Well, 2023 has come and gone. All the presents of the festive holiday season were feverishly ripped open with bows and paper cast aside, replaced by the glee of discovering what was hiding inside. What did I get? What did I receive? My most fevered wish must surely be hiding in there….. Alas, the magic and expectations of the holidays rarely live up to the reality of the actual event, package, or gift. It must be something to do with this time of year. From Thanksgiving to New Year, we just set ourselves up for some measure of inadequacy or disappointment or both. The unrealistic expectations of the season versus the cold dash and clash of reality is nowhere more evident than with our New Year’s resolutions. We start the new year with such grand intentions; such concrete goals and objectives…only to discover within a few short weeks (or couple of months at most) that the expectation and the reality are miles apart. We’re just simply not the most dedicated or disciplined creatures when it comes to making big changes that are designed to improve our lives and our health. We’re just not. En masse or as individuals, we most often take the path of least resistance, not the path less traveled. And from this realization, one thing becomes certain: We are designed to be daily creatures of habit, with only intermittent sparks of drastic change; not the other way around. I read once that “people do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures” (that’s a quote courtesy of F.M. Alexander), and I have found this to be a fairly accurate and true assessment of we humans. We choose our habits, our habits choose our friends and our activities, and the rest is a pretty easy picture to paint. So with the arrival of a new year, we have the opportunity to create some new habits (maybe not big, big changes – just a few small tweaks of old habits would be a great place to start) that might eventually lead to other new opportunities friends and habits that will eventually change and improve our life. But, so often, we’re totally consumed with the everyday; Consumed with the mundane, the habitual behaviors, that we fail to see the miraculous and life-changing opportunities that are flying past us each and every day. I liken opportunities to the colorful fireflies you see in the dusk of the day. There are hundreds of flickering lightning bugs flying around in the shadows of dusk – just waiting to find the right host for the night. It is the same with opportunities – there are hundreds of opportunities flying right past you each and every day – you just need to look up from the grindstone to see and catch them as they fly past. So as the new year begins, and the opportunities of a new year begin to fly past you, take some advice from someone who’s seen the fireflies: Look up, look around, watch for the quick glow – I can promise they are there! Have a wonderful start to 2024, catch your own firefly and we’ll talk soon! Natalie

How did December arrive so quickly? Each and every year, I seem to ask myself this same question. It’s as if I look around, and most of my year feels as if it’s been stolen – just whisked away on a wish and a whim! Of course, that’s not reality; each day drifted by in the hurried moments of errands, chores, and to-do lists. Even as I write this article, I have a notepad with my “Christmas To Do” sitting right beside me. I believed (truly in total error) that once I retired, I would have so much extra time on my hands… time to soak in the beauty of the day whilst I contemplated my next chapter of the Scrapbook Series or hiked along the many beautiful trails found in the Boston Mountains of the Ozark chain. And although I do take part in those things, I find so many more of my days are consumed with lists to be complete… lists of household responsibilities, doctors appointments, posting, and record keeping; as you can see, it simply goes on and on. The time thief invents ways to whisk away my time, and he’s getting better and better at accomplishing his mission. And then there were none. No months left in the year. No more, “next month I’ll get to that” for this year. The days are spent, and Father Time is ready to roll the calendar. I suppose this realization each year provides two necessary things for me: The first is that it is concrete proof we should appreciate every day and find a way to be thankful for all our many blessings, big and small. The second is the opportunity to look back over my year, acknowledge and revel in my triumphs while deepening my resolve on the items I didn’t accomplish. December, and the beginning of the winter season, is a perfect time for introspection and review. As the living world around us withdraws to rest, hibernate, and prepare for the coming spring and rebirth, so should we. It is a time to look inside ourselves to take whatever steps are necessary to prepare for a new year, a new season, and new beginnings. Some of us need time to reflect and lick our wounds. Some of us need time to revel in our victories. And for some of us (in fact most of us) it’s a little bit of both. So, as December of 2023 comes upon us, I wish for all my readers to have a wonderfully joyful and fulfilling Christmas Holiday season, but I also wish for you to have time to reflect, appreciate, be grateful, and prepare for the birth of a new year and new opportunities! Happy Holidays Everyone!!!!!!

