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Book 1 of Smoky Mountain Series only $1.99 during June

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

SET FREE COVER - GREEN BKRD # 1Detective Maddison Holt is a man who loves God, but after facing a tragic loss, and accepting the guilt for causing that tragedy, he finds himself doubting both God and himself. Grief, guilt, and self-condemnation are keeping him from being free to love or even receive love from the woman the Lord wants to bless him with for the rest of his life. His journey into the truth that can set him free and give him another chance to love is the story you’ll find in SET FREE TO LOVE.

But Maddison’s story is just the beginning. Because once you get Maddison and Beth on their way to a happily-ever-after, you’ll find that several of the other characters in Book # 1 wanted a book of their own as well. And so the series grows. Four books currently make up the Smoky Mountain family of novels — each with its own hero who faces a challenge that only God’s love and power can overcome. There are more to come, and, hopefully, once you read Maddison’s story, you’ll want to read them all.

SET FREE TO LOVE went on sale yesterday at the Kindle store on Amazon.com. For the rest of June, you can purchase it for only $1.99. Check it out. And if you don’t have a Kindle, no problem. Amazon has a free Kindle app for any device you use. You can download it right from the page where you order SET FREE TO LOVE.

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Insufficient in My Duties??? – Taking a Survey

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

WOMAN VACUUMING`

It would appear that I am a less than satisfactory housekeeper. Now, I have never tried to pass myself off as a ‘perfect’ housekeeper,’ but I thought I at least passed muster. I mean, my house is seldom in ‘apple-pie’ order, but what needs to be clean is clean, and most of the time people can walk through my house from front to back without tripping over anything or needing to dance around junk sitting out in the way. But recently, after talking to a close acquaintance, I got to remembering conversations with others over the passed few years,  and suddenly I find that I seem to be out in left field somewhere in the housekeeping department.

So I’m taking a survey. Now, I’m sure most of you won’t bother to answer these questions. But if a few of you good souls would be so kind, I would really appreciate your time and attention. I just need to find out how far into left field I have drifted in my housekeeping duties. So here goes. Just leave me a note in my “Comments” section with your answers. These questions are for readers of both genders because men are often as good a housekeepers as ladies. So please, guys, put in your two cents’ worth as well.

I’m hoping, of course, to find a few souls out there who fall into the same bracket I seem to be in, but don’t let my hopes influence you. BE HONEST. If I’m living in a dream world, thinking my house is clean and I have nothing to feel guilty about, I need to know it now.

Here are the questions:

  1. Do you vacuum your walls?
  2. Do you get down on your hands and knees and use a toothbrush to clean the edges of your tile where it meets the wall and the cabinets?
  3. Do you keep a towel handy to wipe down the sink every time you use it?
  4. Do you clean your toilet stool plunger with soap every time you use it for a messy job?(I’m not talking about swishing it in the clean water in the toilet bowl. I’m talking spraying bathroom cleanser on it and rinsing it several times)
  5. Do you wash all the windows, inside and out, every 6 months?
  6. Do you wash out all your garbage cans every week?
  7. When you dust, do you pick up every single book and figurine and dust it individually?
  8. Do you clean out and rearrange every dresser drawer and closet every year?
  9. Do you clean all your Venetian blinds every year?
  10. Do you vacuum or sweep under your beds every week?
  11. Do you vacuum behind your refrigerator and stove every week?
  12. Do you clean your coffee maker with vinegar every month the way the owner’s booklet advises?
  13. Do you move beds, sofas, and other big pieces of furniture every time you vacuum?
  14. Do you wash all the woodwork in your house every year?
  15. Do you get down on your hands and knees by your drive and/or sidewalk and use scissors to get the grass that was left by the hedge trimmer?

Now, this survey is easy for me because I have just one answer to all these questions. NO.

Maybe I should be ashamed. I’m not.  Well, at least I wasn’t —  but I may wait until I read some of your answers before I let myself off the hook.

Thanks for participating in my survey. You can feel free to pass it along if you like and reprint these questions on your own site to see what you can find out from your own readers. Well — that is — if you aren’t too busy cleaning.

 

 

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Daily Post Prompt: Sky – ‘Take Me to My Galaxies’

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Today’s Daily Post Prompt is ‘Sky.’   While considering a possible post on that subject, one of the first things I thought about was a program I listened to last week on National Public Radio concerning the night sky. The hosts shared that scientist now say the universe is so big that there are actually 13 galaxies out there for every human being on the face of the earth. Wow!  I’d certainly like to visit at least one of mine. How about you?

