M.A Grace's Blog, page 3

Project 333 Challenge

Project 333 is something I stumbled across while looking for some free organizing printables. 
You pick 33 items of clothing and that is all you get for 3 months. My thought was easy. I don't really think of myself as having a lot of clothes. 

My clothes are the small section in the upper left of the closet. That's shirts, dresses, pants, shorts, jackets, and football jerseys. Everything fits in the small little section. So I was like yea this challenge will be a snap. 
Well as I won't say it was hard but it wasn't easy either. As the challenge states that shoes, accessories, and clothes are to be included in your 33 items. So I got my 4 pairs of shoes, 1 belt, I have 20 shirts, 4 pairs of pants, 1 pair of shorts, 1 dress, 1 skirt, and 1 Saints pullover. 
I believe the actual challenge says to include jewelry (minus wedding rings or other sentimental pieces you never take off) but I never wear jewelry except my wedding ring and engagement ring at all times. So the small jewelry box I have was left alone. 

So this is what my small finished 33 pieces looks like in my upper left corner. It still looks like a good amount of clothes to me. 
Here is the pile that I will be storing away for the 3 months. 
It doesn't include under garments, socks, bathing suits, pjs, or workout clothes (tho I included my workout clothes in my 33)
So I have 5 sets of PJ's with 1 extra set of lounge pj pants in my dresser. Along with my socks, bathing suit, and under garments. 
So now I offer you the challenge. Who wants to join me? 


For more Information about Project 333 you can click HERE!!!

To get a copy of the paper shown in the first picture where you can write all your items down you can click HERE!!!

I've Got You Covered is FREE

Anistasia moves a lot to get away from her past. But when she lands in Brooksville she runs into John. Something about him just makes her feel so safe and he can't get her off his mind. The two soon learn they actually have more in common than they could possibly ever know.


 You can pick up your free copy off Smashwords here:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/151481


Smashwords has copies in the following formats: Online ReadingEpubKindlePDFRTFLRFPALM Doc (PDB)Plain Text (Download)Plain Text (View)

Indie Bookfest 2013 Re-cap

SO MANY GOODIES!!!!

Well now that I am home and back to work after what has been an AMAZING weekend with Indie Bookfest on Aug 3rd I can finally go overly fangirl with all the stuff I got. I now have signed copies of books by Isaac Morion, Karina Gioertz, and Dawn Pendleton. I wanted to trade with more people but was super shy so I missed out. Next year (Yes I will be at Indie Bookfest 2014) I will be prepared like a cheetah on the hunt. Just warning all of you :) 
I am so glad I took the jump and signed up for this. I had so much fun making new friends, finally meeting some friends I had on facebook, trading numbers, and just hanging out with everyone there. Writers love to be hermits and be alone but you put us in a room/hotel together and the laughter never ends. We are all crazy and we don't care. 

Pre-Order and Order Signed Copies

Are you going to the Indie Bookfest 2013? Would you like to make sure you get a copy of my Blazing Charm series books? Well pre-orders are open. And even to those who can't make it to the Indie Bookfest, put in your order and I'll email you a signed copy of my books to your door!




Pre-Order a signed copy of I've Got You Covered






Pre-Order a signed copy of New York Heartbreak







Pre-Order a signed copy of Paradise

Revisit your roots and remember who you are....

One thing you should always remember is there is always a road that will lead you home. And lucky for me that road is never far away.


I was one of the lucky ones. Born in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina, and I can't think of a better place to be from. Growing up I use to want to leave as far from my small town life as I could go. But now 600 miles later I just wish I could wake up and look out at the beautiful mountains around me again. Now don't get me to wrong, my house in FL is beautiful and me and my husband have a great life here that we couldn't have in North Carolina. But that doesn't make the pain of missing it any less.

