The Special Bond of Sisters

"You can kid the world. But not your sister." (Charlotte Gray)

Did you ever read a quote that carried any more truth? Sisters know us and we know them in a way no one else can. 

Tonight, I went back in my blog archives looking for something about my book, Angel Sister. I found plenty of posts. I mention it again in this post because if you have an e-reader and would like to read my first Rosey Corner book, it is on e-book sale for $1.99 one more day, tomorrow April 30th. Then the price will go back up. Angel Sister is a special book for me since my mother's memories play such a big part in the the background of that story. Also, since I had sisters and no brothers and my mother had sisters and no brothers, I focused on sisters in Angel Sister. I wanted to highlight that special bond sisters have for one another.

And in this post with segments pulled from a 2011 post, I'm sharing about sisters again. Now I have grandchildren who have that sister bond. Three sisters in each set of grandchildren. 

"A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost." (Marion C. Garretty) 

When you're kids living in the same house, you're sometimes ready to choke one another, but the sister bond changes as the years go by. The older sister who tormented you with her superior everything is now the sister you can count on to tell you the truth and point you in the right direction when a decision needs to be made. The younger sister who spilled your favorite bottle of perfume and was such a pest is now the sister who will hold your hand through the worst doctor's visits or will walk with you through the hard times of caretaking your parents. And the middle sister - she's the glue who holds the sisters together. She's the one with the ready ear and the shoulder to cry on when things aren't going well. In Angel Sister, I have Kate, the middle sister be the responsible one - the one who wants to make sure things turn out right for her family.

Our sisters do know us. They shared the same experiences growing up. They know about that first cake you made that even the dogs wouldn't eat. They know about the snake that showed up in the inner tube with you when you were swimming in the pond. They remember how much you loved your first dog. They know about the time you got lost in the snowstorm in the city and are still thankful that turned out okay. They were there at the beginning when you first took up a pen to write a story. They laughed at you and drove you crazy. They knew exactly who you were and they kept loving you even when they didn't like you so much. 

"You keep your past by having sisters. As you get older, they're the only ones who don't get bored if you talk about your memories." (Deborah Moggach)

Thank goodness, my mother and her sisters never got tired of talking about their "good old days." And that I never got tired of listening to them. Without those oft repeated stories, I might never have written Angel Sister. My sisters and I don't do the "remember when" as much as Mom and her sisters did. But maybe we should - where our kids can hear. Our pasts are a gift of experiences and love that we should pass along to the younger generation whether they think it's boring or not. And then eventually they will do the same. That's what families do.

Do you like to "remember when" with your sisters? Or your brothers? 

What's a sister mean to you?

A Sister Walk Back in Time

"For there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy weather; to cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to life one if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands." ~Christina Rosetti

Took a walk with my sisters this afternoon and we attempted a selfie. Needed an extension on my arm. It wasn't quite long enough, but looks like our smiles are still showing. Sisters are good for smiles. 

In some ways, we took a walk back in time as we went to the farm where we grew up. When I was a young teen, I used to walk back into this wooded area every chance I got, especially in the fall when the trees started changing colors. There were several landmarks that I noted each time and so today I looked for those places. 

This old tree is one of them. It was along the main path and at its base was a rock with a hole in it. I always stopped there to give that rock another look. Now the tree is old, surely in its last days since only a few branches showed leaves. The rock was still at the base of the tree. Well, of course it was. Rocks don't get up and walk away, but the rock was covered with a thick layer of dirt and moss. I could have dug around and uncovered that hole in the rock, but I didn't. I left it undisturbed. It wouldn't have had the same wonder it had when I discovered it as a kid. No where near.

It was interesting to hear the landmarks my sisters had noted and remembered from their young days. A burr oak here. A persimmon tree there. And a creek or two. And what about that pond up on top of the hill? Or where was the hickory nut tree where we used to gather nuts in the fall? 

