Thankful

 

We should be doing it every day,

and for once we're not talking about reading! We're talking about being thankful. 

We're thankful for readers, fellow writers, friends, family, fur balls, and so much more. May your day be filled with joy! 

Happy Thanksgiving, to our US readers!

Cold Weather Tea

This week’s post topic is to share a favorite Thanksgiving food or drink recipe. I decided to share a drink that I grew up with: Fruit Tea. It’s so good, and perfect for sipping on a cold night with a book in hand. 

I've been finding this fruit tea already made in my local Publix grocery store, which is amazing. My mom actually called it Russian Tea, and after she passed, we realized we didn't have her recipe. There was a Tang recipe that floated around many years ago (and still floats around) that's similar, but it isn't the way my mom made her tea. After some digging though, I found her version. This is my slightly modified recipe from AllRecipes.Com.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 3 family-sized tea bags (Black tea is best for this recipe--I like mine strong)

• 1 quart boiling water

• 1½ quarts water 

• 6 whole cloves 

• 2 - 4 cinnamon sticks (up to you)

• 1 (12 ounce) can pineapple juice 

• 1.5 cups white sugar 

• 1 teaspoon ground allspice

• 1 (6 ounce) can frozen orange juice concentrate 

• 1 (6 ounce) can frozen lemonade concentrate

Steep the tea bags in boiling water for 5 minutes, then remove. Next, combine 1 1/2 quarts water, cloves, and cinnamon together in a large pot and bring to a boil. Stir brewed tea, pineapple juice, sugar, orange juice concentrate, lemonade concentrate, and allspice into the boiling water to dissolve the sugar. This recipe is great served hot, but it's also yummy served cold. I refrigerate any leftovers (with the cinnamon sticks and cloves left in for added flavor) and drink in the mornings as well! Let me know if you give this recipe a try, and Happy Thanksgiving! ~ Charissa

Gratitude is Riches

Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.

Doris Day

 

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thankful

The more grateful I am,

The more beauty I see.

~Mary Davis

For our readers in the US, Happy Thanksgiving! During this Thanksgiving week we like to reflect on the many things we're thankful for. 

It's easy to pick out what's not going well or the failures that keep us from where we want to be. It takes an effort to look on the bright side. And while I believe it can be good to let yourself wallow for a bit, afterward it's even more important to take stock of the good things. 

It doesn't have to be all big things either! I was thankful for my cup of coffee this morning and I'll be thankful for a glass of wine tonight. Right now I'm incredibly thankful for my friends who keep me going—even better than caffeine—and help build me up when I've been torn down. 

Thank you my friends for being there. And thank you to our readers for giving us your time each day! I hope you all have a thankful weened!

Thankfulness and Gratitude

In this week of being consciously thankful and grateful, this quote by Henri Frederic Amiel reminds me that my thoughts and deeds are concentric circles creating ripples in the Universe. What flows out, flows back. Let kindness inform the intention and compassion shape the action.

Happy (Early) Thanksgiving

Gratitude

 I am grateful for the fact that you're all either still in a turkey coma, out shopping, or spending time with your families and therefore haven't noticed that I'm super tardy with my post today.

I'm grateful for second chances, whether real or perceived. There's nothing quite as energizing as feeling like there's still a chance for you and for a story you love.

I'm grateful for my editors, every last one. Every single editor has brought specific skills to the table and each one of those, no matter how hard it's sometimes been to hear that my story children might need braces to straighten those teeth, has made me a better, more skillful writer. Or possibly, it's exacerbated my worst tendencies to over think everything. Thin line.

I'm grateful for my critique partners and beta readers. Every single person who helps me get a story out of my head and on to paper challenges me to get better at what I do. I'm also eternally grateful to these people for not giving up on me even when I'd all but given up on myself.

Finally, I am grateful for this blog. It's kept me writing through just about everything. Memory glitches notwithstanding. It's forced me to keep thinking forward even while I bled envy all over the pages wishing some of the book covers on the bar had my name on them. They do now. See the second chances entry above.

I hope every single one of you has plenty of reasons for gratitude and may you have peaceful and bright holidays!

Being Thankful

Find one thing to be thankful for each day, 

even if the skies are grey,

and you’ll find a moment of happiness,

to chase your blues away.

