If You’d Have Told Me a Year Ago…

Welcome to the LAST STOP on the SUMMER LOVING BLOG TOUR!

I hope you’ve had a great time following each featured author’s post? If not, you can go back to the main page and catch up on the previous posts. Make sure you take that fun Quiz too. Find it HERE

Be sure to enter the tour-wide giveaway at the end of this post, (winner will be announced on July 3) — but before you scroll down….I’m closing out with some thoughts.

IF YOU’D HAVE TOLD TOLD ME A YEAR AGO…

If you told me a year ago that the kitchen scale my husband had bought me the previous Christmas would become one of my most important kitchen tools…I would never have believed you.

There’s nothing better than baking bread with weighed ingredients. Baking bread is all about science, and to be most accurate, a digital kitchen scale is a must.

Speaking of baking bread…If you’d have told me that I’d be obsessed with trying not to kill a sourdough starter and making an Instagram worthy loaf would consume my thoughts for a month, I would have told you that you were making things up. I’d say “Who has time to bake bread from scratch nowadays anyway, let alone sourdough bread.”

In April 2020 I’d have to eat my words along with my crusty piece of sourdough bread. Add a thick slather of butter on it.

We even survived the great toilet paper shortage of March 2020.

You can agree with me that a year ago, things were different. The pandemic has brought all sorts of opportunities for, let’s call it, growth.

While I’ll be saying “Don’t forget your mask” for a while still, at least the “we’ve been caught in a Sci-fi Dystopian movie set” feeling has worn off.

In the last year, I’ve faced things I’d never had dreamed were part of the plan. Some good, some heartbreaking.

If you’d have told me a year ago that I’d pitch my manuscript on a whim on a Twitter twitch party called #FaithPitch in June 2019 and that my book would be published and in reader’s hands now, I would not have believed you. My fiction would finally be published and I’d be here telling you about it? No way!

You would have blown my mind. I was in a place of discouragement and I thought it would never happen…..

But…..I was wrong.

If you’ve have told me a year ago that right in the middle of important content edits for A Promise to Keep (the book I just mentioned) I’d find out my cousin, aged 33 has stage 4 Cancer, I would have absolutely have told you to hush. Unfortunately, it happened, and I went over to Holland to spend a week with her and her twin girls in October 2019. She is still fighting and her bravery astounds me, but only by the grace of God that I was able to go then before the pandemic put restrictions on travel.

Suddenly the hospital scenes in my book and the struggles Savannah Sanderson faced were so much more real to me and I could incorporate some of that insight into the book while completing the edits. Listen to this excerpt and you may catch what I mean:

 This year has brought out the ability to adapt, to re-evaluate my priorities, to do things differently.

I probably won’t make sourdough bread again, but I hope I never forget the opportunity through the stay-at-home, work-at-home, and learn-at-home times to hit the RESET button in life.

I hope we never go “back to the way things were” and rather, move on to a better future. As we’ve been in this together, my sincere wish is that when it’s all over, we don’t lose the sense of community and looking-out-for-one-another that I’ve seen all around me here in Canada.

What are some of the things you would never imagine you’d say or do a year ago?

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Melony Teague writes contemporary romance with a dash of humor, she loves to inspire and motivate others through her written words, and she believes everyone has a story to tell. Melony is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and The Word Guild. She is the co-author of As the Ink Flows, a devotional for authors. Her fiction debut, A Promise to Keep released, Jan 21, 2020. Melony was born in South Africa and now lives in Toronto with her handsome husband, their two teenagers, and does the bidding of her two adorable cats.

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“A delightful romance sure to please anyone looking for a story about second chances, grace, and hope. This one has all the right ingredients!”
—Catherine West, award-winning author of Where Hope Begins

ABOUT THE BOOK

SHE NEVER IMAGINED THAT KEEPING HER PROMISE WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING

Research librarian Savannah Sanderson wants nothing more than to escape into her happily-ever-after novels with their larger-than-life fictional heroes. But a promise to her late husband has her attending her dreaded twenty-year high school reunion, drinking ghastly punch, and taking desperate measures just to keep her vow, even if she has to hide behind the décor to do it.

Once a reckless troublemaker, Michael McCann fled town after graduation. Now a professional technical rescuer, he’s back for the reunion, but on his trip down memory lane, he soon comes face to face with unresolved issues, namely Savannah.

Before the night is over, a pact between these two old friends will lead them on an adventure into uncharted emotional territory where Michael must confront his past regrets and find the courage to reveal the truth. But can Savannah fly from her sheltered nest and risk her heart on a real-life hero?

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