Mom's Day and News to Go

My mother and father on their wedding day in 1939. The photo is old, but this was a day of beginnings for my mother. A couple of years later she became a mom when my older sister was born. I came along the last of three daughters. She was the very best mother I could have had. A lot of people think that about their mothers, and that's good. But for me, my mom is best. Dad's been gone for over twenty years now and Mom at 91 is having some health struggles. Her memory is giving out on her and she doesn't get up and down easily. Things are hard, but she still tries to hang in there and live the best she can. 

I wrote about her as "My Mother, My Friend, My Character" in a guest blog for Bookreporter.com  http://blog.bookreporter.com/blog/2011/05/ann-h-gabhart-my-mother-my-friend-my-character. She and her stories were so instrumental in getting a true historical background for Angel Sister. 

My mother got married the day after she graduated from high school. She was 19. In a few years our country was plunged into war. Dad didn't get called up because he was a farmer, but two of mom's sisters' husbands went into the service. Both came home but many men did not. Tom Brokaw wrote a book titled The Greatest Generation. I read his book and I think he got the title right. But that's another post for another day. This is a day to honor mothers. I have a beautiful mother who loved me. I don't think I could ask for any more. Not only that, but I love being a mother. Each of my children were and are still a blessing to me. And now their families are added on blessings.

  

I talked about being a mom and my mom too in a newsletter I sent out yesterday. I have been trying to get going on a new newsletter for a while, but that deadline kept glaring at me. It still is, but I decided to take time to tell all my reading friends Happy Mother's Day and to give than a chance to read about my new book, The Blessed coming out in a few weeks, and about the celebration giveaway I'm going to have. I'm giving away 5 copies of The Blessed, one of Angel Sister along with an angel statue, and two books that will be the winner's choice of my titles. All you have to do to enter is send me an e-mail from Facebook or my website or leave a comment with a way I can contact you in case you win. You get extra chances to win if you let me know you've never won anything from my website and if you tell me about a blessing you got from reading something. I'll do the drawing in June. Also if you'd like to get my occasional newsletter, just let me know and I'll add your name to my newsletter list. You can be assured that I never give out your e-mail addresses to anyone. The giveaway is available only to residents of the U.S. and Canada. There are legal restrictions on these giveaways for other countries.

Thanks for reading. Tell me something about your mother.

Who to Thank?

~~This is a picture of my mom and my youngest grandbaby and her youngest great grandbaby.

~~I wrote an author's note for one of my upcoming books thanking the people who had helped make the book possible. I never know for sure who I should thank first. My editor? My agent? My publisher?

~~Then I realized that person - the one I should thank first - was my mom. She never told me I couldn't be a writer although she must have thought I had big dreams for a little country girl. Dreams that might never come true, but she never discouraged those dreams. She wanted me to be happy and if that meant chasing after what seemed like an impossible dream, she didn't tell me that. Instead she wished wings for my feet. Then when I got married too young and had a couple of babies, again too young, she was probably thinking I'd do well to get the babies diapered and fed. And she was right, but I also wrote a few words here and there between diaper changes and chores. Because she loved me, she never said I was too young even when I was. She just helped me be old enough and loved my babies along with me.

~~When I spent money Darrell and I couldn't spare on a writing course I found in the back of a magazine (I was desperate for a way to learn how to go about being a writer), she never said I was crazy or foolish. She didn't even look as if she thought it. She just kept loving me and believing I could do whatever I set my mind to. The same as she had always done. And does even still.

~~She never had the writing bug except for keeping a journal of her daily life some of the time, but she lived life to the fullest. She married when she was nineteen and moved out on the farm with my dad. I was her third daughter and the baby. She saw that we grew up to be responsible adults. She taught us how to work. But best of all she taught us how to laugh and enjoy life. Now age is catching up with her, stealing some of her sparkle. But the sparkle's not completely gone as you can see in this picture. All it takes to bring it back is a sweet grandbaby beside her.

~~Since we're talking about grandbabies, I'm off this weekend to babysit the WV grandbabies while their mom and dad combine a business trip with a little rest and relaxation. Those last two aren't what I'm expecting with four kids six and under, but we'll have fun.

~~I sent out a newsletter today with a new giveaway. If you want to get in on the fun of being in a drawing for two of my books - your choice of which ones, and Laura Frantz's book The Frontiersman's Daughter (set in pioneer Kentucky days), all autographed, then leave a comment here or send an e-mail from my website, http://www.annhgabhart.com/.

~~Thanks for reading and if you don't see a post here on Sunday, you'll know I didn't get the grandbabies to bed on time.