It wouldn’t be a trip to Florida without shell-collecting, right? We wandered down the beach for many hours every day last June hunting up the very best of the very best shells to bring home in our limited luggage space! We didn’t bring any of these cochina shells from the beaches near St. Augustine, but it was so cool watching them burrow into the sand between waves! The shells are alive, people. Well, inhabited, anyway.
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It’s sad to think how the world has changed in the past few weeks! But one day the beaches will be full of (healthy) swimmers, sunbathers, and shell-collectors again. Praying it won’t take too long for life to get back to normal… or whatever the new normal will look like.
Specials this Week
Restoring Christmas by Julie Arduini will be free through March 31.
A Sudden Spark by Liwen Y. Ho will be free through April 1.
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Last Week on Inspy Romance
On Monday, Hallee Bridgeman put herself into a character.
On Tuesday, Merrillee Whren discussed reunion romance.
On Wednesday, Jackie Castle shared three ereader hacks.
On Thursday, Lindi Peterson invited us to revisit Rocky Mountain heroes.
On Friday, Marion Ueckermann shared in black and white… and #giveaway
On Saturday, Janet W Ferguson asked does a series ever have to end?
Next Week on Inspy Romance
Monday: Angela Ruth Strong (10 Things You Need to Know About My Upcoming Romantic Comedy)
Tuesday: Liwen Y Ho (What Type of Book Reviews Do You Leave?)
Wednesday: Ginger Solomon (It Is Finished)
Thursday: Deb Kastner
Friday: Sally Bayless (Your Vacation between the Pages)
Saturday: Narelle Atkins
This was the prize from our trip! Look at the horse conch my husband found on our very last morning at Manasota Key! So, so beautiful. Once home, he spent hours cleaning it up though he did leave some patina. It now has a place of honor in our home.
New Releases
April 2020
The Cowboy’s Reluctant Bride (Saddle Springs Romance 6) by Valerie Comer
Hill Country Redemption (Hill Country Cowboys) by Shannon Taylor Vannatter
Second Chance Sweethearts by Liwen Y. Ho (re-release)
March 2020
Making Believe (Imagination 8) by Staci Stallings
Look for Me (Vacation Sweethearts 4) by Jan Thompson
Accept Me (Chapel Cove Romances 8) by Marion Ueckermann
Love Once More (Abundance 4) by Sally Bayless
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Valerie Comer is a USA Today bestselling author and a two-time Word Award winner who writes where food meets faith and fiction. She injects experience laced with humor into her green clean romances. Her life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local foods movement as well as their church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily-ever-afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.
I love shell collecting! I have a door wreath made of some shells I had forever done by a crafty friend for my front door!
I love finding shells at the beach! If you go to Venice, FL, there are beaches there where you can find shark teeth!
Great idea! I should do something like that…
We were at Manasota Key, not too far from Venice. We did come home with a little jar of shark teeth! My eyes aren’t very good so I didn’t find many of them myself, but hubby did pretty well.
I’ll send you a pic
I have some shells somewhere from the time we spent on Guam in the early ‘70’s. I even have a conch from a trip I took to Saipan. Maybe a few from Florida in 1969. Hubby was in the Navy.
Don’t they bring back great memories? (I hope so!)
I’d like that!
“I need to find a shell,” he said,
While walking on the sand.
“What kind of shell,” she asked of him
And gently took his hand.
“It has to be a gorgeous one,
To draw my weary eye.
And large enough to listen to
The ocean softly sigh.”
“Why not,” she asked, “a pretty stone,
A water-polished gem?
Or sea glass, delicately teal,
Why not seek one of them?”
“Oh, no. No other thing will do.
It has to be a shell.
A shelter, empty now of life
Can serve the purpose well.”
“What is this purpose that you want
To make a shell fulfill?
What can an empty carcass do?”
She asked him, soft and still.
She knew what thought had driven him,
What weighed upon his soul.
She longed to help his heart to see
That which would make him whole.
“A shell’s an empty symbol that
My aching heart could see.
A beautiful reminder, for
You’re naught but memory.”
She looked at him. “A memory
I very well may be.
Your soul knows well the truth I tell
So listen, now, to me.”
“I’ve never been your only love.
That truth will set you free.
The God Who saved you loves you still,
Though I have had to flee.”
“He knows the ache your heart now feels.
He made you, after all.
So when the throbbing pain abates
Then, listen for the call.”
“A lonely heart will cross your path,
A friend may long for more.
A struggling soul who needs your help
Will knock upon your door.”
“So, in that moment hear the call
And answer with His love.
You may, then, find she’s sent to you
With purpose from above.”
He turned to face the sparkling sea,
His heart still aching, sore.
But he released her memory
And knew that there’d be more.
Where care, commitment, passion, joy
And gentle kindness dwell
Protected neath God’s shelt’ring wing
That love can heal as well.
The world was full of hearts in need
And hearts with love to give.
His heart could well be both at once.
That’s how he’d choose to live.
The story of his longing heart
Was not done being told.
Now, deep within, there blossomed new
A hope worth more than gold.
The sun had set into the sea.
The evening shadows fell.
He raised his head, no more in dread.
He’d be, no more, a shell.
(c) 2020, Lincoln Clark
That’s beautiful, Lincoln. What a story.
I love collecting seashells at the beach!
Shells are so pretty.
Me too :)
And there are so many kinds and sizes!
So exciting to win a book thanks.
I have several conch shells here been given them at different times and when we use to go to the beach for a Church picnic (the beach is an hour away) we use to go looking for shells. Mainly found fan shells and other broken ones. I use to always bring home some fan shells.
I love the simple yet complex beauty of seashells! 🙂
Enjoy your book! I find it interesting how different beaches, even ones close to each other, can have quite different shells. On Vancouver Island, one little bay has tons of sand dollars while the next one over has none. We found this in Florida, too. Shark teeth are very common on one stretch of the coastline, and nowhere else. Fascinating.
They are endlessly interesting. So many kinds!
The wife of one of my husband’s co-workers creates jewelry from sea-washed glass. When we vacation to the sea we keep our eyes open, collecting the pieces we find. Some beaches have wonderful glass from years ago, other places have either been picked clean, never had any glass or it has since been buried under the sand. Still other locations are simply littered with plastic and today’s trash – which I find so sad.
I find searching along the beach calming and a bit of a treasure hunt – to see what we’ll find. I never realized glass bottles came in so many colors until we started looking. And I like that something pretty and useful will be the end result.
Over the years, we have filled a few jars w sand and shells, as well. :D
We haven’t ever found any sea glass, but I’ve bought earrings made with it! I think “our” best find was something my husband’s grandfather found over sixty years ago on a northern British Columbia beach: a Japanese glass buoy from the Second World War! It’s a treasure at our house now.
Indeed! That definitely would be a treasure. How wonderful!
It is very cool!