The Old Saying Goes…..

By Angela Posey-Arnold

I get so many catalogs in the mail at Christmas time. I love looking through the wonderful decorations and gift giving ideas. I find myself dog-earing pages to go back and order this for Momma and that for Beth, but I never do it. I think it is the shipping that changes my mind. J

Beth and I have been friends since kindergarten. I guess if we counted all the gifts we have given each other over the last 43 years, the results would be astonishing. Since she  had children, I have gone broke. J

For the last few years we have bought each other a candle. She gives me a lavender scented candle and I give her a hazlenut scented candle. It has gotten to the point of being really silly. So this year on her birthday we decided we would do this differently from now on. It is the thought that counts, right?

Looking through a stack of catalogs I found the perfect gift for Beth’s  birthday. A pair of pink I Love Lucy pajamas. She would love them. They were $45.00—no way. I love Beth but….$45 is not in the budget. I cut out the picture of the pjs and sent it to her. As I do every year on her birthday I called her first thing that morning and sang my rendition of Happy Birthday. She said,  “Ang, I got the pajamas. I wore them last night. They are so cute. Thank you so much”.

Now I know everyone cannot get away with this with just anybody. But, Beth and I can, because without explaining, we understand. For Christmas she is getting a brand new 2010 Camaro. And she is getting me a Lincoln MKS,  2010, of course.

Well, if this don’t work for your friends then maybe you intend on crafting some items this year. I know I do. I have seen some of the most enduring sayings written on signs for the home. They could be used in cross stitch or painting, scrapbooking, where ever your crafts take you.

I want to share some with you……..

THANKSGIVING:

• Give Thanks With A Grateful Heart

• Gooble Til You Wobble

• Take Time to be Thankful

• There is always, always, always something to be thankful for. Always.

Blessings and God’s Love:

• Just because you can’t see the air

• Doesn’t mean you stop breathing…..

• And just because you can’t see God

• Doesn’t mean you stop believeing.

Then I saw this one on a pillow and on a wooden wall sign---

• “Love You More”

• “IT IS WHAT IT IS”

Some of these you may have seen before---

• Having someone to love is family

• Having somewhere to go is home

• Having both is a blessing.

• It is Never Too Late To Live Happily Ever After….

• Enjoy the little things in life…for one day you will love back and realize they were the big things!

OH AND I LOVE THIS ONE!!!......

• Live in such a way, that those who know you but don’t know God, will come to know God because they know you.

• God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, nor sun without rain. But He did promise, strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.

Loss/Grief/Death

Anonymous author

• Do not stand at my grave and weep

• I am not there, I do not sleep

• I am a thousand winds that blow

• I am the diamond glints of snow

• I am the sunlight on ripend grain

• I am the gentle autumn rain

• Do not stand at my grave and cry

• I am not there, I did not die

• If you don’t understand this and think it a lie

• Get to know Jesus, He will tell you why.

• Family—forever, for always, no matter what.

And then this funny one---

• I love you more today than I did yesterday…..cause yesterday you really ticked me off.:)

• Life isn’t about waiting for the storms to pass, It’s about learning to dance in the rain.

• Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

A funny one for an office door------I would like to make this for my brother-----

• Nobody Gets In To See The Wizard-Not Nobody-Not NoHow! (remember in the Wizard of Oz?)

True Americana—better hang on to some of these—we may be loosing them faster than we think---

O Father—Help our nation to turn to You. In Jesus Name. Amen

• “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go” Abraham Lincoln

• “Be joyful always, pray continually.” I Thess 5:16-17

• Live in such a way that if anyone should speak against you, no one would believe it.

• “Whatever you are, be a good one.” Abraham Lincoln

• He Who Kneels Before God Can Stand Before Anyone

• God grants liberty only to those that love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.

• The Grace of God Abounds In His Love

• Remember dear child, when you’re in the midst of a storm. Hold fast. The storm will fade. The sun will shine. All in God’s time. Kairos.

• I may not be rich and famous, but I do have priceless treasures.

• We are so blessed.

• Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you decide to see beyond the imperfections.

• May God give you for every storm a rainbow

• For every tear, a smile

• For every care, a promise

• And a blessing in each trial.

• “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” Thomas Jefferson

• Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Psalms

• Maybe I can’t stop the downpour, but I will always join you for a walk in the rain.

• Families are God’s design on earth

• Each person uniquely created, pieced and stitched together with different qualities and gifts

• Most of all held together by GRACE.

The last ones are favorites:

• *Always Kiss Me Goodnight*

• *Good friends are like quilts, they age with you, yet never loose their warmth.