As November blew in on the mountain, it brought a blast of cold air and a reminder that there is a time for every season… it's now fall and the season of colder temps, colorful leaves, harvest moons, and, traditionally, a time for gratitude and thanksgiving. As I closed October’s blog, I quoted Benjamin Franklin, and for those of you who don’t know me that well, Benjamin Franklin is among my very select group of special heroes. The October blog line was “Happiness, according to Benjamin Franklin, is an endless journey, not a comforting destination….where does your journey lead you?” The long version of the story as to how he became a special hero for me is best left for another blog; for this post, it’s sufficient to say I deeply admire his gift of persuasion. Ole Ben persuaded many a colonist with his exquisite use of prose, pen & paper, rather than the swing of the sword or the blast of the bullet. That ability takes real talent, and as a writer, I can truly appreciate the effort that goes into mastering the art of persuasion. And there we are, back to gratitude and appreciation. Quite fitting for this month of November and the national holiday we recognize in the US as “Thanksgiving Day”, wouldn’t you say? Happiness, gratitude, and appreciation are conscious choices; that means we must “choose” to be happy, grateful and appreciative of our life, our surroundings, and the world in which we live. And it seems to me that many of our world population have forgotten that fact. It’s always someone or something that we look to in our quest to find that highly elusive “happiness” we’re all seeking. When in reality, we all must take responsibility for our own endless journey and, by default, our happiness, gratitude, and appreciation. Greeting the day with a heart full of thanks gives us mortals the opportunity to open ourselves to consciously recognize blessings and opportunities as they flit our way each and every day. There is never a day that I wake up that I’m not blessed with lots of “happiness” opportunities – in fact, most often, they’re so numerous that I fail to accurately count them. I, by design, also live in a place that makes it easy to be grateful. One glance across the horizon affords you a spectacular vista of blueish-purple mountain peaks, ascending as if to meet the heavens, white fluffy clouds that encapsulate those majestic peaks, and a multitude of colors in the leaves as they waver between life and death. Eventually, the onslaught of cold and wind will knock them to the ground, leaving only a wintry bleakness of empty branches against a backdrop of winter skies. Even that stark and contrasting view can evoke emotions of thankfulness. And, in the bigger picture, those dead and discarded leaves of summer past will provide the food necessary to feed the promise of tomorrow’s wildlife and forests. As the days pass and the seasons change, we all should strive to stop, smell the roses, and take in all that we have been blessed to experience. There will only be one Fall of 2023; live it to the fullest! I hope this blog will find you in a place of happiness, gratitude, and appreciation, but if not, maybe this post will be the catalyst that propels you forward to making that happiness choice!

We’re still working on Fall’s arrival here in the Ozarks, but you can easily see Mother Nature’s hand at work this October morning. Slowly but surely, the changing of the season is creeping in. Aside from the beauty that’s revealed during this change, my favorite thing to “watch” is the morning sunrises. I’m most assuredly a morning person, and the mornings here never disappoint. Beautiful hues of blues, purples, pinks, and reds gloriously fill the horizon in anticipation of the sun’s blazing appearance. It’s breathtaking sometimes, and for me, it’s the perfect start to the day. There are as many differing opinions as to the “perfect” start to the day as there are people to give them. Mine, however, follows right along with my view of life. Mornings are a wonderfully exquisite chance at a brand new beginning, full of opportunity, mystery, and a world of “what-ifs”. You truly never know for sure what or who you might meet, greet, or experience on any given day, and that, for me, has always held a sense of promise. As I’ve gotten older, that feeling hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s gotten stronger. That positive, hopeful outlook has gotten me through a lot of trial and tribulation. And I’ve always believed it’s better to view the glass as half full, as opposed to half empty. It’s this same outlook that has fueled much of my writing and filled the books I’ve written with a sense of hope for a brighter tomorrow. I’ve even tried to convey this in the titling of some of the books (i.e., Tomorrow’s Promise). That’s perhaps my greatest wish for my readers: Life can be a positive journey, regardless of the bumps in the road, the trials we all experience, or the tears that may fall. We are the ultimate determiner of our outlook and personal interactions with others. We can choose to live life negatively, or we can choose to see the positive, what some may call “the silver lining” in any situation. Each and every day, when we rise, we can be in awe of the opportunities and beauty before us, or we can see nothing but strife and darkness. It’s entirely up to the individual; it’s a truly personal choice. You can see the beauty or the beast of life. I once read, “You find what you’re looking for.” If you look for truth, you’ll find it. If you look for trouble, you’ll find it. If you look for sorrow, you’ll find that too. As I close my blog for today, I’m going to leave you with some words of positivity and a beautiful picture of my Ozark mornings. Happiness, according to Benjamin Franklin, is an endless journey, not a comforting destination….where does your journey lead you?

