After 20 years of living in the Pacific Northwest and saying, “One of these days, I should…” I finally did. I took the clipper to Victoria. We planned a trip the travel industry likes to call a “City Break” – just a couple of days to explore a single city, usually on the weekend, although we went midweek. It was also a bit of a “Girls’ Getaway.” The girls were my mom and my two daughters instead of a bunch of girlfriends; instead of hitting malls and spas we aimed for gardens and afternoon tea. But even though my travel plans never seem to conform to industry standards, Victoria managed to exceed expectations. Read More
ByGD
About Time for Victoria, B.C.
ByGD
The Children’s Book Coincidence
It’s a beautiful world.
Whether one believes coincidences are actually meaningful messages from a higher power, or are merely coinciding incidents, it’s hard to deny the impact they can have. In my life, impactful coincidences tend to happen at the library.
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ByGD
Book Report: The Truth About Luck
After I signed up for Iceland Writers Retreat, it occurred to me that I should probably be familiar with the writing of the featured authors who will be leading the workshops. That probably should have occurred to me before I committed, but if stories needn’t be linear, why should life be? At first I wasn’t going to blog about them, because if it’s awkward critiquing your friend’s book on the internet, how much worse would it be to criticize a future teacher? But I can’t read critically unless I know I’m going to have to type those thoughts later, so here goes. Read More
ByGD
New World Order – Family Dinner
Don’t know who did this but it’s awesome.
Found here: http://www.jungleredwriters.com/2011/11/it-aint-norman-rockwell.html
A few years ago, I read a couple of books about the importance of family dinner. This is a tad ironic, because I can barely scramble eggs, which is one of many facts that handicapped me as a stay-at-home mom. Nevertheless, I read The Cleaner Plate Club and The Family Dinner and dutifully took notes. The Cleaner Plate Club was a down-to-earth read that recognized parents’ limitations while pointing out statistical correlations between children’s health, academic success, and family meal times. The Family Dinner, with its poetry samples and conversations starters, was more high concept (Laurie David doesn’t cook her own meals either). It emphasized the importance of breaking bread together in building cohesion as a family unit. I lapped it up.