Last week we said goodbye to Tre. I chose not to share the news until now because my family and I needed some time to process and grieve in private before letting other people know.
Tre’s favourite things were walks, naps, carrots and ham. He also loved rolling in snow (or leaves), barking at the Bouvier des Flandres down the street and stealing my blankets and he hated it when Jo held a blanket up between the two of them, or if Eowyn (one of our cats) walked too close to his face. He was a bit of an asshole sometimes but he always tried to comfort me when he knew I was upset–up to and including the day he died.
He was a beloved part of our family and we miss him very much.
“Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t they give you a thrill–several thrills?”
I share Anne’s excitement for October, which is why I pre-scheduled this post waaaay back in January. As I write this my yard, my world, is covered in fresh-fallen snow, my breath would fog the air outside, and I wouldn’t venture out without full winter clothing… as we read it, however, October is just beginning which around here means crisp air, colourful leaves, golden light and that special feeling that comes with knowing that winter is coming and we need to appreciate every day, every moment, between now and then.
I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers 🙂
I love this cover. Don’t you just love this cover? I feel like this anthology series has been blessed with great covers (thank you Eileen!) but this one is my favourite. Love, love, love, love, love it.
Oh. But wait. There’s more! In addition revealing the cover of Scarecrow I have copies to give away! There are two ways to win (I suggest entering both draws LOL). The first is a Goodreads giveaway. We’re giving a copy of Scarecrow to two lucky winners (US and Canada only, sorry :-/ ). It’s super easy to enter, you can just click here to go to the page on Goodreads or use this:
That draw is only open for like 5 days (it closes on August 3rd). Can we get 500 entries in 5 days? I don’t know, but let’s try! 🙂
The other way to enter to win a copy (well, actually ten copies) of Scarecrow is via #ScarecrowSelfies. This one is open to people anywhere in the world. You can check out all the details by clicking here, and in the meantime take a look at the entries that have come in so far:
Some people purchase advent calendars to count down the days toward Christmas but for us Advent is an event, not an object.
December 1st we set out 25 candles (usually on our fireplace mantel as you can see from the picture above of last year’s display). Some time after dinner the three of us (Jo, Danica and myself) will turn out the lights and turn on the music. In all the time we’ve been celebrating Giftmas together I don’t think the musical selection has changed. The CDs sitting beside the Advent display invariably are:
Salva Nos – Mediaeval Baebes
A Medieval Christmas – The Boston Camerata
Christmas Through the Ages – Various
Meowy Christmas – Jingle Cats
A Sesame Street Christmas – Sesame Street
Menotti: Amahl and the Night Visitors – Original Cast
The Bells of Dublin – The Chieftains
With the music playing, one of us will light the appropriate number of candles (one on the 1st of December, two on the 2nd, three on the 3rd…) while another hands round a box of chocolates or other such goodies.
Some years we just stand and watch the candle flicker and talk a while before blowing the candles out but my favourites have been the years when Jo would read to us. Usually it’s Dickens. One year it was The Cricket on the Hearth and I’m pretty sure we’ve done A Christmas Carol a couple times. My favourite year was one of the Christmas Carol ones. Dani and I sat on the loveseat while Jo read and I crocheted an afghan in the candlelight (which grows brighter and warmer every day of the month and more and more candles are lit).
It felt very homey, very snuggly.
Do you countdown the days to your holiday celebration in any special way?
I saw a wine advent calendar the other day that really got me thinkin’… Perhaps that’s a new thing we could incorporate into our existing traditions. It sure would make the season merry!
~*~
This month on my blog I’m sharing holiday traditions, mine and other people’s as well. This is the second of those posts, you can find the first, entitled Giftmas Cards (and subsequent ones) by visiting the main page, here. Happy Ho Ho!
It’s hot here. Way too hot. I live in Edmonton where it’s a sport to both complain about the weather and brag about how horrible the weather is… and mostly people complain about the cold, but I deal with cold WAY better than I deal with hot. C’mon. When it’s cold outside I can mostly stay in the house, or add another layer of clothes, but when it’s hot? There are only so many layers you can take off before you’re risking arrest… or scarring someone for life. (And also, not only do we not have AC, our furnace doesn’t even have a summer fan. Seriously. What kind of furnace doesn’t have a summer fan?!)
…I’m getting off-topic.
So, it’s hot. And our chronically ill dog hasn’t been feeling well (and the chronic illnesses mean you get to play the ‘Is this a symptom of one of his diseases that means I should walk him to the vent [in the HOT] or, does he just have an upset tummy’ guessing game. Which is so much fun.*).
And Jo left today to go on a trip.
And I’m really kind of swamped with work right now and suffering from imposter syndrome coupled with ‘not enough writing time’.
And did I mention it’s hot?
So.. yeah. Having a less than awesome day.
