

It's finding that person who would never kill anything that you love, and being that one person for someone else. It's a dance of leading and following, and learning the steps as you go along.

Done well it's a beautiful dance, performed to a melody that lasts a lifetime.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: What about you? Have you seen or experienced a long-term love? What do you think the secret is?

Blue Moon Bay Is New In Bookstores!

Click here to read the first Chapter and learn about how YOU COULD BE IN LISA'S NEXT BOOK with the Join the Cast contest!

Click here to order!

And the Winners of Last Week's Book Giveaways Are...

2012-02-05T17:32:00.000-08:00

Five Lucky Winners won copies of Lisa Wingate's New book, BLUE MOON BAY last week!

** If you're on the winner's list, email Lisa [at] lisawingate.com and send your mailing address, so we can put your package in the mail!**

And... dipping hand into the hat... (drum roll)... the winners... (shuffling tiny slips of paper)... are...

Monday: Taliasba said...

I wish I could say I had a special memory I share with one of my brothers but unfortunately being the middle child between two boys wasn't easy. My older brother picked on me a lot. Though my younger brother did make me a terrific scrapbook when he was in his early teens that I still have and cherish. I'm still hoping for a closer relationship with both my brothers. Your book sounds great and it's one I'd love to read. Thanks for the opportunity to try to win one. Blessings, Tracey krieg.tracey / yahoo.com

Tuesday: I would definitely have to say that I appreciate my middle sister. She has always been my protector especially back in the days when my only brother teased, scared and tortured (at least in my eyes) me. She and I have grown very close over the years and now we are best friends. We laugh, cry, support, and love each other so much. As for my brother, well he is still the same but I love him anyway!
Blessings,
aldrn40 / aol.com

Wednesday: Anonymous said...

My sister and I were close growing up. We are 5 years apart. Unfortunately her life was a hard one and alcohol was her best friend. Addiction and manipulation eventually tore us apart and she passed away January 2011. I will treasure forever the good memories and our antics as young sisters in our home.

Janet

Thursday: Jess said...

Oh, Rachel, good question and good challenge. I just texted my two brothers to tell them I love them.

Regarding a mended relationship, I would say I'm still working on that. We're still in the throes of pain but we're moving closer with every new conversation. :)

Friday: Rebekah who said...

My advice would be to cherish the time you do have! My brother and I are extremely close today because of how close we were growing up. He was ALWAYS my protector - a big brother - always looking out for me so my advice would be to younger sisters....LET HIM LOOK OUT FOR YOU. He isn't just being the annoying older brother, but he really does have your best interest at heart!

Thanks for visiting the porch during last week's Belle Book Club meeting, and thanks for sharing your story. We love hearing from you!

I love her, I love her not, I love her...She's My Sister!

2012-02-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

I haven’t been able to give myself the gift of reading Lisa’s latest, Blue Moon Bay, the title that's prompted this week’s discussion. Life has just been coming at me too hard and heavy, but never fear. I plan to rectify this sooner rather than later. To date I’ve read and enjoyed three Lisa Wingate novels and I expect to have the same sort of experience with this one. I've lost myself in Lisa's words before and I know I will again! (It will be my gift to me, from me.) No doubt Lisa will treat this subject with the same wit and wisdom she’s brought to her other work. I’m salted just thinking about it-- and anxious to have her on my talk show to discuss it. Sibling love, sister love in particular, is a subject dear to my heart.

Sister Sledge used to sing, “We are family.” I remember joining with my sisters during our teenage years to belt those lyrics out with ‘em. Ironically, our trio performances were usually situated smack in the middle of whatever fearsome battle we were engaged in at the time.

“We are family, I have all my sisters with me.
All the people around us they say, can they be that close?
Just let me say for the record,
We’re giving love in a family dose.”

Sisters everywhere swear by these lyrics, all the time. Well, most of the time…Okay, sometimes, at least! The word sister may be defined as “a female human being having the same parents as another person” but if you’ve been blessed with a sister, you know “a female human being” would be one of the nicer things you’ve called her. Indeed, if you do have a sister of your own, perhaps you remember marking boundaries. As the baby girl of three, I sure do. My sisters and I lived in Boundary World. As kids we divided the backseat into imaginary thirds, and heaven help the trespasser. Our boundary battles matured with us. One of my sisters and I shared a bedroom and a double bed, in much the same way two small fighting fish would share an aquarium.

As we grew older, the property we valued changed, but we continued to define our boundaries. Now, it was hands off whatever boy someone “saw” first. This was a fatally flawed system, for most of the time the sister and I closest in age were together; meaning we “saw” our targets at the same time. Then it became a matter of, who was he looking at first? Several good prospects got away while we were trying to decide who was looking at whom first.

And then there were the battle lines we drew around our clothes— boundaries drawn in red. Wearing your sister’s favorite jeans without permission was a crime worthy of death; but since getting permission was close to impossible…a girl had to prioritize. Look great for your date and risk her wrath—or wear your own stupid jeans. Was it really a choice?

To my mother’s great consternation, my sisters and I perfected the art of mental abuse. Nothing is off limits with sisters. Find the other one’s insecurities and exploit them to your advantage. Be it toes or rears, noses or ears, when growing up with sisters—it’s all fair game. Side by side you live with this person, this irritating, aggravation, obnoxious person. And then…you grow up.

