The crocus are coming! The crocus are coming!

This morning on our walk, Ramona and I saw lots of these cute little purple blooms, with daffodil leaves shooting up nearby! What a great start for a Sunday morning which was warm enough to stroll with a light jacket–no earmuffs or gloves!

I send this out especially to family and friends buried beneath 40-50″ of snow, in Iowa and Pennsylvania: you, too, will see flowers again someday! For now, enjoy these!

Right now I feel the way this beautiful fairy tern looks: soaring on the current, rejuvenated by the sea air…yessirree, it feels GOOD to send a completed manuscript off to my editor!! I entrusted it to FedEx on Wednesday and have given myself a day or two away from writing to catch up on other stuff!

But this fairy tern also gives us a sense of knowing its own POWER…and that’s my goal now as I approach a birthday, and come to the table for new contracts with ALL of my editors. I have this fine, feisty sense that I will continue the Love Secret series, with a fine new editor; that I will continue to write as Melissa MacNeal for a Kensington editor, and my agent and I also have a new proposal idea for the Dorchester editor who now works at Kensington, for whom I’ve written my Angels of Mercy series, and to whom I originally sold my Love Secret series! And–I began brainstorming with another editor at our NINC conference last fall.

FOUR editors are interested in my work–or at least interested in working with ME right now! I see that as reason indeed to flap my wings and fly high this year!!

I wish you the same sense of optimism as you test your wings and know your own inner strength and power!

Just a quick little entry here to wish ALL OF YOU a wonderful Valentine’s Day with this bouquet of roses like none you’ve ever seen before! I love these colors! They prove that even if you’re not into red and pink hearts, you can enjoy something that makes you SMILE!

Actually, these posies came with The Prayer of St. Therese, who believed in doing the little things well. “May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”

If we can just live out those two “little” things each day, think how much happier our lives would be! And that peace within–that trusting God–those are totally within OUR CONTROL, too!

So stop and smell the roses! Smile! And go for that Peace and Trust today!

Had you told me, a year ago, I would not just be blogging at Novelists, Inc. and on the Aphrodisia Authors site, but would have THIS blog on MY site–no way! But the times, they are a-changin’. And while I’m by no means the sharpest Social Media magician on the stage, I gotta keep on adding new tricks to my bag.

Could be the moon and sun and all my planets are aligned just right! My astrologer, Maria, and my numerologist, Alison, have given me glimpses of a FABULOUS year ahead. And I BELIEVE!

So I hope you’ll join in! Let me know what you think of my new site! Try one of my recipes! I’m still tweaking a bit with my fabulous site designer, Frauke Spanuth, so stay tuned for newsletters and contests and all sorts of stuff to make you smile…just like that photo of the moon and sun at the North Pole!