SITS Book Club: Secret Daughter

Guess who won another book from the Book Fairy?! William Morrow Publishers gave away 25 copies of the current SITS Books Club book, Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda and I was giddy to learn I won!

Andrea, our rockin' awesome (see?! I told you I was outright stealing the phrase! ;>) SITS Book Club leader listed Secret Daughter in her Top Ten Books for 2010 and now that my copy of the book has arrived, I cannot wait to start reading!

In July, we read Exposure and had such a fantastic Twitter party with the author of Exposure, Therese Fowler.  I've read books with other groups of people, but I have to say, getting the chance to ask the person behind the words, the writer, questions, give and get feedback about the book truly trumps all other group reading experiences I've had.

If you're not already participating in the SITS Book Club, I highly recommend that you check it out!  Here is a list of the books we'll be reading for the rest of the year.

Come join us for the Secret Daughter Twitter party with Shilpi Somaya Gowda on September 22nd, from 8-9:00 pm CST.  Use or search the hashtag #SITSBooks to learn more, see who else is reading & join us tweeting on the 22nd.  If you want to find me, tweet me @TimeCrafted!

Exciting { Exposure }

Opening my email today was uber exciting!  You wanna know why?  I got great news!

Andrea, of Great Thoughts, emailed to let me know that this SITSta won one of the twenty-five copies Random House gave away of the SITS Girls July read, Exposure by Therese Fowler!!!  I literally squealed out loud when I read the uber awesome news!

Andrea called Exposure a "21st century Romeo and Juliet" and says this is her favorite book of 2011.  It's a story of what happens when teens text messages and (inappropriate) photos while dating and the trouble that can follow.  This is such a modern topic and I can't wait to read it.  Definitely swing by her place to read her review!

 

Over the Spring we read The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (which I most definitely recommend reading!) by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon and it was such an insightful experience to participate in the #SITSBooks Twitter Party with Gayle herself. To be able to ask the author questions and discuss what we gained from the book was amazing. So, I am very much looking forward to the Twitter Party for Exposure with Therese Fowler, Andrea, and all those great SITStas reading on July 14th!

I hope you'll join us reading and tweeting! I'll be looking for you! :>

What books are on your Summer 2011 reading list? I'm always looking for another great read and hope you'll share!

Disclosure: I play by the FTC's rules;  all book links are affiliate links.  The links to the other great sites are informational and definitely worth the click! :>

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana & SITS

Last month, when I read that SITStas would be reading The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, for the SITSGirls Book Club, I sat straight up, excited and devoured the post.

This book appears to be one that I will love reading.  It is a true story about a woman, living in Afghanistan, under Taliban rule who manages to create a way to support herself and family against numerous odds.

And I finally have my copy in my hands today!  The clock cannot tick fast enough 'til I can start reading it later tonight!  What a perfect way to start our Spring Break here, don't you think?! :>

Obviously, I'm not able to review what I have yet to read, but thankfully, SITSta, Andrea of Great Thoughts has written a review that you can check out to see if this is something you might like.

And guess what?!  It gets even better.  The SITSGirls are having a Book Club Twitter party on May 5th, using the hashtag #SITSBooks and.....wait for it.....the author, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, will be participating.  Now, how cool is that?!  (And if you're not a SITSGirl yet, what are you waiting for? It's a great group of women bloggers! :>)

Okay, if you'll excuse me now, I'm off to try to get the clock to tick tock a little faster (hmmm...usually I'm trying to slow time down, trying to speed it up is a new one for me!).  The fact that my boy has a minimum day, leading into the arrival of Spring Break....finally (!!!), should help.

What are you reading right now?  Are you fan of crisp paper pages to thumb as you read or have you made the switch to an e-reader?

Disclosure:  I purchased The Dressmaker of Khair Khana myself.  All opinions are my own.  And yes, the links to the book are affiliate links.  All other links are informational and great sites!

Harry Potter & some {wand}erful wizard worthy magic!

Thanks to a kind Auntie loaning our sweet boy the Harry Potter books & movies, once he read the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone & saw its movie full of magical images, he knew exactly what he would be this Halloween!

And so a parade at school on the 29th & trick or treating on the 31st brought Harry Potter through these parts. Thankfully, we had advance notice of the wizard's arrival and were able to prepare a special wand.

Father & son took to the task of creating a wand for the special wizard and grabbed the mysterious mini tree growing from the ground that had been hacked down recently.  The magical, sweet son got his first chance to use a knife (supervised, of course!) to shave off most of the bark.

His Father (aka Hubby) & magical, sweet son whittled it into shape.  They both did a bit of hand sanding and the adult in the operation then torched the end and a bit of the handle's edges.

Stain was rubbed in, wiped off, and the whole wizard perfect wand was given a clear coat.

