Crfty Duchess

We'll Never Forget 911 Budweiser Commercial AIRED ONLY ONCE

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 09:47:00 +0000

9/11

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 05:28:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 07:15:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 15:55:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 05:55:00 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 06:34:00 +0000

Garf's Christmas Song - Gareth Hollis

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 08:05:00 +0000

Mami's 3 Little Monkeys: Thomas Kinkade LED Flameless Night Before Christma...

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 17:08:00 +0000

Mami's 3 Little Monkeys: Thomas Kinkade LED Flameless Night Before Christma...: Thomas Kinkade LED Flameless Night Before Christmas Lantern Giveaway Hosted By: Holiday Contest and Sweeps Co-Hosted By: Michiga...

Divorced, beheaded, matched? Discover Henry VIII’s ideal wife

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 19:51:00 +0000

Divorced, beheaded, matched? Discover Henry VIII’s ideal wife

Leo Burnett - Kellogg's - Crunchy Nut - Henry VIII

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 03:39:00 +0000

[The Tudors s2 OST] Missing Track : Anne's execution Chant (Jerusalem my...

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 01:00:00 +0000

Henry VIII's Six Wives

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 23:23:00 +0000

Facebook Answers Dad’s Plea to See Dead Son’s Video

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Sun, 09 Feb 2014 06:09:00 +0000

Facebook Answers Dad’s Plea to See Dead Son’s Video

Chrome is listening! Bug lets anyone hear your private conversations

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 02:42:00 +0000

Chrome is listening! Bug lets anyone hear your private conversations

Apple iPad Mini Giveaway from Rafflecopter

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 23:27:00 +0000

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Grab your screen shots on the go - Komando.com, Website for The Kim Komando Radio Show®, Komando Downloads

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 06:44:00 +0000

Grab your screen shots on the go - Komando.com, Website for The Kim Komando Radio Show®, Komando Downloads

Celebrate Valentine's Day with a PS4 or Xbox One

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 10:03:00 +0000

http://www.genuitec.me/raffle/?vxVpe5

Do You Know What A Yellow Ribbon Tied On A Dog’s Collar Means?

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 09:21:00 +0000

Do You Know What A Yellow Ribbon Tied On A Dog’s Collar Means?

'Fresh Prince's' Uncle Phil James Avery Dead at 68 | ExtraTV.com

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 09:07:00 +0000

'Fresh Prince's' Uncle Phil James Avery Dead at 68 | ExtraTV.com

Titanic II - Technical Specifications Video

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 09:51:00 +0000

Cracker Barrel- 50 YEARS OF THE ICONIC CAR Sweepstakes

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 04:28:00 +0000

https://www.crackerbarrelsweeps.com/?plink=1388377424_XL94448

The Devil's Right Hand: The Two Lost Girls

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 05:41:00 +0000

The Devil's Right Hand: The Two Lost Girls: THE TWO LOST GIRLS The Haunting Mystery of the Grimes Sisters On December 28, 1956, Patricia Grimes, 13, and Barbara Grimes, 15, lef...

The Devil's Right Hand: A Christmas Mystery: The Vanishing of the Sodder C...

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Fri, 27 Dec 2013 05:56:00 +0000

The Devil's Right Hand: A Christmas Mystery: The Vanishing of the Sodder C...: A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY The holidays are supposed to be a time of happiness and celebration but instead, one of the most hauntings mysteri...

Day 12: 12 Pearls of Christmas | A Teenage Pregnancy | Robin Jones Gunn

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 23:37:00 +0000

Welcome to the 12 Pearls of Christmas blog series!

Merry Christmas from Pearl Girls™! We hope you enjoy these Christmas “Pearls of Wisdom” from the authors who were so kind to donate their time and talents! If you miss a few posts, you’ll be able go back through and read them on this blog throughout the next few days.

We’re giving away a pearl necklace in celebration of the holidays, as well as some items from the contributors! Enter now below. The winner will be announced on January 2, 2014, at the Pearl Girls blog.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls™, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what we’re all about. In short, we exist to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Mother of Pearl, Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace, or one of the Pearl Girls products (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

***

A Teenage Pregnancy by Robin Jones Gunn

It was early, early morning, that delicate time of day just before sunrise when it seems as if all of creation is still asleep.

In the cold, gray light she gazed at the infant in her arms. He was less than an hour old and so, so small. Instinct prompted her to draw her newborn close that he might feel the rhythm of her heart. He curled his tiny hand around her finger and she smiled. His eyes closed, and with feathered breath he gave way to the blessed sleep that follows such a long journey.

In weary awe she studied his face, his ears, his nose. He was here. He had come at last.

A single tear fell from her eye and rolled across his cheek. She kissed the tear away but could not kiss away the memories that came with the tears; memories of the day she found out she was pregnant. How exhilarated she felt and yet how terrified. She was young, and there was much she didn’t understand.

Trying to justify her condition to her parents proved more difficult than she’d hoped. But the most excruciating memory was the moment she stood guileless before the man she hoped to one day marry. She had no words to make him understand the awful truth—the child she carried was not his.