But I've noticed something as the days of my home sickness goes on. I may not be in the beautiful country side but I am no less a North Carolina Country Girl for it. I still love the idea of camping in the woods. I'd take a hike in the woods over a trip to the mall any day of the week. I think sweet tea is a staple for a balanced meal. Cowboy boots, jean shorts, tank top, and cowgirl hat is the perfect outfit. Getting down in the mud is the best fun a person can have. Bonfires make for a great weekend. Star gazing is one of the most relaxing things in the world. Country Music, Southern Rock, and Bluegrass are the best things to hit the radio waves. A dip in the river is a thousand times better then a dip in a back yard pool. And sitting on a front porch swing watching the sunset is the perfect way to end any day.

I use to be ashamed growing up being from the place where people said we were uneducated and made fun of the way we talked. But now it lights a fire under me that nothing on earth could extinguish. YOU are the uneducated one person saying those things. You are a coward and self centered. You want to talk about my people when you have no clue. Western North Carolina folks are loyal, strong, stubborn, hard working, and above all else some of the NICEST SWEETEST MOST CARING AND ALL AROUND BEST people you will ever meet. But you won't ever get to find out because your type don't deserve our southern hospitality.

If you can't pronounce the Appalachian Mountains correctly then you my friend are a tourist. I don't care if you lived here 20 of your 21 years. You should know how to correctly say the mountains you live in. Otherwise you are a tourist and will never be truly connected to the beauty, the history, and the spirit of these mountains.

I may be 600 miles away but my heart will always be in Western North Carolina and I will never be ashamed to say where I am from again. Because it is one of the biggest prides of my life. I am a pure to the core Country Girl. And I will be till the day I'm gone.

 

Come meet the Author of Dream Weaver....Su Williams

CRINGE-WORTHY? I always cringe a little when someone asks me what inspired me to write Dream Weaver, because I know there are haters out there for the thing that inspired me and I don’t want them to judge my book because of it. (Dang! Run-along sentence much?!) So, I’ll just out with it from the get go and hope you give me a chance. OK. So. It was the Twilight Saga that inspired me to write Dream Weaver. OK, there it is. I know there are millions of people who absolutely LOVED Twilight…me among them. It had been many years since I’d written anything of any consequence, but when I finished those books…and a 9 month round of hypnosis…I thought, “I could do that.” So, I set out to do it.
A LONG, LONG VOYAGE It took me 5 years to get Dream Weaver where I wanted it. I started with a 67 page manuscript that I pitched to agents and editors at my first conference. To this day I can’t believe I sent that manuscript out to the people who requested it. At last year’s PNWA conference, I pitched to 8 AEs and got 7 requests for partials. I also met a girl who lived near me and we became ‘editors’ for each other. I sent her my MS and she sent me hers. She had a lot of questions and comments when I got it back. Some I agreed with and made the changes. I truly believe that that one simple act astronomically changed Dream Weaver. Over those 5 years I devoured everything I could on writing. I participated in writing prompts on Writer’s Digest that taught me how to say things with as few words as possible and still get the picture across. (You only get 500 words on these prompts.) I got a great book called Manuscript Makeover by Elizabeth Lyon. It’s about as tattered and marked as a well-loved Bible. I even studied an English Comp textbook. Willingly.
WHO INSPIRED ME? I have a few absolute favorite authors.Richelle Mead whose Vampire Academy books are such an intense read, and soon to be a movie, that when I went to reread them I couldn’t because the emotion is so raw.Lisa McMann is one of writers that agents might call ‘sparse’. She doesn’t need a lot of flowery speech to draw the most vibrant pictures. My favorite so far? Dead to You. I wrote to Lisa after I finished and said, ‘Lisa McMann knows just where to plunge the knife…and twist for good measure.’ Yeah, that good. Maggie Stiefvater is so beautiful and lyrical in her writing. Her Shivertrilogy is AMAZING! She inspire me so much to be more poetic in my writing.And finally, Annette Curtis Klaus. She captured the very nature of the beast in her novel Blood and Chocolate. An uber-great read.
AND THE THANKS GOES TO… Toni, thanks so much for allowing me to stop by and meet your friends. I’ve made Dream Weaver available for ONLY .99 on Amazon Kindle and B&N,  so I hope readers will make the tiny investment for it. So far, Dream Weaver has gotten very good ratings. It holds a 4.2 out of 5 star rating on Amazon, and a 4.42 stars on GoodReads.
My only question to your readers now is… Do You DARE TO DREAM!?


