What a Wonderful World
I recently came back from a family cruise to the Mexican Riviera with my entire family. My dad, mom, brothers, sister, all the in laws and the all the grandchildren. It was so many shades of fabulous that i could gush for several pages, but I will spare you all that gushing by simply saying, “Wow!”
It was fun. Yes, of course it was fun, but more than that it was wonderful to reconnect with my family that way. We had no distractions of our regular lives to take us away from each other. We ate meals together, went on walks on the track that overlooked the pacific ocean and watched the sun sink into its watery bed, and simply *enjoyed* the world around us.
I’m home now and though I hated the laundry mountain that had to be tackled at the end of the trip–I regret absolutely nothing (except not being able to finish that last chocolate melting cake on the last night of the cruise)
My boys have the Klondike Derby today for scouts where they will be sleeping out in the snow capped mountains over night. They left me the stuff they wanted to take in huge piles on the living room floor so I could organize the stuff into something manageable–no one packs like I do. I was in the midst of writing little Mom-Loves-You notes and tucking them into various pockets of their rucksacks when I was thinking about all the really beautiful things I’d seen on the cruise and on shore.
The rain forests, the sunsets, the pod of dolphins, the whales, the caves by the sea, the way the waves would swell before crashing on the shore and as each wave crested, it revealed schools of colorful fish that I hadn’t noticed before. Beaches of sand so light, you almost felt you were sinking into it, the simple joy of feeding an orange to a parrot.
Each little bit of uncovered beauty felt like a note carefully hidden in one of the pockets of my life for me to find at some unexpected moment saying that God loves me. I don’t what your religious affiliations are and don’t know that you don’t think I am intensely corny for feeling this way, but regardless of your beliefs, you have to admit, we live in a truly wonderful world.
It’s nice to get little reminders that the world is good and there are great people in it. Family is awesome.
Launch Party for Olivia!
I don’t know how much I’ve shared about my experience with writing the novel Olivia, but I am so excited to announce its release! Olivia,-the first book in the Newport Ladies Book Club series was shipped to stores today! This means that in the next week-ish this beautiful cover will be looking at you from book store shelves:
Olivia
How it all started was Josi and I went on a booktour in 2009.
Josi and Julie Booktour
I’m really glad we put the date in the picture because I’m a little flaky when it comes to remembering stuff like that. And don’t you love our toes. Josi treated me to my first ever pedicure. I tell you people–she is the friend to have! It was a great experience (the whole thing, not just the pedicure). Josi is the sort of person I can talk to all day and all night and never get tired of it. She is an amazing woman. Even when she’s feeling evil . . .
Josi grinning in evil joy
Josi likes to keep a strict time schedule. This is a good thing, since I tend to be flaky about schedules too. I wanted to stop every few minutes while on the road because there were lots of cool things to see. We’d basically planned the tour right down to the minute which means had Josi given in to me, we would have been late to everything. So I had to settle for to settle for drive-by Photography:
Drive by Photo
While we were driving, we talked about everything. We talked about books. We talked about books we really liked. We talked about authors who wrote books we really liked. Then Josi had an idea. A brilliant, magnificent, WONDERFUL idea.
I’d like to claim it as my own, but really I was just in the passenger seat listening to her tell me her brilliant, magnificent, WONDERFUL idea. The important thing to remember here is that *I* was in the car when it happened, and therefore my contribution of being present was vital.
The idea was to get with two other authors, ones of the awesome book-writing variety, and two who we really loved and wanted with us, and write a series with them. Not just any series, but a series where the stories interconnect and weave together.
Four Women.
Four Books.
Four lives changed through friendship.
See! I told you it was brilliant!
We met with Annette Lyon and Heather Moore for breakfast when we got home and pitched the idea to them. We were all on board. And that was the birthplace of the Newport Ladies Book Club. We each wrote from the viewpoint of a different character so in each of the books, you’ll get some of that character’s story, but only by reading all four books will you get the full picture or find out the endings to the other character’s stories. It was great fun to write the books–to get together and discuss the characters. We’d be typing away and then one of us would look up and say, “Oh, by the way, your character is going to do this in the second meeting.” or “Hey, what color is your character’s hair again?” And wow. Reading the finished products? WOW. Each story is so unique and interesting and beautiful.
And Olivia has been shipped to stores today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (insert freakish girl scream here).
We are celebrating the release of the Newport Ladies Book Club:
Saturday February 18th 1-3 PM
Deseret Book 1110 FORT UNION BLVD MIDVALE, UT 84047
There will be food and prizes and fun and BOOKS!
Please come join me in the celebration!
And the Winner is . . .
The YA giveaway hop is now over. But wow was that fun while it was going!! Sadly, there can be only one winner. You were all so great I wish I could send everybody something, but maybe next time . . .
I am celebrating for the winner, see . . .
I’m a dork, I know. It’s okay.
Tiffany Drew @enterthedrew is the winner! Yay Tiffany!
Have a great day everyone!
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