We walked and walked. We talked and talked. We laughed and wondered why we weren't seeing more deer. Guess we forgot about the talking and laughing. We looked up at the tree tops and down at the late season flowers. We began to wonder if we'd ever see civilization again, but we did see trees. Beautiful hardwood trees that are taking over the property. And we were glad we had shared memories.

My sisters and I are sharing a lot right now as we go through all Mom's things in her house. Mom was the last one standing and in her house, she stored the memories of two extended families. Those memories are being passed down to us and to our children now. So many things with little or no market value but that are invaluable to us because in those things reside memories. 

That's what our walk did too. Rekindled memories of when we were teens and wandered through those trees. The trees weren't the same. They were better since the hardwood trees are beginning to smother out the cedars. A beautiful place to walk and share with my sisters and to remember. 

Do you have special places you can share with your siblings? 

"God said you'll need somebody to drive you crazy, to get you in trouble, to know you as no one else does, to love you when no one else will ...And so He made a sister!"

Winner and Sisters and Book Launches

I love having hometown book launches the way I did today. First off, I get to see people I haven't seen in months. We live in the same town but the only people I see are those on the same grocery store run schedule as I am. Does that happen for you too? You see the same group of people over and over and never see the others. In our little town, Kroger and Wal-Mart are the great meeting places.
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And the library too, of course. That's where I met my reading friends today. And some of them are big UK basketball fans like me. Yet they left the game while it was still touch and go and came to my book launch for Angel Sister. It must have been that chocolate I'd promised them. I did have chocolate - brownies and candy too. Along with lemonade. And door prizes. As someone said, I'm not above a little bribery to make a book talk more fun.
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We did have fun. I talked about how I got started writing and some of the good things and bad things along my writing road. My first book was published in 1978 so you can see I've been on this writing road a long time and I'm hoping I still have some miles to journey on a while longer. I want to have some more hometown book launches with my reading friends here in my town. I'm not exaggerating when I say that each time a new person showed up, I felt as though I'd been given a gift. A gift of friendship and love. The best thing is that these hometown friends are such an easy group. They laugh when I try to say something funny. They don't hold it against me when I get something wrong. They just do some more laughing with me. They carry my books home with them and read my stories. I am blessed.
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I drew for the winners of my Angel Sister Celebration last week. The winner of the "everybody who enters" drawing was Mary of MN. Kelly of MD won the "I never win anything" drawing. So now she can't say that any more. Connie of KY and Susan of SC won the "tell me a sister story" drawings. Connie told me about how her sisters-in-law have been the best "sisters" she could ever imagine and that they're always there for her when she needs a helping hand. Susan told me about how her sister always does so many things to make their family better that she is truly an "angel" sister.
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I also decided to give a bonus prize of an autographed book to the person who sent in the most touching sister story. There were several really great stories, but Laurie E.'s story of how her little sisters were answers to prayer won out. There were lots of different stories from funny to inspiring. I enjoyed them all. I hope to highlight some of them Wednesday night.
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Thank you for reading. And I hope you are feeling like a winner tonight and that you have been blessed with sisters to love.

Everybody needs a Sister

"You can kid the world. But not your sister." (Charlotte Gray)

Did you ever read a quote that carried any more truth? Sisters know us and we know them in a way no one else can. Here I am with my mom and my sisters a year or so ago before Mom's health went downhill last summer. My mother had three sisters, no brothers. I have two sisters, no brothers. We know about sisters. That's why I focused in on the sisters in my book, Angel Sister. I wanted to share that special bond sisters have for one another.

"Sisters are different flowers from the same garden." (Author Unknown)

You can see we look alike and we look different too. But one thing I know. I can count on my sisters to be there for me.