Suddenly, when you least expect it, little things will remind you of the childhood you shared. A memory of late night giggle attacks returns. Flashbacks to those rare nights when you forgot to fight and lay in bed laughing at nothing and everything. The memory is so pleasant, you stir the pot and others float to the top. You have to smile when you remember that as mean as your sister was to you—she reserved her fiercest anger for your enemies. Growing up with sisters is like living with the mob. Sure, they’re rough, but it’s nice to have ‘em around when someone calls you out.

You can’t pretend with sisters, either. They know you in a way no one else does. Often, childhood memories of parents are fuzzy and warm, but slightly out of focus. For a great part of my growing up years, my parents were busy with the enormous day-to-day responsibilities of raising a family. My father provided for me; my sisters played with me. My mom gave us our bath; my sisters splashed soap in my eyes. When I recall my childhood, my sisters are the main characters—my parents, the directors. Even my husband, with whom I also share a past, knows me only as the girl I was when we met, and the person I have become during our lives together. My sisters have the total picture; they remember when I wore hoot-owl glasses and corrective shoes.

As sisters, we even define ourselves by ourselves. When grown up sisters get together you can almost strip away the conversation and see the little girls they used to be. I am the baby; my sisters would say the spoiled one, but this is my version so I get to tell it my way! We tend to think of our middle sister as the peacemaker, and the eldest as the rebel she was in younger years. For the record, it's hard not to get typecast for life, but I still believe it's possible!

Life with a sister can be a complicated, competitive, stormy experience that evolves into a wonderful friendship. There’s no escaping shared history. Siblings are those people who lived with you through the experiences that made you who you are. And that is why, through thick and thin, you learn to say, “I love her, I love her not, I love her…she’s my sister.”

Hugs,
Shellie

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson is a writer, speaker, and radio host living, writing, and loving from her home base in Louisiana. You're invited to follow her home to her place http://www.allthingssouthern.com/.

Win a copy of Blue Moon Bay!
One Given away each day, Monday-Friday this week! Winners will be announced this weekend!

This week we'll be giving away five copies of Blue Moon Bay -- one each day, Monday through Friday. To enter, answer the question of the day!

TODAY'S QUESTION: If you could give advice to siblings growing up today, what advice would you give?

This week's five book winners will be announced here on SouthernBelleView this Sunday, so don't forget to check back to see if you won! If you'd like an email (in case you win) be sure to leave an email address (or a Facebook handle) in your comment. Good luck, everybody!

Book Club Week: The Power of Siblings

2012-02-02T03:00:00.000-08:00

First of all, let me say if you've not read a Lisa Wingate book, please do. She is such beautiful writer and her stories are about life. And hope.

I have the upmost respect for Lisa as a woman, mother, friend and author. She amazes me.

Her new book Blue Moon Bay is about returning home, discovering secrets and finding love. While my reader copy got delayed, I'm diving into this book next.

We write a lot about heroines or heroes who return home. But really, how many of us actually go back to our hometowns?

We leave for a reason. God puts us on new journeys and rearranges the boundaries of our hearts and our very familial DNA but putting us in different regions.

But family never leaves our hearts. Whether we have a good family or a difficult one, it's practically impossible to escape.

I once read a speech from Bill Cosby. He reminded the members of a college graduating class to love their families. "Siblings are the only ones who can connect you with your past."

How profoundly true. Siblings are the only people in the world who can sit down with us and remember Mom and Dad from when we were five and six. Who can laugh with us over the whacky family slideshow night, or remember watching the snow fall on Christmas Eve, hearts pounding at the thought of Santa.

They remember how we got in trouble, and how we got out. Siblings root us to our own memories of growing up, of leaving

home, and in some ways, of coming home again.

Siblings are so important. Who else can we quote movies line with and '70s song lyrics?

We should strive to love our siblings at all costs. If we can't love our bio brothers and sisters, how hard it will be to truly love the Body of Christ as Jesus called us to do.

I have three brothers and one sister. The picture up top is of my sister when she was four and I was fourteen. Dig those glass, y'all.

Next is from the '80s. "Gee, Rachel, how could we tell? All that make up?" I'm with my two younger brothers, home from Ohio State for Christmas. See how we love each other.

Last is my older brother goofing around one Thanksgiving at his bachelor pad. I think we're in our late 20s.

My siblings live all over the south, and while we don't see each other much, we love each other.

Our times together in person are treasured and fun.

I value the men and women they've become and my main goal is to just love them wherever they're at spiritually, physically and emotionally.

Have you talked to a sibling lately? On the phone? If not, stop now and give him or her a call. Just to say "I love you."

***

Win a copy of Blue Moon Bay!

It hits the shelves February 1st

One Given away each day, Monday-Friday this week! Winners will be announced this weekend!

This week we'll be giving away five copies of Blue Moon Bay -- one each day, Monday through Friday. To enter, answer the question of the day!

TODAY'S QUESTION: How have you mended a broken sibling relationship?

This week's five book winners will be announced here on SouthernBelleView this Sunday, so don't forget to check back to see if you won! If you'd like an email (in case you win) be sure to leave an email address (or a Facebook handle) in your comment. Good luck, everybody!

Brothers And Sisters Week

2012-02-01T03:00:00.000-08:00

This week we're celebrating the release of Lisa Wingate's new book Blue Moon Bay. As part of our book club discussion, we're talking about brothers and sisters, since the sibling relationship is central to the book. I decided to talk about the brothers and sisters I'm raising, and the joys and trials that have come with that!

