Six Sentence Sunday

Today is the ending of Thanksgiven, my short story.  Thank you to everyone who has been following it every Saturday and Suday this month.  I hope you enjoy this final snippet.

And thank you for your company and comments, every week, they are all appreciated. 

"Did you really say you've always loved me?"

He nodded, captured her carressing hand and kissed her palm.  "Always and forever, only you."

"Good," she said, reasting her head against his shoulder.  "I feel the same way about you."

"Then let's go home," Luke suggested, and gave thanks his love of a lifetime lay cradled in his arms.

Thank you for following my short story, Thanksgiven all this month.

You'll find hundreds more great snippets at Six Sunday Sentence. 

Thanksgiving with an English Mum

Thanksgiving with an English Mum
By Kay Springsteen



The picture is one of my family taking after a Thanksgiving meal...aren't we a happy (ha ha) looking bunch. My mother is front and center, a petite ball of British energy. And I'm in there, too. Can you find me?

There is just something about holidays in America. There are seven main holidays in the United States – meaning most companies offer these days off or offer extra pay for working them. New Year’s Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. There are a myriad of others that are referred to as “bank holidays” (an outdated term), in which if you work in a government office you will be granted those days off but frankly many people don’t celebrate them, and I’ve run into more people lately who don’t know what these holidays ever are or what they were started for. And there are holidays that are celebrated like crazy but time off and/or overtime never figures in – such as Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween… Add in Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and you have 12 months of Greeting Cards. But also 12 months of fun. 

One of the American holidays I grew up taking for granted is Thanksgiving. As a youngster, it was fun only in the morning when my dad would turn on the TV and we’d all watch the parades together. This was back in the days where the parades were more about the elaborate floats and less about the personalities hosting them or the acts that would stop the parade while they performed. It was simpler, and in my opinion, much more fun to watch. In school for the week or two prior to the holiday, we had learned about fall things, harvests, Pilgrims and Indians – and the specifics of what we learned depended on our ages and grades. But

But I never fully understood that Thanksgiving, from my mom’s perspective, was a non-holiday. Not until I was older and learned that she had emigrated from England in 1947, and that England did not celebrate American Thanksgiving did I “get” that we were not the center of the universe, that other people in other countries had their own celebrations and American Thanksgiving was…well, American. My mom embraced the holiday as one where we would gather as a family, and we had our traditions of turkey and all the embellishments of that meal. The house smelled incredible starting the week before because Mom would bake pies and cookies every day. The lingering scent of sugary treats baking mingled with the savory aroma of roasting meat on Thanksgiving morning, and our stomachs were all growling by midday.

But though she embraced the traditions, my mom admitted to me that she simply didn’t understand the holiday. It was her belief, you see, that every day should have time set aside for giving thanks, not just one day out of a year. With that thought, I saw things more clearly. And yes, I still enjoy the traditions of the holiday. But my mother instilled in me an “attitude of gratitude” that I try to hold onto all year long. Because we shouldn’t remember to only give thanks one day out of the year.

Here is a peek at my latest book, Operation: Christmas Hearts, released tomorrow by Astraea Press, just in time for Christmas

Blurb:
Ashley Torrington never cared all that much about Christmas before. But this year she’s having a particularly blue holiday because Marine Special Operations Team member, Captain Nick Turner got under her skin just before he was deployed to Afghanistan. With Bella, her neighbors’ precocious daughter, volunteering Ashley for a special project at school, and a mysterious white-haired woman named Estelle in town buying gifts from Ashley’s shop, not to mention the odd assortment of presents Ashley’s been receiving from an anonymous source, she shouldn’t have time to worry about her guy. But when he and his team go missing the week before Christmas, she realizes only a Christmas miracle will reunite them.

Nick Turner didn’t back down from challenges—on the battlefield or in his personal life. But he’d never met a challenge like Ashley Torrington, who told him up front she didn’t like being left behind and didn’t want to be anyone’s “girl back home.” Now here he was on the other side of the world, wanting to be anywhere but in Afghanistan for Christmas. About to embark on one of the most dangerous missions of his life, he needed Ashley to know she was so much more than the girl he’d left behind. And he did plan to come home to her. But in the meantime, a little Christmas magic would be appreciated. Little does he know, he’s about to get his wish.

http://kayspringsteen.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/Wordz.n.Pix
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kay-Springsteen-Author-of-Romance/143469035711422


Find Kay Springsteen here: Astraea Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Margay shares some of her best Thanksgiving Memories



Photo by Jean Joachim

 I have so many wonderful Thanksgiving memories, it would hard to pick just one to relate. So, instead, I’d rather talk about the essence of the day. From my earliest memory of the day, it was always about two things: family and the food. It was the one day out of the year that you could eat whatever you wanted and as much as you wanted without fear of being ridiculed by anyone. In fact, if you didn’t eat much, people would ask if you were sick!