Add some brass wire, wound around at the top of the handle and the base of the tip, secured by tucking into a pin hole and its ready for Hogwart's.....er, um, I mean a visit from Harry Potter himself.

I'm no wizard, but I do love that handle and the magical, sweet son Harry Potter enjoyed it too!

Hope you enjoyed a wee bit of magic that zapped us this Halloween!

   

 

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Disclosure:  I was in no way compensated for this post.  Harry Potter book & dvd links are affiliate links.

Meet Grandma meets Jerry Rice

Grandma grew up on a farm in North Dakota, taught in a one room school house in a neighboring town, before moving out west, later meeting and marrying my grandfather.

Grandpa was an avid SF Giants fan and loved listening to their games on the radio. Grandma never held any interest in sports, let alone following a specific team of a specific sport, let alone following professional athletes' careers.

However, all that changed when in the early 1990's Grandma's three daughters took her to dinner at Benihana's in Burlingame. 

Aunt C recognized Jerry Rice, the legendary San Francisco 49er, Wide Receiver, #80.  Neither my Mom or Aunt D knew who he was.  (Even if you don't follow football, its not easy to not know who Jerry Rice is, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area!)

And with a "Please, please, please its my Mom's birthday??!" from Aunt C, Jerry came over to meet Grandma!

He gave her a kiss and took a picture with Grandma.  I can't help but look at their hands & difference in size here, no wonder he didn't drop the ball!! :>

Here's Grandpa & Grandma at Grandma's 80th birthday party, wearing the Jerry Rice 49er jersey and holding the Grandma/Jerry cake that Aunt C got for her. 

Once again, Pre-Jerry, Grandma had no interest in sports, let alone football, let alone one specific football player.  Post-Jerry, she would look for him in a game and called him her boyfriend.  Too cute!

Did you know that September is  Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month?

In 1999, we lost Grandma to ovarian cancer.  Thanks to last week's Back 2 Blogging event through SITS, I learned about how Kelly Ripa has teamed up with Electrolux to support The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.

Grandma meeting Jerry Rice is one of many fun stories that I keep close, even though she's no longer with us.  What fun grandma stories do you hold on to? 

I'd love for you to say hello, then come back to this page & click on the link on Kelly Ripa's name and learn more.  Hope everyone is  well into a great week today! :>

And because I love my Grandma so much & this story so much, I'm linking up in the new home for Wordful Wednesday:

And yes, Grandma & Jerry have me Tickled Pink...come to 504 Main and see some fabulous & fun!

Why I Blog ~ SITS Day Five

Today is the last day of the Back 2 Blogging event via SITS!

And I have had so much fun this week, not only in posting, but in visiting so many other wonderful SITSta bloggers and catching a ride along their journeys. 

Today, we have been asked to "write about what blogging means to you. Why do you blog? What purpose does it serve you and how have you benefited from sharing a piece of yourself online this way?"

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Why I started blogging was much more vague than why I continue to blog now that I have dived into this online ocean. 

When I began blogging, I was serenaded by the creative & crafty, particularly papercrafts, even more specifically, stamped papercrafts.  Once I waded into blogging and inhaled the vapors of this amazing world, I was hooked. 

While papercrafts will always hold a very special place in my heart & inky, stampy hands (I started stamping in '94, scrapbooking in 2000...yup, after sixteen years, I think my love is here to stay!), I was hooked on the creativity that exists across the board and no longer wanted to limit myself to papercrafts.  I wanted to celebrate all kinds of creativity and began to share friends' & family members' creations as well as explore new ways to adventure through my own creativity.

All the while and from the beginning, I've been me, a Mama of two amazing kidlets, a wife to Hubby, a friend, daughter, sister, and yes, since February 2009, a blogger. 

And yes, blogging has given me the technical, aka kept my skills current, forced me (sometimes unwillingly) to learn to read a bit of html and even write a line or two, and taught me what social media is (and yet every time I even start to blink, there is more to learn!).

And yes, blogging lets me write and write and write.  I've been writing since I was a kidlet...its where I find my voice, where I am braver, where I can play.  And can I just tell you, I am sure that since I began blogging, my wonderful friends are probably thrilled that I do not write novel length emails to them so much anymore (occasionally, I still sneak them in....shhhh! :>).

With all that, blogging has given me something even greater than I ever imagined.  I have been amazed, time and time again at the community that is amongst bloggers, around the world.  Always curious how other people live, in different parts of my own country and across the globe, its the connections that have formed via this wonderful world of blogging that keep me writing, learning, and full of inspiration.

So, why do I blog?  To write, to learn, to find inspiration & hopefully inspire a wee bit myself, to connect, to learn some more, to appreciate where I am in life, to aspire to where I might go, and to continue to seek out and find the little bits & pieces o' life that make me {smile}.