"Did you grow up in a big family?" It's a question I get asked a lot when people find out my husband and I have six children. My answer is always no-- I grew up with one brother. But I knew from a very young age I was destined to have a large family. I used to tell my mom, "When I grow up I'm going to have four boys and name them Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." To which my aunt once quipped, "Well that'll be easy. When you want to call them you can just yell 'Gospels!'"

Alas, I don't have four boys named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But I do have three boys. And three girls. Each of my children can say they have brothers (plural) and sisters (plural). Our house is busy and loud and at times chaotic. It's hardly ever as clean as I want it and the laundry seems to spontaneously breed when I'm not looking. But I still believe I was born to play this role of mom to many. And as much as I grumble, as much as I can't stand ALL THE FIGHTING, as much as I relish the sound of silence on the few times I get it, and as much as I resist seeing the interruptions as opportunities... as much as all of that, I really do love this life ten times more.

Brothers and sisters add to our lives in ways we can't appreciate until we have the benefit of maturity and hindsight. Our siblings provide comfort as our parents age. They see the full range of who we are-- from child to adult and everything in between. They know our history, and we know theirs. We can purport to be a certain kind of person to the new people in our lives-- but we can't fool our siblings. Sometimes this can be good, and sometimes this can be frustrating.

As children they're the ones we have to share our french fries with, change our plans for, and learn to accomodate. We learn to share and sacrifice because of our siblings. We learn to put our needs behind another person's. As I tell my kids often, all of those things will help them in the workplace and their own homes someday. Even though they drive us crazy, brothers and sisters really do add to our lives.

Just today I witnessed a mom and her two grown daughters laughing and talking over lunch. When they stood up to leave, the love-- and history-- that was shared between these three women was evident. Even more than that, it was priceless. One of the greatest gifts I've given my children are these people they've shared a home with. I know one day they'll see that, if they don't already. Brothers and sisters are a blessing.

Win a copy of Blue Moon Bay!

One Given away each day, Monday-Friday this week! Winners will be announced this weekend!

This week we'll be giving away five copies of Blue Moon Bay -- one each day, Monday through Friday. To enter, answer the question of the day!

TODAY'S QUESTION: Have you ever connected with a brother, sister, or friend in a special way? Tell us about it!

This week's five book winners will be announced here on SouthernBelleView this Sunday, so don't forget to check back to see if you won! If you'd like an email (in case you win) be sure to leave an email address (or a Facebook handle) in your comment. Good luck, everybody!

Blue Moon Bay hits the shelves Feb 1st!

Marybeth Whalen is raising brothers and sisters with her husband Curt in North Carolina. Her upcoming novel, The Guest Book, deals with a brother/sister relationship that is challenged and strengthened by an amazing vacation to Sunset Beach NC. The Guest Book is available this summer!

On the Topic of Siblings and Blue Moon Bay Book Club Week! By Beth Webb Hart

2012-01-31T03:00:00.000-08:00

“Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply...” ~Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814

Congratulations to my belle buddy, Lisa Wingate, whose fantastic new novel, Blue Moon Bay releases this week. I, for one, can’t wait to let the currents of Moses Lake carry me away on Heather’s journey as she discovers family secrets, faces pink manicured demons, and risks all in search of the truth. I’ve been curling up with the story the last few nights, and I’m savoring every word.

The relationship between the protagonist, Heather, and her younger brother, Clay, is quite important to the story. Clay is more like his mother, Heather more like her father, but I have a feeling that their shared experiences will over-ride the tension that surfaces between all siblings and that their bond will only strengthen as the story unfolds.

So what do you think about sibling relationships? They can often be trying, but they can also be some of the most intimate and tender of all, can’t they? As the oldest of three daughters, spaced out every four years, I can say that I’ve experienced the lows and the sweet, sweet highs of sisterhood. The good news is the highs seem to get greater with age, and I’ve found – that as I grow older – my sisters are my truest -bluest BFFs and the first ones I call on in a time of need.

However, for fun, I thought I’d illustrate a couple of the lows to show just how far we’ve come…

I can remember when my first sister, Peggy, was born. I was so excited to meet her, nuzzle her, smell her baby smell, but as soon as she started to cry or get in the way of my plans, I was highly annoyed by her existence. Once, when she was a baby and I was watching my favorite television show (Tarzan), she started crying, and I became so frustrated that I eventually walked over to her bouncy seat and bit her. (Yes, I bit a baby, but I was only four.) Do you think this helped with the crying? Nope. It did not. She wailed like she had never wailed before, and my mother came racing in to ask me what was wrong. Naturally, I commented, “I didn’t do anything.” I must not have been too convincing because my mother immediately bent down and saw the bite marks. “Go to your room and wait for your father to come home!” was her reply. However, I had a handy trick when it came to wait-til-dad-comes-home spankings. I would play possum – pretend to fall asleep – and try to look really sweet so that when he came in he wouldn’t have the heart to wake me up and punish me. This usually worked even though it meant missing dinner…

When my baby sister, Libby, was born, I wanted to hold her all of the time. My mother told me to always wait until she was there to help. I was only eight, after all. But since I was too eager to play mommy, I would sneak in Libby’s room every now and then, stand up on the crib and pick her up. Once I even laid her down on the changing table because I knew she needed a fresh diaper. Without a thought, I leaned over to get one from the drawer below and in that fraction of a second she rolled right off and onto the floor where, not surprisingly, she wailed like there was no tomorrow. Well, my mom came running, and I was too worried about Libby’s well being to fib that time. It turned out she was fine, but from then on I heeded my mother’s warnings and waited until she supervised my baby-holding moments.

