What I Wore to My Wedding

Absolute Mommy is celebrating her seventh wedding anniversary today and hosting a walk down memory lane (with a linky!) for the occasion.  I'm two years behind her (anniversary next month!), but I thought it would be fun to participate and share a few memories myself...

I actually found my wedding dress when I was in high school.  It has lacy sleeves with a V point over my hand and a row of buttons under my wrist, cowl neckline with a trail that fell down my back, matching veil.  A friend of ours from church did my flowers and I've known my hairdresser since I was in elementary school.

My husband's wedding outfit cost four times as much as my dress.  My mom and I found my satin and lace on sale, and she sewed it (as well as my bridesmaids' dresses and her dress).  She didn't want to sew my husband's kilt, so we had to buy that.  And no, we're not Scottish (though both my grandfathers have Scottish blood and one of my husband's distant relatives came from Scotland); we just thought it would be cool.

That's our first dance, which shows off my whole dress and my shoes.  I spent an entire afternoon with my best friend at West Edmonton Mall, trying to find flat white shoes.  I'm an inch shorter than my husband and I was going to be wearing those shoes all day, so I wanted them to be comfortable.  Do you know how hard it is to find flat white shoes?  I hit EVERY store in WEM.  I finally ended up paying about double for the shoes that I wanted to, but by the time I found them, I knew they were the ONLY shoes that fit and were flat.

On another note... I actually wore the dress before my wedding.  My mom made my high school graduation dress from the same pattern, five years before my wedding.  So I knew that the dress fit and I really liked it.  I even wore my grad dress for my husband on one fancy date, and knew from his reaction that he'd like my wedding dress.  Here's me with my best friend (who was my maid of honour) at our grad.

eReaders vs. Print Books

As a writer, I've watched the growth of eBooks and eReaders with great interest.  I've even wondered if the publishing market will change so much by the time I get a book ready to publish that I'll never actually hold my book in my hands.  However, a few things recently have made me think print books are going to stay around.

The first is my own experience with eReaders.  Our library lends out eReaders, so my husband and I both put ourselves on the waitlist—160th or so in line.  The first eReader arrived a few months ago, when I was in the middle of classes.  I read a quarter of The Help before deciding I didn't have time to read right then.  The second eReader arrived just a few weeks ago, when I was finished classes, so I was able to read Emma Donoghue's novel Room in a couple of days.  While I loved the book, I hated the eReader.

My biggest complaint is the delays with the eReader.  It took two minutes to turn on (I timed it).  It took a few seconds to flip the page each time.  Sometimes the page didn't flip and I'd have to push the button again.  Sometimes I thought the page wasn't flipping so I pushed the button again, and then it flipped two pages.

One evening, my husband was finishing something on the computer before we watched a movie together.  Usually, I would have grabbed my book to read while waiting—but when I thought about waiting for the thing to turn on, I just sat twiddling my thumbs until he was done, because by the time I got the eReader turned on, I would have been turning it off again.

On April 18th, best-selling Christian suspense author Ted Dekker put a poll on his Facebook page.  He asked, "I'm planning new tales that I want to tell you in the near future.  Tell me, how do you prefer to read my stories?  The power is in your hands."  The votes?  eReader (like a Kindle, Nook, or iPad) took 610; print book took 1783.  About a quarter of the poll respondents wanted eBooks; the other three-quarters still prefer print books.

On the book review websites I frequent, I see the same trends.  Booksneeze offers both eBooks and print books to its reviewers, but for the last two books that I've reviewed, I waited up to request the book as soon as it was released to ensure I received a print copy.  There are always lots of eBooks available on the site, and only a few print books, even though Booksneeze says they release the same number of eBooks and print books.  I saw the same preference for print books over eBooks on another book review site, and book reviewers read a LOT of books.

I have friends who rave about their eReaders and honestly, I like the idea.  My husband and I have always had more books than bookshelves (much to the chagrin of our friends and family who have helped us move those books).  When we go away on trips, we take a large book bag with us.  An eReader would make that so much simpler.  But it just seems too technical.  I can read a book faster than I can read an eBook—and I don't have to figure out how to turn on a book.