"A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost." (Marion C. Garretty)

When you're kids living in the same house, you're sometimes ready to choke one another, but the sister bond changes as the years go by. The older sister who tormented you with her superior everything is now the sister you can count on to tell you the truth and point you in the right direction when a decision needs to be made. The younger sister who spilled your favorite bottle of perfume or was always eavesdropping on you and your boyfriend is now the sister who will hold your hand through the worst doctor's visits or will come help you clean your house before the in-laws visit. And the middle sister - she has always been the glue that held the sisters together. She's the one with the ready ear and the shoulder to cry on when things aren't going well. In Angel Sister, I have Kate, the middle sister be the responsible one - the one who wants to make sure things turn out right for her family.
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But our sisters do know us. They shared the same experiences growing up. They know about that first cake you made that the dogs wouldn't even eat. They know about the snake that showed up in the inner tube with you when you were swimming in the pond. They know how you cried when your favorite cat died. They know about the time you got hit in the head with a rock and they're still sure you deserved it. They were there at the beginning when you first took up a pen to write a story. They probably laughed. But some things you don't want to remember. They know exactly who you are and they kept loving you even when they didn't like you so much.
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"You keep your past by having sisters. As you get older, they're the only ones who don't get bored if you talk about your memories." (Deborah Moggach)

Thank goodness, my mother and her sisters never got tired of talking about their "good old days." And that I never got tired of listening to them. Without those much repeated stories, I might never have been able to write Angel Sister. My sisters and I don't do the "remember when" as much as Mom and her sisters did. But maybe we should - where our kids can hear. Our pasts are a gift of experiences and love that we should pass along to the younger generation whether they think it's boring or not. And then eventually they will do the same. That's what families do.
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I've received some fun sister stories in my gift card giveaway so far. You 've still got time to send me an e-mail with your sister story to get your name in the drawing hat. You could get four chances to win. See my Event page on my website, http://www.annhgabhart.com/ to find out how.
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If you're in the area, I'll be doing a booksigning at JosephBeth Booksellers in Lexington on Tuesday night, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. Virginia Smith will be signing her new book, A Deadly Game, too. We'd love to talk to you there. It's a fantastic bookstore. I love shopping there.
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Thanks for reading.

Families - Real and Imagined

- You remember last summer when I kept you up to date on these two guys' impending arrival. Well, here's Matt (left) and John at about 11 months old. Aren't they cute?

- I'm so excited about finally figuring out how to post pictures that I'm wanting to share. I've already been sharing over on Facebook. How many of you are social networking there? It's a nice way to keep up with far flung family members and check in on old schoolmates.

- When we start counting our blessings, family and friends are generally right there at the top. I have a great family including some sisters that I count as friends. I think sisters can make the best friends because they know you and they love you anyway. At least most of the time. I dedicated my new book, The Believer, to my sisters both by birth and by marriage. Since I was writing about a society, the Shakers, who valued that sisterly tie, I decided to celebrate my own sisterly ties. Thank goodness we don't have to wear bonnets or caps. I've always hated wearing scarves and hats.

- Family is important to my fictional characters too. When you think about a lot of the conflict in stories - and a story has to have conflict - it centers around the relationships between family members. So it's important that I know about my characters' families. Were they loved as children? Did their parents love one another? Did they have sisters and brothers? Were they the youngest, oldest, or one of the ones in the middle? There are so many questions to ask about your characters to make them real enough in your mind so you can tell their story. I'm going to start rounding up my new characters before long and deciding when they were born, how they lived. And then to really help my main character come to life, I'll probably let her tell me about herself in a journal.

- Next week I'm giving away a couple of books for my birthday. As I said on Facebook, a kind of reverse birthday present. But you readers are a gift to me, so this is sort of like a boomerang gift back to you. Leave a comment here or on Facebook. I have a fan page now. Not sure I know what I'm doing, but if you keep hitting buttons, something happens. Sometimes something not so good. Darrell's e-mail is down on his computer now. I hit one wrong button somewhere. Now I've got to beg somebody for technical help. I'll start with my son and work up to those guys on the phone in India or wherever. Wish me luck.

- I hope all the buttons you punch this week will be right buttons.

