Sunday Post #116: March 2025

Just that I would finish out the Month of March.

Post Rewind 

📌 22nd : Scrapbooking Saturday #7: Four Elements (Part One)

📌 24th: Book Blast: Life in Rotations

📌 25th: TMST #31: Satisfaction 

Goodreads 

📚 4 new shelves added: "dukes", "earls", "marquesses" and "viscounts"

📚 A Duke, the Spy, an Artist, and a Lie (by: Vanessa Riley) = added to want to read shelf

📚 All Good Dukes Come to an End (by: Emily E.K. Murdoch) = added to want to read shelf

📚 Don't Judge a Duke by His Cover (by: Emily E.K. Murdoch) = moved to read shelf

Currently Reading 

📖 A Marriage for the Marquess (by: Ruth A. Casie) = page 89

*** If you don't have anything to say about this week's topic, you can comment on any other part of the post or just say "hi".

*** I am always having to edit many of my posts. If I made any grammar mistakes, I will eventually fix them.

*** The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer

TMST #31: Satisfaction

 It's been a while since I posted for this meme. So, here is this week's topic:

Are you satisfied with your blog?

"Satisfied" maybe too strong of a word for me. 

I started in the middle of 2016 and completely expected to just abandon the whole thing . I am, of course, happy that wasn't the case. I'll just go with I am enjoying the process/journey.

*** Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That's What I'm Talking About

Book Blast: Life in Rotations

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Farid Yaghini will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Farid Yaghini's unforgettable memoir takes you on a journey from escaping persecution in Iran to rebuilding a life in Canada and serving on the frontlines with the Canadian military. Filled with humour, heart, and unflinching honesty, his story of resilience, redemption, and the founding of Camp Aftermath will inspire you to believe in the power of hope and human connection.

Read an Excerpt

Sitting on the floor of my two-bedroom apartment, surrounded by half-assembled IKEA furniture and that damn Allen key, I wondered, What the hell have I done?

Callie, my three-year-old daughter, sat happily among the chaos, blissfully unaware of the weight of the decisions that had led us here. Cindy and I had split, and although it was amicable, I knew that simply clocking in for a nine-to-five job and coasting through life wasn’t going to cut it—not for me, not for her. I needed to be better. I needed to be someone she could look up to. But how?

As I wrestled with my own demons, I kept seeing news about veterans taking their own lives—men and women who had faced the same wars, same losses, same struggles as me. What if I could do something? What if I could take all my lessons, my pain, and turn it into something meaningful?

That idea turned into an obsession. My bedroom became an ops room, plastered with notes, ideas connected by strings like a tactical plan. Then it hit me—Camp Aftermath. A way to help veterans and first responders heal through volunteerism, to find purpose, to rewrite their stories.

I had no funding. No roadmap. Just a promise to my daughter that I would become the kind of man she could be proud of.

And once I made that promise, failure wasn’t an option.

About the Author

Farid Yaghini was born in Iran and fled to Pakistan with his family to escape religious persecution following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. At the age of nine, he immigrated to Canada as a refugee, navigating the confusion and frustration of adapting to a new way of life. Through it all, he carried a deep sense of resilience, hope, and an irrepressible knack for finding humour, even in the most challenging moments.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/F.Yaghini
Website: http://campaftermath.org
Amazon Buy Link: https://amazon.com/dp/0228884977

Scrapbooking Saturday #7: Four Elements (Part One)

 Happy Weekend! 

This week's theme: Four Elements...part 1

(As the title says)

March 20th: Air. (Looks like water but I think this is what representing air.)

March 21st: Earth

*** If you have seen any weekly meme like thin this one , please let me know.

*** Supplies on the pages are from Coracreacrafts

Sunday Post #115: Small Recap

Just thought I would do a recap for this week.

