Heart Book Series

Signing alongside Ms. Roush are contributors and fellow members of Toastmasters International: Kay Presto, Lee Barron, Cyndy Logan, Kay Starr and Marjorie Benesh residents of Inland Empire and Orange Counties. Kay Presto is also published in the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, including Chicken Soup for the NASCAAR Lover’s Soul.

The newest book just released in this six-book series, titled Heart of a Military Woman, is packed with heart-warming stories about all types of women involved in the military, from those who currently serve to those who are wives, mothers, and family and friends of those who serve. Some stories share experiences back to the days of the women who piloted airplanes for the military during World War II (WASPs). The book also includes a story about the first woman who lost a limb in our current war, and another about the local U.S.O. facility in Ontario, California.

Other books available at the signing will be:
Heart of the Holidays (Yuletide treasures and traditions)
Heart of a Mother
Heart of a Woman in Business
Heart of a Woman
and Corazon de Mujer (Heart of a Woman in Spanish).

For further information, call Borders Bookstore at 909-646-7322.

The popular radio show aired 9:00am – 12 Noon EST.

"Feel Good Friday" with Montel on this week celebrates Mother’s Day with his millions of listeners. Who knows what great questions Montel will ask the author of Heart of a Mother–an inspirational gift book, featuring stories, poems and tributes to Mothers and Grandmothers.

INTERVIEW POSTED – CLICK HERE

Heart of a Mother is part of the Heart Book Series, which includes Heart of a Woman, Heart of a Woman in Business, Heart of the Holidays, and Corazon de Mujer-Spanish version of Heart of a Woman. www.HeartBookSeries.com

Heart of a Woman celebrates the strength, humor, love and intuition–of women of all ages. She will delight in cherished classics, personal favorites and recent writings from Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil, Maya Angelou, Bill Cosby, Louise Hay, Marianne Williamson and more. Chapters include: Ageless Living, Art, A Woman’s Intuition, Challenges, Chocolate, Daughters, Faith, Falling in Love, Family, Fathers, Friendship, Gratitude, Health, Learning to Love Yourself, Love, Marriage, Men!, Military Relationships, Mothers, Music, Nature, Parenting, Passion, Patriotism, Pets, Prayer, Prosperity, Sisters, Teenagers, Women in History, Worthiness…

Heart of a Woman is now eloquently available in Spanish: Corazon de Mujer.

For your Mother, Wife, Grandmother, Mother-in-Law:
Heart of a Mother... a gift book filled with touching tributes to Mothers and Grandmothers, inspirational short stories, poems, proverbs and quotations.

Sparkle Press, a division of Sparkle Presentations, Inc., announced today the forthcoming title in the popular and quickly growing Heart Book Series, created only three years ago.

Heart of a Military Woman will be released before Veteran’s Day, November 11, 2009 and join the series of inspirational gift books by Sheryl Roush: Heart of a Woman,  Heart of a Mother,  Heart of the Holidays,  Heart of a Woman in Business, and  Corazon de Mujer (Heart of a Woman in Spanish).

Eldonna Lewis-Fernandez is co-author of Heart of a Military Woman. Passionate about touching the lives of female veterans and being a retired veteran with 23 years of honorable service in the United States Air Force, Eldonna is teaching women how to take more RISK in their lives for maximum results. When she enlisted in October 1980, women made up only 8% of the military and today although more than doubled still only 20%. Professionally, Eldonna is a contract specialist in purchasing, negotiation and administration of government contracts. She is the President of Dynamic Vision International, based in Redondo Beach, California.

Personally, she’s a single mother of two, an award-winning speaker, on the board of the Women’s Peace Campaign and a certified master results coach. Even more personally, Eldonna shares her story in Heart of a Woman in Business, "I was a high school dropout who was told by my teachers and parents that I would never amount to anything. Born to two alcoholic parents, I grew up neglected and abused. The military was my saving grace and I fought hard again that ‘loser’ expectation, excelling in my military career. I became a leader, manager, and networking expert. I earned two associates and a bachelor’s degree while on active duty (and raising two children on her own) as well as the highest level of professional certification in my field."

