Thankfulness

Hello, Everybody!

Thank you for reading my blog. Last week seemed to be a dark week in the world. I appreciate you all taking time to read my thoughts there. As I begin to blog more frequently than once a month, the topics will be changing. However, I aim to continue to keep my blog professionally oriented with a touch of personal. As I sit here with my younger siblings about to watch 'Home Alone', I want to share what I am up to in this week of gratefulness. :)

Their Inheritance's Thanksgiving

As the Williams children prepared for their first Thanksgiving holiday since their parents' death, the children tried to make their Thanksgiving the same as it was celebrated when their parents were alive.    James, Alexandra, Christine, and Lee spent Thanksgiving with their friends, the Unruhs. 

Excerpts
 from Purple Butterfly Publications' ebook, Their Inheritan

   

My Thanksgiving

I usually spend the week of Thanksgiving in the mountains with my family. We eat too much, catch up on naps and our visiting relatives' lives, and we start watching our favorite Christmas movies. The Thanksgiving Day meal changes every year. The 2015 Thanksgiving Day meal will consists of stewed chicken; Sweet Potato Fluff (my great-grandmother's recipe) which is an annual Thanksgiving Day staple; green beans (not in the casserole form); and homemade baked corn bread. Can you say yummy?! After we eat, we nap or watch a movie before getting ready to go to A to Z Auctions' annual Thanksgiving Day Auction. For the past few years, A to Z Auctions has held an auction on Thanksgiving night in Hiawassee, Georgia. This auction is different from their other auctions as they auction off more toys and Christmas gift options than they do at the regular auctions. They also start the night off with a large empty toy box sitting against one wall. Throughout the night, bidders can buy the toys and put them in the toy box. The toy box contents are distributed where they are needed throughout the local communities. I love how every Thanksgiving auction the toy box ends up overflowing! The community and bidders really come together and remind each other of what Christmas is all about: the gift of love! The auction lasts pretty late, and I skip on the Black Friday shopping the next day. I do support small business Saturday! I encourage you to do the same. 

Small Business Saturday

Make it fun! Take the Small Business Saturday to get out and explore your town as if you were a visiting tourist. Go into shops that you don't shop in very often. Show your support for the small businesses in America. Whether it is your small town or big city, take fun family or solo photos in the stores and when you share your photos online, tag the stores! Business owners love to see who is enjoying their place of business. If you shop small with PBPages and download Their Inheritance, tag us! @PBPages or #TheirInheritance #PBP #ShopSmall

Thanks!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I hope you all have a fun, pleasant, and blessed Thanksgiving! Whether you are spending the holiday with family; friends; yourself; or with strangers, I pray you find something to be thankful for. 

I am grateful for you all reading this blog, being a patron of Purple Butterfly Pages, and for the supporters of Purple Butterfly Publications. I am blessed with a job that I enjoy everyday!

***Leave a comment below and share your Thanksgiving week traditions and your Thanksgiving holiday plans for this year! :)

#ThePurpleButterflyPurpose

Filling the Gap

Hello, everyone!

If you are like me, you are kind of scooting out of a summer schedule and getting into a better routine for the next season of the year. As summer drifts away, I wanted to blog about the gap between the generation of students and their parents and grandparents and how Their Inheritance can help bridge that gap.

Students,

I hope you all are settling into your new school routines and adjusting well to your new schedules. Whether you are in middle school; high school; college; or grad school, starting the next chapter tends to pull you away from your priorities and focus away from your family and onto your future in the work force. Don't forget to make time for your parents!

Parents,

as your student or students head off to a new school, keep in mind that they know that you are still at home and that wherever you are will always be "home". Find new ways to connect with your "student". For instance, reading.

Grandparents,

students may be spending more time with their friends or at their after school jobs and less time with you. This does not mean that your grandchild loves you any less. Maybe you can join in on the reading with your child and your grandchild!

The Gap

When different generations read Their Inheritance it opens up a channel of communication within the generation gaps of your family. In Their Inheritance we see the impact Charles and Grace Williams had on their children, James, Alexandra, Christine, and Lee. The elder members of the community helped the Williams children in the wake of their parents' death. The Williams teens, James and Alexandra, had to step up and fulfill their parents' responsibilities.