Post Rewind 

📌 13th = Book Blast: Bad Guy

📌 14th = Book Blast: Inn the Dead of Winter 

📌 26th = Book Blast: The Art Online Dating

📌 Mar 13th = Book Blast: Bad Order 

📌 15th = Scrapbooking Saturday #6

Goodreads 

📚Love Blooms with the Duke (by: Alexa Aston) = moved to read shelf

Currently Reading 

📖 Don't Judge a Duke by His Cover (by: Emily E.K. Murdoch)

*** If you don't have anything to say about this week's topic, you can comment on any other part of the post or just say "hi".

*** I am always having to edit many of my posts. If I made any grammar mistakes, I will eventually fix them.

*** The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Scrapbooking Saturday #6: Red

 

Welcome back to Scrapbooking Saturday! This week's theme: Red 

March 10th: First entry for this theme.

March 11th: I wanted to look as if the woman in the hat is a descendant of the woman in the frame and that the woman in the frame was a noble woman. 

March 12th

March 13th

March 14th

 *** If you have seen any weekly meme like thin this one , please let me know.

*** Supplies on the pages are from Coracreacrafts

Book Blast: Bad Order

 

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Mike Elliot will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

This is the incredible true story of railroad worker and union official Mike Elliott, targeted by his railroad employer, BNSF Railway Company, for his safety-related activities. As the union's state legislative board chair, Elliott was the top safety official in the state, and the voice for over 900 rank & file locomotive engineers operating trains around the clock, every day of the year.

When his members reported a plethora of trackside signal malfunctions on the BNSF Seattle subdivision, Elliott went to the railroad first, asking that they fix the problems. When the BNSF failed to act, he contacted the government's regulatory authority, the Federal Railroad Administration. That led to an FRA inspection of over 130 miles of the railroad's track and signal systems turning up hundreds of federal defects – all with potential to put workers and the public at risk.

What followed was a retaliation plot reminiscent of the Nineteenth Century Robber Barons: A management-staged conflict at work, police called in, arrest, jail, criminal charges, and termination from his job – not once but twice.

The wrath, influence and power of North America's largest freight railroad is unleased in full force and in an all-out attack on a whistleblower's life, liberties, and career. An amazing journey of one man's righteous battle against impossible odds and the nearly unlimited resources of a multi-billion-dollar corporation.

Read an Excerpt:

Jim Vucinovich called me to the stand. He addressed background facts concerning my education, current employment, ongoing work for the BLET, and my past work history, including my USMC service and law enforcement experience. He asked most specifically about the “instruction and training in self-defense” I received at the police academy in California and if that training came into play during the Kautzmann parking lot incident.

“It had,” I answered.

We left this subject for the moment and went into more of my work experience, including the history of my railroad career. This gave us an opportunity to explain something about the labor structure in railroading while establishing my experience and expertise as a conductor and an engineer. We eventually zeroed-in on my knowledge of signals and safety, the nature of the signal complaints I received from my Union Pacific BLET members, and, most significantly, processes associated with tri-annual engineer recertification.

I testified to being through it several times previously, describing the “Net-Sim” (network simulator), its role in the process and how Net-Sim scheduling was accomplished through the company payroll computer. Jim also asked questions about the driver’s license abstract, the requirement it be submitted along with other documents to BNSF’s Overland Park, Kansas certification department and how Washington State only allows the licensee to obtain a copy of their own driving abstract. This was important information establishing that Dennis Kautzmann had no legitimate reason for contacting me on March 3rd, 2011, as the Net-Sim scheduling notifications were done through the payroll computer.

The testimony also laid the foundation for countering BNSF’s false assertion I had failed to submit my tri-annual recertification paperwork in a timely manner, or had submitted paperwork from the previous tri-annual recertification in 2005, by identifying the keeper of those records: BNSF certification manager Kathy Conkling.

From here, Jim led me through testimony about my safety work for BLET. I explained that I got into safety because I saw a disconnect between what workers learned in classroom training and what they experienced in the field.

 

About the Author: 

Mike Elliott was born and raised in Washington State. He enjoys the great outdoors of the Pacific Northwest, classic rock & roll music, vintage stereo gear, home cooked meals, and Seattle Mariners baseball. He lives in Tacoma, Washington.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/224714537-bad-order
Buy Link: https://amazon.com/dp/1779626037