And for all of our dear US readers, 

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Happy Yeah This Topic Isn't Gonna Work

It's 9PM, Thanksgiving Day. I've spent the past three days cleaning and cooking two separate menus in preparation for hosting 12 people for dinner. (2 of whom are Whole Food, Plant-based vegans.) I think my father-in-law counted something like 26 separate dishes. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day filled with family, laughter, and way too much food. I haven't gotten to host and cook a major holiday since we moved aboard the sailboat ten years ago. It was a great joy to have my family and my husband's family all together at the table. They're a good group of people who all genuinely like and appreciate one another.

But it comes down to this. I'm stuffed and I'm tired. Not to mention that the buddy (not counting the buddies on this blog who have all had recent releases! But we were trying to pimp some new blood.) a new Fantasy Romance release coming out soonish - her first - doesn't have a cover quite yet. At least not one I can publicly share so far.

So Happy Thanksgiving those of you in the US and if you do Black Friday, remember the body armor. I'll be at home, writing, sipping tea, and eating pumpkin spice scones with caramel/pecan glaze drizzled on them. Well. And trying to  keep the kittens from dumping my tea or walking across my keyboard and adding their editorial opinions to my prose.

Instead, talk to me about amazing Black Friday deals. Where do you go and what kinds of things do you look for? Do you go in with a list? Or do you decide what presents people are getting based on what's on sale?

I, for one, am all about the notion of giving books as gifts. Isn't it supposed to be an Icelandic thing - you give books on Christmas Eve? I love it. Fiction, nonfiction - I wouldn't care. In fact. That's the perfect anodyne to too much rich, holiday food. I'm going to go peruse my TBR pile and make reading my Thanksgiving Day dessert. May your holidays be just as sweet.

Gratitude

It's a warm Thanksgiving on Florida's west coast - a day of clouds looming and threats of thunder storms that never materialized. I have never in my life gotten to have Thanksgiving dinner while comfortably wearing shorts and sandals. So there's that to be grateful for. Not to mention that finally, my family is together again after we'd been strewn across the continent. And while we're still in monetary recovery after the vast awful that was Autolycus's final illness followed rapidly by Hatshepsut's near brush with the grim feline reaper, we ARE recovering. For that we are entirely grateful.

Part of being grateful is sharing the good fortune. The first place I like to send my support is a (now) local charity that will surprise exactly no one who knows me:

Big Cat Rescue

They are one of the largest accredited big cat sanctuaries in the world. They take in big cats from all over the US and, in some cases, the world. They advocate for the shift in legislation throughout the US to end the trade of big cats - either as 'pets', performers, or for fur harvest. They take amazing care of their animals and many of their cats live to unheard of ages because of it. You can also take tours - no - no petting or contact with the cats. They are a sanctuary and that means preserving the cats in as wild a state as possible within the confines of not being able to return them to the wild. When they rescue injured bobcats or panthers, they DO return the animals to the wild after they've been rehabilitated. Still. I can recommend the tour. There's nothing like hearing a cougar purr at you. Or Joseph lion roaring.

MayDay.us

Because politics. This group is a grassroots movement aimed at using small, public contributions to elect citizens to office. Term limits are a big ticket item for this group. They're working at city and state levels in order to build momentum for bigger races. Defeating a super PAC in a national election is the goal. It's also possible I'm channeling some $$ to specific candidates whose goals align with mine. I cannot legally take a flamethrower to the current Pennywise the Clown and minions inhabiting the halls of government, so this is the next best thing that won't end with me in prison.

Nature Conservancy

Because it's all about habitat. We know that wildlife requires land that humans haven't paved over. We get that if we want to go on breathing we need trees. And algae. And plankton. But who wants to dedicate a vast tract of their farm land to preserving a weird three spotted lizard? Or a rare venomous spider? The Nature Conservancy takes a realistic view of preserving land for wildlife. They buy it. Or trade tracts of critical habitat for other land that can then be used by humans. Their success stories are pretty good.

Bonus: Check out Charitywater.org

I think that especially when life is difficult - in the midst of loss - it's vital to take a moment daily to practice gratitude and to say thank you. So thank you. I am grateful you're here.

I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving amid the people who love you most!

Because it is the season of thankfulness as well as the kick-off of the traditionally recognized annual big-gift-giving event, it's time to think about others, and this week here on the blog we're sharing our favorite charities. Here are mine, and why: 

1.)  Veterans of Foreign Wars

I used to be a barmaid at my local VFW. I'm also a lifetime member. Many nights, I've kept the beers flowing while these men who served our country regale the crowd with their tales. Fewer nights, I've served a glass of something harder while someone stared into their glass trying to force some awful image that seemed stuck in their mind's eye. I've seen a vet of the Iraq War who turned to heroine. I've seen men who served and came home safe seemingly unscathed...then lost their whole family to random stateside tragedies, yet they have found a way to carry on despite an ache that will never abate. I've helped vets get their ties and medals just right before a parade, and I've seen a Korean War vet (1950-3) sing karaoke.