As we grew up, the tables turned, and my sisters inflicted a lot of torture on me. Peggy always eaves-dropped on my phone calls and stood outsid the bedroom door of my spend the night parties hoping to hear something exciting, and Libby had a way of telling any boy I had a crush on just how I felt about them. Naturally, they both ransacked my room when I left for college and took whatever clothes or shoes or jewelry or music seemed halfway decent…

And we were all hormonal, look out! We could make one another cry or make one another’s blood boil with just one shrug of the shoulder or one dagger-eyed look. We once took the family trip of a lifetime the August I turned twenty-one – to Rome, Florence and Venice – but I can remember the fight my sister and I had over a mini skirt even more vividly than I recall viewing Michelangelo’s David. (Sad, but true.)

Now that we’re all grown up and raising kids of our own, we rely on one another more than I ever imagined we would. Whenever any of us are sad or hurt or in any kind of trouble, we immediately call one another and share what is on our heart, and because of our bond and our shared faith we are able to lift one another up in a way that no one else really can. And when we take a trip, cut up or crack up, we can totally be ourselves and get as goofy and as giddy as possible.

Siblings are a great gift from the Lord, and I can’t wait to see how Lisa fully explores this in her wonderful new novel!

This week we'll be giving away five copies of Blue Moon Bay -- one each day, Monday through Friday. To enter, answer the question of the day!

TODAY'S QUESTION: Describe one of your closest friends and/or sibling. What do you appreciate most about them?

This week's five book winners will be announced here on SouthernBelleView this Sunday, so don't forget to check back to see if you won! If you'd like an email (in case you win) be sure to leave an email address (or a Facebook handle) in your comment. Good luck, everybody!

For more info. on Beth Webb Hart and her novels click here

It's a Brothers and Sisters Book Club Week with Blue Moon Bay!

2012-01-29T19:14:00.000-08:00

It's another Belle Book Club week! We're headed back to the porch, wearing our pearls and carrying cute little crystal platters filled with our favorite homemade treats. Or maybe we're having a Belle pajama party -- a bama-jama blast, where we'll snuggle up on a big ol' king sized bed in our comfies and fuzzy slippers. We'll light a fire in the hearth, paint everyone's fingernails, create crazy hairstyles, and have the world-premier book club meeting for Blue Moon Bay. It's hitting shelves this week. Wednesday. Almost as we speak, y'all!

I'm so honored to be talking about the book with my fellow Belles. Blue Moon Bay is all about family ties and family tales, and because of that, we thought we'd talk about brothers and sisters this week, since a brother-sister relationship is central to the story.

The simple explanation for where the brother-sister relationship in Blue Moon Bay came from is that it originated from a conversation with my editor. We were sitting at dinner one night talking about stories, and story ideas, and what things haven’t been talked about a lot in fiction. Somewhere in that conversation, it came up that while women’s fiction often mines the relationship between sisters, fewer books delve into the sibling relationship between brothers and sisters. My editor pointed a finger at me and said, “You know what, you should write about that.

So, that’s the simple story of how Heather and her failure-to-launch brother, Clay, were born. But on a deeper level, as a writer you find that what you write about comes from life in some way. There was a reason I loved writing about the brother-sister relationship. I grew up as a little sister.

I feel certain there must be special place in heaven for tag-along, left-behind, picked-on little sisters who grow up with two older brothers... I really do. The truth is, I owe my brothers for a few things in my childhood. They never knew, back when they were leaving me in their dust, that they would one day be at my mercy, because the little sister they (not so lovingly) christened with flattering nicknames like Wheezer and Doughface would one day grow up to be a writer and put them in a book.

Even though the character in this book, Heather, is actually the older sibling in the relationship, I enjoyed thinking about the unique push-pull of brothers and sisters. It was fun to remember car trips where we were ready to kill each other in the back seat of the Oldsmobile, and to talk about the sweet moments, too.

There are parts of life you only share with your siblings. There are Christmas mornings, and first-day-of school jitters, and evenings lying side-by side on a blanket in front of the TV. I remember the night a boy stood me up for a date, and I ended up going out for frozen yogurt and a movie with my brothers. It wasn't so bad. I don't even remember that date-ditching boy's name, but I do remember that sweet time with the two boys I grew up with. It was almost enough to make me forgive them for offering to get rid of a splinter by amputating my toe when I was five.

I think that's the underlying lesson Heather learns in Blue Moon Bay. The bond between siblings is like no other. You grow up together, build lives together, share space and share experiences. It's a gift filled with challenges and blessings, wrapped up with the ties that bind in all the ways that matter most.

One of the special things about Blue Moon Bay is that, thanks to my publisher, we'll be offering one special reader a chance to "move to Moses Lake" by joining the cast in the next book of the series, Firefly Island, due out in 2013. To learn more about the contest, click here.

We're so glad you're joining us for this Blue Moon Bay book club meeting! Stop back and share brother and sister stories with the rest of the belles as the week goes by. Be sure to share your own stories in the comments for a chance to win a copy of Blue Moon Bay. We'll be giving away five autographed copies -- one each day, Monday through Friday. It's a new drawing each day, so come back and comment as often as you like!

Win a copy of Blue Moon Bay!

One Given away each day, Monday-Friday this week! Winners will be announced this weekend!

This week we'll be giving away five copies of Blue Moon Bay -- one each day, Monday through Friday. To enter, answer the question of the day!

TODAY'S QUESTION: Did you share a special childhood experience with a sibling, cousin, or best friend? Tell us about it!

This week's five book winners will be announced here on SouthernBelleView this Sunday, so don't forget to check back to see if you won! If you'd like an email (in case you win) be sure to leave an email address (or a Facebook handle) in your comment. Good luck, everybody!

Blue Moon Bay hits the shelves Feb 1st!

Click here to read the first Chapter and learn about the upcoming Join the Cast contest!

Click here to order!

Eating Light, Blogging Lighter

2012-01-26T23:55:00.000-08:00

Hello SBV community! This post is going to be what my Mama would call "a lick and a promise". Or else she would say, "Shellie Charlene, you need get back in here and lick that calf over again." Granted, my sisters and I found that second saying entirely distasteful when she would direct it towards us in our growing up years, but what are you going to do? It's a Southern thing!

I was about to close shop tonight with an eye towards an early a.m. wakeup call that will have me hitting the road to Tyler, TX. I'm excited about speaking at the Cowgirl Get-Together 2012 this weekend. It was described to me as a redneck Women of Faith event and if that doesn't have my name all over it-- what does?

Then it hit me-- "THURSDAY night! I'm up on the porch in the morning!"-- which explains the aforementioned calf, at least if you're still following me. And seriously, kudos to you if you are. My brain is cramping from the day's activities. As I mentioned on Twitter, I've kept the balls in the air and the plates spinning. Clown girl here was just one bearded lady short of a three-ring circus.

But, the subject if eating light, isn't it? Here's my offering. It's my fav new side. It's quick, it's easy, and it's good for you. What more could a girl ask. (Okay, I'd give my eye tooth for an assistant who is willing to be paid in Starburst Jelly Beans, but that may be asking too much, huh?)

Bodacious Broccoli: Take the flowers off of your broccoli and toss them in a few tablespoons of olive oil to coat. Spread on cookie sheet. Sprinkle with a tablespoon of brown sugar, lemon juice and minced garlic. (Please don't fit and fall out over that little bit of brown sugar and please don't omit it. The brown sugar does this heavenly caramelizing thing. Thank you. )

Broil for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. Salt and pepper to taste and top with grated Parmesan. Have mercy. If it wasn't so late, I'd make some right now. Y'all take care and have a fantastic weekend!

Hugs,
Shellie

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson is a speaker, author, and radio host who values her jobs and mama and grandmama more than all of the others combined. She would write a proper bio here if her brain was still functioning, which it isn't. Maybe next week. Maybe not.

If you followed this post and you do not think you are any worse for wear, please say "amen" and "hallelujah" in the comment section.

Cooking Lighter

2012-01-26T03:00:00.000-08:00

(Picture from Hip to be Fit.)

Last fall I decided it was time to drop a few pounds. I've about fifteen to go, but I lost twelve.

I downloaded a calorie tracker on my iPad. Since my iPad lives in my kitchen, I've no excuse to not log my calories.

I bought a food scale. One of the things I realized was I was eating more than I needed or thought. I weigh my food, especially meat and my kryptonite, chips.

I keep fruit and veggies on hand, readily accessible. I love peanut butter with apples or celery. Peanut butter makes for a nice mid afternoon snack.

But here's the thing I learned that I love! Steaming. Yep. I steam a lot of my cooked meals.

Like Marybeth, I have breakfast every morning. One egg, one egg white along with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and spinach. If I don't feel like cutting up an onion or tomato, I'll leave them out, but I make some kind of omelet.

When the eggs are mostly cooked, I pour in a small bit of water and cover the skillet. I let the dish steam for a few minutes, add some cheese, then slip on to a plate. The steam cooks the veggies all of the way and creates a light, fluffy omelet. Very filling and yummy.

I do the same with meat like ground beef, ground lamb or chicken. Even chicken strips or cut up steak. I brown the meat, add my vegetables along with spices I like, then steam the dish until the meat is cooked well.

Along with a great, calorie friendly dish, I have a bit of juice full of nutrition from fresh meat and veggies. It's a great way to make a bowl of chili for one!

So, if dropping a few pounds is on your 2012 goal list, try measuring your food, and steaming your dishes in a small skillet to get a quick, tasty meal.

And for dessert? Cherries in the Snow. This is an amazing, light dish and seriously easy.

1. Take angel food cake and pinch it into pieces.

2. Add a large tub of light cool whip and fold it into the pinched pieces.

3. Pour on top two regular size cans of light cherry pie filling.

4. Refrigerate until time to serve.

So good! I like cherries best - but you can do apples, strawberries, blueberries - if it is in pie filling can - you can try it.

***

Rachel Hauck writes novels from her tower in central Florida. Visit her web site to learn more about her books and how to find her on social media.

Healthy Eating Week!

