Welcome to another Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot hosted by Marsha in the Middle, Melynda from Scratch Made Food & DYI Homemade Household, Sue from Women Living Well After 50, and me.  Look for the link party to go live on Thursdays at 9:30pm EDT. 

What: Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot – a chance for bloggers to link up their posts that are related to fashion, DIY, food, and anything else that is family-friendly.

When: The link goes live Thursday nights at 9:30 PM EST/United States time.

Why: To connect with other bloggers and bring more traffic to your own blog.

My 9-year-old daughter wanted me to read my book—Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing to her a couple of months ago and then again this weekend. Since it is a very clean book, even with the mystery element, I started to read it to her. I didn’t think she’d be interested but she asked me to keep reading so I did.

This week she asked if she could use my old Kindle and she downloaded my book and began to read it on her own. I thought she’d get bored fairly fast but 20 minutes in she ran to me from where she’d been sitting on the couch in the dining room and declared, “I just got to Lucinda and I love her. She is my favorite character.” She then quoted something Lucinda had said and, in the most adult way, said “She is heeelarious.”

I can’t lie – the whole situation made me weepy. I imagined other people reading my book and enjoying it and always thought that would be so amazing but I never thought about how amazing it would be to have my own family like what I write.

Some might say that it is normal to have family and friends say they like what you have written, but I have not had one friend from high school, college, or in my adult years read my books or say one thing about them to me over the last five years I have been writing.

I have not been able to gush with them over my characters like I hoped I would be able to.

My mom and my husband have both read my books so I can gush a little with them, luckily.

My daughter is only 9 and I really didn’t think about her reading my books or even caring about them, but I am grateful that my books are clean so she can read them and not be shown things she shouldn’t be shown or exposed to at her age.

My dad is not a reader but he has now read both of my Gladwynn Grant books. He literally took the time to read a couple of my chapters of my books each night and that means the world to me. If you could see me right now you would see me with tears in my eyes, knowing that my non-reader dad took the time out of his day to read my books and even left me a review on my Facebook. Dad has not always been a supporter, exactly, of me writing fiction so I was shocked when Mom said he was reading my book.

Dad felt like I needed to have traveled more and experienced more to be able to write fiction and he may be right in some ways, but his comments were somewhat discouraging to me when I started writing fiction for fun in 2018.

Here is the review my dad left me:

I am not much of a reader at all and very seldom read fiction and I watch very few movies.

Like who wants to read about something that is not . Lol Evidently a lot of people.

Anyway I got into the first Gladwyn mystery and found it intriguing and starting this one I find it more so.

Sometimes I think wow, I never knew that  lol ; you see Gladwynn Grant,a mixture of intelligent, ditsy curious, and almost cunning, was my mother’s name.

Okay off to store a few more clues and along the way of the town theater find out what happened to Samantha. 

Well, anyhow, I just thought I’d share all that today because it was on my mind as I started to write this post today.

Let’s move on to our top post this week:

Friends and Pasta by Thrifting Wonderland

And now three of the posts that stood out to me this week:

Hiking Photos from Last Friday by My Slices of Life

Finding Peace in Pain: Exploring Christian Mindfulness For Pain Management by Grace Filled Moments

Valentines Hutch Tree and More by Debbie Dabbleblog

Now it is your turn to link up your favorite posts. They can be fashion, lifestyle, DIY, food, etc. All we ask is that they be family-friendly. You can link up posts from last week or even from years ago.

Also, please take the time to visit the other blogs on the link-up and meet some new bloggers!

https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef