I slowly raised my hand when the visiting pastor asked who wants change in their life. He looked at me and told me, "I have nothing for you, you need to write, just write. Your story needs to be heard." We were barely hitting top speed, flying down the hill, and the sound that blasted through the trees and above the pebbles scared us all. It was the blast of a horn from a log truck. This bellowing booming sound meant get out of the way! Our laughter turned into fear as we all turned back to see a large empty log truck barreling at us. Growing up in the heart of the deep East Texas woods with three channels on TV, we could not help but take our adventures outside. These stories will take you down the red dirt road we called home. We raced log trucks in a makeshift buggy, nearly burnt down Granny's house, danced in her shoes, created clubhouses out of anything not tied down, plus so many more. Looking back at these adventures, we laugh and wonder how we made it without broken bones or, worse, mishaps. We made it with prayer and a family's love for God and us. With each adventure you read, you will find a lesson learned I discovered along the way forty plus years later as I have grown into my faith. It's been there all along, all I needed was to slow down and be still.
"Founder of the Best Ever You Network Elizabeth Hamilton-Guarino offers her unique process to facilitate change in any area of our lives. Based on her 10 Points of Change she shows readers how to align their intentions with their goals to overcome the biggest stumbling blocks to change whether it is a planned transition or something that life has surprised us with. Filled with exercises, journaling prompts, and success stories of others who have made breakthroughs in their lives, she shows readers how to face change with focus, energy, gratitude, and introspection"--
This is an eclectic and thought-provoking book, best defined as a modern day fairy tale in which the dreams and lives of four people are inexorably linked together across time, bound by love, friendship, heartache and fateDuring the London Blitz a young woman, Iris, has a vision while reading Tarot cards of two lovers in great peril and knows it will be her destiny to help them. Meanwhile Robert, a wounded and repressed Battle of Britain pilot, dreams of happiness and of a love he believes he can never have.In another time, Charlie, a troubled little boy with amazing blue-green eyes growing up in the repressed suburbs of 1950s South London, dreams of the number ‘80’ and knows only that it means something terrible and evil. Elsewhere, a dark, disturbed man dreams repeatedly of Charlie and knows it is his destiny to kill him.This time-travelling tale moves between present day Dulwich, World War Two London, the gay bars of the 1970s, Eva Peron’s Buenos Aires and Glastonbury Tor in 1989. It is a tale of great love and loss, destiny, tragedy, spiritual transformation and self-acceptance. It asks questions about how much of our lives are destined and how much can be altered and about what the effects of unintentional time travel would be on very ordinary people. This book can be interpreted on many different levels. On one it is a murder-mystery, on another an allegorical tale of spiritual transformation, on a third, a complex tale of two gay men’s individual journeys into adulthood and on a fourth, a simple and beautiful love story.
An inspirational guide for visualizing and actualizing success on a personal and professional level. Author Elizabeth Hamilton-Guarino, master life coach and founder of The Best Ever You Network has long espoused that we must redefine success for our authentic selves—a one-size fits-all-concept is not only outdated but unworkable. Success is so much more than data or the dollars in our bank account. True success is reflected in the smiles that brighten our faces and the peace that settles in our hearts. It's the gratitude we seek in all things and the intention and actions being our very best in each moment. In The Success Guidebook, readers will find inspiration, motivation, and a pathway to live their best, most fulfilling life. By implementing Elizabeth’s unique Ten Factors of Success—the behaviors consistently exhibited by people who stand out and behave with world-class excellence—readers will learn how to finally overcome the stubborn obstacles that have stood in their way and harness the power to move forward with clarity, a renewed purpose, and the personalized confidence to build a life of bold, brave, and infinite possibilities. Included are profiles of 20 people who exemplify these principles. Here’s the secret: You don’t need to be on a national or international platform to be world-class. You can have it right in your own home, to be and feel successful in each and every moment of your life. This book will help you learn how to tap into world-class behaviors and get the results you desire—at last.
When Doreen "Dodo" Bussey's family moves to a new home, her mother gives her a blank notebook in which Dodo documents her new life, from the move and first days in a new city, to her new school and friends.