Eldonna co-authors with Sheryl Roush, the author of the book series, a noted professional speaker, and is herself an ex-Navy wife, compassionate to those choosing a military lifestyle and grateful to their incredible dedication.

Submissions are welcome to this inspirational collection of original short stories, poems and quotations…. regarding ANY active or retired military.
Due August 15, submissions may be up to 1,200 words long, and are to emailed to: Eldonna@HeartBookSeries.com  
Indicate "Book Submission" in the subject line.
Email in text, or attach a Word.doc.

Mail submissions to:
Sparkle Press
Attn: Heart of a Military Woman Book
P.O. Box 2373
La Mesa, CA 91943-2373 USA

Contributors have been notified of their official acceptance of being published in the soon-to-be-released Heart of a Woman in Business book by Sheryl Roush.

The publication is a MASTERPIECE!
The editing team of four professionals had a tough job, as DOUBLE the amount of submissions were received than could fit within the scheduled 240 pages.

There was a record of 105 Contributors, with a record of 201 submissions, for a total Word Count of 164,576.

Of those submitting their original workplace stories, poems and business insights, eighty contributors were placed into the 280-page elegantly designed self-help inspiration, which is 48 pages longer than originally planned.

The publication is also THREE FULL WEEKS ahead of schedule, and initial book releases will occur at speaking engagements where Sheryl Roush is presenting inspirational messages. The first release will be on September 9 in Fresno at the sold out 3,500-women Central California Womens’ Conference, where Sheryl is speaking on the program with financial expert Suze Orman.

The official book release date is October 1st, and will be featured at the international Book Expo in Frankfurt, Germany October 15-19.

Pre-orders for the book are welcome at www.SparklePresentations.com

Today I will make a difference. I will begin by controlling my thoughts. A person is the product of their thoughts. I want to be happy and hopeful. Therefore, I will have thoughts that are happy and hopeful. I refuse to be victimized by my circumstances. I will not let petty inconveniences such as stoplights, long lines, and traffic jams be my masters. I will avoid negativism and gossip. Optimism will be my companion, and victory will be my hallmark. Today I will make a difference.

I will be grateful for the twenty-four hours that are before me. Time is a precious commodity. I refuse to allow what little time I have to be contaminated by self-pity, anxiety, or boredom. I will face this day with the joy of a child and the courage of a giant. I will drink each minute as though it is my last. When tomorrow comes, today will be gone forever. While it is here, I will use it for loving and giving. Today I will make a difference.

I will not let past failures haunt me. Even though my life is scarred with mistakes, I refuse to rummage through my trash heap of failures. I will admit them. I will correct them. I will press on. Victoriously. No failure is fatal. It’s OK to stumble – I will get up. It’s OK to fail – I will rise again. Today I will make a difference.

I will spend time with those I love. My spouse, my children, my family. A man can own the world but be poor for the lack of love. A man can own nothing and yet be wealthy in relationships. Today I will spend at least five minutes with the significant people in my world. Five quality minutes of talking or hugging or thanking or listening. Five undiluted minutes with my mate, children, and friends. Today I will make a difference.

For the last several years, there has been a lot of focus on the power of positive thinking. Many people have come to misinterpret this wisdom to mean that it is not okay to have a bad mood or a negative thought or feeling. This can lend a kind of superficiality to their relationship with life and relationships with other people. It can also lead them to feel that if a negative thought or feeling comes up, in themselves or someone else, they must immediately block it out. When they do this, they are engaging in the act of repressing a part of themselves that needs to seen, heard, and processed.