GALAXY DEEP SPACE -PUB DOM.
public-domain-image.com

 

 

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$.99 Sale – Two More Days

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

QUIVER FULL COVER - GOLDDon’t forget. My inspirational novel A Quiver Full of Arrows is on sale for $.99 at the Amazon Kindle store for two more days only.  On Friday morning, it goes back to its original list price of $2.99.

What’s it about?  Check out the description below. It will give you the picture in a nut shell — a peanut shell to be specific.

Peanut Shells! Piles of them around the front steps! Three days in a row! Where can they be coming from? Lawson Wainright isn’t sure, but he has a gut feeling that those shells, and the two sleeping bags he finds rolled up under his front porch, are somehow connected with four run-away children who have been in the news. And if he’s correct, his quiet, orderly life as a forty-year-old bachelor may be on the verge of being turned completely upside down.

Take a cast full of characters that will make the reader’s heart melt. Add a miracle or two from the hand of a loving God. And readers end up with a story that carries them through the troubles and struggles of life in an imperfect world and right into a somewhat surprising, but well-deserved, happy ending. The lesson learned by the end of the story: Sometimes trying too hard to do things according to accepted protocol can just get in the way of love.

An inspirational read for the whole family.

You’ll find the book at this link, and if you don’t have a Kindle, don’t let that stop you. Amazon offers a free Kindle app for any of your devices, and you can download it free right from the same page where you order the book.

 

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Daily Post Prompt: Circus

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

NO CLOWNS ALLOWEDI detest circuses!!!!!   Maybe I should add a dozen more exclamation points, because I don’t think the five used make the point effectively. Have I been to circuses?  Yes, but mainly because my family and boyfriend wanted to go. I’ve been to amateur party-entertainment circuses, I’ve been to moderate-sized professional circuses, and I’ve been to what is supposed to be the epitome of the circus world: the Ringling Brothers/Barnum & Bailey circus.

All of them are dirty, stinky, deplorable, detestable, and detrimental to my peace of mind. The acts presented are ridiculous — some of them even asinine — and the only thing in the “so-called entertainment world” that is more asinine is boxing. (I mean, come on: grown men spending their lives learning how to beat up other human beings, practicing until they are good at beating up other human beings, and then making their living for decades by beating up other human beings.  Sheeeeesh!)

And what about clowns???? I hate clowns.  They are one of the worst parts of the circus. I have never, in all my 60-plus years, been able to figure out why grown men and women actually want to put on abominably grotesque make up and clothes and go out in public for the purpose of acting like they are mentally deranged. And even in the Christian arena, I find clowning detestable. I have friends who think that if they dress up in some abominable clown costume, it will somehow help them spread the love of Jesus Christ to people.  For the life of me, I cannot understand that thinking!!! In fact, many children are actually afraid of clowns.  That fact should tell us something ……….

My detest of circuses has nothing to do with the animals, however. I love animals — wild and tame — but I don’t like the way they are treated or used at a circus, and I’d much rather see them in a responsible zoo where they can at least live with some measure of dignity in something close to their natural lifestyle. Of course, I’m sure there are some zoos that don’t treat animals well, but all the ones I’ve visited have been places where the animals are well cared for and presented in a habitat as close to what nature intended as possible.

I like visiting zoos, but will I ever go to a circus again?  Never.  I repeat: Never. In fact, I haven’t been to one since I was 21 years old — thank God.

So —– there you have it folks. My two-cents worth on the subject suggested by the Daily Post Prompt today. My apologies to anyone who performs in a circus if I hurt your feelings, but if you feel the circus is a worthwhile entity, then today’s prompt is your opportunity to sing its praises and share your side of the story.

 

 

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Prompt Nights 16: Rain

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Visit  “A Dash of Sunny” to get the details about participating.

RAIN IN CITY - ENLARGEDRAIN

I love rain:
The showers of spring that stir up life and its delightful scents.
The soft, warm summer rains I can walk in,
The cooling, freshening rains that end a scorching July drought,
The thundering, pounding rains of a sudden summer storm,
The steady, two-day autumn rains that intensify the unique scents and colors of my favorite season,
The gray, quiet winter rains that, thankfully, melt away the unwanted snow.