These award winning plays were written by Wahoo High School students for the Lincoln (Nebraska) Community Playhouse's, Enersen Playwriting Contest. One of the sixteen plays, Kate Decoste's, "Until My Last Breath," is about a girl coping with AIDS after one sexual encounter over summer vacation. Another selection, Amanda Hall and Melissa Swanson's, "A Gorilla's Way of Wagging Its Tail," is about five friends visiting a Gypsy. As she predicts the future and reveals secrets buried in the past, the kids learn that everyone's future starts with today's decisions. In Ian Richmond's, "The Kids Are All Right," a group of friends write poems and share them with their friends in order to deal with their feelings, express their ideas, and survive family problems. As they try to figure out God and their place in the world, their friendship and poetry allows them to believe that, at least for another day, they will be all right! This book brings together in one place, for the first time, the three Wahoo High School plays that captured first prize in the Enersen Playwriting Contest: "Until My Last Breath," by Kate DeCoste, "The Locket," by Peggy Sharp, and "An Identical Stranger," by Megan Rezac. As you read this book, you will discover the joy of young writers finding their "voice" for the first time.
Our 1935 black Oldsmobile and heavily-loaded trailer drew hostile looks as we drove into Bakersfield and stopped at a shady park to check the tires. When Mother, Daddy, we two girls and our young brother, Skippy, got out, two work-hardened men in ranch straw hats and short-sleeved cotton shirts stood staring suspiciously at our California license plates. "Had those plates on long?" the shorter man challenged Daddy. "Guess you'd say so," Daddy answered pleasantly. Mother's hands were settling on her hips, a sure sign her indignation would be expressed verbally at the first sign of an insult from the men. The taller man took a step toward Daddy. "Hope you're not looking for farm work in Bakersfield 'cause there isn't any." Deliberately the man spat on the curb. "Every damn fool in Texas, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma is either here or on Route 66 trying to get here in some beat-up jalopy. Not enough cotton or potatoes in all of Kern County to keep half of them busy." "No," Daddy said evenly. "Not looking for work. Just looking to head out of here in a few minutes." While Daddy circled our car and trailer, Mother glared at the men, snapped open her white envelope purse and drew out a bottle of Coty's Emeraude, dabbing a drop behind each ear. "It's so much hotter here than in Lynwood," she said loftily. "I don't know how people can stand it." Turning her back on the Bakersfield men she added, "Come on, children, let's get back in the car. And don't step in that filth on the sidewalk." As Daddy pulled away from the curb, Mother fanned herself with her purse. "Imagine, Bruce, you, a civil engineer looking for farm work. I'd like to have given those Bakersfield men a piece of my mind, and I would have too if your work weren't so secret. They treated us as if we were Dust Bowl migrants!" In California in 1935 twenty percent of the country's labor force was unemployed, and hobos regularly knocked on back doors for handouts. To survive in the Great Depression, our father had taken a job with an oil exploration party in the San Joaquin Valley. Our family packed up and left southern California to join him. Between 1900 and 1936 California led the nation in petroleum production. Oil companies, certain that great reserves of oil still lay hidden, sent exploration crews, called doodlebug parties, throughout California to find new fields. The intense competition among oil companies mandated secrecy concerning doodlebug party movements. By setting explosives off in a series of holes, doodlebuggers would measure the echoes and make a seismic record that might indicate the presence of oil. Our new life was scary because we girls, Nancy, age 10 and Sunny, 12, had been allowed to make the decision whether to follow our father or remain in comfortably familiar Lynwood, just south of Los Angeles. Still, we knew that our father felt fortunate to be holding a job, even one that worked a hardship on his wife and children. We left our home in Southern California and headed north over the Ridge Route, towing our possessions behind our car in a small canvas-covered trailer. Even though the security of our family unit buffered us against hardships, we girls were apprehensive. Still, we were excited about the new life that was unfolding. DOODLEBUG DAYS takes place in a California with a population of only six million. The Valley towns in which we lived were small and agricultural with tight-knit established families. For the employed, life was less complicated than it is today. Radios, not televisions, were prominently enshrined in each living room. In the small towns up and down the Valley, people pulled their kitchen chairs close to their radio to listen to President Roosevelt's fireside chats as he discussed solutions to the problems that marked the era.
William Faulkner once said, "To understand the South one must be born in it." My goal is to bring a bit of my world into yours. A world full of wonder, laughter, guilt and imagination. And to bring these mad characters to life in their own magical way. After all, just like beauty, madness is in the eye of the beholder.
The Big Book of Holiday Paper Crafts, -Life's fun days are the focus of more than 450 cards, gift bags, boxes, albums, frames, party accents, and more from Paper Crafts magazine.
