Remember how excited we’d get as children on Valentine’s Day, counting those cards, reading the verses, keeping them in boxes? What a sweet custom! It seemed to me that my kindergarteners got more excited about Valentine’s Day than about Christmas. They would decorate white paper sacks which I fastened to the chalk tray then they would read their classmates’ names on the sacks and put in the Valentines. What a lot of noise and giggles mixed with punch and cookies!
A man named St. Valentine actually existed; or maybe more than one by that name. Someone named St. Valentine was martyred for his faith in the second century. The very distant past has obscured much about the man but we still celebrate a day named for him.
Love! The strongest emotion on earth, whether it is love of God or spouses or parents or children. Love brings out the best in us, makes mundane things unimportant and focuses on what is good and pure and honest and lasting.
“Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” I Corinthians 13:1.
The Bible is a book of God’s love. Christ came to earth to die for us, even for those who hate Him, because He loves us.
I have a music box that plays, “Love Makes the World Go ‘Round.” It looks like two loving owls or a part of a bookend but it isn’t; it’s a music box. The song is on YouTube although it features mice and cup and saucer but the sweet tune and words are the same. 
Love does make the world go round, in the best sense of the word. Sometimes it seems the world is attuned to hatred and power and war but these things don’t make life worth living. Love does.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, I am offering you a special Valentine. Just tell me which of my four cozy mysteries, The Cemetery Club, Grave Shift, Best Left Buried, or Moonlight Can Be Murder, you liked best and why you liked it. On Friday, I’ll randomly choose some lucky reader to receive a ten dollar gift certificate to Amazon. Send your entry to blanche@myopicjazz.com or to blanche@myopicjazz.com
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Oh my that is a hard one cause I lover them all. I will say Cemetery Club because it was the first book of yours I read and it opened up to a new favorite series and author and now friend for me. I can relate to Darcy and Flora and the book is wonderful. Really I would have to say all I can’t choose but a plus too is all of them are books I enjoy reading more then once.
Thank you, Deb. I appreciate those sweet words. Darcy and Flora and Ned thank you. I’m definitely entering your name in the giveaway.
The Darcy and Flora Cozy Mystery Series is the first series I have read of yours so far. I really enjoyed it because I felt like I was part of the adventure. I love a good mystery that really pulls me in, like I am the main character solving the mystery. It brings me back to when I first started reading as a young girl and I loved every single Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mystery I could get my hands on! I look forward to reading your other cozy mysteries.
Thank you, Barbara. I’m so glad you enjoyed reading about Darcy and Flora. I’ll enter your name in the giveaway.