Amazing what we can find in places that we never even knew to look.

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Thanks to Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath, and Florida Builder Appliances for sponsoring SITS Back 2 Blogging and offering up the uber beautiful Turquoise Sky Thelma & Louise from Electrolux! 

Women who { Inspire } ~ SITS Day Four

Women who inspire us.

A woman who inspires us.

A woman who inspires me.

That's what SITS gals are sharing for day four of the Back 2 Blogging event going on this week.

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Initially, I thought of the present...

...and some of the women who inspire me creatively (including Dana of Paper Daydream & Elise of Mamacow Creations).

...and women who inspire me personally through over twenty years of Four Musketeer friendship.

As I kept thinking about the subject of women who inspire us, I reached into my history.  Actually, I reached into all of our history and arrived on the doorstep, quite literally, of a woman who has inspired me since childhood and was inspiring women long before that.

We share a birthday, this woman and I...though many years apart.  I remember meeting her in books as a child and learning of her strength, her fight, and determination to make this world a better and more equal place for women, for all humanity.

                       



Susan B. Anthony was an abolitionist, educational reformer, labor activist, temperance worker, suffragist, and women's rights campaigner.  I highly recommend (when you are done reading here, of course! :>) clicking on her name to learn more about her.  

Those were all her titles, for all the different peoples she fought for.  But, to me, she was was someone who didn't take 'no' for an answer....at least, not when it came to treating people fairly, equally.  As a woman, I owe her (and many other women, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton) my right to vote in this country...my right to have my voice count. 

I can't help but wonder, without the rights that Susan B. Anthony fought for, would so many of us women be blogging today?  Would I?  Could I?

                  

For a time, as a kidlet, I lived near Susan B. Anthony's old stomping grounds, in upstate New York.  And I remember a classmate's birthday party that I went to at her house.  All these years later and I still remember the sort of reverence that a room full of young girls showed while 'partying' there, learning, and celebrating our growth.

One hundred ninety years since her birth, one hundred four years since her death, and she still inspires.

Who inspires you?

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Thanks to Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath, and Florida Builder Appliances for sponsoring SITS Back 2 Blogging! 

 
Prompt #2:Describe a woman who inspired YOU.

SITS Day Three: What's in a name?

What's in a name?  Or in this case, blog post title? 

Suppose I must admit it here, my post titles are not overly witty.  Having thought of them as identification rather than an enticing call has led to that.  Post titles that are identifying for creative challenges are quite helpful (such as KWerner Color Inspiration #55...my first time playing along!), but not witty.

And there are informative & identifying post titles (such as Thank You Temple Grandin & HBO) that work great for search engines.  But, there's no flavor and it certainly does not convey how excited I was by the end of the Emmy's.

In the last few months, I've wanted my post titles to be more interesting (such as A Keen Party).  But, what was keen about what kind of party?  That's not so great for peeps using search engines looking for you or your topic.

And while I'm quite obviously still working on it, there are a few post titles that while not overly witty, do mean the most to me, the ones that make me smile (Acrylic Play, How do you create?, and the post I'm re-sharing with you today, Strawberry Charm).  And that's mostly due to how I felt about the topics I wrote on, which ranged from nervous anticipation to creative playfulness to sweet Mama joy.

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May 12, 2009
Strawberry Charm

Last month, my son and his class went on a fieldtrip to the local Ag Fair. He had SO much fun and is still talking about his experiences today. In addition to that lasting excitement, he has a little something growing rapidly that he brought home from that Ag Fair.

They sent each kidlet home with a little strawberry plant. His Dad helped him plant it in the backyard and other than that, we, hubby & I, have done nothing. We watch our son drag the hose across the yard to go water it pretty regularly.

While I was out back taking pictures with the kids yesterday (they had control of the camera, so most of them are of the cats and a few Really unflattering ones of me!), I was so delighted to see just how big his strawberry plant is getting! I snapped a quick pic and thought I would share it.

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Thanks to SITS for creating the Back 2 Blogging event and sponsors, Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath, and Florida Builder Appliances.

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And in case you are wondering, that sweet strawberry plant grew into a healthy producing plant that over the last almost year and a half, has divided itself four times.  Our sweet boy has picked a handful of strawberries off of it every week this summer.  In fact, he just harvested two more sweet red berries to eat earlier tonight!

Were there any berries growing in your garden this summer?  And of course, what do you think about blog post titles?

I {heart} Fort Bragg: SITS Day Two

Its Day Two of SITS Back 2 Blogging event and today, we've been asked to "Re-upload a post you wish more people had read and explain why it was important to you."  

I wrote & posted Where I Wish I Was in June, 2009 when my blog was quite the youngin' at a whopping four months of age.  At that time, I was predominantly posting papercrafts, specifically, stamped cards.  So, this was one of the few non crafty posts that I had shared at that point.

