This week I’m hosting Elizabeth Goddard with Sheltering Love, Sandra Bricker with Always the Designer Never the Bride, and Vannetta Chapman with A Perfect Square. If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (March 25th) evening.
Interview with the heroine from A Perfect Square by Vannetta Chapman:
1.Callie Harper, tell me the most interesting thing about you — I own a quilt shop in the middle of Shipshewana, Indiana. Shipshe is a small town that is half Amish and half Englisch. I’m even learning to speak some Amish, though I’d never seen a Plain person a year ago. It’s a whole new life for me, but one I love, even if it has involved a murder investigation, or two …
2. What do you do for fun? I play volleyball, with the Amish if you can imagine that. I also aggravate our local detective–Shane Black. Can we list that under fun? I play with my dog, Max, and I have a little garden out back where I putter. That might sound boring, probably sounds plumb droll to folks back in Houston, but I like this life. It suits me.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it? Well, I’m from Texas and my momma always said, “Sooner begun, sooner done,” so I don’t put off much. Maybe that’s what makes me a good quilt shop owner, though I never thought I’d be that! I don’t like cleaning out the toaster, or scrubbing the toilet. Who does? But I make lists, tick it off, and then it’s over and … done!
4. What are you afraid of most in life? I’m afraid of plenty of things–snakes, losing Max, something happening to one of my friends. After this summer’s murder of our newspaper editor, when I was almost killed, Deborah was almost killed, I realized all over again how short life can be. But my friends–Deborah and Melinda and Esther–they’re always saying that God has a hope and a plan. Those words help at night when I wake up remembering and trembling.
5. What do you want out of life? I suppose what every woman wants–a man who will cherish me, who I can grow old with. I had that once, and as a widow I’m not sure I have a right to hope for it again. But I’m only twenty-five. I’m learning it’s okay to have dreams of a family and love. Right now though, I’m happy with my quilt shop and my friends and dreams. Right now, those things are enough.
6. What is the most important thing to you? I’m learning how important my faith is–very important, but since I’ve moved to Shipshewana, God has shown me how important friends are. I would have never grown closer to Him, never discovered my new life, without the new friends I found here–or rather they found me.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read? Right now my favorite is old Agatha Christie books, and let me tell you there are quite a few–over 80 detective novels! I started reading them because I was staying in my aunt’s apartment and that’s what she had lying around. Once started, they’re hard to quit! By the way, my dog Max is named after Agatha Christie’s husband. Cool, right?
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? My eyes are ridiculously large, though I know I shouldn’t be so focused on appearance. (I’m learning from my Amish friends that appearance doesn’t matter as much as I thought.) They are freakishly big though–like a pumpkin someone has carved wrong. I’ve tried changing make-up, changing hairstyles, nothing has worked.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet? I have a 65 pound yellow Labrador named Max that I inherited from my Aunt Daisy. Some days I think Daisy knew that I NEEDED Max even more than he needed me. He has literally taken a bullet for me, but more than that, he stays close on lonely nights and prances around my feet when I have something to celebrate. Max is totally, completely, without reservation–awesome.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why? Oh, I think travelling backwards is dangerous. There are so many people in my life I miss–my parents, my aunt Daisy, my husband, Rick, even the child I miscarried. I’m afraid if I travelled back, I’d grab hold of the porch post, wrap my arms around it and refuse to let go. No, I better keep my Texas boots in the present. But even though my faith is kind of young, there’s one thing I do know for sure–I’ll see those people again, and I’ll see them in the future. Heaven is something that’s real, and we’ll get there–by and by. I heard that at church on Sunday, but I also read it in Daisy’s journal, and it’s comforting.