Many thanks,Su
 Dream-Weaver-Novels/Facebook
DreamWeaverNovels.com
Dream Weaver Novels Blog










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 Dream Weaver
By Su Williams 
Prologue 
Nick 
Incorporeal I drift, camouflaged against the shimmering snow, no more than a sparkling flurry in the wind, dancing just on the precipice of light shielding me from her--and them. I am her aegis, her defense from the darkness that presses in on her from without, evil cloaked from her eyes. I feel her inner darkness’ pull on her; hear it call her name. Vivid images whose birth I cannot fathom--whether from within her heart, or tailored for her torment--still, after all these months accost her sleep and crush her soul. Yet, her screams tear the night and my heart less often than before. Surely, she is strong enough to endure some terror; no lifetime is without it. Such a gentle soul so tethered and weighted by so much loss, so much grief. I have mended what I can of her damaged mind without wholly purging her memories. At least I can dull her pain, callous her tender heart. I know the unwritten code: ‘There are mortals, and there are immortals, and never the twain shall meet.’ Still, I find myself here, hovering on the fringe of the woods just outside the halo of light that wreathes her home. And they haunt the darkness, hidden within the shadows. I sense them, though not how near. I shudder at the consequences if they discover my presence. They would kill her, or at the very least brutalize her--just because they are able, just for my torment, the fresh nightmare of her torture a delicacy on their lips as they devour my memory. They are changing, such aberrant evolutions we have found in their kind of late. Creatures so like us, spoken from the same heavenly breath, yet worlds apart. Their sustenance makes them monsters, even evil. They grow stronger pillaging the gifts of our kind and using them as their own and leave us worse than dead. For this cause, I feel powerless, mortal. She knows nothing of my world, few mortals do, and it is only because of a promise and her safety that I enter hers. I vowed to protect her at any cost, with my life if necessary. And something of her draws me in, her heart to mine. It wakens an ache, a passion that long ago I laid to rest, deep beneath the sodden earth, entombed in company of my mortal life. My heart aches with indecision. Should I go to her, risk her life perhaps to save it, or leave her be to strengthen from the terror? 
CHAPTER 1 Going Under
Night terrors stalk my sleep and haunt me through each day. I am never free. Macabre phantoms, twisted metal, flames and the sound of my parent’s screams, their cries for salvation. And I would give it--if I could, were the realm in which I live and the terrors in which they died equal. In time, my gasps for air and life abated. I learned to live without the press of suffocation on my lungs. At the least I was treading water with some hope of survival. But monsters strike even in the shallows, even when you’re feet from shore and almost standing on solid ground. The subtle bumps of a predator, like a shark in the deep, reawakened the terrors. And I lived in fear of the jaws ripping through me and dragging me under, lost again to the darkness of terror. The darkness that has nothing to do with light or sleep. I am Emari Sweet, sole survivor of a crash I was never in. The crash that claimed the lives of my beloved parents Zecharias and Jane Sweet. The crash that left me orphaned at 17. The crash I foresaw in the eyes of the State Trooper before the words formed on his tongue. Cold and hard, the words turned my blood to hardened steel and eviscerated me. My soul twisted and shredded. I lived with the terrors for many weeks after that. My best girl, Ivy, kept my body functioning, the basics for sustenance of life. She kept me Earthbound and alive when I’d rather have been neither. She guided me through an icy summer that tumbled into autumn like the leaves off a tree. Adrian Rovnikov, my father’s best friend, my shrink since the crash, brought me drugs--antidepressants. But they are only safe in the right hands. In mine, they are death. So, before I caused irreparable harm, the pills went the way of dead fish. Dreams of an angel with eyes of obsidian wound their way through the darkness until they finally displaced the terrors. His gentle hand calmed my writhing body, drew out the poison of the chimera, and guided me back to life. The dark-eyed angel faded as my darkness dawned into light. Yet, even when the terrors diminished, the torment hovered nearby, stalking my sanity, prepared to strike at any show of weakness. Winter’s chill cast a mantle of white over Spokane. Trees wore shimmering nacreous cloaks that rivaled the grandeur of their summer dress greens and fall’s autumnal oranges, reds and yellows. The city lay calm and peaceful under winter’s frigid embrace and my heart still ached under the frost of grief. I hid it from all but the most discerning eyes. The tumble of seasons brought more than cold; the real monster lurked in dark corners and phoned me at work, promised me pain and fear.