My best memories of Thanksgiving revolve around family. I come from a large one, so there was always a lot of noise, chaos, love and happiness filling the house from the moment we all woke up to the moment we all went down for naps when the triptofan kicked in! I remember gathering around the television set to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while Mom prepared a feast in the kitchen – a tradition we still observe today. Thanksgiving just doesn’t feel the same if you don’t have the parade on while you’re cooking! I remember being transfixed by the amazing floats and cartoon character balloons, and waiting with much anticipation for the arrival of Santa Claus at the end of the parade. For that usually meant that it was time to eat! I don’t know how my mother managed it, but she always timed it just right!

And then there was the food. The turkey, the stuffing, mashed potatoes, turnip, squash – and that was just the main course! While we waited for that, there was a bowl of mixed nuts, dates stuffed with peanut butter and rolled in sugar, celery stuffed with cream cheese or peanut butter, and several different types of pickles. Then there were the pies – pumpkin, apple, pecan – and breads and rolls, all washed down with apple cider and/or egg nog.

All in all, it was the one time of year when we could just sit down together and truly be thankful for all that we had and for all that was yet to come.

Author Bio:
Descended from the same bloodline that spawned the likes of James Russell, Amy and Robert Lowell, Margay Leah Justice was fated to be a writer herself from a young age. But even before she knew that there was a name for what she was doing, she knew one thing: She had a deep and unconditional love for the written word. A love that would challenge her in times of need, abandon her in times of distress, and rediscover her in times of hope. Through her writing, Margay has learned to cope with every curve ball life has thrown her, including the challenges of single parenting, the harsh realities of living in a shelter, coping with the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, and the roller coaster ride of dealing with a child who suffers from bipolar disorder and Asperger’s Syndrome. But along the way she has rediscovered the amazing power of words.
Margay currently lives in Massachusetts with her two daughters, two cats, and a myriad of characters who vie for her attention and demand that their own stories be told.

Blurb:
For more than a hundred and fifty years, the gray wolf has failed to roam the hills of Massachusetts, leading to the belief that they are extinct. But with a spattering of sightings across the Berkshires, the legend of the gray wolf comes to fruition. The product of that legend, Micah Sloane will go to great lengths to protect his kind from the threat of outsiders, who seek to exploit the legend for their own interests. One thing he didn’t count on, however, was finding his soul mate in the company of such men.

From the first time she predicted a stranger’s imminent death when she was little more than a child, Shiloh Beck knew she was different. Wishing to cultivate her gift, her parents made the fateful decision to enroll her in a private school for paranormally gifted children. Unbeknownst to them, the school was just a front for a research facility simply called the Institute, whose secret board members weaned gifted children from their families to exploit their gifts. Shiloh has spent the better part of her life trying to escape the Institute and reunite with the family she was told had abandoned her.

From their first meeting, Micah and Shiloh share a connection that goes beyond the normal to bond them in a way that love alone cannot. But before they can build a life together, they must deal with the fall-out when the legend of the wolves collides with the men behind the Institute.

Sloane Wolf is available here:
http://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=242&category_id=107&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1&vmcchk=1&Itemid=1

 Margay Leah Justice, http://margayleahjusstice.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/MargayLeahJustice


https://twitter.com/#!/Margay

Thank you Margay, for sharing your wonderful memories with us.

Sweet Saturday Samples

Thank you to everyone who visits every week and to those joining us all this week. Click here-> Sweet Saturday Samples to enjoy many other fabulous excerpts.

This month I am offering excerpts from a published short story Thanks Given, using a British heroine's take on Thanksgiving.  I am also going to post the next six sentences tomorrow for SSS then continue on from there next week.  

The rain slapped against the windscreen, challenging the wipers to clear the glass long enough for Alex to see her way forward. "The plane trip from hell" didn’t begin to describe her flight from Heathrow to the States, and now this. She’d checked her map and turned off the highway onto what amounted to little more than a dirt track. One that emulated a trampoline, throwing what the man behind the counter of the hire firm called, ‘a neat little European compact, ideal for a lady’, all over the rutted surface. Surely her journey could only improve.

Apparently not.

The raging storm muffled the bang when the front tire blew. The steering wheel jerked to her right, hurling the car into the centre of the road, confirming the worst. The air inside the vehicle turned blue as she grappled to control the car.

Thank God Americans drove on the wrong side of the road. In this case a deserted road. Instinctively she brought the car to a slithering halt and tried to release her fear-locked fingers from the steering wheel. Failing, she gave up and rested her forehead on them instead waiting for the shaking to stop. The curtain of rain and falling dusk masked her surroundings. No way would oncoming traffic see her vehicle slewed across the road until it was too late. She had to move it. How much room did she have? She didn’t fancy ending up in either ditches edging the road. O.K. She’d have to get out and check, but first, she’d ring her brother-on-law, Luke Marino, so he and her nieces wouldn’t worry. He once judged her on her modeling career. Shallow, frivolous and a useless specimen of humanity, so this latest calamity would only add to his conviction. And yet…

~ ~ ~

In the meantime I am doing a complete rewrite of my Wolfman story, so perhaps I will have something more from it for you all next month.