Thursday, December 20, 2018

Charity Donations: Use Your Head as Well as Your Heart to Make a Wise Decision by J.Q. Rose

Happy Holidays from J.Q. Rose


Happy Holidays and welcome to the BWL Publishing Insiders Blog. 

During this special holiday season, many folks decide to open their hearts and their wallets to make donations to support an organization. 

Giving is a good thing, but not everyone who is asking you to give is good. Scammers will try to take advantage of kind hearts. It's important to use your head as well as your heart to make a wise decision to support an organization that will make the best use of your dollars. So, please, whatever charity or person you choose to support, talk to your friends about it or research online to make sure the money you give will be used toward actually making a difference in their stated mission.


I use Charity Navigator to find out about groups. I especially like to know what percent of the monies donated are spent on administration fees. 


Other sites recommended by the New York Times are GuideStar and BBB Wise Giving Alliance. Click the highlighted names of the sites to research charities and help make your choice no matter what time of year you wish to make donations.


I assume a charity would appreciate a gift of money. But according to the Giving Tuesday #GivingTuesday website, a person can also give of their time, goods, and their voice. 

Today I'm using my voice through blogs and my novel, Deadly Undertaking, to bring awareness to fight Alzheimer's Disease, "the only cause of death in the top 10 in America that cannot be prevented, slowed or cured", according to alz.com. 

I'm sure you know someone in your family or a dear friend who suffered from this disease. You have seen him or her deteriorate because AD has ravaged their brain. So many of those who lost a loved one because of this disease remark that they lost the person way before death took the victim.

The Alzheimer's Association states that "Alzheimer's is an epidemic worldwide." Click here to read the facts that back up this statement. 


When I lost my friend and mentor to AD, I wanted to eradicate this disease by

Deadly Undertaking by J.Q. Rose
Paranormal romantic suspense

A handsome detective, 
a shadow man, and a murder victim
 kill Lauren’s plan for a simple life.
raising awareness about the ravages of Alzheimer's Disease, so I included a character suffering from AD in my romantic suspense novel, Deadly Undertaking. She is the mother of the main character and plays an important part in the story.
I have pledged to donate the royalties from the October through December sales of this book to fight Alzheimer's Disease. 

If you decide to give to Alz.org or another charity, please remember to use your head as well as your heart to make the decision.
***
Do you have a favorite charity you support? Please share in the comments below. 

Click here to connect online with J.Q. Rose.

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

The Poultry Conundrum by Stuart R. West

Visit mysterious, alluring, scenic, and dangerous Peculiar County! Just a click away...
I'm from Kansas and I'm apparently quite a dumb Kansan at that.

You'd think I'd know the distinction between a turkey and a chicken since I live in the Midwest. You'd be wrong. I mean, okay, everything I taste is formulated around the ground zero of chicken. It's like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, minus the actor, minus the bacon, add the chicken. Very complex equation (but if you add a side of bacon in again, you might have something. Hold the Kevin.).

So, over the holidays, my wife brings home a turkey, cooks it up. Tastes great. I like turkey "drumsticks." Anyway, I've eaten two of the drumsticks outta' the refrigerator and then I find another. And yet another. From the same turkey!  THE SAME TURKEY, YOU GUYS! Four drumsticks!

What?

Did this turkey grow up by a chemical waste plant or something?
I asked my wife why our turkey has four legs. After much eye-rolling, pantomiming and frustration from her, I sorta' intuited the answer.

I guess the turkey is the stronger of our fowl brethren with buffed-up, muscular upper arms that I mistook for bonus drumsticks. And it gets even stranger. The turkey apparently has many more bones in its legs than chickens do. New one on me! Why in the world would a turkey have more bones in its legs then a chicken? Do they bully the barnyard? Are they brutal fowls with thighs of thunder? Femurs of fury?

Edible nature sure can be kooky.

No matter what you celebrate or where you live, happy holidays everyone!
How about stuffing some Banana Hammock into your stocking?


Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Sharing some Christmas memories from the 1960s by Nancy M Bell

This is a novella of Christmas Eve in a small town peopled by the characters from A Longview Romance series. CLick here for more info. Also available at Amazon.

Yes, I am that old! Growing up in the 1960s was a much simpler time that now. We had only black and white television and one phone in the house. It seems to me looking back that families stayed closer together, not so far flung around the country and the globe. That's not to say that Christmas like all holidays and celebrations didn't sometimes dissolve into family disputes, but generally at least we were all together. My mom's brother and his wife always came for Christmas dinner, my maternal grandparents lived with us and my older sister and her family joined us at the table as well. Our living room was not large, the expanded 'good' table took up most of the floor and to get from end to the other you were required to walk on the couch as there was no room behind the chairs at the table.

Below are some excerpts from a small chapbook I created to help preserve these old family memories for later generations.

This is one of my favourite pictures of my dad. It was taken in 1963 or 1964, you can see the remains of the Christmas feast. I'm guessing we got doctor's kits for one of our presents. LOL

The Rafter Family Christmas Eve was always a variation of the same theme.

My parents would pack up the two youngest children, myself and my sister Wendy, and set off in the car to visit my Dad’s sisters ( my aunts) who lived in various parts of Toronto and the outlying area.
My Aunt Ola and Uncle Bunny lived near Whitevale, Ontario with my cousins Rose and Fred. They lived on a farm and had the most amazing white farmhouse. The floors always were polished to diamond brilliance and I loved their kitchen. Lots of room and tons of windows, it was a wonderful welcoming place. The adults would visit and we would play with Rosie and Freddy our cousins, either outside in the snow or inside on the floor. We would drop off our gifts and receive the ones that went home to go under our tree.

After eating Christmas goodies we would all pile back into the car and head off to the next aunt’s house.

Auntie Joy and Uncle Norm lived in the west end of the city with a house full of our cousins. Glennie was the oldest and then Charlie, Suzanne, Wayne, Billy, Dennis and Brenda. There was always lots to do at Auntie Joy’s, we played games and one year when they lived in Streetsville we played in the ravine near their house and got totally covered in burrs. We were not popular children when we got home. There was great food and the cousins always had the latest in games and toys to play with. We dropped off the presents and packed the ones for us into the car and we were off again.

Next stop Aunt Loral and Uncle Bob and cousins Debbie and Lori. Aunt Loral’s was usually the last stop in the early years.

My Aunt Gloria and Uncle Tommy and Cindy and Tammy Lori lived in Caladar, which was up near North Bay when we were young, we would go and visit them on New Year’s Day every year. Later years they moved to Toronto, not far from Aunt Loral and we stopped there on Christmas Eve as well. Aunt Irma ( who later changed her name legally to Rocky) and Uncle Wally lived near Ottawa and we did not get to see them as often, or our cousins Gary and Scott.
Aunt Loral had a very small house and it always seemed so crammed full of Christmas. The living room was usually quite dark and the tree seemed to fill it up totally. She had the most amazing tree topper that was all the colors of the rainbow and it sent the colors all over the room, reflecting off all the walls and the front room window. As this was our last stop Wendy and I were both tired and didn’t spend too much time actually playing with Debbie and Lori. It was also getting late and near bed time so that Santa could come and leave his gifts for us. There was always time for yet more goodies and more pop. Aunt Loral always had great fruit cake at her house. Dark and moist. She also had a zillion of the little statues that used to come in Red Rose Tea. They were lined up on the top of the door frames in her kitchen and just about anywhere that you looked There were so many of them that I could never actually count them without loosing track. I liked the horse one and the gingerbread man the best. Then it was time to go home. Wendy and I usually fell asleep on the way home to West Hill in the far east end of the city. We lived with my Grandma and Grandpa Pritchard and before 1963 when she got married, my older sister June lived with us as well. There were seven of us in a little house. June had her own room, Grandma and Grandpa shared what would have been the dining room but worked quite well as a bedroom at the front of the house and Wendy and I had bunkbeds in Mom and Dad’s room.

