Ouida Finch Peterson

Today one of my oldest (oldest in Lyndie time) friends is being laid to rest and my heart is for today breaking. 

Ouida was the only 7 year old I knew who wore dog tags. According to her, the dog tags would identify her in case she drowned in someone’’s backyard pool. 

My mind would spin with the questions. I knew her parents, and I couldn’t imagine she could be anywhere without them knowing. And who did she know that had a pool in the backyard? 

Yet, there was a small still voice that said, if anyone could slip into a pool without her parents knowing, it would be Ouida. And, in delight, I would ask her to tell the story again. 

Ouida was joy and movement, contagious laughter which drew you to her. Her spirit was musical. 

Everyone has a special Ouida movement. For me it was a program I created for Rainbows. No one remembers my wonderful program, but no ever forgot Ouida’s deliver of her one line, “Behold the turtle.”

This abrupt end of life for someone so full of life is the hardest part to comprehend. 

Beneath The Texas Sky, the third book in The Lazy M Ranch series

Beneath The Texas Sky, the third book in The Lazy M Ranch series

Written by Kasandra Elaine, the writing team of Kassy Paris and Elaine Bonner

Beneath The Texas Sky published by Wild Rose Publishing in 2009,

ISBN 0-9712522-2-X

Disclaimer: Kassy Paris, a member of the writing team, is my cousin.

The books in the Lazy M Ranch series revolve around the Lazy M Ranch and the people associated with the ranch. While this is the third book in this series, the first two books do not have to be read to understand the plot. However, the reader’s experience will be greatly enriched by having read First I’m Nobody and Redigo’s Choice.

It has been fun and encouraging to watch the growth of the authors in this series. The writers have gone  from simple good writing to strong characters and plot development in Beneath the Texas Sky.

Beneath The Texas Sky

The focus in Beneath the Texas Sky returns to the working Lazy M Ranch. Rosita, John Redigo’s daughter, comes to the ranch from Mexico to spend some time with her newly-found birth father. All the folks at the ranch welcome her with open arms. One of the young ranch hands takes a special interest in her.

During her stay, mysterious events began to happen at the ranch threatening its   financial stability. The intrigue of discovering the source of these events and ending the threats eventually involves everyone on the ranch and their relatives, including some retired Texas Rangers. The action is carried from North Texas to inside Mexico. It has all the makings of a great Texas mystery.

In terms of relationships, this book develops more fully the relationships began in the previous books. However, the center of the story is the next generation of Rosita and the young ranch hand, Billy Gant. In their relationship, they face conflicts that are similar to the ones Rosita’s mother and John Redigo faced: wealth, class and private ambitions. They both are bringing their own faith baggage from their pasts.

Will the young people be able to develop a relationship amidst the intrigue and conflict?

Will they have more success than Rosita’s parents?

Once again, the writing team of Kasandra Elaine has maintained strong themes of characters struggling with faith and dependence on God. Some characters demonstrate their faith as they face the trials of their circumstances, while others are confronted with their need for redemption.

This is a great continuation of the lives of characters we have come to care about. It leaves the reader with a longing to know what happens next. 

Redigo’s Choice is book two in The Lazy M Ranch series.

Redigo’s Choice is book two in The Lazy M Ranch series.

Author: Kasandra Elaine, the writing team of Kassy Paris and Elaine Bonner

Published by: Wild Rose Publishing in 2008 ISBN 1-60154-391-3

Disclaimer: Kassy Paris, a member of the writing team, is my cousin.

While this is the second book in this series, the previous book does not have to be read to understand the plot. However, the reader’s experience will be enriched by having read First I’m Nobody. 

Redigo’s Choice

Redigo’s Choice tells the story of the early life of John Redigo, the Lazy M Ranch’s manager. In his youth, he was a poor cowboy in South Texas working on a ranch when he. He fell in love with the boss’s niece, the daughter of a wealthy Mexican ranch owner. Despite their class difference, the couple enjoys a whirlwind romance and an even briefer, secret marriage. Her powerful father is able to drive the couple apart physically and emotionally. After a hasty divorce, Redigo wanders across Texas working briefly at a series of ranches until he finds a home near Denton at the Lazy M Ranch.

Twenty-five years later, Redigo and the ranch’s housekeeper, Addie Murphy, begin to realize their feelings for each other are deeper than the long friendship they have enjoyed. Before their new future together is stable, Redigo’s daughter from his brief marriage enters their lives.

From Rosita, Redigo learns the love of his youth is being threatened. Will he be able to rescue his first true love and keep the current love of his life? 

Woven into the story are the characters’ struggles with faith and dependence on God.  Some characters demonstrate their faith as they face the trials of their circumstances, while others are confronted with their need for redemption.