Hi, Everyone! Another month, another blog post! It’s September… and fall is beginning to arrive in the Ozarks. The temperature is dropping slightly, and the breezes are less humid, all telltale signs that summer is giving way to autumn. But for me, the glint of the sunshine announces that fall is coming. Although it’s almost inexplicable, the way the sun falls and glints on the world that surrounds me never fails to whisper and alert me to a change in seasons. And so it is, that Fall, with all her glory, will soon arrive to bless us with cooler temps, less oppressive humidity, and all the color we can take in. If you were to ask me what I love most about the mountains, it wouldn’t be the fall colors; my love of the mountains is fed by the mystery that seems to envelop each twist in the road, the shadows of the trees, and the sheer majesty of the mountains themselves. No, the Ozarks aren’t the Rockies, but they have a serenity all their own in their remote indifference to the many inhabitants, tourists, and vacationers that hike, bike, swim, and fly over them each year. All that said, I do find beauty in the color that Our Lady of the Fall brings each year. All the reds, yellows, oranges, and multiple hues in-between grace us with their presence from late October to sometime in December. And this year’s beauty should arrive with the same class and allure as all the years before. So many of my blog posts cover topics of choice and consequence, strife and struggle, or the “how, when, and why” of my life; this September post, however, is going to take a lighter note and a higher road. This month, I just want to soak in the beauty that surrounds me and pass along some of that appreciation in the written word. Several years ago, we made the decision to purchase raw land and create our own version of paradise in the Ozarks, and so far, we’re making good on that goal. We’ve managed to carve out a spot for a house with a magnificent view, a shop, and some spaces to leave as nature made them, untouched by our human hands of progress. It has been a unique experience: Sometimes arduous, sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and sometimes a disaster. But through it all, the beauty and aloofness of the mountains have prevailed and we’re still so appreciative and in awe of our surroundings. We’ve witnessed three years of changing seasons and are approaching our fourth turn of summer to fall. Here, against the backdrop of the Ozarks, the seasons are still evidentiary of the changing of the guard; the ebb and flow of life’s seasons run in unison with the ebb and flow of nature’s seasons. As I live life and move ever closer to the fall and winter of my life, my appreciation of the beauty of the fall increases each year. With that in mind, we’ve made plans this year to take in as much of the scenery the Ozarks have to offer. We’ve planned excursions to many of the local hiking trails, trips to several tourist hot spots, and a lone weekend in Branson during the height of their many fall activities. To say that we’re becoming more local than newbies would probably be pretty accurate. I simply hope that we never fail to feel inspired, in love, and awestruck by the beauty of the Ozarks adorned in their fall décor and the coat of many colors that provide moments of beauty that will take your breath. It’s my hope, as we move forward on our journey of an Ozark retirement that I’ll get to share ever more with my readers and my family. It’s my goal to impart as much beauty in my words as my eyes continue to behold in my Ozark Mountain Retreat. Until next time, I’m going to leave you with this painting of one of my pictures taken on our Ozark land. It’s a smorgasbord of fall colors!