Grandma and Grandpa were always waiting for us when we got home and Christmas Eve and helped to put the presents under the tree.
We always put the tree up on December 20th as that was my birthday. Mom and Dad never wanted to put the tree up earlier than that as we always had a real tree and they worried that it would dry out.
We had these really cool bubble lights that were all different colors but got really hot when you left them on too long. There was a fluffy white angel on top.
One Christmas Eve when we were still outside in the driveway just getting out of the car Wendy and I got a huge surprise. There, coming down the Cooney’s driveway, who were our next door neighbors, was Santa Claus!

We both screamed and then bolted for the back door. If Santa came while were still up and awake he wouldn’t leave us anything. We tore through the back door into the kitchen and down the back hall to the bedroom. With our wet snow boots and coats still on Wendy and I scrambled into bed and pulled the covers over our heads. I had a harder time getting into bed as I had to climb up into the top bunk, but I made it. Mom and Dad came in and tried to get us to take off our coats and boots and change into night clothes. Wendy and I wouldn’t budge, we were pretending to be asleep so that Santa would leave our presents. We were sure that he was coming to our house any moment because we KNEW he just next door and he hadn’t been to our house next. He must have already been to Jo-anne and John Lee’s place because they lived on the other side of the Cooneys, so we had to be next. Mom and Dad must have removed our boots after we were asleep because they were gone in the morning. And Santa did leave our presents for us that year.
Things changed in 1964, June was married and living on Homestead Ave with Butch and my brother Timmy was born in July. So Christmas 1964 was a little different. There was one more of us to track all over the city to visit my aunts.
Sometime in the 1960’s Aunt Gloria and Uncle Tommy and Cindy and TammyLori moved to Toronto. My Grandma and Grandpa Rafter moved from Constance Lake near Ottawa and bought a little store on Davis Lake, near Kinmount. Every winter they would come to Toronto and stay with Aunt Gloria and Uncle Tommy, so now we had even more excitement and visiting on Christmas Eve. We often went to Aunt Gloria and Uncle Tommy’s for New Year’s dinner. The turkey dressing was always yucky, it had so much sage in it ( which Gramma Rafter LOVED) and sometimes sausage. Not my favorite part of the meal I’ll tell you. There was always way too much to eat, tons of turkey and cranberries, mashed potatoes and gravy.

Our Christmas dinner at home was always large. June and Butch and their sons Geoff, Peter and Terry would come. My Aunt Frances and Uncle Jim came on Christmas afternoon early and brought their sausage dog with them. The first dog I remember was Sandy who was quite portly and smelled like DOG. He would bite my dad if he tried to discipline us in front of him. We liked Sandy. Sandy would also dance with us, running around while we pranced around laughing. Aunt Frances always gave us Avon for Christmas and her packages were always decorated with cool stuff. Uncle Jim is my mother’s only brother and he has one daughter Marilyn who lives in the States. There would also be My Gramma and Grampa Pritchard who lived with us, Wendy and me and Timmy. Mom would pull the big table with all the leaves in it out into the middle of our small living room and the table would stretch from the front window to the door to the kitchen. It was set with these cool plates that we only used at Christmas, all pale yellow ,blue and pink around the edges with white roses in the centre. Mom used her good silverware that Dad bought her one year for Christmas and a tablecloth that never seemed to escape the cranberries or the gravy. Our small house was full of the smell of turkey and gravy and boiling potatoes. There never seemed to be enough room but somehow everyone managed to get seated at the table and Dad would carve the turkey. Wendy and I would fight over the drumsticks, although in later times Timmy always got one.


Lots of great memories of those no longer with us, and those who still are. As long as we remember them they are never gone, but live in our hearts.

Here are few memories from later Christmases.





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