My conclusion?  I think eBooks and print books will happily co-exist, just as paperbacks and hardcovers do.  There will be people who prefer one or the other, and people who read both, but I don't think the print book is going to disappear.

What do you think?  Do you prefer eBooks or print books?  Have you tried eReaders?

Book Review: The Lion Cubs by Chrissy M. Dennis

Fifteen-year-old Lexi is done with foster care and group homes.  After two years of living in the system, she's learned that it's safest not to feel anything.  When she hears about the Tunnels in Jacksonville, Florida, she leaves the foster home behind for a life on her own.  As she makes new friends and adjusts to life in the Tunnels, however, Lexi encounters a whole new set of problems.

Thirty-six-year-old Liz is a successful, over-worked emergency room doctor in Jacksonville.  She's also a childless widow who hasn't completely dealt with the loss of her husband two years earlier, despite her mother's and best friend's attempts to gently nudge her into moving on.  When Liz catches sight of Lexi on the streets, something about the girl's face stays in Liz's mind.  She finds herself thinking about Lexi, praying for her, and wondering what else she can do to help the girl.  Slowly, God brings these two women together in remarkable ways...

The Lion Cubs by Chrissy M. Dennis is a gripping, thought-provoking story about two women who are dealing with grief and pain and need each other to help them overcome that.  Chrissy writes with an incredible insight into character, as well as intense detail about the Tunnels and what life is like for the children living there.  I found myself crying in a couple places in this novel, and I don't cry very often over books anymore.

The Lion Cubs was the 2011 fiction winner of the Word Alive Press Free Publishing Contest.  Word Alive Press and Inscribe Christian Writer's Fellowship have had a long relationship together; Word Alive has often sent representatives to the ICWF Fall Conference and many Inscribers have been published through Word Alive (and speak highly of them).  So I was very excited for the opportunity to read and review the winner of last year's contest, and I was quite impressed with Chrissy's debut novel.

That's not to say there weren't a couple things I didn't like about the novel.  The story is told from alternating third-person points of view (clearly indicated by Liz or Lexi's name at the start of each chapter).  In between a few chapters, we are given snippets from Liz's journal that repeated information we'd gotten in the scenes before and seemed unnecessary.  I also found the last chapter, a sort of epilogue that neatly wrapped up the story by giving a quick summary of what happened next, too neat.  Instead of being told how Liz and Lexi's relationship developed, I wanted to see it (like I did in the scene on the last two pages).

Overall, this was an excellent novel from a new author and I look forward to seeing what Chrissy writes next.  You can find her on Facebook.

Book has been provided courtesy of Word Alive Press and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available now from your favourite bookseller.

KBW Interviews Monica Leonelle

When Monica Leonelle approached me about reviewing her new novel, I popped over to her website to find out more.  The prologue of Socialpunks grabbed me right away, and she had so much other interesting information on her website.  I enjoyed reading Socialpunks and really looked forward to interviewing Monica.  Here's the scoop on why Monica writes and what advice she has to share with other writers.

KBW: How did you move from doing social media and digital marketing to writing novels?
Monica: It wasn't a huge leap for me, and Socialpunk has the mark of a digital strategist on it. Socialpunk is very reflective of today’s social media-driven world in terms of artists, curators, and influencers. It's definitely a physical reincarnation of the digital media world.

My first book was a nonfiction book on digital strategy. I really fell in love with writing and publishing books at that point and wanted to try my hand at a novel. The rest is history.

KBW: Do any of your characters resemble you?
Monica: Nasser is exciting because he's got such big ideas and he's so damn reckless. He's willing to completely derail his entire hash just to pursue a dream. I'm a bit like him at times, to be honest.

KBW: What is the most rewarding part of writing novels?
Monica: I enjoyed creating the Socialpunks' world. The 2198 world is magical to me. So coming up with all the descriptions and thinking through how everything works in the future was very fun for me.

The most rewarding part is having people who genuinely enjoy sharing my worlds and characters with me.