Leaving seemed to be her only option. A gracious aunt took her in and welcomed her with open arms. From the moment she arrived she was showered with motherly words of hope and sisterly touches of love. Week by week, month by month, the child inside her grew.

Was it a miracle when she returned home, her belly round, her face flushed, and found him there?

What prompted this man to take her back and make her his bride? Did he now believe what she had tried to explain all along, that none of this was her own doing?

When the time was right they left their small town together, as husband and wife, with her due date rapidly approaching. The labor began—tightening her abdomen with a force she had never before imagined. Perspiration streamed from her forehead. The contractions multiplied with a frenzied urgency until the need to push overwhelmed her young body, and the baby was born.

Nothing of the past mattered anymore. He was here. Naked, perfect, quivering in her arms. With a thrill of hope, she believed that her life, her world, would never be the same.

Now as the first silver streaks of dawn pierced through the cracks in the stable, she tenderly wrapped her sleeping babe in swaddling clothes and laid him in the manger.

***

Robin Jones Gunn, bestselling author of the much-loved Christy Miller Series and the award-winning Sisterchicks® series, has had more than 4.5 million copies of her books sold worldwide. Her frequent speaking engagements have taken her around the globe. Robin and her husband live in Hawaii and have a grown son and daughter. You can learn more at Robin's website. a Rafflecopter giveaway

Day 11: 12 Pearls of Christmas | Do You Hear What I Hear? | Cynthia Ruchti

noreply@blogger.com (crftyduchess) — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 06:14:00 +0000

Welcome to the 12 Pearls of Christmas blog series!

Merry Christmas from Pearl Girls™! We hope you enjoy these Christmas “Pearls of Wisdom” from the authors who were so kind to donate their time and talents! If you miss a few posts, you’ll be able go back through and read them on this blog throughout the next few days.

We’re giving away a pearl necklace in celebration of the holidays, as well as some items from the contributors! Enter now below! The winner will be announced on January 2, 2014, at the Pearl Girls blog.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls™, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what we’re all about. In short, we exist to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Mother of Pearl, Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace, or one of the Pearl Girls products (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

***

Do You Hear What I Hear? by Cynthia Ruchti

To shepherds? Really, God? You crafted a birth announcement that was delivered first to shepherds? The story’s become so familiar to us, so easy for us to visualize because of all the Christmas pageants we’ve witnessed over the years—all the fourth-grade boys in plaid robes with a homemade shepherd staff, carrying a cloth lamb from the toy department that plays “Jesus Loves Me” if you pull the ring where an umbilical cord should be.

Theologians speculate the reason for shepherds as the audience for the holy pronouncement could be as intricate as a genetic retracing of the Baby’s heritage back through history to King David, who started his career as a shepherd.

Or it could have been simpler than that. Maybe shepherds were the only ones listening that night.

“Nearby shepherds were living in the fields, guarding their sheep at night,” Luke 2:8, CEB. The biblical story tells us that the shepherds weren’t sleeping but were on guard, watching, when the news about Jesus came to them.

Distractions were few. Hills, sheep, other shepherds, a low fire, and a wide expanse of sky overhead—a dark sky that held the same stars night after night, until this one.

I wonder if any of the shepherds brought their families to the fields. I wonder if in the tent was a hardworking woman nearing the end of an exhausting day. She’d barely gotten the evening meal cleaned up when she had to start thinking about what her family and the other shepherds would need for breakfast. Soak the grains. Check the progress on the sheep’s milk cheese. And try to get those kids to settle down.

“Stop annoying your brother. Caleb! Last warning. Josh, get your fingers out of your sister’s ears. Turn down that video game. You can’t listen to the radio and watch TV at the same time. Turn one of them off. Better yet, both of them! Who’s singing? What’s that sound? Do you hear what I hear?”

What noise do I need to turn off in my life in order to hear the first notes of the angel’s song?

Another noisy Christmas party. Another trip to the department store for stocking stuffers. Another round of Christmas CDs. Another Christmas special on TV. Another Facebook post to share—the true meaning of Christmas. A text about the practice time for the Christmas program at church. Another phone call about travel plans. Brain waves clanking into each other, making a cacophony of noise.

Shutting down one layer at a time. Unplugging. Keeping even "Silent Night" low so I can silence my night and hear the downbeat of “Glory to God in the highest.”

***

Cynthia Ruchti is an author and speaker who tells stories of Hope-that-glows-in-the-dark through her novels and novellas, devotions, nonfiction, and through speaking events for women and writers. Of seven books on the shelves currently, her latest releases are the novel When the Morning Glory Blooms (Abingdon Press Fiction), the nonfiction Ragged Hope: Surviving the Fallout of Other People’s Choices (Abingdon Press Christian Living), and several dozen of the devotions in Mornings With Jesus 2014 (Guideposts). Spring of 2014 will see the release of another novel—All My Belongings, also from Abingdon Press Fiction. You can connect with her at www.cynthiaruchti.com or on Facebook. a Rafflecopter giveaway