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Chautona Havig

Chautona Havig

Using story to connect YOU to the Master Storyteller

Twenty-Seven Years (i.e. WHOA!)

by Chautona Havig · 7 Comments

Twenty-seven years: That's how long it's been since our wedding day. Not to be confused with our "marriage" day. Two very different days. via @chautonahavig

That’s how long it’s been since our wedding day.  Twenty-seven years. Our “wedding day” is not to be confused with our “marriage” day.  We got married in Las Vegas on November 25, 1988.  But, three months later, on February 18, 1989, we still had our wedding.

I was just talking with my favorite server at Denny’s last night.  You know, I had my jaw wired shut for six weeks before the wedding–car accident in Iowa the week after Christmas.  I got really good at blending up hot ham and cheese sandwiches from Arby’s with a bit of milk.  And Jamocha shakes?  Lived on those suckers.  In fact, I drank so many that I can’t stand to think of one even today!

twent6-seven years

I was skinny back then…

… and six weeks of a liquid diet didn’t help. They kept taking in my dress until the week before the wedding when I got the wires off my teeth.  But, I still couldn’t eat more than a bite or three. So, on my wedding day, they zipped me up in my dress and it was still a bit… loose. Talk about under-exaggeration.  I can’t tell you how many times my photographer told me to “get back in your dress.”  You see, I’d be standing there, I’d turn, and my dress would stay in place.  Awkward!

weddingphoto

Tarnished Silver CoverWe’ve lived in the same house for those twenty-seven years.  We’ve raised six children and are working on the final three. In fact, three of our children were born right here in this house. I married my best friend, and the night he broke my jaw in a car accident is the night I truly fell in love with him.  That’s pretty amazing.

I’ll never forget laying on my in-laws’ couch, hurting too much to sit up, and hearing my husband sobbing in the kitchen that he’d “hurt me.”  My father-in-law came over to me, hunkered down to check to see that I was okay, and then said, “That man in there sure loves you.”

And he still does!  Even after twenty-seven years!

That just amazes me.  Especially when I figured out a couple of years ago that his “proposal” could have been a rhetorical question.  OOPS!

I told him not to tell me if it was. I don’t even want to know.  When a girl seriously and without reservation says she is NEVER getting married and her best friend asks, “Well, would you marry me?” And that same girl takes him seriously, figuring God is telling her something, the last thing she wants twenty-five years later, is to find out that it was curiosity.  Ahem.

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  1. patty-anne Lea says

    February 21, 2016 at 4:07 pm

    God has a sense of humour when he decides 2 people are meant to be.
    I was a divorce with 2 children. My ex husband had been a mechanic with kleptomania. There was enough stuff in my basement to build a D8 Cat.
    Friends from my church came over and we boxed all the stuff. And I put an add in the paper so I could sell the stuff and reclaim my basement.
    Well the only reply I got was from a fellow who could not afford to pay me. He asked if he could secure it with $10 and pay it off monthly. I had no other customers, so I said yes. I started to take his three sons to Sunday School and other Church outings.He made me promise not to convert them. I promised but did not promise anyone else would not convert them. I am pleased to say they all accepted the Lord.
    By this time Jim had fallen in love with me, his boys adored me, and i was fostering tender feelings for him.
    I could not be unequally yoked so would not accept his proposal of marriage.
    More time went by. Things started getting very difficult for Jim, One of my friends said she was fed up reasoning with him, she would stand back and let the Lord sort him out while she prayed. He phoned me one day,said “tell Sue to stop praying, I am ready already.”. Jim accepted the Lord. With the backing of our Baptist we married. So now I had a new husband 3 more sons and all the junk I had sold to him, and never got paid for, but got his junk as well.
    We had twenty wonderful years together until cancer claimed him.
    But as a dedicated neat freak, I married four of the most unorganized male creatures, with all their junk. So you can’t tell me God does not have a sense of humour.

    Reply
  2. Lonzine Lee says

    February 20, 2016 at 6:13 pm

    That is such a fun look back. Congratulations on 25 years. I already have Tarnished Silver, it’s one of my favorites outside of the Alexa books. Thanks for giving us such a great reason to smile.

    Reply
  3. Elizabeth says

    February 18, 2016 at 4:51 pm

    Congratulations, you two! I love how y’all love each other (It shows!) and I love your your kids are so much like both families! Wow! Everything about this post seems exclamatory!