KBW: What is your best piece of advice for other writers?
Monica: Writers should inject their marketing directly into their manuscripts. Writers often think of marketing as this separate thing from writing, but it's not at all. 80-90% of books are sold through word-of-mouth and most of the marketability of a book is right there in the manuscript.

So even if you are going the traditional route, if you are serious about getting published you should hire an editor to go through your book and see how marketable it is. Traditional publishers are looking for marketable books. It's a business and they need to make money.

Then, you launch your book by asking people to read it. If it's any good, you'll start getting word-of-mouth for your book. My goal is to give away one thousand copies of the book during its launch. I'm maybe a fifth of the way there so far? It's a lot of work, more than most people realize. I write about this stuff constantly on my Prose on Fire newsletter, so if these concepts interest you, you can check it out there.

KBW: On your website, you say that you are a "reader-supported writer."  What do you mean by that?
Monica: I make money when readers buy my books. I don't work on advances or anything like that. I make most of my money on nonfiction content right now, but am also starting to see a nice bonus from my fiction writing.

KBW: I'm a fan of Once Upon a Time too.  Who is your favourite character and why?
Once Upon a Time is such a creative show with a ton of great mythology. It's hard to pick a favorite but I guess my favorite character is Snow White. Though I was thinking the other day, why is she so straight-laced in Storybrook? Her character is not like that at all in the fairytale world. Some of the other characters are like that too (Prince Charming) and it's confusing to me.

What I really enjoy about Once Upon a Time is how so many of the characters are played by actors from other TV shows that I loved. House, Breaking Bad, Falling Skies, etc. It's so fun to see those actors playing completely different characters.

KBW: Can you think of anything else you’d like to add?
Monica: If you're on the fence about reading  Socialpunk, the book is original and fast-paced and like nothing you've ever read before. If you enjoy stuff like The Matrix, Inception, Minority Report, or the Terminator movies, you might like this book too.

Thank you for the interview!

Playing Board Games with Preschoolers

When I started dating my husband, he taught me to play Scrabble.  He thought it was very funny that a writer and English major like me had never played Scrabble before, but I caught on quick enough.  We played a lot while we were dating, and frequently talked his mom (and less frequently his dad) into joining us.  Then Sunshine arrived... and Scrabble games (or any board games) became less frequent.

It's hard to play games while trying to keep pieces away from little hands.  If we do pull out the game, Sunshine wants to help play, as in this picture from her birthday last year, when she was helping Grandma put words on the board.

Recently, though, we thought maybe she could learn to play Sorry.  It's a fairly simple board game that I enjoyed playing when I was growing up (in fact, I have every card and move in the game memorized).  So we pulled it out.  Lily enjoyed playing with her four pieces while we attempted to teach Sunshine about turning cards, following instructions, taking turns, counting spaces... maybe it was more complicated than I had thought.

Lily wanted to flip cards too.  One game took much longer than I remembered.  But the girls enjoyed it, so we've pulled the board out a few times since that first attempt.  It's a good learning tool; they work on their counting and turn-taking skills and Mommy works on her patience.

For her birthday, Sunshine received Slides & Ladders from one of her little friends.  She beat me at it the first time we played (while Lily was napping, so I only had to coach one child).  Again, it was good for some lessons; Sunshine had to learn to count and think about what moves belonged on which space (climb a ladder or slide down a slide) and Mommy had to work on not cheating so the game wouldn't end sooner.

I'm looking forward to playing more board games at the girls continue to learn and grow.  Now we have another option for family nights or rainy days.  Just gotta teach them to spell so we can start some Scrabble marathons...

What board games do you or your children enjoy playing?  At what age did they become interested in board games?

Book Review: Socialpunk by Monica Leonelle

"After playing God for six years with the world he created, he couldn't control any of his subjects, none at all.  Over the years, he had watched them evolve and become the sum of their own choices rather than the sum of his; and for that, he regretted ever giving them life." ~Prologue, Socialpunk

Monica Leonelle's novel Socialpunk opens with that glimpse into the Researcher's thoughts—and our introduction to our heroine, Ima.  She's a shy girl with an abusive father, absent mother, and a best friend whom Ima wishes would be more than just a friend.  When Dash helps Ima sneak away from her father to attend a concert with him, an explosion literally turns Ima's world upside down.