Then the DHL dude knocked on my door and gave me this:
Hello there awesome box of mystery! What could you possibly contain? (Okay, so I had a good idea, but shh… just go with it for the sake of the story LoL)
Oh. Someone was a clever little box packer, weren’t they? C’mon! What’s inside the box?!
I wrote this a long-ass time ago. I’m not even sure when anymore. It was first published like 8 years ago though… so yeah, it’s been a while. Originally it was a drabble but when I opened the file up to copy it into this entry I couldn’t stop myself from cutting a few especially purple descriptions out 😉
FATHERHOOD
Katya hung her blonde head while tears coursed down her sunken cheeks. “I know I’ve given you a hard time – I’ve been an ungrateful brat and always made things difficult.”
A solitary tear trickled out of her eye and captured a sunbeam which made it sparkle like a liquid diamond. “I’m sorry. It doesn’t take DNA to make a father, it takes love. You gave me that.” She sniffed, and looked down at the freshly dug earth. “I love you too, I just wish I’d told you before it was too late.”
***
Cheerful, no? LOL Sorry, but it’s still the most father-themed piece I have…
Happy father’s day to all the dads out there. I’ve been lucky enough to have two fathers, one I shared DNA with and one I shared a life with. I love them both.
It’s not exactly a typical zombie cover, is it? You can’t even tell if there are any zombies on it. Well, since the stories inside aren’t of the scary/gorey type of zombie tales I didn’t want the cover to be like that either. Also, it just so happens that Danica is an artist. A pretty talented artist (even if I am biased to think so :-p):
To Zeh Lab
Lukius
Automaton
Arowen
One day, on Facebook I logged in and saw this:
In case you can’t read that it says, “Plz buy me this program Mom”. She’d found a drawing program that was compatible with her tablet and she wanted me to buy it for her. Now, Danica doesn’t lack for anything she needs but we do try not to just hand her everything she wants, so I told her that if she drew art work for the cover for Waste Not (And Other Funny Zombie Stories) I would pay her the exact amount of money she needed to buy that program.
I asked her for a cover with a cat, a scarecrow and a yellow brick road.
After several different mock-ups, including this one when I asked her to make something “a bit more cartoony” (my daughter is nothing if not a smart ass):
We ended up with this as the final product:
I passed that on to Jo (my husband) and he played around with it, eventually turning it into the final cover for Waste Not that you see up top there.
Even though we didn’t go with the full colour version in the end, I did want to be sure and show it off because I think it’s wonderful, especially the glow from the Emerald City you can see on the horizon 🙂
The cover then was an undertaking for the whole family, which makes it pretty damn special to me, and probably pretty unique in the zombie fiction world in more ways than one LOL Not many families can say they’ve created a zombie book together, I wouldn’t think 😉
This year I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge again. I thought it might be fun to share some of my photography instead of always my words. They say a picture is worth–well, you know what they say 😉
I will try to keep these blog posts short and sweet, while still offering a little bit of insight into each photograph, just for fun.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge you can check out these links:
When I was a kid I used to love the zoo, but as an adult, every time I go I just find them more and more depressing. I understand that zoos play a vital role in conservation and that entertaining the public is how they fund that but seeing those animals in captivity (and in some cases very obviously distressed about it) breaks my heart.
I think I’ve shared this photograph previously this month, but I really like it, so I’m going to share again. I call this one ‘Fascination’.
This emu didn’t seem to me (in my ignorance of emu psychology) to be upset about being in the zoo. Also, it was a lovely photographic subject:
This arctic fox nearly broke my heart. He was frenetically running around his enclosure. It looked like he was desperately looking for a way out.
I’ll end with this photograph of a wolf. Every time we walked by its enclosure this is what it was doing. Every. Time.
As this year’s A to Z Challenge comes to an end, I want to thank every one of you who stopped by, but especially those of you who came day after day. Thank you SO much. Your comments, encouragement and flattering words about my work really meant the world to me. Thank you, thank you. I hope we continue to visit one another long after this blogging challenge comes to an end. You’re awesome.
Some of you have asked about prints of my photos (OMG I can’t even begin to tell you how flattering that is!). It’s not something I’d ever considered but now that I know people might be interested I will absolutely look into that as an option. If you know of a place online that will help me provide prints I’d appreciate it if you let me know. I’m not looking to make a mint, just find an easy way to get my photos in the hands of people who want them which means I can’t really afford any of those places that charge an ongoing fee.
This year I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge again. I thought it might be fun to share some of my photography instead of always my words. They say a picture is worth–well, you know what they say 😉
I will try to keep these blog posts short and sweet, while still offering a little bit of insight into each photograph, just for fun.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge you can check out these links:
This year I’m participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge again. I thought it might be fun to share some of my photography instead of always my words. They say a picture is worth–well, you know what they say 😉
I will try to keep these blog posts short and sweet, while still offering a little bit of insight into each photograph, just for fun.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Blogging from A to Z Challenge you can check out these links:
