Common Sense Dancing

The weathermen were right. The mercury in the thermometer is rising and the ice is disappearing. Now all we have to worry about is the mud. At least next week. Then after that, who knows? In Kentucky you can have winter or spring all in the same week. Sometimes the same day. Keeps things interesting.

I sent out a newsletter today. I wanted to share the good news about The Outsider being a finalist for the Christian Book Award in fiction, and I've gotten back lots of great e-mail congratulations. Thank you all so much. I can feel your good vibes making their way through cyberspace to me. And good vibes are important. I mean science has done research to prove what Proverbs has been telling us for centuries. "Laughter worketh good like a medicine." Just like they've done tests now to prove chicken soup makes you feel better when you have a cold. Why didn't they just save their study money and listen to all us old grandmas? We already knew that, didn't we?

Do any of the rest of you sometimes wonder what has happened to good old common sense? It doesn't seem so common anymore. But then I went out hunting some common sense quotes and what do I find but this quote "Common sense is not so common" by Voltaire, a famous French philosopher and writer who lived 1694-1778. So perhaps every age thinks we have a lack of good common sense. Here are some more quotes I found about common sense:

• Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius. -- George Bernard Shaw
• Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done. --C.E. Stowe (Harriet Beecher Stowe's son)
• Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Poet and Essayist, 1803-1882
• Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. --William James, American Philosopher and Psychologist, 1842-1910

I like that last one. The idea of common sense dancing. Maybe because the only place I can dance is in my head. I would have had trouble if I had been one of the Shakers. Well, not just because of the dancing. That's for sure. But I like the thought of words dancing across a page. I like thinking that laughter is joy dancing through us.

Back to the newsletter, I am doing a new book give-away. I've got an autographed copy of Hidden by Shelley Shepard Gray to give away along with the winner's choice of an autographed copy of one of my books, Orchard of Hope, Summer of Joy, Angels at the Crossroads, or The Outsider. If you haven't won yet, this might be your lucky time. I'm going to do the drawing on tax day, April 15 just so I'll have something fun to look forward to besides paying taxes. Hidden is about a girl who goes into an Amish community to hide from an abusive boyfriend and the story is getting rave reviews from readers. You can check it out at Amazon.com.

So if you want to enter the drawing, go to my website www.annhgabhart.com and click on the contact link to send me an e-mail. Also if you'd like to get my sometimes monthly, sometimes not, newsletter, you can sign up at my website for that too.

I am missing those babies, but tomorrow is my baby's birthday. He might be grown with three kids of his own and expecting another one soon, but he'll always be my baby. So he has to let Mama cook for him on his birthday. I'm making a cherry pie and no-bake chocolate cookies. Can't go wrong with those. But that's why I'm posting tonight instead of on Sunday. I'll be too busy watching my grown up baby blow out his candles and playing with grandkids tomorrow. Hope you enjoy your Sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving Today and Every Day

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! I hope you have a wonderful day with some great food shared with some people you love. And that you get to take a nap after dinner. I read the other day that naps enhance our creativity. Maybe that's why I've been struggling with my new idea - not enough naps. Darrell would say so. He's a long time advocate of a daily nap and feels deprived if his schedule doesn't allow a snooze in the afternoon.

I sent out a newsletter last night and of course, forgot something I wanted to include. I'm doing a new give-away with an autographed copy of Virginia Smith's Stuck in the Middle. Her next Sister series book, Age Before Beauty, will be out in February, so this will be your chance to win her book and get it read before then. I'll be doing the drawing on New Year's Day. The winner will also win his or her choice of an autographed copy of one of my books. Just send me an e-mail or leave a comment here before the end of the year to be entered.

I also included a Groucho Marx quote that doesn't have anything to do with Thanksgiving, but it's fun. "Outside of a dog, a book is your best friend, and inside a dog, it's too dark to read." I decided that makes me smile because I can see the power of words and how if you arrange them just so you can take the reader by surprise. Hope you are often pleasantly taken by surprise by whatever you're reading.

I also hope you have much to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving weekend. I certainly do with my beautiful family, my praying church family, good health, my place to live with its fields and woods, the Lord's blessings and grace, the want to and ability to write, editors who like my books, even more - readers who want to read my books, and friends who take the time to read my wool-gathering in the midst of their busy days. Too many blessings to count them all, but what would be the blessings you would count on this day? Could you do a Top Ten list? That would still leave out a lot, wouldn't it?

Here are some more seasonal quotes about Thanksgiving for you to ponder and enjoy.

• "If we meet someone who owes us thanks, we right away remember that. But how often do we meet someone to whom we owe thanks without remembering that?"- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
• "Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road." - John Henry Jowett
  
• "Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude."- E.P. Powell
  

Enjoy the day and if you go shopping tomorrow, watch out for runaway shopping carts.