When we repress parts of ourselves, they don’t go away so much as they get buried deep within us, and they often come out when we least expect it. On the other hand, if we allow ourselves to be fully human, honoring all the thoughts, feelings, and moods that pass through us on a given day, we create a more conscious relationship with ourselves. Instead of blocking out thoughts and feelings that we label as negative, we can simply observe them and then let them go. They only get stuck when we react to them negatively, pushing them down and out of sight where they get lodged in our unconscious minds. A healthier solution might be to develop a practice of following any negative thought we may have with a positive thought. This works well because positive thoughts are many times more powerful than negative thoughts.

The CD was inspired to accompany Heart of a Mother, the printed collection of beautiful short stories, loving tributes to mothers and grandmothers, original poems, cherished quotations and classic scriptures by author Sheryl Roush.

"Music touches us in ways that mere words cannot. This musical treasury is truly amazing – and unique! Each talent sharing their heart-filled passion with the listener. Each track lovingly guides you through a journey into your own heart, from instrumentals to vocals, each carefully selected for their composition and message. Uplifting, goose-bump chilling, passionate to its core. You can’t help but be touched and feel INSPIRED by this music!" affirms Sheryl Roush.

*  My human will never let me eat her pet hamster, and I am at peace with that.

*  I will not puff my entire body to twice its size for no reason after my human has finished watching a horror movie

*  I will not slurp fish food from the surface of the aquarium.

*  I must not help myself to Q-tips, and I must certainly not proceed to stuff them down the sink’s drain.

*   I will not eat large numbers of assorted bugs, then come home and puke them up so the humans can see that I’m getting plenty of roughage.

*  I will not lean way over to drink out of the tub, fall in, and then pelt right for the box of clumping cat litter.  (It took FOREVER to get the stuff out of my fur.)

*  I will not stand on the bathroom counter, stare down the hall, and growl at NOTHING after my human has finished watching The X-Files.

*  I will not fish out my human’s partial plate from the glass so that the dog can "wear" it and pretend to be my human.  (It is somewhat unnerving to wake up, roll over in bed, and see the dog grinning at you with your own teeth.)

*  I will not use the bathtub to store live mice for late-night snacks.

*  I will not drag dirty socks up from the basement in the middle of the night, deposit them on the bed and yell at the top of my lungs (Burmese LOUD yowling) so that my human can admire my "kill."

*  I will not perch on my human’s chest in the middle of the night and stare into her eyes until she wakes up.

*  We will not play Herd of Thundering Wildebeests Stampeding Across the Plains of the Serengeti over any humans’ bed while they’re trying to sleep.

*  Screaming at the can of food will not make it open itself.

*  I cannot leap through closed windows to catch birds outside.  If I forget this and bonk my head on the window and fall behind the couch in my attempt, I will not get up and do the same thing again.

*  I will not assume the patio door is open when I race outside to chase leaves.

*  I will not back up off the front porch and fall into the bushes just as my human is explaining to his girlfriend how graceful I am.

*  I will not complain that my bottom is wet and that I am thirsty after sitting in my water bowl.

*  I will not intrude on my human’s candlelit bubble bath and singe my bottom.

*  I will not stick my paw into any container to see if there is something in it.  If I do, I will not hiss and scratch when my human has to shave me to get the rubber cement out of my fur.

*  If I bite the cactus, it will bite back.

*  It is not a good idea to try to lap up the powdered creamer before it dissolves in boiling coffee.

*  When I am chasing my tail and catch my back leg instead, I will not bite down on my foot.  This hurts, and my scream scares my human.

*  When it rains, it will be raining on all sides of the house.  It is not necessary to check every door.

*  Birds do not come from the bird feeder.  I will not knock it down and try to open it up to get the birds out.

*  I will not stuff my rather large self into the rather small bird feeder (with my tail hanging out one side) and expect the birds to just fly in.

*  I will not teach the parrot to meow in a loud and raucous manner.

*  The dog can see me coming when I stalk her.  She can see me and will move out of the way when I pounce, letting me smash into floors and walls.  That does not mean I should take it as a personal insult when my humans sit there and laugh.

*  Yes, there are still two very large dogs in the backyard. There have been for several years.  I don’t have to act as if I’ve just discovered the Demon Horror of the Universe each time one of them appears in my  window.

