Stranded on Sparrow

When giving and time go hand in hand.

When we were asked to share unconventional dates, I thought for sure mine wasn’t all that unusual. But as I read what the other ladies have posted thus far, maybe it might be (or a date is a matter of perspective.)

You see my husband is a truck driver. He has been for 20 years. Most of the time he is privileged enough to be able to be home most nights, but there have been times where he had been gone for weeks on one trip. When he first started officially driving semi trucks, he drove from Long Beach, California to Bangor, Maine in one trip. We didn’t see each other in those times for a month. It was difficult but it paid the bills, mostly.

My husbands time away left our “love quota” pretty empty. With my love language being quality time (both giving and receiving) and his being gift-giving/ quality time, we had to be creative with our dates. And because our kids were young, we couldn’t spend a lot will be gone for long. Besides, neither of us like going out for dinner and because we had seen almost every movie we ever wanted to see, going to the movies was out of the question.

One Saturday morning, we headed to the grocery store so that he could stock his truck with food for the next week. On the way to the store, there was a huge yard sale that had some interesting items that were visible from the road. I don’t remember what the item was but something caught my eye and I got a little excited about it. My darling husband pulled over and said, “let’s go look.” My husband is very strict with her budget so the fact that he recommended we stop was a surprise to me. We walked up to the house and perused the items holding hands, reminiscing when we saw something that reminded us of our childhood, and laughing at some of the other items that people would actually put in a yard sale. We didn’t purchase the item that I got excited about, but when we got back to the vehicle he told me to find another yard sale. I informed him that we needed a newspaper, because smart phones were nothing yet, and that I could hunt down the perfect yard sales for us.

It was almost lunchtime before we made it back home with his groceries and a desk with a chair and a couple power tools and having our love banks filled. Thankfully my mother was forgiving, not that she really minded having her grandchildren for an extra three hours, because we then went for lunch.

For a little while after this, we would take her Saturday mornings and go for breakfast and do a little yard sale hopping. It wasn’t about what we were looking for but it was about the time we spent with each other and the things that we learned about the other person.

I wish I could tell you that we do that now but it’s been almost 10 years since we’ve done some yard sale hopping. My husband’s job has him working on the weekends so it makes it difficult. I miss those moments that it was just him and I enjoying breakfast or lunch and seeing what kind of treasures we could find in other peoples junk.

Now, about the book

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If His eye is on the sparrow, where does that leave her?

Lia Diaz’s life has become an illusion. Fired from her perfect job, she’s living a lie to avoid censure from her critical family. So when Lia gets a call about her nana’s recent fall, she heads to Nana’s house to help out and regroup.

Things are looking up until she discovers that her childhood refuge, Nana’s home on Sparrow Island, has been condemned in the wake of Hurricane Arley. Time to regroup—again.

Getting stranded on Sparrow Island while visiting the house was not in those revised plans.

After “rescuing” his niece and a motley crew of animals, some might say Zachary Nolan has a hero complex. Zachary never thought that he would live life as a single dad. However, as a web designer he is able to spend lots of time with Violet, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. A call for help when Lia gets stranded there sends him rushing to the rescue. That hero complex thing again.

A hero and his niece offer new hope to Lia—maybe God’s eye is on Sparrow Island after all.

Read the next Sparrow Island novel in the Independence Islands Series featuring five islands, six authors, and a boatload of happily-ever-afters.

The Independence Islands Series: beach reads aren’t just for summer anymore.

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