Ima finds herself in a completely new reality, dealing with a thousand questions as she tries to save Dash—and her new friend Nahum—before it's too late.  To do so, Ima must overcome her shyness and use strengths she didn't even know she had.  She must learn to trust her new friends and convince them to trust her.  Yet her reunion with Dash only brings her more questions—and a face-to-face meeting with the Researcher.

Socialpunk reminded me of Sigmund Brouwer's futuristic suspense novels Broken Angel and Flight of Shadows.  Both are set in an America drastically changed by natural disasters and wars.  Socialpunk also involved competing realities—and computer-generated super abilities—like The Matrix movies.  It was a fast, suspenseful read that kept me rooting for Ima as she struggled to overcome each new hurdle she encountered.

While I found myself thoroughly enjoying the story in Socialpunk, the novel also felt "self-published" to me.  I'm used to encountering spelling and grammar mistakes even in books from big-name publishers (Deloume Road had one misspelled word and By Faith, Not By Sight had two), but I lost count of the typos in Socialpunk.  For me, it distracted from the story.

I also disliked the ending.  Socialpunk is the first book in a trilogy, so I didn't expect everything would be resolved with the end of this book.  However, I didn't expect it to feel as wide open as it did.  There was no resolution at all.  I wanted some wrap-up with the first book, with some questions left to propel me into the second book.  Instead, the book ended on a line that seemed completely unnecessary to me (interesting, but not critical to the plot).

You can find out what other readers have thought about Socialpunk by visiting the trilogy website.  You can also find out more about Monica by visiting her website (if you're a writer, make sure you download her FREE Author's Toolkit).  The entire Prologue (which convinced me to read Socialpunk) is posted there too.  Finally, Monica is sponsoring a cool contest, so make sure to enter using the Rafflecopter form below!

Come back on Tuesday for my interview with Monica to find out what she has to say about marketing books and writing futuristic fiction!  

April Memories Captured: Braiding and Painting

I am loving the fact that Sunshine's hair is long enough to play with—when I can talk her into sitting still long enough for me to do something with it.  Here's a few of my attempts at various hair styles:

As the weather has turned nicer here, the girls have been painting outdoors again.  I put them in their smocks, give them some paint, and let them decorate a big box on our patio.  It keeps the mess outside and keeps them busy, so everyone is happy!

I created both these collages with Picnik, and I'm very disappointed it's going away tomorrow.  :( However, I've been playing around with PicMonkey, which I find just as easy to use as Picnik.  Jo at To a Pretty Life gave a tutorial on making photo collages in Picasa, but I just find Picasa frustrating every time I try to use it.

Child-Led Weaning

"How do you decide when it's time to wean?" my cousin asked me as I took a break from pulling weeds with her to sit down on a nearby bench.  

Lily had dropped the stick she'd been waving at the kitty and come running up to me, saying, "I wanna nap!" which earned smiles from my cousins, and even more smiles when I sat down at the bench and they realized what Lily was really asking for.

"Um, I thought I'd let her decide that," I answer, looking down at Lily, who is completely focused upon what she's doing.  One big brown eye peers up at me.  She's completely still, her body curved around mine, and I've come to treasure these moments of connection.

She'll be two in another month.  She's talking full sentences now—funny things like "Water!  Where are you?" (as she peers into her watering can) and requests like "Little girl song, please" (as we drive in the Jeep) and so many other things that make me laugh before I forget them because I have a very short memory.  

She's running, too.  At my cousin's, she watered the flowers and filled the flower pots and watched me pull weeds and stroked the kitty and ran around the garden and watered the flowers again and then settled on my lap—for about five minutes before she had to tell me something and then wanted to help Sunshine water the tulips again.

I weaned Sunshine when she was about fourteen months old, though it wasn't so much that I weaned her as that we both decided we were ready to be done doing that.  I stopped offering to breastfeed Sunshine and she stopped asking.  (She never even had a word for "breastfeeding," as Lily does.)  I had decided I would nurse Sunshine until she was a year, as most books and doctors recommended that, and beyond that I didn't really care.  Apparently Sunshine didn't either, and so it went.