2012-01-25T03:00:00.000-08:00

3 years ago I lost 30 pounds by changing my eating habits and starting an exercise habit. During that time I learned the importance of eating breakfast. I had always (read: always) skipped breakfast, thinking I was saving the calories and therefore losing weight. But as I aged that logic stopped working. My metabolism ground to a screeching halt. I had to do something to jumpstart it again. Imagine my surprise when I learned that breakfast was part of that jumpstart! The way my husband explained it is, your body is in fast mode overnight-- which means it hangs onto your fat stores in case of famine. When you skip breakfast, it stays in fast mode, which means it has no intention of letting go of those fat stores. It sounds like reverse logic to eat in order to lose weight but... it works!

Of course this does not mean waking up to a big carb-laden feast. I'm not mandating pancakes or sausage biscuits or donuts. I'm saying to pick out fruits and proteins to get you going-- berries, grapefruit, even a banana. And for protein it's easy to have some hardboiled eggs already made or nuke a few pieces of turkey bacon. If you're like me, time is of the essence at breakfast, so coming up with some grab-and-go options is key. I eat 2 slices of turkey bacon and a grapefruit sprinkled with Stevia most every day.

One option I like for a little breakfast variety is making a smoothie. So I will link to this post by Martha Stewart herself. This smoothie includes oatmeal and berries and other stuff that's good for you. And it has grab-and-go potential!

If you don't eat breakfast, try to get in the habit of eating it again. I think you'll see good results for both your health and your weight!

Guilt-Free Cheesecake by Beth Webb Hart

2012-01-24T03:00:00.000-08:00

Cheesecake. Is there a better dessert in the universe? I can remember trying my first bite of sweet fluffy bliss when I was seven-years-old, and from then on out it was the cake I always wanted for my birthday or any other special occasion.

I make it my business to know where I can find the best cheesecake within driving distance. Right now, in the South Caroina lowcountry, there is an ongoing battle in my mind between the cheesecake at East Bay Deli in downtown Charleston (which happens to come from New York’s Carnegie Deli)and the Liberty Café’s cheesecake from Kaminsky’s in Mount Pleasant.

Sadly, I can’t eat cheesecake daily, or I’d never be able to make it through the doorway, much less sit comfortably in my computer chair. So, when I want to indulge I try this guilt-free mini cheesecake recipe (below) and I feel quite satiated.

I tried them for the first time a few months ago while at a baby shower, and when I confessed to my friend who made them just how many I had partaken of she said, “No worries. They’re very low fat.” (Whew.)

These little bites of low fat deliciousness yield 96 pieces and are perfect for a church gathering, luncheon or shower. Enjoy!

Guilt-Free Mini Cheesecakes

3 (8 oz.) pkgs. low fat or fat free cream cheese
1 c. light sour cream
1 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. vanilla
1 box reduced fat vanilla wafers
1 can cherry pie filling

Beat all ingredients, except vanilla wafers and cherry pie filling, until fluffy. Drop 1 vanilla wafer into paper baking cup in a cupcake pan. Top wafer with cream cheese filling until 3/4 filled. Repeat process until all filling is used.

Bake at 350°F degrees for 15 minutes. Top with cherry pie filling.

Yields 96 mini cheesecakes.

P.S. If you don’t like cherry filling, top with fresh whip cream or fresh cut strawberries instead.

For more information on Beth Webb Hart and her novels click here

Healthy New Year, Healthy New You! Low-Guilt Recipes from Lisa Wingate

2012-01-22T19:46:00.000-08:00

Aren't the holidays wonderful? All the food, all the fun, all the family stories! And did I mention... the food? I grew up in a family filled with great cooks, then married into a big Texas family that's all about good food. It wouldn't be a gathering of the kinfolk without wall-to-wall chow, a dozen kinds of pie, snacks and bric-a-brac, and at least something flavored up with bacon grease. Top that off with whatever the relatives pick at Wal-Mart on the way, and holiday time at our house is pretty close to an overeater's heaven.

Which, of course, means that, for me, the diet begins on January 1st. Part of my new year's healthy-eating plan always includes pulling out a few family favorites--things my mama made that are healthy fare, but that still qualify as comfort food. Soup fills bill, especially in the winter, so I asked my mom to write up a few of our faves and also share a bit about where the recipes came from.

Here's what Mom offered up:

French Onion Soup

Many years ago we had a French lady for a family friend. She had married a U.S serviceman, moved to the states and they had three sons; sweet boys who didn’t mind entertaining our younger children when we got together. Lucie did some fabulous cooking for the families and taught me many new recipes, but the one that has been the most often used and remained in my repertoire until this day is the French Onion Soup. As Lucie explained it, this soup was an old standby in French homes because the ingredients were sure to be on hand and it could be put together quickly and nearly everyone loved it. It was often made when the family returned late in the evening from church or some entertainment or even after a house party. Many U.S. restaurants serve it with the Swiss cheese melted on the top, but this is the way Lucie taught it to me.

Ingredients: Day old bread sliced thin or in cubes. This would be French bread, baguettes with crusty edges. It can be used several days after the baking in fact. HINT: Just to be sure I can make French Onion Soup whenever I have a hankering and because I often don’t keep bakery bread around, when I have some leftover baguettes or rolls, I slice them, let them dry and store them in a baggie. I just pull out a few of these dry slices when the urge to make this soup hits me.

Swiss cheese. Cut or buy a bag of shredded. Since we're making the healthy version of this recipe, just add a sprinkle to your soup. If you want to go all-out for a special occasion, you can add more cheese. The better the cheese, the better the soup.

