A Special Apron and Shamelessly Begging!

On Monday I told you about Angela Hunt's newly released novel, Five Miles South of Peculiar, a story about three sisters reunited and working through some baggage in their relationships. I also mentioned the special contest Angie is having to celebrate the launch of this new book. To enter, readers are asked to submit a picture of themselves (or a friend) wearing an apron and folks will vote for their favorite. Unfortunately, there is no place to tell the story behind the entry, if there is one.

Well, I just have to enter this contest and tell you why it is a particularly meaningful contest. Other than the fact that I pretty much snatch up any book that Angie Hunt writes, that is!

As it turns out, I'm a few days late getting my entry submitted because I have been spending the past three days with my sisters. There are three of us, just like in the book. And similar to the book, two are older and one of us (me!) is a bit younger, although the older two are not twins. Fortunately, we haven't had the horrific issues that Darlene, Carlene, and Nolie have, although our relationships aren't perfect, seeing as how we are flawed people and sinners in need of God's grace!

The commonality of three sisters isn't my only connection to this contest, however. One of the book's characters, Magnolia (Nolie) Caldwell, has a penchant for making aprons -- hence the contest's photo requirement. Here's what I love: when I picture my mom at home, she is always wearing an apron and it's one that she sewed. She never cooked without her apron, and most of the time she would forget to take it off and she'd be at the sewing machine or ironing or cleaning with her apron on. Occasionally she even inadvertently wore it to the grocery store! She never liked the full aprons and always made the ones that tied at the waist. Since she made most of our clothes (and hers), she made her aprons from the remnants of that material.

It was a big deal for my girl to wear an apron like Grandmommy when she was just a preschooler and "helping" my mom in the kitchen! I have a few pics of her, an apron tied around her waist and hanging all the way to her feet, standing on a stool next to my mom as she stirred whatever they were making.

Most of my mom's aprons were pretty worn out and threadbare by the time we moved her into the assisted living facility, but there were a couple that I was able to save. My girl occasionally wore them throughout childhood as she played in her room or went to visit my mom.

I couldn't resist putting on one of these aprons and entering the contest! I recognize at least one of the patchwork squares along the bottom as being from a blouse I had; it wouldn't surprise me if all three sisters weren't represented in this apron! Here's the picture of me wearing my mom's apron:

And now for my shameless begging. I need you to vote for my picture! Please visit this site, click on the Vote tab, and if you don't see my pic on the first couple of rows, just type Mocha with Linda in the search box. When my picture comes up, please vote for me! You can vote every 24 hours until 6/15 at 11:00 pm EDT. I'm already behind since I'm starting the contest a couple of days late, so I need your votes! I won't even mind if you share this and ask your blog or FB friends to vote for me!

I would LOVE to win this contest, not only because of the cool prizes but because of the neat connection to the sisters and apron theme!

Thanks for your help!