Clearly, Lily has her own ideas on the subject.  She's not interested in weaning.  And that didn't bother me, as the World Health Organization and others recommend nursing until a child is two.  Then I heard about child-led weaning from Practicing Mammal.  It made a lot of sense to me.  As she says, "One more little task I could permanently check off my What I Have To Think About For The Rest Of My Life to do list.  Do not have to worry about when to wean children... check."

So Lily is approaching her second birthday, still nursing at least once during the night (around 2 am lately) and several times throughout the day (I've never actually counted).  There are times when she nurses too much and I get her a sippy cup.  Sometimes she nurses for comfort—such as when I've been out for a couple hours or she fell down in the park.  She nurses when she's tired or hungry or just because.

And while I'm curious to see how long she'll continue nursing for, I'm also enjoying this time while I have it.  I snuggle her close at night or type around her or just smile down at her big brown eyes and enjoy the cuddles.

Looking for a book to read?  Enter my giveaway for a chance to win TWO inspiring autobiographies!

Find Me at the Ultimate Blog Party 2012!

There's a party going on this week in the blogosphere!  5MinutesforMom is hosting the Ultimate Blog Party of 2012.  There's prizes and lots of new friends to meet—party your way around via blog, Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest!

I thought this would be a good opportunity to share a little bit about myself and Koala Bear.  First, yes, I know koalas aren't bears.  They're marsupials.  :)  My blog is named for my mascot, a small, stuffed koala I received when I was five or six and named Koala Bear.  He's been a lot of different places with me... to Niagara Falls in Ontario, up Mount Robson in BC, and even back to Australia in 2005.

Koala Bear went along on our family vacation the summer I was thirteen.  My family joined my aunt and grandparents in Panorama, BC, for a week of hiking, biking, white water rafting, and tennis lessons.  That holiday is one of my favourite memories—I highly recommend vacations with extended family and hope to do many more.  In this picture, Koala Bear is quite amazed by the size of a bear print we found on one hike.

Koala Bear also made it into this group picture in Alice Springs, Australia, after we'd toured Uluru and Kata Tjuta.  He spent most of that trip squished into my duffel bag so he wouldn't get lost, but he did see a few sights and provided a bit of home for me when I was lonely.

And when I was in Australia, I did see a real live koala in a eucalyptus tree.  Taking pictures of him wasn't very hard because he moved v e r y   s l o w l y.  He'd climbed down one branch of the tree until he hit this spot, and then he seemed to just sit there thinking until he fell asleep.  I could have spent the entire afternoon watching him.

So that's how I came to be the Koala Bear Writer.  I also read a lot of books (especially now that I'm done my writing classes for the year—woohoo!) and love talking about what I've read.  I have two daughters, whose nicknames for this blog are Sunshine (just turned four years old) and Lily (almost two years old).  I started blogging just over five years ago now and found out that I really love meeting other moms and writers this way.  Which is why I'm joining the Ultimate Blog Party!

Book Review: By Faith, Not By Sight by Scott MacIntyre

For our fourth and last stories of the year, my fiction workshop instructor gave each of us a specific assignment.  Mine was to write a story from the point of view of a blind, deaf, or dumb person.  I chose a blind girl and received positive feedback on my story, but felt that I didn't know enough about what it was like to be blind.  Then I saw Scott MacIntyre's biography By Faith, Not By Sight.

Scott MacIntyre is a homeschooling graduate, Marshall scholar, recording artist, kidney transplant survivor and American Idol finalist.  And he's blind.  By Faith, Not By Sight: The Inspirational Story of a Blind Prodigy, a Life-Threatening Illness, and an Unexpected Gift traces his journey from his college graduation at age 19 and diagnosis with kidney failure to his year spent studying in London to his time on American Idol.

Scott shares candidly about his disability, talking about how he has found ways to do things that I would take for granted—like texting his siblings or reading his email.  He has perfect pitch and plays music entirely by ear, memorizing complex piano pieces before performing them.  To find his way around London, he had his parents spend a week with him helping him memorize the tube stations, his residences and the university campuses where he'd be studying.