The Scrapbook Series is my Dream In 1977 I bought a plaque at the TG&Y in Fayette, AL. I was 12. It had an old Irish proverb written across the front. One of the lines of the proverb goes as follows: Take time to dream, it is hitching your wagon to a star… After spending a lifetime working, owning, and operating businesses, I finally have the chance to follow a dream. My dream is to write; it is a passion that developed from a love of reading and finally, at 50, I’m following that dream. So, what did I choose to write? A fiction series entitled “Women of the Ozarks, The Scrapbook Series”. This book series is set in the Ozark Mountains, in the fictional town of Polk Ridge, AR, and chronicles the lives of Jorja and Regina. Children of the turbulent 60’s and 70’s, who grow up to be women of the 80’s and 90’s. It is a celebration of life from a woman’s perspective about the strength and resilience of women. Women who made beds and history. Women who raised kids and hell. Women who shattered the glass ceiling, or at times, simply found a way around it. The opening chapters of Book 1, Tomorrow’s Promise, relate the lives of these two very different young girls, how they met, the friendship that developed, and how life’s paths can take us in completely different directions, only to reunite us later. Much later, with much to share. I invite you to join Jo and Gina, as they laugh and cry, reunite and reminisce, and look for a way to bridge the distance between their past, their present, and their dreams for tomorrow. For your reading pleasure, I’m also including the Old Irish Proverb in it’s entirety below: Take time to work, it is the price of success. Take time to think, it is the source of power. Take time to play, it is the secret to perpetual youth. Take time to read, it is the foundation of wisdom. Take time to be friendly, it is the road to happiness. Take time to dream, it is hitching your wagon to a star. Take time to love and to be loved, it is the privilege of the gods. Take time to look around, the day is too short to be selfish. Take time to laugh, it is the music of the soul.

This week’s topic truly reflects the title I used. Topsy, Turvey life…that describes mine to a tee! As I reflected on the changes the next few weeks are going to bring and I looked through my books for a book bubble this week, I ran across the passage below. Even though I wrote this some nine months ago, the words seem once again to fit my mood and my life at the moment. So here for your reading pleasure is a little insight into me, the books I’m writing, and my topsy, turvy, chaotic world and life! Happy Reading, everyone! Natalie As 2019 draws to a close, it not only brings a year to a close, but a decade as well. And, for me, it’s been quite a tumultuous decade. There have been so many changes, personally and professionally, and these changes have affected all areas of my life; even my writing. I always encourage my family and friends to take time to look back. Look back to see how far you’ve come, because as a general rule, you need to know where you’ve been, in order to determine where you want or need to go. With this week’s book bubble, I thought I would take the opportunity to share with my readers a little bit of where I’ve been, and some insight into where I want to go. So, sit back, relax, and let’s take a journey through time… to where it all started… In 1977, at the TG&Y in Fayette, Al, I bought a plaque of anold Irish proverb/prayer. One of those lines reads: Take time to dream, it is hitching your wagon to a star. I still have the plaque; it hangs on my office wall and I still take time to dream. In following the dream of writing, I created the characters of Jorja (pronounced Georgia) Felsenthal and Regina Ingram and began their story. Jo and Gina, in The Scrapbook Series, is an opportunity to look at life through the eyes of the most unsung hero in American life: the everyday, average woman. We take life as it comes and find a way to deal with unbelievable situations: we laugh, we cry, we struggle. We get angry and frustrated. We are overjoyed and in tears simultaneously. We love in ways that are sometimes completely insane, and we reach for each other…. we reach for our girl friends. In doing so, we reach for a better tomorrow, while we learn to make the most of today. To steal a phrase from Jackson Browne’s Everyman, I wanted to create the “everywoman” in Jo and Gina. I wanted my readers to be able to identify with their life experiences. To read about one of their predicaments and say “Ah, yes. Been there done that.” I needed to be able to write about things, events, and people that I was comfortable with. In my writings, although none of these characters are real, they were created from many of my own life experiences, interactions, thoughts, and beliefs. I needed to write in ways that provided a connection between myself, my work, and my readers. I am a woman, so I wrote about women. I have lived life and made mistakes, made the best of it and moved on. So have Jo and Gina. As I wrote about their low moments, I cried. As I wrote about their funny escapades, I laughed. I want my readers to feel those same emotions. I want them to walk away from thestory of Jo and Gina empowered as a woman, with hope in their heart and joy for tomorrow! Way back in 1977, I was a total bookworm. I loved to read almost as much as I loved to eat! That passion has not waned over the years, nor has the desire to create stories for people to enjoy. Finally, during this last decade, I found myself in a beautiful position to pursue a lifelong dream: creating stories in the hopes of sharing some of myself, my imagination, and my passion with an audience of readers. My dream of being a creative writer has never wavered. I have spent a lifetime enjoying other authors’ works of art, and now I hope to be able to share my art with readers who can identify with the characters I’ve created: laugh, cry, and step into the world of Jo and Gina. This story spans five books in a series entitled “The Scrapbook Series” because our lives if put into books, would most resemble a scrapbook—a hodge-podge of memories, events, places, and people. So, as we move forward to a new decade with new opportunities, I am looking forward to finishing a series with a storyline that spans some 60 years and a writing effort that will have taken me two decades to complete. I hope you’ll join me for the rest of the journey, and happy reading to you all!

Hello everyone! As is the usual case, I set down to do my writing for the weekly blog and book bubble on Sunday afternoon, and this week is no exception. But for this week, however, I’m feeling more than just a little nostalgic about life and the road I’ve traveled, so much so that my book bubble and blog title actually focus on the cross-roads we face as we inch closer and closer to those ever-looming “golden years” (A discussion about the naming of these years and the blatant misuse of the word “golden” is for a later blog). I’m going to share the actual excerpt from the book bubble here for those of you who do not have access to the Weekly Bublish Book Bubbles Readathon: “When we’re young, we burst forth into life as if it’s a race. Constantly pushing forward, only occasionally glancing left or right to gauge our progress against that of our peers. As the years roll on, we’ve become so caught up in juggling careers, kids, and life’s plans, that although we may often wistfully glance around, we lack the time and energy to pursue any other avenue. Then we reach mid-life, and we do begin to look around, in earnest. But we’re still a little short on time and energy for the preponderance to have a foothold in real actions. Tack on a few more years, and we’re suddenly having conversations with ourselves to try to plot a course forward for those ever-looming golden years. Now, the crossroad has arrived. Now, we’ve reached a place where choices must be made. It’s in these moments, that a lifelong friend and confidant becomes something to treasure” For me, those days have semi-arrived. Ever more frequently, I have complete conversations with myself in the shower, on the way to work, or simply as I sit and sip my morning coffee and contemplate what life will look like physically and mentally when I reach those golden years. For those of my readers who find themselves in this same place, this blog is for you. My husband and I have spent more than a decade contemplating retirement in that dreamy, someday-kind-of-way. Now that we’re almost there, the haze is dissipating, and a clear view is beginning to emerge. We’ve finally made the all-important choice of “where” to retire. The Ozarks of North Arkansas won our hearts years ago, and now it looks like they’re going to win over our final years of life. I guess for us, “where” was really the most difficult part of the retirement cross-road. What to do with ourselves has not, at this point, been a focus. But for others, “where” is not as important as “what to do to fill up the time.” For Jo and Gina, it’s not the where but the what that seems to be giving them the most trouble. And for almost everyone I know, contemplating these choices and having a lifelong friend and confidant to help us work our way through the process makes a less difficult journey. It seems much easier to make these all-important choices when you have input from someone who knows you almost as well as you know yourself. If you’ve not taken the time to read “Memories of Tomorrow, A Prequel,” you might find you can identify with these women of the Ozarks, and their quest for reclaiming their friendship, as they contemplate their crossroads and vision of tomorrow. It’s my hope that many of my readers can find themselves in the characters of Jo and Gina and, in so doing, find some humor in their real-life choices and crossroads. Thanks again for being a reader, and I will see you all next week!

