Pink Pistol Sisterhood series

Headwear of Yesterday and Today

by

My subject today is hats. I love hats and wish I didn’t look so awful in them. My daddy always wore a fedora everywhere he went and I really thought it made him look very nice. My grandpa wore fedoras also and that probably where my dad got it from. These days a lot of women are wearing them and they look so cute.

Stetsons always give cowboys added appeal. There’s just something about a man in a Stetson that makes my heart beat a little faster. Doesn’t matter how old I am and as long as I have eyes I’ll keep looking. I have a dear friend who always wears a Stetson and drives a pickup. Let me tell you, he looks sharp.

Hats were a must for women back in the day. They never left home without one and the hats were really pretty with flowers and feathers adorning them. Some even had a bird decoration perched amid the netting and flowers. I wish women still wore them. They’re so feminine.

In ONE SHOT AT LOVE, Dax Talon drives into Panther Creek, Colorado in a Model T car wearing a fedora. He does that because he knows how hard it is to be accepted in a small mountain community in 1939. They shoot strangers. Once he meets some of the people and gets lodging in a rooming house, he switches to his Stetson and Mariah really loves the way the hat adds to his handsome features. How could she not fall in love with him?

Especially since I picture him as a younger Tim McGraw! By the way, this is Warren Beatty in the fedora.

                                

The female on the cover of this book wears a wide hat with a large pink flower in the center. The hat is a little out of fashion but Mariah doesn’t care. It belonged to her mother and it makes her feel pretty. Besides, she doesn’t get many opportunities to wear it. Her parents have both passed on and she’s left to raise her two siblings. It’s nothing she chooses but she’ll keep them together and safe no matter what.

Life is hard on the mountain with moonshiners taking over after the gold mine shut down. She doesn’t go anywhere without her rifle.

Then the legendary pink pistol comes into her possession and brings hope. She finally begins to believe that just possibly she can find love.

I really enjoyed writing this story, the Pink Pistol Sisterhood book #7 in the series. This is a novella so it’s short, but I’m very happy and proud to be a part of this Petticoats and Pistols’ fun project.

ONE SHOT AT LOVE will be out on May 30th. It’s available now for Preorder.

Click HERE for the Amazon link for the series page.

We also have four FREE Pink Pistol magazines with first chapters of each story, recipes, games, and lots more.

                                           Magazine 1    Magazine 2     Magazine 3    Magazine 4

My Question – What do you think of hats in general and do you know anyone who wears a hat of any kind?

Since I don’t have the book yet, I’m giving away two $10 Amazon Gift Cards.

THE TREASURED SUGAR BOWL–by CHERYL PIERSON

by

I don’t know if y’all remember my “attic saga” from a few months ago, but I wanted to tell you about a particular treasure I found. The attic floor was sagging from all the “stuff” that was stored up there—yes, it was all stuff I had kept, but in my defense a lot of it had come from other places: My mom’s and dad’s when they could no long live at home; my oldest sister when she had her stroke and had to go into a nursing home; and of course, the things I’d kept for my kids; and my OWN keepsakes! WHEW! That was a lot!

Everything has been cleaned out and gotten rid of or “re-kept”, but I’m down to a total of about 18 containers now from probably close to 75 or 80. There were still 5 or 6 that I had not gone through that I’d brought downstairs, knowing they were going to take some time, since they were a hodgepodge of things that included correspondence and pictures, as well as other things.

 

My dad and mom on their 47th wedding anniversary

                                             My dad and mom on their 47th wedding anniversary

But the very first time I opened one of them up and started to go through it, I found something wrapped in cotton, and then in tissue paper, and a bag, and I knew that was something my mom had done. Mom was one to always write notes on things to let us know what they were. This was something my sisters and I would roll our eyes at, because she was so detailed in the descriptions she wrote.

But this time, I was so glad.

This treasure was something I’d never seen or known about. It was a sugar bowl. The note explained it all, and I still get teary when I think of it.

 

You see, my sisters were 10 and 12 when I was born, so a good part of my parents’ lives together had already happened by the time I came along. Certainly, the very hard times of first starting out together, of having their first home, and their first child (and second!) and those lean years that were now in the past.

But the sugar bowl told the story in a way conversational description could not.

When I unwrapped it, it was a China pattern I had never seen, so the sugar bowl must have remained after the other pieces had been broken. Maybe that’s why she saved it. I took the lid off, half-hoping there would be a note inside to tell why it had been wrapped so carefully and kept all those years.

I was not disappointed. This note is so typical of the things my mom wrote and taped to keepsakes. She didn’t want her life or the past to be forgotten. What a blessing to have found this!

 

This just made my heart glad in so many ways, and this sugar bowl, with the note inside, is sitting on the top shelf of my desk so I can just glance up at it whenever I want. That remembrance she included in the note of how happy she and my dad were with their little family, before I was ever born, is something I will treasure forever.

 

Mom and Dad, newlyweds, 1944

Of everything I’ve come across in those crates from the attic, this is the most treasured item I’ve found so far. There is a chip in the lid, and a crack that has been glued back together, and Mom’s ever-present masking tape holding the lid shut so it won’t fall off and break, but it will take a lot to beat this treasure!

 

In my book, LOVE UNDER FIRE, my heroine, Krissy, finds the pink pistol amidst her possessions. She doesn’t know who it belongs to or how it came to be in her bag, but instantly, she admires the feel of the wooden case, and she knows it was carved with such love. That’s how I feel about this sugar bowl. That note my mom included is filled with love and gratitude for those sweet memories of earlier days.

Have you ever found or been given something that had been forgotten or put away that you felt this way about? Please tell us about it!

I’m giving away a DIGITAL COPY of Love Under Fire to two lucky commenters! Don’t forget to check back tomorrow to see if you won!

Order your copy of LOVE UNDER FIRE today!

Be sure to check out the PINK PISTOL SISTERHOOD series page on AMAZON!