A few months ago I was asked to read Abigail Carter’s book, The Alchemy of Loss, and write a review for her upcoming blog tour. I almost asked if I was being asked because, like Abby, I was a widow, and the book was about widowhood. However as I had already read and reviewed another novel for a different tour, I just let myself believe this was just about my writing skills. Ignorance is bliss. Read Full Article
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Not feet or meters of it, but it’s here and the ever colder temperatures mean it’s staying. I think it was closing in on May before the ground was free of it this last year.
I love what passes for summer here. The near eternal daylight when the sun is up in the middle of the night and doesn’t set until well after eleven pm, and the yellow of the canola fields which nearly surround our hamlet. But the price is a winter with the staying power of the Energizer bunny.
I am too old to need a white Christmas. The magic doesn’t work for me. In fact having a child is what killed Christmas and white powder won’t bring it back.
I am not an enthusiast of winter sports though I toyed with the idea of cross country skiing before we were tempted into the Texas relocation which ended up not happening. So skis were never purchased and the hockey skates that took their place are lovely but we have an indoor rink just across the street and not enough yard for a rink of our own.
So I don’t need snow for the holiday or for fitness and I find it an annoyance that grows as I age as far as vehicles and driving are concerned. Little can tempt me into driving when ice or even just snow pack covers the road. I do it grudgingly and only because I don’t want my family to starve or my bum to grow too large from lack of going to the gym.
I am a Canadian now. I will man up and endure as all good Canucks do. But I reserve the right to whine a tiny bit between now and early May.
I was reading Ask Allison last week while waiting for the doctor’s office to open (BabyD had pink-eye) and her topic was the publishing industry’s holiday campaign to convince the public to give books this Christmas.
I like books. I am getting two books myself from Rob, but I wonder just how convinced the general population will be by this ad.
I liked Jon Stewart’s subtle reminder of just how addicted many of us our to the screen, but I like Maya Angelou’s the best – because she was very right.
I was reminded again of the important role certain books play in our lives when an old friend from grade school turned up on Facebook. She told me she had recently found a book that she says I introduced her to back in the 3rd grade called Shadow Castle. I couldn’t place it, so a quick google refreshed my memory a bit about the plot. It takes place in a castle on the edge of fairyland where a fairy prince and his family have been living under a spell that reduces them to mere shadows. The prince is a fairy creature but his wife is mortal. I don’t recall their love story exactly but they are separated somehow by the shadow spell and long to be together and only the main character, a little girl named Lucy, can reunite them.
I may have to hunt this book down and add it to my collection of old Scholastic paperbacks of my childhood. I originally began searching for them for BabyD. I hoped to pass these stories to her. She does love to be read to but is having problems learning to read herself. This makes me sad and it scares me a bit, despite knowing she can’t get sick like her dad, every time something that reminds me of his illness crops up (he completely forgot how to read and hid it for months from everyone), I panic just the tiniest bit deep inside. I hate that I constantly scan her for what killed him, but it was a genetic illness and you can never truly say never.
Giving books though is problematic if you don’t know the other person’s taste because like books, you can’t judge people by what they appear to be interested in on the surface.
But if not books, then what? Leave your Christmas wish list here, Santa reads my blog.
anniegirl1138 