Also, the VFW has a variety of community outreach programs and scholarships. Supporting the VFW is supporting good people in your own community.

2.)  Any Animal Rescue / No Kill Shelter

A friend of mine who passed away years ago had a cat shelter. She actively trapped feral cats, got them spayed or neutered and re-released them if they were not tamable. She also took other housecats and worked to find them good homes. I had one such cat come into my life for a while. He was a gray tabby with six toes, a mitten-paw. He'd been a feral cat trapped and tamed and I loved him enough to deal with my cat allergy.  Also, my dog Bela came from a no-kill shelter. For eleven years now, she's been a wonderful addition to our family (i.e. being the floor pillow when the boys watched cartoons, protecting our yard from evil squirrels, keeping us warm on cold winter nights, and the source of much laughter).

I say all that because I know the hard work that goes into a rescue, and the benefits to the animal and the family that adopts.

3.)  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

From the internet: For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has been our nation’s guardian of liberty, working in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

Whether it’s achieving full equality for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people; establishing new privacy protections for our digital age of widespread government surveillance; ending mass incarceration; or preserving the right to vote or the right to have an abortion; the ACLU takes up the toughest civil liberties cases and issues to defend all people from government abuse and overreach.

My Three Favorite Charities

Jackson likes to sit outside my office window and stare at me. I have no idea why. If I offer to let him in, he's not interested. I suspect attempts at kitty mind control.

Before I go much further - and though I don't often mention my contemporary romances here - I thought I should point out that my WITH A PRINCE takes place during U.S. Thanksgiving. Which is this week for us! So if you or someone near and dear who loves romance, are looking for a seasonal read. This is a fine choice. There's cooking, the actual feast - and dinner table drama complete with hashtags. It's very fun.

And because it's Thanksgiving, this week at the SFF Seven we're all talking about our three favorite charities, those ways we give back and share our bounty.

I'm not a big fan of broadcasting how and when I give to charity. I'm a big believer that the only true charity is anonymous, that you're only truly giving if no one knows you've done it. If people know, or if you make a big deal of yourself, then it can be more about ego than actual giving. This is one reason I rarely get involved in book-selling efforts that give a percentage to charity. To my mind, this is using giving as a marketing technique. I think it's fine to funnel proceeds to a worthy cause, but if the core reason for doing that is to increase sales, then I find that squicky.

I do, however, believe in financially supporting the organizations and causes I believe in. As much as possible, I prefer to pick and choose those myself.

Go Fund Me

This is a general bucket for my very specific choices. I like Go Fund Me because I can support individuals who need help. A lot of the time these are older authors who've fallen on hard times - many writers are self-insured, which means they might have crappy health insurance or none at all - and their incomes can be uneven. It's a great way to lend a helping hand and I feel the small amount I can afford goes a long way, with no corporate overhead to support.

Planned Parenthood

I believe that core to women's ability to live and work as free human beings is access to birth control and abortion. Both of these are about control of one's own body and health. Also, I believe all children in a wealthy, technological society should be wanted, planned, and given every advantage, pre- and post-natal. Thus I support Planned Parenthood, which is also often the only source of health care, full stop, for many lower income women. I give often.

Political Campaigns

I was raised in a politically active family, and I donate to the campaigns of the candidates who espouse the values I believe in. With a House of Representatives chock-a-block full of GOP privileged rich kids that just passed a tax reform bill that will hammer the middle class while giving the wealthiest Americans tax breaks, you can believe I'm donating to Democratic candidates across the country. Until we legislate campaign finance reform, the only way to battle money is with money. And it's no longer enough to support only local candidates - if senators and representatives from other states can mess with my health insurance and ability to pay my bills, you bet I have an investment in whether or not they're re-elected.

Unexpectedly political for a Thanksgiving post! But so it goes in the land of plenty, where we've passed the one year mark since Trump was elected and the GOP given free reign to loot as much as they can until we clean house in the 2018 mid-term elections. 

Next Thanksgiving, I'm hoping to be a LOT more grateful!

In the meanwhile, enjoy your own celebrations of gratitude, whether it be with family, friends, or savoring your own quiet. Eat something delicious with joy, get some rest, do something only because it's fun, and give something to someone else anonymously. May it bring you happiness.