Breathing that New Book Smell

How do the weeks run by so quickly? I know, I know. That's a sign of getting older. Oh well, I guess that's something all of us are doing everyday no matter what our age is in years. And I want to enjoy every day. Although I do have to admit today has been frustrating. I've been trying to set up a wireless network so we can browse the internet on two different computers here in the house. We got broadband - went satellite. I was all for just hooking it up to Darrell's computer but then the nice young man who came to install it said he couldn't run the wire to that computer unless we moved it to an outside wall and how about putting it on mine. Well, okay, but I can't share my computer. I spend too many hours in here writing or at least trying to write. And Darrell can spend a whole day surfing the net. So that's definitely not a possible sharing option. So okay, we bought a wireless router and LAN cards and cables and... It goes on and on. But buying the stuff obviously isn't enough. Now I have to try to put it all together and make it work. So far it's been a dismal many hour failure. Anybody got a magic wand I can borrow?

I did have some good news yesterday. I got to open up The Believer and get a whiff of that new book smell. I received my first copy finally. The Fed Ex man couldn't find my house for about a week. I mean just because they spelled my name and the name of my lane wrong. Looks like the driver could have figured that out. Yeah, like I'm supposed to be able to figure out this crazy wireless connecting wizard. What I need is a real wizard. Looks like I keep coming back to that magic wand I want to borrow.

Anyway the book looks good. I like the cover and the blurbs and the dedication (mine of course, but I'd almost forgotten what it said). I dedicated the book to my sisters. There are no friends like sister friends. And since the Shakers wanted to be sisters and brothers, I thought a sister dedication would be perfect for a Shaker book.

Of course the best news was that the book may already be going into a second printing. Now I don't know how many they printed to begin with, but that's beside the point. The point is they need more. That's the good point. I think there's going to be a blog tour of the book too. That's always a lot of fun. I'll be interviewing with some of the bloggers. When I find out when and where, I'll be sure to let you guys in on the fun. Some of those bloggers can ask interesting questions - like if you were an animal, what kind would you want to be. Things totally unrelated to writing, but just for fun even if coming up with clever answers can strain the brain. At least it might be less brain strain than connecting wireless routers!! Of course for the answer to what kind of animal, I'd pick dog. Definitely dog. Run and play and sleep all day and night. And bark. I know I'd bark. People would be throwing shoes at me.

I should get my other copies of the book soon so that I can send out the book to the winners of my book giveaway. If you haven't entered the drawing and want to, you still have time. I'll be drawing for three more winners in the next three week. Just go to my website and send me an e-mail. And if you're in the area and want to enjoy "Brunch with Ann" at Shaker Village at 10 a.m. July 25, don't forget to get your tickets from Corinth Christian Bookstore in Frankfort. They're taking orders over the phone (their number is on my website) and still had some tickets the last time I talked to the owner, Steve.

Oh yeah, and if you have a magic computer setup device wand, please let me know where you got it. I need one!

Life Begins and Life Ends

Hi, everybody. Hope you are having as beautiful a Sunday as we are here. The weather is extra nice for the middle of August although the grass is beginning to turn brown in spots because of lack of rain. Are we ever satisfied with the weather? In the winter, it's too cold. In the summer it's too hot. In the spring, it's too rainy. In the fall, it's not rainy enough. Still I love the seasons of the year even though there are times I'd like to hold onto the pretty days of spring a bit longer or delay the beginning of winter a few weeks.

I came home on Thursday night from babysitting the older girls while the twins were being born. The babies are so cute and seemed very content. I never really heard either one of them cry. It didn't even bother them coming home to three very excited big sisters and a small poodle dog, not to mention grandma and grandpa wanting to get a look at them and hold them for a few minutes. Not the poodle. He just wanted to be in the mix. They took it all in stride without a whimper. I'm going to try to post a picture of them on my website in the next week or so. I'll let you know when. Mother's doing fine and father's doing the best he can to cover all the bases until she's back to full throttle. Thank goodness their school where they attend won't start for a couple of weeks to give everybody a little time to adjust to having two new family members.