2013. Family Vaca. I was at an intersection with my career and trying to decide if writing was really what I wanted to do. We planned a week in the Ozark Mountains, the whole enchilada – cabin, hiking, canoeing, ziplining, and exploring. And I fell in love with the whole enchilada—everything, but most especially, the mountains themselves. Every story must have a setting. That perfect place helps to make the story come alive and evoke either a pleasant or a nostalgic feeling in the reader of a storyline that focuses on friendship, fate, and the long road home. I mean, think about it, fear or horror wouldn’t work for the storyline. Contentment, warmth, and nostalgia; are the perfect emotions for the storyline of The Scrapbook Series. And so, Jo & Gina and the story of their friendship and lives was born. A trip to the Ozarks evokes all those emotions, and I relish each visit. Fast forward to 2020. Many things in my life have changed: responsibilities, goals and objectives, and even the pace of my life. One thing has not: I’m still creating stories about Jo and Gina, and now and then, I have a chance to visit the inspiration for those books: the Ozarks. This past weekend was just such an opportunity. And, once again, when we arrived, I remembered why I loved them so. Majestic, remote, withdrawn, yet beckoning the adventurer to come and see. And so I do; I go to explore, relax, and unwind. I realize not everyone reading my blog or books is a mountain person. Some are water and beach people, some are desert and canyon people, but some are like myself, drawn to the mountains and their secrets. It’s my hope that no matter your personal preference, when you follow Jo & Gina throughout the series, you truly enjoy their story and love of the Ozarks. This country is a vibrant, huge mass of land, but nowhere can you find the mysticism and romance that the Ozark mountains offer. When I started this blog, I told you that I would attempt to share bits and pieces that explain the story of me. To answer the question of “why” I write, you need only a short visit to the Ozark Mountains. When I’m there, the creativity I need to spin stories seems to flow, almost magically, like water from an unseen underground spring. This past week brought a lot of magic my way: my new website went live, Memories of Tomorrow was published, and I spent a great weekend in the Ozark Mountains. If you’re reading the blog, please take a few minutes to visit my author profile on Bublish.com. Each week, along with the blog, I publish a “book bubble,” a small piece of material from one of the books, and talk about what that means to me and my thoughts as I create the material. This week’s bubble is titled Mountains & Memories. Well, I think I’ve put enough pen to paper for this week, and as always, I truly appreciate your readership; I want all of you to love Jo & Gina as much as I do! Have a wonderful holiday, and make some time to read a book!

Hello and welcome to my website! This is my first blog since revamping and relaunching my books and my website, so I decided to take this opportunity and create something fresh and new for my blog as well. As I sit down to write this, it’s a beautiful Sunday morning in Alabama; the sun is shining, there’s a slight breeze and my view of the river is an inspirational sight. We live on the Tenn Tom Waterway for a reason. We love beautiful surroundings, and there’s a peace here on the water you just can’t get anywhere else. Don’t misunderstand, life here has its risk, but the rewards are beyond magnificent on warm sunny days like today. With this feeling of peace and contentment, I sit down to pen this small snippet of the story of me and The Scrapbook Series. Way back in 2005, when I began writing professionally, there was always this small persistent little desire to do something fun, something creative, and something just for me. During these early years of writing, The Scrapbook Series was born (although not yet named). There was a tale I wanted to tell, a chronicle of sorts, that allowed me to roll all the events, people, places and stories I had managed to collect over my life into a cohesive fictional narrative. So, as I wrote for others, I began to put together an outline of the story I wanted to write for myself. Finally, in 2013, I had the opportunity to begin to put these bits and pieces and outlines together in a series of books and give my dream a name. The Scrapbook Series, Women of the Ozarks Finally, I named my characters. Jorja Felsenthal is named for an actress that was named Jorja (pronounced Georgia), and Felsenthal Forest in Arkansas. Regina Ingram was my mother’s idea. The idea behind the characters was to have a yin and yang. Two opposites come together to create a whole. This allowed me to take so many snippets from my life in retail and include viewpoints, characteristics, and characters from every end of the spectrum. There’s room when you have two different characters to include so much material. Jo and Gina allowed me to do just that – one character is world traveled yet has such a narrow point of view about life; the other character has spent most of her life in one small neck of the woods yet has such a diverse view of life. That combination alone makes for an interesting storyline. When you take them both and incorporate life events that we all experience, pieces of life that almost every reader can identify with, then it’s my hope that every reader finishes the series feeling a kinship with Jo and Gina and enjoys the experience. After all, isn’t that what it’s all about? Where we live, what we read, and the things we experience, aren’t we all hoping for that feeling of peace and contentment at the end? The Scrapbook Series is my small contribution to a world of make-believe narratives that hopefully make my readers laugh, cry, reminisce, smile, and finish with a feeling of happiness and hope.