* * * 
Daylight masquerades as dusk, the clouds heavy-laden with snow. An arctic blast extends its arm, balling its fist to bludgeon the car from the road. Brake lights flash a glaring red. The tires whir and whine on the frozen asphalt seeking elusive purchase. The wind flings the car across three frosted lanes. Panic twists my father’s face as the car fishtails out of control. His frantic hands, hands that can do anything, build anything, grapple uselessly at the wheel. My mother’s face is fear-white, her mouth a perfect ‘o’ that disappears beneath her small, stark hand. A wall of white emerges out of the flurry before the windshield, but not of snow. Cement. Massive and merciless. The shiny new sedan plows into the bridge abutment, lifting Mom’s side of the car into flight. Giant sparkling snowflakes of shattering glass fly into the air as the car rolls over and over. Metal screams and moans in protest. Finally settling on its top, the car slides across the icy black tarmac, a path of broken scattered pieces in its wake. Upside down, my mother’s pallid face appears at her window. Violent crimson drenches her hair, a severe contrast against her spectral skin. Her dazzling emerald green eyes, my own eyes staring back at me, implore for my help. Pounding hysterically, her knuckles split and bleed, smearing the window in a web of red. The roar of fire drowns her cries, flames that now return the light to the day, and vanquish the masquerade. Driven by panic, I plunge through the whirling eddies of snow. But I can’t get to them. I have no traction, my steps falter. I am prisoner to the freezing storm, powerless to save them; held at bay by the fireball that lights the grey gauzy day cotton-bright like summer, and sends seismic shockwaves that undulate the ground beneath me. Shrapnel of rocks and glass rain down upon me. Exhausted and useless, I collapse to my knees on the caustic, sub-zero ice. The acrid smell of smoke and gasoline grows heavy in the air, searing my throat and nostrils. Like a pin-hole camera, the light etches the panic and fear on my mother’s face onto my retinas and deep into my brain. The blaze scorches my eyes, bringing my tears to a boil. Searing heat and the horror of looking into the faces of my mother and father as the flames devour them forces me to look away. My body finally crumbles onto the cold freeway, in exhausted agony. I crush my ears with my hands to block out the maelstrom. Their haunting screams reverberate in my ears, echoes of the torment resounding throughout my body. The reality of my own screams awoke me. I bolted upright and clutched my head. My body trembled and rocked, soaked in sweat, as I manically searched for a thread of truth. My breath rasped from my raw lungs that thrashed against the smoke-that-wasn’t. Comforting gazes from my black and white movie monsters centered my thoughts. Bela Legosi, both Lon Chaneys, Boris Karloff and even Vlad Dracul himself, with his large round piercing eyes, crowded the walls of my black and white bedroom. Vlad was the only true monster there, but somehow I found a strange compassion for the man, given his tortured history. My glossy companions brought my heart an odd comfort.
* * * 
Ninety minutes later, I sat in Adrian’s office and debated with myself just how much to tell him. I didn’t need the ‘Emari, you should come stay with us’ lecture again. I’d proved to the Spokane Courts that I was capable in every way to be considered an adult, and was granted emancipation. “Nightmares again?” Adrian asked. “Ya think?” I wasn’t being disrespectful. We were just beyond fluff and formality. “Any idea what the stress trigger is this time?” “Um…” I squirmed against the soft red leather of his couch. “There’s this guy…” A small conspiratorial smile crept onto Adrian’s face while I paused, contemplating. “Uh, no. I mean a bad guy. He’s calling me. At work. Like phone stalking me.” I hated admitting even this little bit to him, but most of the time his psycho-babble really did help. Adrian leaned across the desk. His eyes narrowed and deep canyons grooved his forehead. “And just what is being done to stop him?” Great! Just what I need. ‘Protective-daddy’ mode. “It’s all good.” I waved him down. “My friend, Jesse, escorts me to and from my car every day and Collin keeps one of the Loss Prevention guys in the department as much as he can.” Despite playing it off as no big deal to Adrian, a cold uneasiness squirmed through me like night crawlers. “Is he only calling you at work?” The Doc was in full-on interrogation mode now. “Yes. Only at work. But it’s weird. It’s like he’s watching me but the LP guys never find anyone.” “Tell me you’ve called the police.” “Sure, sure. Nothing the cops can do unless the guy actually kills me or something, though.” Adrian sat back in his chair with a harrumph of frustration, the ‘daddy-look’ still plastered on his face. “Emari…” “Adrian. Don’t even start.” “Then why are you here?” he retorted. “The night terrors? You’re supposed