    I love you, Chautona. I’m glad you said yes! 😉

    Reply
    • Chautona Havig says

      February 20, 2016 at 2:04 pm

      Aw, thanks!

      Reply
  4. Maria McGee says

    February 18, 2016 at 4:43 pm

    Happy Wedding Day Anniversary!

    Reply
  5. Katherine says

    February 18, 2016 at 1:15 pm

    Okay…now I really want to hear the whole story! How did you get engaged? Why did you marry in Vegas? Did you elope? Any more pictures????

    Nosiness can be a curse, sometimes 😉

    Reply
    • Chautona Havig says

      February 18, 2016 at 1:56 pm

      That’s how we got engaged. We were talking about life and what we were going to do. He was going to open “Mayhem Software” and I didn’t quite know. But I DID know that I was NEVER getting married. Not doing it. No. Way. No. How. And that’s when he said, “Well, would you marry ME?” I had one of those flash thoughts that work faster than seconds. I thought, “Either this guy is an idiot or this is a God thing.” I knew he wasn’t an idiot, so I figured God had a hand in this. So… that was it. September 1988 we got engaged. He bought a house a month later. He was to move in December 1. And if I moved in, too, that would save us 200 a month. SO… we drove to Las Vegas and got married so I could move in. Just had the wedding anyway. Pictures… I’ll have to dig ’em out. 😀

      Reply

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The Because Fiction Podcast

The Because Fiction Podcast
The Because Fiction Podcast

Taking the pulse of Christian fiction

Episode 145: A Chat with Debut Women's Fiction Author, Sara Brunsvold
byChautona Havig

Debut Author, Sara Brunsvold, is bursting on the Christian Women’s fiction scene with an amazing book, The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip. With characters who have captivated my heart from page one (and enough quirkiness to keep my attention to the last), Sara Brunsvold is sure to become a favorite author, and this book is already on my top five of the year before it’s even released!

Note links may be affiliate links that provide me with a small commission at no extra expense to you.

This Novel Isn’t Even Available Yet, and It’s in My Top 5!

If you’d told me that I’d fall so in love with two chapters of a book that it would push that book into my top five of the year so far, well… I’d have laughed.

The joke’s on me because it happened with Sara Brunsvold’s The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip. This debut women’s fiction novel has a bit of a split-time element and is set in Kansas City. Trust me when I say that meeting Clara was one of the most fun introductions to a character I’ve ever had. I just love this woman, and I’m drumming my fingers to get to read more about her.  Not surprising considering it won the ACFW Genesis’s award a couple of years back. 😀

Sara says her passion is intergenerational stories, and you definitely get this with Aidyn and her “assignment,” Mrs. Kipp.  But you also get inter-cultural and ideological influences in this book as well.

And then there’s that next book she has coming out.  You know, the one about a gal cooking her way through her grandma’s German cookbook?  Yeah.  The one we have to wait until early 2024 for?  Yeah. That one.  Sigh.

When Sara told us about her favorite authors, a lot of things made sense.  Just sayin’. Find out which of Katherine Reay’s books are her favorites and how she fangirled over Reay’s response to an email (and why you should email your favorite author!).

The Extraordinary Deaths of Mrs. Kip by Sara Brunsvold

Aidyn Kelley is talented, ambitious, and ready for a more serious assignment than the fluff pieces she’s been getting as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. In her eagerness, she pushes too hard, earning herself the menial task of writing an obituary for an unremarkable woman who’s just entered hospice care.

But there’s more to Clara Kip than meets the eye. The spirited septuagenarian may be dying, but she’s not quite ready to cash it in yet. Never one to shy away from an assignment herself, she can see that God brought the young reporter into her life for a reason. And if it’s a story Aidyn Kelley wants, that’s just what Mrs. Kip will give her–but she’s going to have to work for it.

Debut author Sara Brunsvold delights with this emotional multigenerational story that shows that the very best life is made up of thousands of little deaths to self. You’ll want to be just like Mrs. Kip when you grow up!

This book is 40% off with free shipping from Baker Book House. That’s less than the Kindle version if you like paper!

You can learn more about Sara at her WEBSITE (and sign up for that newsletter so you can get Mrs.Kip’s 8 Rules to Live By). Oh, and if she does those videos of her cooking through that book, you’ll want to know when/where to find them.