God was with them all, every generation, through everything they went through. Nobody was alone.

Remember that as you go into this new season and school year!

Fill in the generation gap by reading the same book. Of course, I suggest Their Inheritance ebook! While reading Their Inheritance you see each generation and their struggles and how they all help each other with those struggles. So, here is to a great school year to all generations involved in the success of each student in our lives.

Fill that gap!

Caitlin Ayers, Proprietor & Publisher
www.PurpleButterflyPages.com

Hello, New Year!

Happy New Year and WELCOME 2015!

Hello everyone! I hope your year is off to a bright start. I want to share some of what I will be doing as Publisher at Purple Butterfly Publications this new year. My mission for Purple Butterfly Publications is to continue striving to produce and promote literature that inspires, comforts, and entertains readers worldwide. In 2015, I will continue working with Stephanie Townsend Ayers as she is writing her current novel with a working title of Through the Storms! More details on that later.

"Write it on your heart that each day is the best day in the year." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

New This Year...

Since 2010, there have been near ten thousand visitors to www.PurpleButterflyPages.com! Starting this year, the Purple Butterfly Pages and Publications website will be updated weekly making it easier for readers worldwide to find book excerpts from my publications as well as stay informed and up to date with ongoing projects. This means that the website may be down at times during the first of the year, but no worries. I will let you all know when those few days come. I will be writing a Q & A blog sometime this year as well. I want to answer all of your questions about my small business, publishing, or publications! Email, post, message, or tweet questions to me as you think of them and I will make a compilation in a future blog post.  

Make the most of every day in the new year.

Last year, I was fortunate to be a part of my local Chamber of Commerce and attend several events. When I introduce myself as a Publisher, a lot of people's first reaction is to tell me about an author they know or about an idea for a book they want to write. Everyone says they don't have time to write or they don't think they are any good at writing. I love hearing book ideas from others and am inspired by the love of story telling and imaginations that we share! As a book publisher, authors and readers of all subjects are very important to me. I started something last year and I'd like to carry the idea over into 2015. I challenge you to encourage your family members, your children, your friends, and yourself to Write It Down. Whether you think a book idea or a poem is great or not, write it down! When you have something on your mind but you have no way of getting it out, write it down! If you have a story that your grandparent told you in your childhood, write it down! Nobody can ever read it if you don't write it down. Think about all of the knowledge you would not have if someone had not taken time to write it down...no bookstores, no libraries, no Bible, no schools, no museums, and the list goes on. So in 2015, I challenge you to Write It Down! Use the hashtag #WriteItDown to mark your progress online and to acknowledge the accepted challenge. The challenge starts today! Do you accept it?

Their Inheritance ebook has been read worldwide!

I am proud to say there were over 2000 copies of Their Inheritance read last year. I am ecstatic and inspired that an ebook that I published has been read worldwide reaching United Kingdom, France, Denmark, and Canada to name a few of the countries! I hope this ebook has and continues to inspire you on cloudy days, comfort you in times of grief, and encourage you when you need an extra push toward faith. You are never alone as God walks with you through every day in this new year!

Read and Believe.

Caitlin Ayers, Publisher at Purple Butterfly Publications

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caitlin@purplebutterflypages.com for emails

1940s Flashback!

Hello Everyone!

Although October is almost over for this year, it is finally fall in my corner of the world. Pumpkin and cinnamon everything is everywhere it seems. However, I don't want to add to the pumpkin spice craze. Instead, I want to share about an event that takes place in my town during the first weekend of every October: Currahee Military Weekend. I was blessed to have taken part in the festivities celebrating the paratroopers who trained during WWII at Camp Toccoa, just a few miles from where I live now.