I love rain:
Rain moving in heavy curtains across the mountains,
Rain dripping from the roofs and trees all along my quiet street,
Rain gently soaking thirsty fields and gardens pregnant with seed,
Rain pounding the roof of the empty church where I pray alone,
Rain sweeping in gusts across my front porch where I stand delighting in its feel on my skin,
Rain in the city, blurring the ugly and adding an extra glisten to the lights and colors.

I love rain!

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Hey … There’s a Book Sale Going On!

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

BOW & ARROW -- QUIVER COVER FOR KINDLE - beige - NARROWED

My novel A Quiver Full of Arrows is on sale this week at the Kindle store on Amazon for only $.99.  That’s a savings of $2.00.  It will go back to list price in 6 days, 10 hours, and 51 minutes (from the time of this post).

It’s a story packed with delightful characters, God’s goodness, and a very satisfying ending.   (And I’m not prejudiced …… honest. )

Check out the more detailed description and make your purchase HERE.

And don’t forget: if you don’t own a Kindle, you can download a free Kindle app onto your computer, your iPad, or your iPhone and enjoy the story anyway.

 

 

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Along The River — a repeat post

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

I have posted this poem a couple times over the years, but today I found myself reading it again and being inspired by it. It is one of my own personal favorites of the countless poems I’ve written during my life, and I just decided I WANTED to post it again.

Exif JPEG


ALONG THE RIVER

The sun is playing hide and seek with clouds
Along the river.
The clouds are gray, but friendly, soft, and free
Along the river.

I move unhampered by the flirting breeze
Along the river
Breathing deeply of the moistened earth
Along the river.

Quiet now invades my mind and soul
Along the river.
I’m letting go of tumbling, troubled thoughts
Along the river.

My past recedes; my future quiet rests
Along the river,
And water speaks to waters deep within
Along the river.

I sit and contemplate historic past
Along the river
The generations served by this same stream
Along the river.

And sense that I belong to something great
Along the river
A part of something bigger than myself
Along the river.

And far beyond my power to understand,
Along the river,
An elemental knowing I am known —
And I am loved —
By the Creator of the river.

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Daily Post Prompt: Countless

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Visit the Daily Post to find out how to participate in today’s prompt.

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THE DECISION

`I’ve thought about you countless times this past year. I sometimes wish I hadn’t been so hasty to make the decision. There are days when I wake up thinking how good it would be to still have you beside me for a few hours. And, of course, every time I make the curried chicken casserole I think about you. It’s downright lonely in the kitchen these days. And I don’t even cook most of the time. I do carry-out.

I don’t order from our favorite Chinese place, though, and I don’t go in there anymore because they almost always ask me, with sadness in their eyes, how I’m doing now that you’re gone. That gentle couple who own the place really got to like you. I think you were probably their favorite customer during the three years we ate there. I miss the Chinese place, and some of the other haunts we made our own. But I’m finding new interests and new friends, and things will work out.

But — sometimes — on a summer evening — when the windows are open to the gentle night air and someone’s laughter floats across the breeze, it reminds me of your laugh. I think that’s one of the things I miss most about you. You were so abandoned when you thought something was funny. You never held back.

But then, as well as I can remember, you never held back on any emotion. And that fact, of course, is what finally led me to make my decision. You just couldn’t seem to hold back on your feelings for all the other men in your life — even my best friend — a man who I’d thought would have my back through thick and thin — especially after all we’d been through together in the war. But you were just too much for him. He fell just like all the others. And so I made the decision.

Yeah — as I consider it all again now — I know it was the right thing to do. It put a stop to the hurting for me and for all the rest of ’em too.

The only thing is that — on nights like tonight — with the fragrance of the roses you planted drifting in from the garden — and the radio playing an old song we used to dance to — well — I have to admit to myself at least — I do feel just a little sorry that I poisoned you.

 

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Prompt Nights: Imperfection is Beautiful

| Sandra Pavloff Conner

Visit Saana at “A Dash of Sunny” to find out how to participate in this challenge.

Well, I just had to have some fun with this week’s challenge. When this idea popped into my head, I knew I’d give in and write it out.

FACE LOOKING OVER SHOULDERSONG OF THE ELEVATED EGO

I find it oh so easy to detect the faults in you.
It doesn’t take much effort; quite a simple thing to do.
And the guy who stands beside you, and the girl from down the street —
Well, it’s clear that not a one of you could my high standards meet.

But I balk at your suggestion that I may myself have faults,
Or that I come short of perfect due to imperfections caught.
No, it just seems quite impossible that problems you could see,
For I’m the measuring standard: there is nothing wrong with me!

 

 

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