Early in the book, Scott says, "My family and my closest friends had come to see my blindness like I did—as a blessing.  Blindness had given me an incredible gift—to see the world in ways that other people who were distracted by sight didn't.  Though I didn't have my eyesight, I'd developed insight and I'd learned how to trust people at a very deep level.  But over the years, the biggest blessing of my blindness seemed to be that it inspired other people.  When sighted people saw what I'd accomplished, and the limitations I'd overcome to accomplish those things, they felt empowered."

One thing that struck me about Scott's biography, and reminded me of Abby Sunderland's story in Unsinkable, was how his parents supported him.  Both Abby and Scott did remarkable things at young ages because their parents encouraged them in their dreams.  Abby's parents could have said she was too young to sail around the world; Scott's parents could have said (just as many friends and relatives did) that he couldn't go to London or on American Idol because of his blindness.  Instead, both the MacIntyres and the Sunderlands focused on what their children could do and helped them do the best that they could.

Now for the exciting stuff... a GIVEAWAY!  That's right.  I'm giving away a hardcover copy of both Unsinkable and By Faith, Not By Sight.  Just leave a comment here telling me why you want to read the books.  What are you waiting for?  They're both excellent books!

This book was provided for review courtesy of Booksneeze.  All opinions expressed are my own.  Contest closes at midnight next Friday (April 20) and winner will be chosen by a random number generator.  Winner will be notified by email and books will be shipped by KBW.

KBW Interviews Marcia Laycock

Marcia Laycock is a pastor's wife and writer whom I've had the pleasure of getting to know through Inscribe.  She served for years as ICWF's vice-president and president.  She published her first novel, One Smooth Stone, in 2007 and left many readers waiting patiently for the sequel.  A Tumbled Stone is now available, so I took the opportunity to chat with Marcia about both books.

KBW: A Tumbled Stone has had a long road to publication. Can you tell us about that?
ML: The road was indeed long. I began writing the sequel shortly after One Smooth Stone came out, but then a lot of "life" happened. My husband resigned from the church he pastored to move on and plant a new church in a nearby community. That meant a big move and a big drop in salary. In the midst of that, a refugee couple arrived and moved in with us. Then two of our daughters married.

By the time I finally sent the manuscript off to my publisher, the economy had taken a drastic downturn and after holding on to it for quite a long time, he decided he could not move forward with publication—his company had scaled down a great deal and he was focusing on nonfiction. It was just after that when I was diagnosed with cancer, so once again "life" got in the way.

Then I heard about the Word Alive contest and decided to submit the manuscript. It did not win, but came close and Word Alive offered me a very attractive discount to publish with them. At first I thought it was not going to happen—even with the discount the cost was prohibitive for us at the time—but a wonderful lady who had been waiting patiently for the book contacted me to ask when it was coming out. When I explained what had happened, she said, "Well, we just can't let that go. I'll sponsor the book." So, at long last, A Tumbled Stone went to press. It was very exciting and I'm very thankful.

KBW: When you wrote One Smooth Stone, did you plan to write a sequel or did this story emerge as you wrote the first book?
ML: As I wrote One Smooth Stone, I thought it might lead to a sequel, but didn't really think about it much until I finished the first book. I wasn't quite ready to let the characters go and thought the readers might feel the same, so I wrote the epilogue and my publisher committed at that time to publishing the sequel. Then I started to play "what if" and the plot began to develop.

KBW: You've spent the last year battling with cancer. How has that affected your writing?
ML: I think the effects of having cancer will show up in all of my work, and life, in the years ahead. I don't think you can go through something like that and not have it affect every aspect of your life. I think it will deepen my writing as it has deepened my relationship with the Lord.

KBW: You've now published two novels and three devotional books (congratulations!). What is your next writing project?
ML: I have a few manuscripts on my computer that I'd like to polish and market. One is a young adult fantasy series that has had some interest from a publisher in the past. The other is just an idea at this point but may evolve into something tangible. I also hope to put out a couple more eBooks and I would like to see my devotional for writers of faith in print as well as eBook form.

