The Friday Night Date Dress

A friend of mine, Talena Winters, has just published her first book titled The Friday Night Date Dress.  It is an interesting inspirational romance. The story deals with the topic of grief and how the main character deals with it. In spite of the overwhelming grief that paralyzes her life, Melinda copes by using her creativity as an outlet. Although she is dealing with loss in her life, the tone of the book is hopeful not gloomy. The story moves along quickly and draws you into the characters lives. I recommend the book to anyone who wants to read a good story that leaves them feeling hopeful about life.

The blurb promoting the book reads, "Tragic loss has made Melinda Meyers invisible. She hides as a nondescript waitress at an average diner during the day. But each night, she sews runway masterpieces that she wears only once before putting them into a box forever.

Peter Surati, an aspiring Asian Indian photographer, can't help but notice beautiful, sad Melinda. He makes it his mission to help her find her smile again. But can he find a way to mend her damaged heart?

"The Friday Night Date Dress" is an inspirational novella about healing, hope, and love."

You can purchase a paperback or Kindle copy of the book here.  I suggest that you do.

Talena had an indirect hand in my becoming as blogger.   Talena's blog was the first blog that I read, shown to me by her proud mother. In 2008, my friend Laurel was visiting in our home.  She showed me her daughter Talena's blog. Because she lived so far away from her daughter, she kept up with her through the blog. I had heard the word "blog", but really had no idea what it was all about.

As I was reading the blog, I noticed at the top of the page that it had a link that said create blog. I had to see what it was all about, so I clicked it. In a few days I had my own blog, and I enjoyed writing and posting pictures to it. I had written a little before starting the blog, but definitely not regularly. I had occasionally written a column for the religion page of the local newspaper and I had posted a few articles on the writing website Helium, but I had never had a "reason" to write before.  Now almost seven years later, after 575 posts and over 300,000 views from 194 countries,  I can't imagine a life without blogging.

I have had some people ask me about the name of my blog.  I have to admit that very little thought went into it. As I was looking at the "create blog" page in Blogger, just trying to figure out what it was all about, one of the first things that had to be filled in was the title. I spent about thirty seconds thinking, and typed An Arkies Musings. Arkie is slang word for someone who lives in Arkansas.

We used to be officially called Arkansawyers, but now the term is Arkansan. During the Great Depression of the 1930's, Arkansas and Oklahoma were some of the hardest hit states. Many people moved to California trying to get jobs. The terms Arkie and Okie were disparaging terms used by the Californians for people from Oklahoma and Arkansas. Now the term Arkie is most often used to describe a native Arkansan and is often still a bit disparaging. It seems to indicate that someone is unlearned and backward.

I have lived here for over 30 years. Though I'm not a native, I am proud to be an Arkansan or even an Arkie. You have to admit that An Arkansan's Musings just doesn't roll off the tongue.

Please take the time to check out The Friday Night Date Dress.  It has a very reasonable purchase price and I'm sure you will enjoy it.