Beef broth. If you have some leftover broth from a slow cooker meal, skim off all fat and use that. Lucie, though used some kind of French bouillon cubes and I’ve never found ones that good. I use canned beef consommé, adding a little water because it’s a concentrate.

Sweet onions. I use Texas sweet onions, but you might like Videlias or other sweet onions. I like to cut them and break into sections about a quarter inch by 2 inches roughly. Diced tastes the same, of course, but it isn’t as pretty.

Butter. You don’t use a lot, but a little real butter is the only thing that will sauté the onions and give the right flavor. Freshly ground sea salt and freshly ground peppercorns to taste.

Recipe for one bowl: Prepare your soup bowl by putting a small handful of bread pieces in the bottom. This would be about 3 or four thin baguette slices. Sprinkle about ½ cup of Swiss over the bread. In a small frying pan, slowly sauté about 1/2 cup onion pieces in a small amount of butter and provide enough heat that the onions caramelize and brown just a little but not so much that the butter burns. Add ½ can of consommé and about ¼ can of water. Heat this stirring the caramelization up into the broth with a flat spoon or spatula. When you’re happy with it and it feels right, pour the soup over the bread and cheese in the bowl. You won’t need much salt, but I like a fair amount of black pepper ground onto it.

To me, it’s a whole meal and if I add anything at all perhaps a few carrot or celery sticks would be nice.
__________________________________________________________

Totally Vegetarian Soup

That is totally healthy, totally harmless, totally enjoyable…

Open a large can of whole tomatoes. Definitely whole tomatoes. The diced, pureed, and other versions are just not as good. Put it in a large saucepan, breaking up the tomatoes with your fingers as you add them.

Add about ¾ cup of water and some beef concentrate or add one can of beef consommé. Start heating this. Start heating and add about ½ cup of baby carrots, then about one small onion diced, then about 2 stalks of celery diced.

Sometimes I put in some diced bell pepper, sometimes not. Definitely add about ¾ cups shredded cabbage. Season with about 1 Tablespoon salt, ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper and add a little basil or garlic if you wish.

Cook for a while until nice and done – maybe about 45 minutes. There just aren’t many calories here, no carbs to speak of, and it’s pretty satisfying. It makes a great lunch along with a few rice crackers or pretzels. It’s also a good thing to curb the appetite by eating about 20 minutes before your main meal.

Yum! Thanks, Mom!

Good eats on the porch this week! Don't forget to stop by the rest of the week and see what the other Belles have to share!

Blue Moon Bay hits the shelves Feb 1st!

Click here to read the first Chapter and learn about the upcoming Join the Cast contest!

Click here to order!

Love Lifted Me Winners

2012-01-22T12:40:00.001-08:00

Hey all,

Thanks for stopping by the porch this week and talking about Life Interrupted. We appreciate all the belles so much.

Here are the winners of Love Lifted Me. Send your snail mail address to me at rachelhauck at gmail dot com.

Friday Winner

Virginia

Thursday Winner

Jess

Wednesday Winner

Dr. Wegmann

Tuesday Winner

Cristin

Monday Winner

Rhonda in SC

Bonus Winner

Judy John

Love Lifted Me, the Belleabration Continues

2012-01-19T23:30:00.000-08:00

Belle Thursday, also known as Rachel Hauck, scores again with Love Lifted Me. Written with country music singer Sara Evans, it’s the story of a betrayed wife trying to find the courage to start over on a number of levels. It’s not hard to get in Jade’s skin as she struggles to deal with a life she didn’t plan, after the one she envisioned evaporates into thin air.

Like the other belles who’ve shared with us this week, I know a thing or two about having a game plan that refuses to stick to the script. Who doesn’t? I’ll speak entirely for myself though when I say that my challenge is trying to deal with plan B (or C, or D) without throwing a hissy fit and falling in it.

I had just such an opportunity recently when one of my highly anticipated and well thought out plans took a kick in the chops at the onset, leaving me to regain my balance in plain view of God and everybody. That’s always fun, isn’t it?

So, here’s my take-away from that one. In the very middle of what was for me a maddeningly moment, I was struck with the realization that my reaction held potential that went much further than me, myself, and I. The low road meant I could protect “me”, the high road meant I could preserve a relationship that just might, one day, make an eternal difference to the other people involved.

The little epiphany of my own personal moment brings me full circle back to Jade, the main character in Love Lifted Me. Early in an unwanted detour, despite her own pain, Jade makes a choice out of pure compassion in the life of another helpless soul that ends up being a determining factor in her own future. It’s simple, really. Regardless of the scope of the detour, none of us like it when our plans are changed and our schedules interrupted, but the more we’re able to see the potential our reactions have on those around us, the greater our resolve might be to roll with the punches. And that sounds like a win, win for all involved.

Hugs,
Shellie

Win a copy of Love Lifted Me!

One Given away each day, Monday-Friday this week!

This week, thanks to Rachel's publisher, we'll be giving away five copies of Love Lifted Me -- one each day, Monday through Friday. To enter, answer the question of the day! TODAY'S QUESTION: What has been your biggest takeaway from this week's discussion?

This week's five book winners will be announced here on SouthernBelleView this Sunday, so don't forget to check back to see if you won! If you'd like an email (in case you win) be sure to leave an email address (or a Facebook handle) in your comment. Good luck, everybody!

