Take a Peek at The Bride's Curse!

 Delighted to announce that The Bride's Curse, Number One in the Wedding Bliss Series, is now published by The Wild Rose Press and available for pre-order! 

What do a Wedding Planner, a Jilted Bride, a Missing Groom, and a Ghost With a Bad Conscience have in Common?

https://tinyurl.com/yg6cq8fp

Here's the Blurb:

Kelly Andrew's store, Wedding Bliss, is the one-stop for all a bride's needs. Abandoned by her own fiancé, she hopes to make it easier for brides by planning their ceremonies down to the last detail. But one little problem keeps her from being successful. Three brides have brought back the same vintage gown saying it was responsible for dashing their dreams.

Brett, the nephew of the original owner of the dress, needs to get the gown back. Impossible since Kelly sold the garment and claims the gown is cursed. Brett's confusion at her words deepens when he discovers she communes with ghosts. Yet, when a contrite spirit comes forward, with a message, Brett goes along on a wild-bridegroom chase. Passions flare as they work to break the wedding hex before another bride's dreams goes up in flames.  

But all's well that ends well - the fun is in getting there!

 

 If a Kind Word Means So Much - Why Are We Afraid to Give One?

How do you react to being praised? How do you feel if you give a kind word or admiring comment to someone else?

An article in Psychology Today, reveals an interesting bit of research first published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. They suggest that we tend to underestimate how well another person will feel about a compliment, and we overestimate the cost to us of giving one. The result is that we hold back the kind word or bit of praise we thought of uttering.

Yet praise or a kind word can mean so much to all of us at one time or another.

That could be anything like a comment of how well they looked, how well they'd done a job, through to how pretty their shirt was or how much their hairstyle suited them. You know, everyday compliments that we all give or think of giving - sometimes.

Following up on this, participants in research by a group of scientists were asked to offer a 'sincere' compliment to a stranger. The participants were asked how they felt about
approaching someone and giving them a compliment, what their own mood was like, and how they thought the stranger they were speaking to would react.
The researchers then looked at the results: The compliment recipients reported for the most part that they were happy, flattered, and pleased to receive the compliment.
It was a two-way street - the compliment givers reported that their own mood improved after giving the compliment or kind word, even though they had underestimated how pleased the people on the receiving end would be.
See? It was a win-win situation. Those who gave the sincere kind words or compliments felt in a much better mood, and those who received the compliments reacted positively.
So next time, when an opportunity comes up to say something nice about one of our fellow humans, maybe we should take a chance and not hold back.

So, thank you for being smart enough to read my blog :-)