to say a bunch of ‘shrinky’ kinds of things to make me feel better.” So he did. And when he was done, he walked me to the door. He gave me the usual ‘be careful’ and ‘buckle up for safety’ speech; something he and Dad must’ve gone to school together to learn. Then he gave me his best fatherly hug. I had to admit, his arms truly did feel like the safest place in the world. “See you for Thanksgiving?” he asked. “Sure, Uncle Adrian. Kiss Celeste and the kids for me.” He wasn’t really my uncle. Just my father’s closest friend in the world. “Of course. See you then, Emari.” “See ya.” I shambled into work after my meeting with Adrian. Ivy saw me for the zombie I was, so in contrast to her perky pixiness. Her ornery smile wavered as I drew nearer but she reined it in. She’d given up months ago with the ‘you look like hell’ comments. Visine and Covergirl couldn’t wreak miracles that big. She opened her arms and I stepped inside. “You okay?” she whispered. I stepped out of her embrace. “Sure, sure,” I said with a grin, and a quote from one of our favorite books. The marbled blue of her eyes softened into limpid pools, so vast any guy could swim in them. I tucked a wisp of her soft brown hair behind her ear. “Let’s get to work.” She pinched my arm playfully as she released me. “Collin’s got LP scheduled in an hour, but Blake came early, off the clock,” she informed me as we sorted children’s clothing to reshelf. “Jess’s gonna be pissed you didn’t wait for him.” Jesse DeLaRosa was the closest thing to a real life Prince Charming in my world. He was instantly likeable, flirtatious in the sweetest way, easy at being a fast friend, faultlessly kindhearted. His ingenuous smile lit up any room, a constant feature that graced his lightly bronzed face. He sang or whistled while he worked, no matter how mundane or dirty the job, a lingering accent, from his days as a child in Puerto Rico colored his speech. He was a couple of years older than Ivy and me, but he clicked with our dorkiness and we’d become best friends. He’d taken it upon himself to be my daily escort--even on his days off. “He’ll get over it,” I told her, but inwardly I hoped he wasn’t too mad at me. Every time the phone rang, it jangled our nerves. Ivy’s hand lashed out with the speed of a viper to protect me from innocuous callers. “You can’t field all of the calls, Ives,” I said after the fourth call. “I can try,” she replied with a smug half smile. The stalker wouldn’t call with Ivy present, and we both knew it. He would wait until she went on break, as though he had a bird’s nest in the middle of the department. He wanted me alone, separated from the pack, vulnerable. Ivy reluctantly took her break and Blake haunted the racks. Despite my anticipation, adrenalin shot through me like an ice river and my heart banged against my ribcage when the phone rang. I watched Ivy’s shadow disappear from sight as I reached a quivering hand to the phone. “Children’s Department,” I choked out. Collin instructed us not to give our names until this ‘situation’ was resolved. “I see you,” the voice purred gruffly. I envisioned a lion crouched in tall grass. Rigid, poised for attack. His words were soft and succinct, as though masking something from me, but the smooth lacquered surface didn’t camouflage the menace that roiled underneath--like the delicate crust of cooled lava veiling the molten lake beneath. Blake’s eyes locked on my face as he lurched away from a rack of boy’s jeans. They followed the silent nod of my head. The muscles of his line-backer physique hardened as he prowled the department. “I’m sorry. What was that?” I delayed. My voice quivered with anger, to my dismay. I wasn’t scared. I was pissed. But I knew he would read it as fear--just what he wanted. “Your rent-a-cop won’t catch me.” The lion’s throaty warning growl. His voice turned acerbic, his need to induce fear sparked electrically through the phone. “Nah. He’s not even a rent-a-cop. Not even a pathetic mall cop. Just some punk kid they hired to baby-sit the store.” Baby-sit? Either this guy’s full of crap or he’s freakin’ huge. I was betting on full of crap. He chortled at my unease, and I heard something familiar but untouchable in his voice. Like I knew him from somewhere--and that pissed me off even more. “What the hell do you want?” I demanded. “Just you,” he said slowly. He sniggered again with a ghoulish glee and the line went dead. “Damn it!” I slammed the phone down and turned with a start. A customer, a woman with a little boy about five glared at me with righteous indignation. “Oh. I’m so sorry. I just…it was…there was this guy.” She harrumphed and stormed away, towing the boy in her sanctimonious wake. No doubt to complain to my manager. So. Let her. Blake shuffled up to the quad, what we associates at Cash’s Department Store called our customer service desks. “Sorry, Em. No luck.” He looked every bit the defeated athlete, his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets making his shoulders and arms bulge. “It’s all good. He’ll get bored eventually and go away.” I hope.

