A Magical Tale To Gift This Season!

Wonderful Readers ~ Please consider a magical tale to gift this season! Reading is such an adventure and so incredible for the imagination! Please also consider supporting indie authors, independent bookstores, small creators and small businesses, who strive to bring the world unique goods and special experiences!

For a list of my independently published works, please visit: https://www.amazon.com/author/mnovak

A Thoughtful Gift

It is the season for cheer and goodwill, a season for family, friends and thoughtful gifting to all those we care about!

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As a writer who loves a good adventure, I am always pleased to be gifted with a book. Books allow us to use our imagination and travel far from where we live, they often provide hours of inspiration long after they are given, and are (usually) stress-relieving, intellectual and a pleasure!

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And so this holiday, I humbly recommend the gift of Venice for a lady in your life, whether sister or daughter, grandma or mother, best friend or colleague or neighbor. This delightful trip to the beautiful city of Venice, Italy, through its interactive choose-your-own-adventure style (you choose what you will see and do in the book by making selections at the end of each chapter), will be a treat for any reader and lover of adventure and travel!

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And for the young ladies in your life, please consider A Festival Day in Bristol and Princess Liliana and the Dragon! These tales are light history for some learning fun, contain positive moral themes and are entertaining!

Thank you for all of your support! My books are written with a passion to inspire, entertain and enlighten, and I hope that you will enjoy them. Here’s wishing you a bright and peaceful holiday season with all those you love!

Pearl Earrings Giveaway II.

It’s December 1st! It’s the season of cheer! It’s the season of giving! I woke up this morning with a smile on my face before I had my coffee…I’m off to a good start! The sun just came out of those dim, sad clouds here in Evanston and the cardinals are flitting about in their red glory!

It’s a beautiful day, a day for a giveaway!!

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Pearls are my favorite adornment, I wear them almost every day. I think pearls are beautiful. Pearls are precious and perfect and so unique in many ways!

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Today I am giving away these precious beauties! Sterling silver, freshwater drop pearls (pink-gold color) by Brenda Duncan of The Black Pearl, purchased at the Bristol Renaissance Faire.

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To enter the pearl earrings giveaway, write one thing that makes you smile in the comments! A random winner will be selected this Friday, December 4th, 9am (Chicago time) and I’ll announce the winner here on Inspired By Venice.

*Fun fact!!! Did you know that all mollusks can produce pearls? And did you know that octopus and escargot snails, mussels, squid, slugs and scallops are all mollusks? It’s true! Check out this octopus pearl!

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Coconut Octopus

*Photo from wikipedia, found here. This handsome little dude carries around shells and coconut shells for protection, very smart!

All The Pretty Things Part II

Ugh, I’m injured! Nothing catastrophic, just a mean pulled muscle in my neck. Sleeping wrong? Lack of stretching before I exercised? Stretching my neck to look at the pastries in the bakery window? Who knows. And there’s a second injury…my foot slipped and I kicked the leg of the dining room table yesterday. One of those bizarre little accidents that don’t look too bad, until you start to feel some sort of painful internal swelling. So now I can’t turn my head without wincing and I’m limping. It’s my pretty look.

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Before bed last night, I had a heat pack on my neck and an icepack on my foot. But thanks to the very friend who I wrote about in my post All The Pretty Things, I heated up that pulled muscle in style!

This is her creation! Using fabric scraps, she sews a pouch and fills them with cherry pits! I’d never heard of this before until I saw one that she’d made. She said she’d been using them for years and they’ve been a comfort to her family. You place it in the microwave and heat it for a short time and all of the cherry pits soak in the heat and keep the pouch warm. When the heat runs out, you simply reheat. You can reuse the same pouch for years.

Last night, I was so thankful that she’d gifted me with one. It eased my neck pain before bed and I was able to fall asleep. For all those crafty folks out there, this would be an excellent holiday present! It’s a truly useful gift that keeps on giving! And it’s pretty too!