And my very very favorite for the year 2008…………………………………

• JESUS KNOWS ME, THIS I LOVE

Hope you can use some of these in your Christmas Gift giving ideas this year.

Angela

Press Releases and Articles

By Angela Posey-Arnold

January 2008

Since the book, The Nightingale Protocol, has been released I have been fortunate to have several local newspapers and television stations interview me.

I was blessed to have a twenty minute spot on a local TV station’s “Talk of the Town” morning show with Mrs. Susie Wiley in Decatur, Alabama. I have it on DVD. Mrs. Wiley read the book prior to the interview and did a review.

Susie asserted that she “loved” the book and suggested “all nurses, old, young and students, should read the book”. She said that it was “encouraging and uplifting even to her and she is not a nurse”. She said that “as a caregiver of her aged mother who has Alzheimer’s disease, the book helped her to feel encouraged”. She stated she would use the devotionals contained in the book to help others in her Caregiver’s Support Group.

The next opportunity I had was a twenty minute spot on Global Talk Radio. It is archived on www.globaltalkradio.com  Click on A Story to Tell. The host was easy to talk to and the interview went very well. I enjoyed talking with him. He had reviewed my web-site prior to the interview and knew some about me and why I write. This gave us talking points that were appropriate as well as informative.

October 10^th, 2007 I was interviewed by the features editor of the newspaper in the town where I now live. This being my first newspaper interview I had no idea of how it would go. I was a little apprehensive about it. The reporter, named Ginger Grantham came to my home to interview me. I made a pot of coffee and we talked for two hours. We had a great deal in common and the interview was more like a coffee break with an old friend.

God used this article. For many years now I have been writing. I am a member of an online writer’s group. I have made some incredible friendships with the ladies in my online writer’s group but I still longed for relationships to be formed with local Christian Writers, hoping for a writer’s group locally that I could participate in.

Two days after the article came out I received an email from a local Christian writer. We had lunch and immediately became friends mutually respecting the writing that we do. She asked me to speak at her church’s women’s group, Women of Hope. This was a stretch out of my comfort zone, but with prayer and preparation I spoke to the group and sold 5 of my books.

This sweet lady and I have developed a friendship and are now in the process of starting a local Christian Writer’s Group. Our first meeting is January 29^th.

The article is archived and can be viewed online:

The title of the article is: Writing Began as Therapy after Accident by Ginger Grantham.

www.moultonadvertiser.com/news/2007/1010/people/048.html

In November, two weeks prior to The Nightingale Protocol being released by the publisher, I was asked to be interviewed by the Religious Editor of the newspaper in the town where I attended college. I also worked in that area for 11 years of my career as an RN, mostly as a Director of Nursing in Long Term Care. The article is archived and can be viewed online.

The Title of the Article is: Former Nurse Publishes Spiritual Account of Her Career.

www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071103/NEWS/711030301/1004&template=printpicart

I was raised in Haleyville, Alabama. The newspaper there is The Northwest Alabamian. I am blessed to have graduated high school with the Editor. Because I live 40 miles from my hometown, she met me at the newspaper office on Thanksgiving Morning to interview me. She was as excited about my new book as I am. On December 1^st she featured the article in a half page story and mentioned it in her weekly editorial comments.

The Northwest Alabamian does not have the ability yet to archive articles. So I will reproduce them here.

The Northwest Alabamian December 1^st Saturday Edition

Melica Allen’s Editor’s Notes

I am always excited when something good happens to anyone. I am very happy when it happens to someone I know. This is the case with a former classmate of mine.

Angela Posey (now Arnold) and I graduated from Haleyville High School in 1978. She has published a book, “The Nightingale Protocol”. I had the privilege of doing an interview with Angela on Thanksgiving Day. Make sure to see the article in today’s edition. Her new book has now been released and available on-line and at Praise Corner in Haleyville.

There are times in our lives when things happen we don’t understand, but aren’t we grateful that God takes care of us. This is the case for Angela. She had a terrible accident in 2001. Because of the accident, she can no longer work in her field of nursing. But God had already made a plan for her and I am so excited to see it working.

She autographed a copy of the book and gave it to me. I will treasure it. I have begun to read it and will pass it on to my son, who is in nursing school.

Angela has stories that have been published in Guidepost. As a matter of fact, she has a story in the November-December issue. Make sure to read it. Congratulations Angela and keep writing, dear friend.

The Article as it appeared in The Northwest Alabamian Saturday December 1^st, 2007.

HALEYVILLE GRADUATE AUTHORS BOOK

Accident Changes Her Life Forever

By Melica Allen

Managing Editor

HALEYVILLE: Angela Arnold was a little tired when she got up on the morning of January 31^st, 2001. As a Director of Nursing in Madison, she had worked 3-11 to cover a shift the night before and was still feeling the effects when she rose to get ready for work the next morning.

“I almost didn’t go,” she said, “But I knew I had a meeting and needed to be there, so I decided to get ready and go.”

It was a decision that changed her life forever.

Angela was traveling to work and had stopped at a red light, when she heard a terrible noise. “I looked up and saw this 18 wheeler had overturned and was sliding toward me” said Angela. “All I could do is grab the steering wheel and say ‘Lord, it is going to hit me!’”

Angela’s vehicle was struck and went airborne 265 feet. “I didn’t feel it when it hit me. I know the Lord got to me before the truck did. I could feel angels around me, and I had such a sense of peace and love,” she said. “I try to forget the memories of that horrible experience, but I never want to forget the peace that I felt that day. It’s something that I had never experienced before.”

Rescue personnel used the Jaws of Life apparatus to remove her from the vehicle. She said, “I know God was working in the situation, because I was driving my Dad’s 1988 Mercury Marquis. I had gotten rid of my 1994 Mustang and was looking for a new car. That was why I was driving Daddy’s old car at the time. I believe if I had not been in that tank of a car, the end result may have been different.”

Angela spent two weeks in the hospital. Her spleen was ruptured and she had a lot of bruises, but not one broken bone from the wreck.

“That was a miracle of God and His hand at work,” she said. “But because my spleen had been ruptured, my doctors told me I could no longer be a nurse,” Angela spoke with a look of sadness in her eyes. “I thought to myself, ‘Lord what am I going to do?’”

God did direct Angela about what to do. : I have always loved to write. Even in high school. I kept a journal. About a year after the accident, I submitted an article to Guidepost’s magazine entitled, “Angels on Earth”. It was published in the January-February 2002 edition. I took a Christian writing course, and God just kept opening doors”

Angela has self-published a work called, “The Lions and the Adders” under the pen name, Anna Grace Poschet’. She also does on-line devotionals, but the death of a dear friend is the reason that Angela wrote a book that has just recently been published.

“I had a good friend who was a nurse,” Angela explained. “Our careers had always paralleled, and we had talked about writing a book together, but she passed away in February 2006, the day after my birthday. I knew I had to write this book for her and myself.”

“The day after the funeral I started writing the book, Titled, “The Nightingale Protocol,” the first half of the book is about the experiences of nursing school and work as a nurse. Nursing School is such a stressful and difficult time. I hope by relating things I experienced that it will help other nurses who are going through the same things.”

“The second half of the book has 32 weeks of devotionals for nurses that offer encouragement and strength to them. They have a difficult job and don’t always get the encouragement they need. I hope these devotionals help them to remember why they went into nursing. I believe by giving them encouragement and words of strength this will also help the patients that they take care of. My goal with this book is to help other nurses.”

Angela also has another article that is being published in the November-December 2007 edition of Guidepost’s Angels on Earth. It is a story that has been handed down from her great-great-great Uncle Joe involving experiences he had with angels.

“If I pray about what to write, God gives me what to say. I’ve always known Him, but I have not always lived for Him. He, however, has always been there for me.” Angela said with a sweet assurance.

She is considering and praying about writing a Christian fiction book.

“Writing is a part of me and a big part of my life now. I want to venture into different avenues with it.”

Angela will be doing a book signing for “The Nightingale Protocol, at Praise Corner in Haleyville. A date will be announced.

Angela is a 1978 graduate of Haleyville High School and the daughter of Merle and Bonnie Posey of Haleyville.

The Book signing went great. I had 26 books left to sell that day—I sold 25. I ran out of books. So I ordered some more and in the mean time people were calling Praise Corner and coming in to get it. The Book Store owner was calling me just about everyday asking when he could get more books.

The books came in and they are still selling well.

What a blessing!! I Praise and Thank Jesus. To God be the glory.

The next event is January 29^th. I will be a guest on The Jamie Cooper Show. It is a local morning talk show. The host has read my book and invited me to be on the show Wednesday morning January 29^th, 2008.

Update: I made it to the interview even though I was sick. I only got 7 minutes and didn't get to say even a 1/4 of what I wanted to say--but I'll take the free publicity!! It was an easy interview.

Next up--Book Signing at The Decatur Alabama Public Library. April 19th from 11-3.

More to come……….

Still marketing and selling the book but focusing on articles and short stories for a while.

I got a new laptop and I am learning Vista and MS Word 07. I am also trying to learn how to type as fast on this laptop as I did my other computer. Time will tell.....writing continues.