Chapter 2 Haunted
I was prophetic, if not pathetic. The calls ceased and my stalker fell silent, not so much as a heavy breather. Perhaps he’d moved on to some other prey. Poor girl. Everyone around me breathed easier. But a specter of black ice lingered under the surface, chilled me to my core. Deep down I felt a dark and malevolent storm brewing. I wondered if I’d manage to survive it unscathed or if my entire world would shatter with the velocity of its fury. * * *


  DREAM WEAVER is now only .99 on Amazon. A story of mind-benders & breakers. Are your memories your own?

Turning The Pages Books Sponsor for Indie Bookfest 2013

Turning The Pages Books : Indie Bookfest 2013

Turning The Pages is raising money to help Sponsor the Indie Bookfest 2013 and help show support to all the 50+ Indie Authors that will be attending.

The Truth behind Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo—or the fifth of May—commemorates the Mexican army's 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War (1861-1867). A relatively minor holiday in Mexico, in the United States Cinco de Mayo has evolved into a celebration of Mexican culture and heritage, particularly in areas with large Mexican-American populations. Cinco de Mayo traditions include parades, mariachi music performances and street festivals in cities and towns across Mexico and the United States.

Learn all about Cinco de Mayo on History.com

Z is for Zelda

Zelda is one of those games everyone has played. At least some point. Some people still don't know Zelda is the princess and Link is the person you play but let them live in their nongamer lives. 




Link has changed over the years and below are some awesome things you can have to show your love for one of if not the greatest game ever made.






Special 3DS Console




Wall pieces


Cake


Statue


Statue


Crochet Bomb Bag


Bed Cover


Chess


A key hook



Those plastic melt things art

Toddler Crochet outfit


Cooking Apron


Cake Topper


Mouse Pad

X is for Xbox

You can't have video games without having something to play them on. So this is for all my Microsoft Xbox lovers. Show off your love with some of these neat things



Wall decor for Xbox (and PlayStation)



Xbox Pinata



Xbox Cake topper....oh yeah the bride won!



Xbox White console Christmas ornament


Xbox controller table.