KBW: What advice would you offer to other writers encountering hurdles as they seek publication?
ML: Don't give up. It was a frustrating time, waiting for A Tumbled Stone to be published, but I believe God's timing is always perfect. I remember waiting what seemed like an interminable time for One Smooth Stone to arrive, after all the editing and process of publishing, but when it finally arrived I gave the first book out of the box to a friend who gave it to her daughter. That young woman had been raped and was very angry with God. But she read the book and called her mom in tears to tell her, "I think maybe God does still love me, in spite of everything." That made the wait worth it. As I said, God's timing is perfect.

KBW: If you could change one thing about either of your novels, what would it be?
ML: Hmm ... interesting question. I remember when I got the email from my publisher saying that One Smooth Stone was going to press. My first reaction was, "Oh no, please give it back to me, I can make it better." I felt that way about A Tumbled Stone as well, that it wasn't quite good enough yet. So I guess there are always things you'd like to change. But there has to be a point when you take the step and put it out there and let God do what He will with it.

KBW: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
ML: Just a word of thanks to all the readers who have been so patiently waiting for A Tumbled Stone. I pray you will be blessed by it. I'd also like to say a public thank you to Jen and Evan at Word Alive Press, and to all the team there. They were great to work with.

Thank you, Marcia!

You can find more of Marcia's writings at her blogs, Spurts and Writer-Lee.  A Tumbled Stone is available from Marcia or from the publisher.  Marcia has also contributed to the Hot Apple Cider anthologies and to Inscribed: 30 Years of Inspiring Writers.

Explore: Pacific Undersea Gardens

Last week, my husband's parents came to visit for a couple days.  Just before they arrived, I saw a Groupon for half-price admissions to the Pacific Undersea Gardens here in Victoria.  Perfect, I thought, clicking on "Buy."  We'd looked at the Undersea Gardens last time they visited, but hadn't been there yet.

On Friday morning, we made our way downtown and walked along the harbour to the Gardens.  Leaving behind the bright sunshine, we ventured into the darkness undersea.  Because of the Easter Weekend, the place was quiet—we had it to ourselves for the first little bit.  The Gardens are very small, so it was nice that we didn't have to jostle other people to view the aquariums.

The Gardens showcase the marine life of the Pacific Northwest.  I enjoyed getting a glimpse of what sort of animals hide under the waters around Vancouver Island.  We saw lots of crabs and red starfish, a few ugly grey eels, and various other fish.

One disadvantage of the Gardens it that the windows to the aquariums are small (only a couple feet square) and located at eye-level for an adult, meaning that we had to hold Sunshine and Lily up for them to see the fish and crabs.  They were quite excited about any of the moving animals, but were less interested in just looking at the gently waving white anemones or the fish who just sat on the rocks, opening and closing their mouths while staring back at us with big, googly eyes.

 

In the middle of the aquariums was a small, open tide pool.  Sunshine and Lily enjoyed looking at this, as it was easier to view the starfish without peering through algae-spattered glass.  However, a sign warned us that we couldn't touch the animals (despite the website's promise otherwise).  Some of the starfish in the tide pool looked like they'd seen better days, but the contrast of the red marine life with the grey rocks was quite pretty.

Finally, we went into the theatre area to view the biggest aquarium.  There wasn't a show there this weekend, so we just viewed the fish swimming around.  A large school of spiky grey fish were hanging in the water, staring up at towards the surface (perhaps waiting for feeding time?).  A large group of crabs was congregated on another side of the aquarium.

The greatest excitement was when the large, grey eel left his resting place near the glass and began swimming laps around the tank.  All four feet of his body waved along behind his head as he cruise, seemingly effortlessly, past the gaping fish and behind the rocks and in front of the glass where we all pointed and cheered.

We spent about half an hour in the aquariums, letting the girls look around.  Overall, I would have been disappointed with it if we had paid full price, so I'd recommend watching for a coupon.  Other than the red starfish, most of the fish were less spectacular than those you'd find in tropic waters (or other aquariums), but signs above the tanks provided more information about the fish and plants and their natural habitat around here.

If you are planning a trip to Victoria, check out my posts about exploring the Island.  Do you ever become a tourist in your hometown?  What places do you show off when company comes to visit?

