Category Archive Family

ByGD

A Martial Arts Tea Party

invite

My daughter turned seven in December, and of course, she wanted a party. She didn’t want too many people; she’s a fairly quiet, shy girl of the fairy princess variety and the thought of inviting the whole class was as overwhelming to her as to us. So a tea party seemed just the thing. We called a local tea house famed for offering its guests tiaras and discovered our imaginations stretched further than our budget. My requirement that the whole house be clean before we host a party at home was met with a declaration to call the whole thing off. Then we thought of the dojo. My husband teaches at a martial arts school mere blocks from the tea house; the birthday girl was taking her yellow belt test days before the party, and The Princess in Black is her favorite book. Thus was born the Princess in Black Martial Arts Tea Party. Read More

ByGD

Seattle Opera Frost Fest

c/o Seattle Opera

c/o Seattle Opera

Most of my paid writing covers the intersection between the arts and family life, and I am in the middle of crafting a pitch on introducing kids to opera, so Seattle Opera’s Frost Fest on February 6 is right in the center of my wheelhouse. Unfortunately, that day I have appointments and activities scheduled from 10 am to 10 pm, and I’m double booked for a big chunk of that time. Maybe some of you can take my place and tell me how it goes?

Details after the fold. Read More

ByGD

Eye of Minds Review

eyeofmindscoverI may have mentioned that I receive more unsolicited books than I can actually review. Let me pause and savor that for a minute….Okay. So often I read the back cover blurb or the press insert and think, “Yeah, I’d like to read that.” I add it to the stack and life goes on. So a few weeks ago my sixth-grader came home talking about the awesome book she was reading in Language Arts. It sounded sort of familiar. She showed me the book. It looked familiar. I dug through my stack of unread ARCs and there it was. I had been saving it for over a year intending to pre-read it for my daughter, but her English teacher had saved me the trouble and assigned it. So I gave her (my daughter, not the teacher) my copy and promised to buy her the next book in the series if she would review it for my blog. So here we are.

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