Butterfly Moments

After a twenty-plus year career as a Parole Officer in Philadelphia, Alana Blue is more than ready to leave her job and move on to more rewarding work. Jaded and burned out, Alana is given the difficult assignment of supervising Rafe Ortiz, a renegade Probation and Parole Officer who arrives in Alana's office by way of a disciplinary transfer and with a reputation for accumulating meaningless sexual conquests.Alana's life is more complicated by the frequent conflicts she experiences with her homophobic daughter, Nikki. Convinced that the transparency of her mother's sexuality doomed her first marriage, Nikki is obsessed with keeping her second union intact, even if it means constantly repudiating Alana. Nikki's husband, Owen Reid, doesn't always agree with his wife's opinions regarding same-gender relationships; nor does he always support their marriage by remaining faithful to Nikki.As Alana is reaching for an opportunity to pursue a new career, the body of a brutally murdered university student is discovered partially hidden on a property very close to Alana's neighborhood. Detective Johnetta Jones, recently retired from the Philadelphia Police Force, and hired by a suburban law enforcement department, is assigned to the murder case. When the investigation leads her to one of Alana's parolees, Johnetta remembers having interviewed this particular Parole Officer once before. Although her memory of Alana is mostly pleasant, Johnetta remains more emotionally connected to her work than she is to any woman she's ever met. Vaguely discontent, she is reluctant to forge a romantic connection with anyone...until her path intersects with Alana's once again. Their renewed contact suggests the possibility of love and the end of loneliness for both women. As Johnetta and her work partner, Detective Harold Smythe, get close to solving the university student's murder, Johnetta realizes arresting their suspect will imperil her tenuous relationship with Alana.Alana becomes caught in the war between her impulsive attraction to Rafe Ortiz's flirtatious pursuit and her realization that her feelings for Johnetta Jones are growing deeper with each passing day. Will everything in Alana's world disintegrate when lies are revealed, true identities are exposed, and the murderer is unmasked?

These pages from Lauras journal go from joy to sorrow and back again. They go from wondering and questioning about life and death to imagining answers. She doesnt claim that her answers are the only valid ones. She simply hopes that they will encourage readers to fi nd their own. Laura is now an eighty-eight-year-old widow. Still actively involved in living. Even now, after all these years and all this living, she finds life good.

Author Mathew Tekulsky wrote the first book on butterfly gardening for North America, nearly 40 years ago! Butterfly gardening is the practice of attracting beautiful butterflies to your garden by growing common plants and flowers that they use for food and nectar. This fun and wonderfully simple activity will bring color, light, and beauty to your garden and home. With the relaxing and rewarding qualities of this outdoor hobby, it’s not hard to see why it’s sweeping the nation and growing in popularity. How to Create a Butterfly Garden is a complete, step-by-step guide to gardening for butterflies. You’ll learn about: The butterfly life cycle, habitats, and behaviors Choosing and obtaining food and nectar sources Designing your garden Options for country, suburban, and city gardens Fifty common garden butterflies and the plants they like Butterfly observation and conservation This guide will teach you everything you need to get started—whether you’re a suburban resident, the owner of a small urban garden, an apartment dweller, or a keeper of a country estate, you can enjoy frequent butterfly visits to your garden or window box. The key, Tekulsky believes, is learning some basic knowledge of butterfly characteristics and behavior and knowing how to meet the needs of the butterfly species most common in your neighborhood. Not only is butterfly gardening one of the easiest ways to enjoy these enchanting creatures, but it’s also a wonderful way to help conserve natural butterfly populations for generations to come. Learn how to create your own beautiful butterfly garden today!

Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads, unsure of which way to turn? Maybe you reached a fork in the road and felt overwhelmed by the choices before you. Or perhaps you felt stuck, held back by the fear of making the wrong decision—with one foot rooted firmly in the past and the other dangling into the unknown. But there is a pathway out of your challenges and into a space of freedom, happiness, and lasting fulfillment. For thousands of years, divine solutions have been whispered directly into the hearts of priests, shamans, wizards, medicine women, and healers. In Sacred Powers, internationally renowned meditation master davidji reveals the deepest secrets of this timeless wisdom and distills their essence into the Five Divine Principles of the Universe: · The Divine Principle of One · The Divine Principle of Awareness · The Divine Principle of Rebirth · The Divine Principle of Infinite Flow · The Divine Principle of Inner Fire Each step on the path will unfold eternal truths to guide you on a lifelong journey of clarity and connection, expansion and abundance, love and happiness, courage and confidence, and passion and purpose. This moment is a defining moment. This is the moment to awaken your sacred powers. And this is the time to manifest your dream life!

God desires and is pleased to communicate with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills, and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the souls of the redeemed men and women is the throbbing heart of the New Testament.

The tiny caterpillar innocently emerges and faces overwhelming challenges - all the while carrying the gift: the potential of sublime beauty. In the heat of summer many caterpillars are stung by wasps, deeply wounded and scarred. In spite of this they don't give up. I was amazed by the magnificent willpower of these fragile creatures. It seems to me that the caterpillar never questions its ability to become a butterfly. Breaking free from the chrysalis, leaving their wounds and scarring behind, the butterflies emerge. Some have wings too small to fly, some fly with broken wings, others have twisted and damaged bodies with perfect wings. All are beautiful. Perfect in their own way. Peaceful, joyful, free. Butterflies live in the moment - joyfully capturing hearts as they simply ‘live’. The complexity of their transformation is astounding. Nature is a wonderful teacher.

Women yearn to share their experiences with the Lover of their souls in a way that is honest and simple, yet deeply satisfying. The key to this intimate self-expression is prayer-journaling. By pouring her heart out on paper to God, a woman can enjoy God's loving presence, explore her purpose and passion, appreciate life's beauty and answer its perplexities, experience spiritual transformation, and leave a permanent record of God's faithfulness in her life. Love Letters to God is a woman's invitation to take a personal pilgrimage through her own 'sacred writings' to the very heart of God. DISCOVER THE WAY TO GOD'S HEART Your holding an invitation in your hands—an invitation to take a personal pilgrimage through your own 'sacred writings' to the very heart of God. If you're intimidated by praying aloud or easily distracted during your devotional time, pouring your heart out on paper will give you the privacy and intimacy you need. Inspired by these beutifully written reflections, you'll find the most fullfilling way to enjoy God's loving presence, explore your purpose and passion, and leave a permanent record of His love and faithfulness in your life. Find freedom, healing, hope, and security as you share your deepest longings with the lover of your soul. Story Behind the Book Writing one’s prayers in a journal (unlike verbal or silent prayers) provides an actual safe place to grow spiritually and to enjoy and enhance a personal relationship with God. Verbal prayers are soon forgotten, but our "love letters to God" become a permanent place for exploring our hearts, a tangible testimony of God’s love and faithfulness in our lives, and a detailed document of our spiritual journeys. We can literally see the progression of changes in our lives as expressed on the "pages of our soul," our prayer journals, and we can see God’s answers to our prayers recorded there. Like the psalmists, many people have discovered that writing is the key to intimate self-expression, providing a deep, emotional catharsis that is often missing from their verbal or silent prayers.