The annual Currahee Military Weekend took place October 3 - 5, 2014. The Vintage Hangar Dance took place on Friday evening at the Stephens County Airport. Purple Butterfly Publications' featured author, Stephanie Townsend Ayers, and I attended the 1940s themed hangar dance. Mrs. Ayers and I both dressed up in our best '40s attire for the evening. I even got a surprise delivery of flowers from a thoughtful friend to wear to the dance! I had an absolutely fantastic time participating in the Costume Contest during the evening where I finished as a semi-finalist. Great competition in the hangar! We all had a swell time of dancing (yes, I learned a few steps), fantastic live music, learning, and seeing new faces from all around the globe including from France and Texas! After the fun evening, I couldn't help but think of the brave men and women who were a part of our nation's defenses during World War II. The hangar dances must have meant so much to them.  

Featured author, Stephanie Townsend Ayers, and I ready for the Vintage Hangar Dance

Had a blast!

On Saturday evening, we returned to Camp Toccoa at Currahee for the Currahee Military Weekend Banquet. The guest speaker was Jim “Pee Wee’ Martin, 506th G. Company PIR.,
a Camp Toccoa veteran. Mr. Martin shared with us his jump into Normandy in 1944 and recently this year, 2014, during D-Day Events in Normandy. It was a special honor to hear Mr. Martin speak about his life experiences during and after the war. If you don't know who he is already,  please look him up and watch his experience in video. You won't regret it! After listening to Mr. Jim "Pee Wee" Martin speak, I got to help a local auctioneer, Christopher Ayers of Remember When Estate Auctions, with the live auction to raise money for the Currahee Military Museum and the veterans attending the Currahee Military Weekend. Haha! Happy to help look for bids! A memorable night indeed. 

Playing "Vanna White"

It is so important to remember and respect the sacrifices of America's history makers: our veterans and their families. I'd like to take a moment and encourage you all reading this blog to learn more about your local veterans. Learn from them. Also, learn about YOUR local history. You just might be surprised at what part your town has played in history making moments. Without the preservation of our history, Christian historical-fiction novels like Their Inheritance would not be written! 

Check out Currahee Military Museum for more information about the 2015 Currahee Military Weekend. I hope to see you there!

**Look for an early November blog with exciting first-ever holiday news from Purple Butterfly Publications!** 

Remember. Preserve. Read.

Caitlin Ayers, Publisher
Purple Butterfly Publications

Let the Kid Write!

Hey everybody!

I was inspired to write this month's blog by a special little girl who loves to write short stories. So, this one is for the young kids with big minds; but first, here is one of my first writing experiences:

As soon as I learned how to write in school, I was given a small notebook to write my thoughts of the day. I remember my notebook had a picture of a furry dog on the front. Writing for a few minutes a day (or longer if we had more to write down) became an assignment in school. Another checkmark for the pros' side of being a homeschool kid, haha. I remember looking at the white page with tiny horizontal black lines and thinking that I could write anything! There would be no correct or incorrect answer. I could write whatever I wanted to! A couple of years ago, I found that old notebook and noticed that I mostly wrote down a few lines describing the weather of the day. Occasionally, I jotted down a rhyme or two and maybe a short story about my then two-year-old chihuahua every once in a while. Not always as creative or proper in my writing as some of my siblings; but hey, I was writing. Now I am a book publisher. Who knew?!

"Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them." - Lady Bird Johnson

 We never know what incredible stories lie within children's imaginations, yet wouldn't we like to know? Encourage the kid(s) in your life to write it down! Imagine how that kid will feel after they have written a poem or story no matter how short or how long. Now, picture their face as they await your comments as you read their work.

I would love to help you encourage the kid(s) in your life write it down! Let's have some fun! Send me a photo of the writings (the child does not need to be in the photo) from the children in your life using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or email me here: caitlin@purplebutterflypages.com. I will share** the photo on random Wednesdays as part of "Write It Down Wednesday"! All followers, friends, and fans of Purple Butterfly Pages will be able to leave some likes and comments for the possible future author in your life! Use the hashtag: #WriteItDown on any social media and email subject line. If you would like, you can include your future author's name; however, I suggest using a pen name instead of the child's real name for privacy purposes.

#WriteItDown

Encourage the kid(s) in your life to have fun writing it down!

Caitlin Ayers, Publisher

Purple Butterfly Publications

**By sending your photo to Purple Butterfly Publications, you are giving us permission to share it on our social media accounts mentioned ONLY. The photos of the writings will only be shared to our Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram ONLY. Thank you!**