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Episode 145: A Chat with Debut Women's Fiction Author, Sara Brunsvold
Episode 145: A Chat with Debut Women's Fiction Author, Sara Brunsvold
May 20, 2022
Chautona Havig
Episode 144: Chatting about Restored Grace with Kathleen J. Robison
May 17, 2022
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May 13, 2022
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Episode 142: A Chat about A Promise Engraved by Liz Tolsma
May 10, 2022
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Episode 141: A Chat with Elizabeth Goddard about Critical Alliance
May 3, 2022
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Episode 140: A Chat about When the Meadow Blooms by Ann H. Gabhart
April 29, 2022
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Episode 139: A Chat with Middle-Grade Author, RM Ruiz
April 26, 2022
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Episode 138: A Gush about a Good (more like GREAT) Read & GoodReads
April 22, 2022
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Episode 137: A Chat with Contemporary Romance Author, Mandi Blake
April 19, 2022
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Episode 136: A Chat with Middle-Grade Historical Author, Marie Sontag
April 15, 2022
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Reposted from @beckylewis345 Life can be hard. Ent Reposted from @beckylewis345 Life can be hard. Enter cozies like A Sprinkle in Time by Dana Mentink. Clean, with a sweet romance, whose amateur sleuth runs a delectable shake shop. A dog, a child, precocious twins who work for the shake shop, and lovable Papa Luis. Plus, of course, plenty of suspects. “Murder, mayhem, and milkshakes. Who’d a thunk it?”

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I enjoy the inclusion of dogs, children, and special-needs people, and Dana Mentink brings them all to our Shimmy and Shake Shop story. Noodles is old, but what a loyal companion, and, wow, does he have an amazing ability or two! Little  Felice adds warmth and vulnerability to the tale. Doug, the special-needs brother of Trinity’s love interest, Quinn, adds reality and complexity to the novel. 

Mentink has a good sense of humor and I laughed out loud several times. Just what I want out of a cozy. Mystery, romance, great characters, laughter. A fun occupation that the sleuth actually works at. I am happy to report I made it through the book without indulging in ice cream! But, can you?

I am looking forward to more murder and mayhem in Upper Sprocket! Plus more Freakshakes! 

———————————————————————
I received a copy of the book from Celebrate Lit. (I also bought my own copy.) No positive review was required, and all opinions are my own.
———————————————————————
Notable Quotables:
“He was merely a friend the way a Ming vase was just an old pot.”

“There’s your plan and God’s plan, and your plan…” “Doesn’t count,”

“Maybe it’s one of those weird small-town happenings.” “A body in your trunk isn’t a happening, it’s a horror movie,”

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Reposted from @celebratelit Did you know that When Reposted from @celebratelit Did you know that When the Pilot Falls by April Hayman from the Ever After Mystery series is 25% off with the Celebrate Lit Summer Sale? 

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In 1923, there aren’t many pilots, but Willie Labeau didn’t let that stop… her.

A bear of a man, Hugh Taylor, needs a stunt plane pilot, and despite their rocky introduction, Willie sets off for golden California and a new life as his pilot. There’s just one little thing she has to do in addition to flying.

Leave his past alone. Period.

When the flame of her own curiosity becomes fanned by encouragement from Willie’s sister, the feisty pilot can’t help but do just a little investigating.

And Hugh vanishes.

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A fierce air race, a sincere act of humility—are they enough to free Hugh and give Willie a chance to be with him… forever?

Find out in this next book in the Ever After Mysteries, combining beloved fairy tales and mysteries. When the Pilot Falls offers a retelling of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” that will keep you gripped to the edge of your seat as you watch hearts soar and daring dos.

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Dial W for Wrangler: Vi's just trying to sell used Dial W for Wrangler: Vi's just trying to sell used recliners and old, broken wagon wheels.  She can't help it if folks keep asking for help with their love lives... can she?
See the lengths Wade goes to in his quest to behave like a rational guy.
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How does this author celebrate a finished book? By How does this author celebrate a finished book? By reading someone else's finished book. 😀 
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"Murder, mayhem, and milkshakes. Who'd a thunk "Murder,  mayhem,  and milkshakes.  Who'd a thunk it?"
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