The story delivers all of the promises of the back cover. It is a story of the joys of love in youth and in the older stages of life. It also speaks to the need we have for good friends in our lives.  

The third book in the series is Beneath the Texas Sky.

First I’m Nobody, the first book in The Lazy M Ranch series

First I’m Nobody, the first book in The Lazy M Ranch series

Written by Kasandra Elaine, the writing team of Kassy Paris and Elaine Bonner

Published by Wild Rose Publishing in 2008

ISBN 1-60154-262-3

Disclaimer: Kassy Paris, a member of the writing team, is my cousin.

The three books in the series tell stories of the people associated with the Lazy M Ranch set outside of Denton, Texas. Skylar McCrea inherited the ranch as a young woman when her parents were killed in an accident. John Redigo, the foreman, and Addie Murphy, the housekeeper, loved and supported Skylar, while helping her raise and train champion show horses. The atmosphere on the ranch was more like a family rather than boss and employees.

First I’m Nobody

 As they are preparing to show their potential champion, Skylark’s Son in Ft Worth, a stranger is seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident just outside the gate of the ranch. The man has some broken bones, amnesia and no identification. His nurses name him Duke Green to avoid using the common John Doe. Skylar is intrigued by the mystery man and offers him a room at her ranch during his recovery. Soon, Duke has made a place for himself as a friend and hand at the ranch.  Yet, Duke was haunted by the notion of being ‘nobody.’

The relationship between Skylar and Duke grows with each passing day. Duke’s past must be resolved before they can commit to each other. To unravel his past, Duke and Skylar follow small clues across the country. It is a journey including deception, betrayal, Texas Rangers and almost everyone in their lives.

Woven into the story are the characters’ struggles with faith and dependence on God.  Some characters demonstrate their faith as they face the trials of their circumstances, while others are confronted with their need for redemption.

Will Duke prove to be the man his new friends sense he is, or will he turn out to be a thief who has deceived them all?

The story delivers all of the promises of the back cover. It is an engaging tale of life on a Texas horse ranch and is filled with intriguing characters. 

The second book in the series is Redigo’s Choice.

What are you thankful for?

That is the question being asked everywhere I’ve turned this week. And it leaves me cold. I know, I have many things to be grateful for. I have had a good life, but it is not quite the life I wanted.

Thanksgiving begins a .season where I feel the anguish of not having a family of my own. I miss the gatherings of my youth, of the sense of belonging they provided me.  

And while I’m grateful for the people in my life and for career that has provided a wonderful retirement for me, the thing I am most grateful for are words and books. 

I am grateful that God’s spoken word has created this world we live in. I am grateful that His written word has reached into my heart and guides my life. 

I am grateful God shared words with writers who wrote books that allowed my imagination to soar. I am grateful for books that are my consistent friends. 

People seem to come and go, but the books on my shelves speak of my life.

I am grateful that I will write some of those books. 

JFK memories

So many memories are tied into the weekend JFK died and was buried. 

Listening to Walter Cronkite almost non-stop.

Watching Lee Harvey Oswald killed almost before your eyes. 

Seeing little John-John salute his father. 

The urge to write it all  down. 

Yesterday, after the Turkey Trot, we walked through Dealy Plaza on the opposite side from the Book Repository and then through the Triple underpass. It was such a beautiful plaza, but in the flash of a gunshot became for all time a valley of death. 

There was always next year...

 All  those times we sang ‘and its goodbye to A&M’

  we really didn’t mean it. At least, I don’t think we did...

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful we won. I ordered the T-Shirt this morning from the CO-OP. 

I am also glad it was a fight to the end, fitting wasn’t it? It made the win so bittersweet, made you so aware of how bad you would feel to have lost this game. 

Through the years in my association with Aggies, I’ve found if you watch, they will eventually, do something that is so ‘Aggie.’ (This, of course, does not include my cousins, who decided for whatever reason, to go to A&M.) Maybe this move to the SEC is just another, in a long line, of Aggie jokes. 

Those who feel there is hatred between Texas and A&M don’t really understand what rivalry is all about, as far as I’m concerned. 

Maybe I’ve spent too much time recently thinking about the Civil War, but I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t another example of the influence of carpetbaggers. We survived when ‘they’ moved The Game to Friday. I hate to admit how many times I lugged a TV to work to watch the game. 

One of the great elements of a real rivalry is, regardless what happens on game day, there was always next year. And now we’ve lost that...

Maybe, I feel this way because I also lost a childhood friend this week. One day she was in her car, the next moment she was gone. For all of her friends, there won’t be a next year either....