*  I will not play "dead cat on the stairs" while people are trying to bring in groceries or laundry, or else one of these days, it will really come true.

*  When the humans play darts, I will not leap into the air and attempt to catch them.

*  I will not swat my human’s head repeatedly when she’s on the family room floor trying to do sit ups.

*  When my human is typing at the computer, her forearms are *not* a hammock.

*  Computer and TV screens do not exist to backlight my lovely tail.

*  I am a walking static generator.  My human doesn’t need my help installing a new board in her computer.

*  I will not bring the city police to the front door by stepping on the speaker phone button and then the automatic 911 dial button.

*  I will not speed dial the overseas numbers.

*  I will not walk on the keyboard when my human is writing important emiognaioerp ga3qi4 taija3t v aa35 a.

*  Any critter that lives in the house (hamsters), stay in the house and any wild critters (frogs and earthworms) stay outside. I am not allowed to set the hamster free in exchange for finding a frog to put in the fish tank.

*  I will not stalk the deer in the apple orchard next door. They have sharp hooves and could hurt me if they weren’t laughing so hard.

*  I will not watch the guinea pig constantly as the guinea pig likes to sleep once in a while.

*  The goldfish likes living in water and should be allowed to remain in its bowl.

*  I will not put a live mole in my food bowl and expect it to stay there until I get hungry.

*  I will not eat spider plants and hallucinate behind the toilet.

*  I will not drag the magnets (and the papers they are holding up) off of the refrigerator and then bat them underneath it so that they adhere to the underside.

*  I will learn to relax at the vet’s office so they will start writing things in my records like "Good Kitty" and "Sweet Kitty" instead of the stuff that’s there now like "MEAN!!" "BITER!!!" and "GET HELP!!!!!"

*  I will not be miffed at my human all day and then kiss her on the nose at 2:00 a.m. to tell her that she is forgiven and can now pet me.

*  I will not scratch the children of lawyers, no matter how much they chase me or how hard they pull my tail.

*  If I MUST claw my human, I will not do it in such a fashion that the scars resemble a botched suicide attempt.

*  If I must give a present to my human’s overnight guests, my toy mouse is much more socially acceptable than a big live cockroach, even if it isn’t as tasty.

*  I will not soak my catnip toy in the water bowl to make tea.  I will not get high and sit there drinking my tea and kneading the floor afterwards.  I will not then get delusions of grandeur and make tea in the toilet bowl or the tub.  And I will not try to make tea with used socks, dirty panties or hair scrunches when my humans take the catnip toy away from me.

*  A warm pepperoni pizza is not a good place for a nap. 

*  I will not drag a golf ball up the stairs and bat it around the tile floor of the office at 3:30 in the morning.  Despite the fact it’s reportedly impossible for a cat to pick up a golf ball, not to mention carrying it upstairs, my human isn’t impressed with my resourcefulness at oh-dark-thirty. 

*  I will not swat glassware off the kitchen countertops just to watch it shatter on the tile floor.

*  I will not sit right behind my human when she’s fixing dinner and then loudly complain about it when she steps on me. 

*  My human did not buy that rare betta fish as an early morning appetizer before my breakfast. 

*  Things that sting do NOT make good toys.  This includes bees, wasps, and scorpions. 

*  No matter how frightening it may be, the vacuum cleaner isn’t actually trying to eat me. 

*  Items such as glasses and cell phones were not purchased as toys for me. 

*  "Breaking in" new furniture doesn’t mean using it for a scratching post. 

*  I will not try to help my human mop the kitchen floor by batting all the water out of my water bowl in the middle of the night. 

*  The kitchen table is not meant to be my pedestal where my loyal and devoted followers can worship my greatness.   I should not take it personally when I’m unceremoniously removed deposited back onto the floor. 

*  I will not bulldoze over my human in an attempt to dart out the door as my human is coming in.  This is an especially bad idea at night, and even more so when there are skunks in the yard.