I came from a happening of great joy to one of sadness as my last maternal aunt passed away suddenly last week. She had a stroke on Tuesday and died on Wednesday morning. My mom had three sisters. The oldest and youngest sister had already passed on and now Margaret who was three years younger than Mom. I loved hearing them talk about growing up in the thirties during the Depression. They said they never felt poor. They didn't have any money, but they always had food on the table and loving parents. They had a big garden and their father had beehives. They enjoyed playing ball and hide and seek with all the other kids in the neighborhood so never lacked entertainment. And they loved to laugh. When all four of them got together, there was always laughter. What a great way to be remembered! As laughing because life is good.

Not that everything was always easy for them. Margaret married before she got out of school and right before WW II started. Her husband had to go to service. She lost her first baby, and then boarded a train at the tender age of nineteen to ride all the way to California to spend a couple of weeks with her husband before he was sent overseas. She had never been away from home, had never been on a train. But that's the way my mom and her sisters were. Ready for any challenge. Sometimes though the hardest challenges await us when we get older. Mom is facing a lot of those challenges now. One of those is being the last sister in her family still living. They didn't have any brothers. But as always, she's hanging in there, taking it one day at a time.

We'll miss Margaret. She was the sister who didn't mince words. Last time we went to lunch a few weeks ago, they had both been to get perms. I had a major hairstyle change a week or so before that. Cut it all off. I haven't had my hair this short since I was in fifth grade. Anyway when they were talking about their hair, I asked Margaret how she liked mine. She looked at me and told it like she saw it. "I think you need to fix it." I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Actually most people say they think my new style is good, but not everyone. My five-year-old granddaughter who I was babysitting last week looked at me and said she didn't like my hair. But then she tried to make me feel better by saying, "Don't worry, grandma. It'll grow back." I didn't have the heart to tell her I wasn't planning to let that happen for a while. Oh well, maybe she'll get used to her grandma's new look.

Now that the babies are here, it's back to work for me, although I may go back to help out a few days here and there. I am anxious to get back to my book. And I have some special events coming up. My book launch at the local library here in Lawrenceburg is only three weeks away. I plan to talk about "Writing about Shakers .. and other odd characters." That's going to be my topic at the Book Festival in West Virginia in October. So this will be a good warmup speech to see how it goes. The Lawrenceburg event will be very casual with lots of discussion with those who come. It should be fun. Then Ginny Smith and I will be doing a signing at Joseph-Beth's in Lexinton on October 16. That's a Thursday evening. We'll be talking as well as signing. If you know Ginny and/or me, you know that's a given. Ginny has a new Love Inspired book out and she'll also have several of her other books there too. Ginny is so prolific that she has books out with three different publishing companies, all at the same time.

Me, I'm just trying to hang in there with one publishing company and meet my deadline on this new book. As I said last week, I lack one scene being to the end. Then I have to go back and read it to see if I've got a story that will work. I'm hoping that the hero and heroine will be people readers (and I) can care about. I'm hoping the story will be tied together well and will be exciting, but I really won't know until I read it. My editor compared writing a book to giving birth. And it is sort of that way. You carry it around in your head and then you push it out word by word until finally the whole book is outside your head on paper. Then you have to look to be sure all the toes and fingers are there. On babies, the toes and fingers are always precious no matter how they look. Not always the same with books. Sometimes there are too many toes or fingers or they may need a little reshaping to make them look right. That's what I'm getting ready to do, the editing and reshaping and making better. At least that's the hope and intent when I rewrite.

I'm going to start a new give-away next month, so be sure to check my website and/or here. I'm considering a full set of my Hollyhill books. I've been hearing from some readers of The Outsider who have never read any of my other books, so thought it might be fun to introduce them to Hollyhill. And for those of you who have read the Hollyhill books, they would make a great gift to someone this Christmas or whenever.

And last, but not least, thanks to the Book Club in Wooster, Ohio for reading my book Orchard of Hope. I enjoyed talked to you by phone. Any of the rest of you in bookclubs, I would be glad to come to your bookclub if you are in the area and if not, I'd love to talk to you by phone if you decide to read one of my books. The Outsider has already been chosed by some clubs.

Have a great week. See you Wednesday.