THANK YOU, JUDGE JUDY!

Judge Judy to the Rescue

            I used to watch Judge Judy regularly, not for the crazy people exposing their stupidity, greed and lack of morality to the world, but for what I could learn from the wise judge herself.

Her phrase, “If it doesn’t make sense, it isn’t true,” became my mantra as I studied how she spotted liars and exposed them. I found it fascinating.

            I had no idea her wisdom would change our lives.

My husband’s church was looking for a new pastor. Yes, he is Baptist and I am Jewish. He was on the search committee and from time to time I would ask him how it was going and did they have any good candidates. When my husband came to me with some conflicting information, I put on my Judge Judy robes and advised him.

           

One day he told me about a candidate, I will call him John Smith, who wrote the worst letter he had ever seen. The letter was full of misspellings, bad grammar and run-on sentences. Since my husband, a lawyer, is a stickler for perfect writing this bothered him greatly, like a poke in the eye when he was reading.

            After coming back from a weekend away, he informed me John Smith was the guest speaker at his church that weekend and he was sorry to miss him. The following Sunday, several of the congregants told him how wonderful Mr. Smith’s sermon was and he passed their accolades along to me. I did a double take, hearing Judge Judy in my head, “if it doesn’t make sense, it isn’t true.”

           

            “How can that be? How can someone who can't write a letter write a brilliant sermon?” I asked him.

            He shrugged. At the time, I was teaching direct marketing at a fashion college in New York City. One of the professors there taught me how to check for plagiarism by taking the questionable sentence, putting it in quotes and Googling it. This works beautifully, exposing plagiarizers with minimal fuss. I suggested to my husband he might want to do that and we moved on.

            The next morning at six a.m., I rolled over to find my husband propped up on one elbow, wide awake…unusual for him at that hour…staring at me.

            “You’re up, right? You’re up?” He asked, all excited (no…not THAT kind of excited!)

            I nodded and he almost dragged me out of bed and to the computer in the living room. He handed me a couple of printed pages, pulled up a chair for me and clicked on a DVD of John Smith’s sermon, recorded at his church.

            You guessed it. The sermon was word-for-word purchased for $4.95 from a “Sermons R US” type of website on the Internet. As I followed along, my mouth hung open. Even the anecdotes were the same. When the sermon said, “My childhood best friend, Sam…” John Smith didn’t even change the name of the friend!

            I burst out laughing and the two of us rolled on the floor at the audacity and stupidity of this man. My husband took this information to the committee and John Smith was dropped from consideration immediately.

            While my husband credits me with saving them from this lying faker, I credit Judge Judy. If it hadn’t been for you, Judge, we would never have been able to expose this guy. Thank you, Judge Judy!

Do you have someone in your past you would like to reconnect with?  Caroline Davis White wasn't looking for Mickey, now Mike Foster, her childhood crush, she was fleeing her philandering husband, seeking peace and quiet, time to reflect on changing her life. But there was Mike, saving her from a mishap...again, bigger than life and even more handsome. 

A well-known artist, Sunny thought she could escape, disappear back to the cabin where she spent her summers as a child. But she was wrong. Her husband refused to let her go. There hadn't been a divorce in Brad White's family...ever! And he wasn't about to start breaking the tradition now.  Could Caroline shake him loose and what about Mike? Where did he fit into her life?
Read reviews at: website
Buy links  - $3.99 ebook,  $9.99 paperback (amazon)
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Astraea Press

When two teenage sisters move to the country for the summer, they don’t expect to be saving animals or solving mysteries.  As soon as Amanda & Emily Carson arrive at The Birches, their summer community during a driving rain storm, they are pulled into a rescue for a pug swept away by a raging stream.

Sixteen-year-old Amanda reconnects with her old friends while her younger sister, Emily makes a new friend, Ashley. Their friendship heads south when Ashley accuses Amanda of theft!

Tension runs high, splitting the sisters. But when Gus, Ashley’s dog, disappears, Amanda and Emily join forces to find him, risking their own safety. A desperate escape finds the girls locked in a closet in a haunted house. A frantic search by the community turns up nothing until David, the girls’ friend, takes their alert dog, Muffin, out to find them.

All ends happily as the mysteries are solved, Gus is returned and even Ashley’s missing bracelet is recovered. Take this fun adventurous journey through friendship, mystery and sisterly devotion. Best for young readers ages seven and up.

Buy Link Only $.99
Amazon