Life Unexpected. Love Lifted Me and the Belle Book Club

2012-01-19T03:00:00.000-08:00

The heroine of Love Lifted Me, Jade Benson, faced a lot of unexpected trials in her life.

From chasing her father down the road at midnight as he drove away from the family to a broken heart and abortion to death and infidelity.

While some have touted the Songbird Novels as southern soap operas, much of real life is imitated in fiction.

Sometimes real life is wilder than any fiction I could dream up, or the rest of us belles on the porch.

"What if... Jade discovers her husband has a pain pill addiction and an illegitimate son?"

"Naw, who would believe it."

But it happens every day.

I prefer the quiet life. I've been blessed with little drama in my life. But as I was writing Jade and Max's final story last spring, life unexpected came my way.

A home we admired became available. But we had no plans to move. We had no resources to move. But when I told God I'd be willing, He said yes.

Within a matter of weeks, we bought a new house, practically a gift to us by the sellers, sold our old house, and six weeks later, I turned in Love Lifted Me and started painting my new home.

I never expected a new home to be the answer to my prayers. We'd been carrying some debt -- part of my life as an artist -- and a debt for a friend. I'd been asking the Lord to remedy the situation.

I never imagined His answer would be a new house. As soon as we moved, guest started dropping by. We've had more company the last six months than the last six years in our old home.

In the fall, I had another unexpected. A move to a new publisher. It was and is a joyous move though I'll miss the friends and relationships at my old publishing house.

It seemed 2011 was a change for Jade and Max, moving to a new state, taking on a new job, embracing a life as parents. And 2011 was a change for me and my husband.

Change happens. We can't avoid it. We must expect it. So prepare for it. Keep our hearts and minds wide open to the One who planned good works for us to walk in before the foundation of the world.

The Sierra Mist commercial has it right, "Life comes at you fast." Say "Yes" to Him and He'll give you grace as you walk through the unexpecteds.

***

Win a copy of Love Lifted Me!

One Given away each day, Monday-Friday this week! Winners will be announced this weekend!

This week we'll be giving away five copies of Love Lifted Me -- one each day, Monday through Friday. To enter, answer the question of the day!

TODAY'S QUESTION: How have life's unexpected moments blessed you?

This week's five book winners will be announced here on SouthernBelleView this Sunday, so don't forget to check back to see if you won! If you'd like an email (in case you win) be sure to leave an email address (or a Facebook handle) in your comment. Good luck, everybody!

Rachel Hauck is one of the Belles, a position she values highly. She lives in central Florida and writes from her brown tower.

Life Interrupted

2012-01-18T03:00:00.000-08:00

This week we're all huddled together on the porch, sipping hot chocolate and gabbing about Love Lifted Me, the new book by fellow Belle Rachel Hauck and the country music singer Sara Evans. The story of Jade's own life interrupted experience has prompted many a digression about our own life interrupted moments. (Ever notice how hard it is to not go off on a tangent when you're with your girlfriends? We talk in circles around here, eventually, hopefully, circling back to actually finish a sentence or complete a thought.)

But I digress... See I did it already!

One of the the things I struggle with when my life gets interrupted is seeing it as an opportunity and not an intrusion. In my head I know that interruptions are sometimes God's way of getting our attention. But my actions don't always reflect that. I pout about my plans getting messed up. I get angry with the people who messed it up (I won't use names but you can probably guess who they are.) I call a friend and dissect the interruption, because sometimes you just gotta vent. Mostly I don't have the attitude I should. I don't go around praising and thanking God for the interruption, looking for His hand in the midst of it all.

But I want to be that way, I do. I want to live life expecting the interruptions, then embracing them. I want to hold my plans loosely, never so set in my ways that I can't be open to alternatives. Because a secret I'm learning is this: I don't always have the best way, much as I like to think I do. Sometimes my best way is a backwards way. Sometimes my best way is not very smart. Sometimes my best way won't bring about the best for everyone else. Sometimes my best way is just plain lazy. Sometimes doing it another way would bring about good for someone else, would improve my character, would take me a way I'd never have gone otherwise.

And so I try to think about that when life gets interrupted by sick children and unexpected financial setbacks, by health crises and broken down cars, by tough situations with loved ones and responsibilities we want to shirk altogether. I'm learning to find God's best-- and not my own-- in these interruptions. Maybe I'll never beatifically smile when one comes my way. But maybe-- with practice-- I'll learn to look past the interruption, at that little glimmer in the distance that is hope; that feeling that something better might just be lurking around the corner, if only I'll be willing to go a different-- unexpected-- direction.

Win a copy of Love Lifted Me!

One Given away each day, Monday-Friday this week!

This week, thanks to Rachel's publisher, we'll be giving away five copies of Love Lifted Me -- one each day, Monday through Friday. To enter, answer the question of the day!

TODAY'S QUESTION: How have you learned to embrace interruptions instead of resist them? Please! I need tips!

This week's five book winners will be announced here on SouthernBelleView this Sunday, so don't forget to check back to see if you won! If you'd like an email (in case you win) be sure to leave an email address (or a Facebook handle) in your comment. Good luck, everybody!

Marybeth Whalen is one of the Belles, a position she values highly. She also holds other positions she values highly-- wife, mom, and novelist. And friend. And daughter, cousin, sister, etc. She enjoys sharing her thoughts about all of it here at Southern Belle View and on her personal blog at www.marybethwhalen.com