Have a Blessed Good Friday

I grew up listening to Ray Boltz, which got me teased once or twice in university (apparently he's "old").  I love the way he tells stories in his songs, like this one, which still sends shivers down my spine though I've heard it many times before.  Have a blessed Good Friday and a wonderful Easter, however you celebrate it!  (Church, bunnies, family?)

The Social Network

My husband and I watched The Social Network on the weekend.  I've wanted to see it since it came out (in part because of Julianne Harvey's glowing review).  I found it interesting to learn more about the birth and growth of Facebook and amazing to consider how quickly Facebook has become a household word.  This thing that takes up so much of our time and almost forms the bulk of communication now is less than a decade old.

I remember when I signed up for Facebook.  It was about five years ago, because I sat in the corner of my first apartment—khaki green carpet under my chair, big sunny window on my left, bookshelves dominating the wall to my right.  My best friend sent me the invite.  I'd never heard of Facebook, but if she recommended it, then sure. When my husband asked me about it a few days later, I couldn't even explain what Facebook was other than something my best friend had gotten me into.

The Social Network shows the birth of the idea, how Mark Zuckerberg saw its potential and pushed it into being.  The script flashes back and forth between the lawsuits he faced in 2007 and the development of Facebook in 2003-2004.  We see Mark's computer prowess, which made me realize how little I know about what it takes to run a website.  Mark also talks about Facebook's "cool" factor, how he doesn't want to spoil that with ads, and how Facebook must never go down (and while Blogger and other websites sometimes shut down for "server repairs" or other things, I've never seen Facebook do that).

Apparently screenwriter Aaron Sorkin told New York magazine, "I don't want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling ... What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy's sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?"  And upon winning a Golden Globe award in 2011, producer Scott Rudin thanked Facebook and Zuckerberg "for his willingness to allow us to use his life and work as a metaphor through which to tell a story about communication and the way we relate to each other.” (Wikipedia)

The Social Network is a story about friendships and communication. It was a thought-provoking movie.  At bottom, I think Facebook's amazing success points to our hunger for relationships - our desires to connect with other people, as is shown so poignantly in the last scene of the movie where Mark sits alone with his laptop, waiting for a response to a friend request.  Yet Facebook also provides a false sense of connection in the way that we know what our friends are doing by their status updates rather than a real conversation.

Do you remember the day you joined Facebook?  Do you think Facebook is a useful tool for connecting with friends or a way to waste time when you are bored?

How to Exercise with Toddlers

Ever since I had Sunshine, I've been trying to find an easy way to exercise with small children in tow.

When we lived in northern Alberta, the local pool offered moms n tots aquafit, which was awesome, but I haven't found that anywhere else (most pools have too many moms to offer in-pool childminding for toddlers).

Biking with the girls in a trailer is, well, a LOT of exercise, plus sometimes a lot of whining from the back (and when I'm out breath from pedaling, it's hard to issue dire threats about what will happen if they don't keep their hands to themselves).

Most of the time, I get my exercise by piling them into the stroller in the late afternoon (when they're bored and tired) and walking down the steep hill to the beach and back up again.  However, there's a Starbucks at the bottom of the hill that sometimes makes the trip there and back negligible, if we're looking at calories lost.

Then I saw this on Pinterest:

Source: fitsugar.com via Bonnie on Pinterest

Bingo.  Something I can do from home, anytime, that doesn't require a huge time commitment or exercise equipment.  And something I can get the girls involved with.  Or at least not bored out of their minds and whining at me.

And believe me, it's a workout.  The first time I tried it, I was sore for a week, and I don't often get sore from exercising.  I couldn't even complete the whole 15-minute workout.  I'm working up to that...

While exercising, I turn on the girls' favourite CD and they try to do the exercises with me. At first, I tried timing the workout as suggested, but realized it was better to be flexible.  Now, I do one exercise (say, jumping jacks) for as long as their interest holds (or until I run out of breath) and then start something else (like running in place).  Overall, it achieves two objectives for me: I get to spend time with my girls and I get some exercise.

How do you fit in exercise with children?