Why is it important to me?  Fort Bragg is somewhere I love to go.  In fact, there is NO WHERE that I relax quite as fast as I do when Hubby & I drive into town.  Hubby & I have celebrated most of our anniversaries there.  Many bits of our wonderful Fort Bragg anniversaries remind us of our fantastic honeymoon in Seattle, Friday Harbor, Victoria & Vancouver.

Hope you enjoy taking a quick blogging trip to Fort Bragg with me as I stroll down memory lane! :>

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Every year for our anniversary, hubby and I take off to Fort Bragg on the northern California coast. We absolutely love it there. I'm one of those people that has a hard time shutting off my brain and whenever I arrive in Fort Bragg, it always amazes me just how quickly I completely let go and relax! But, can you blame me?

This is the view, looking to the left, from the deck off of our room at the Beachcomber Motel. Sigh. Gorgeous panoramic views, fresh ocean air, and sleeping with the door partially open at night (yes, there's a security bar!)....its like heaven, to me.

Thanks to this lovely economy that so many of us are experiencing right now, we have made the decision to not go this year. Booooo!! Boooo!! The pricey projects around the house that need to be done will thank us for the decision, but I'm not too thrilled about being a responsible grown up right about now. Hmph! Thank you for indulging me in my pout for just a moment. Now, I'll move on! :>

I love this large single tree that I always watch (and take a gazillion pictures of every year) the sun slowly set behind. Each year we come back we always notice which limbs have crashed down below. These pics are from our 2007 trip. Somehow I forgot my camera in 2008 and so the only pics I have are from a disposable and are not on the computer.

In 2007, we lost our sitter, my Mom, at the last minute due to a family gathering and so we brought the kidlets with us and made it into a little family vacation. Consequently, we altered some of our activities that we usually do to accommodate young kidlets interests and patience levels.

Each year we gallery hop through Fort Bragg and Mendocino in search of a new piece of original art to give as our anniversary gift to each other. That particular year, we knew the kids would not be up to a long gallery hop, so we only visited about four or five. We also took them to the toy store, an ice cream cone after dinner, and a walk through town to eat it.

In the morning, after breakfast, we took the kidlets to what is always our last stop on the Sunday of our annual trip, Glass Beach. Our son had a blast climbing the rocks, checking out the sea critters, and looking for drift wood, cool rocks, and sea glass. While the larger pieces of glass have all been picked over through the years, there is a ton of little colorful pieces of ocean washed and smoothed glass all over the beach. And when the tide is out, there are great tide pools.....lots of sea weed to walk through, but wonderful treasures to look at!

You can see sea anemones, mussels, limpets, jelly fish, and a crab or two. Do you see him? If you can't, enlarge the pic by clicking on it. Say "Hi, Mr.Crab!!"

What? Are you coming to see us? Coming to say 'hello'? Hi Mr.Crab! Come closer, I want a better picture...please? Oh no, after this pic, he'd had enough and quickly scurried below the water.

Fort Bragg, Mendocino, and most of the northern California coastline is just a dream and I feel fortunate to live so close by. I know we'll make it out to the coast a few times this year and I really look forward to our next trip to Fort Bragg. Where are you looking forward to visiting soon?

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Some thanks to shout out to Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath, and Florida Builder Appliances for sponsoring the Back 2 Blogging event put on by SITS!  And of course, Electrolux's Thelma & Louise are mighty beauties that will go to a blogger participating in this event! :>

So, over a year later, into fall rather than summer, I still ask again, where are you looking forward to visiting soon?

At home, I'm looking forward to visiting with family and friends who will be visiting two weekends in a row for a kidlet's birthday.  And after that, I'm looking forward to visiting my friend Jenn to celebrate her birthday! 

Your turn!  Looking forward to hearing what's coming up for you! :>

SITS Back 2 Blogging: Day One

Its Back 2 Blogging week with the SITS gals this week and just look what kind of incentive they have come up with!!

Just look at that beautiful Turquoise Sky Electrolux Washer & Dryer, aka Thelma & Louise!  OOooooo...soo pretty.  What?  What's that you say?  They're uber functional too?!  Happy sighs.  Thanks to Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath, and Florida Builder Appliances for sponsoring this blogging event! 

Today, we are uploading our first blog posts ever.  For me, that was February 6th, 2009.  Have to admit, I was a little daunted by that....probably why its taken me so long to post today!  But, I am here and I am posting.  So, here ya go, my very first blog post evah!

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WOW!!!

A little over a year ago, I didn't even understand the point of a blog! It simply did not make a whole lot of sense to me. Then, I discovered the wonderful world of craft blogs......and boy was I hooked! I'm sure I spend way too much time blurfing, but I just love seeing what all the talented crafty people are up to and creating. I have been amazed at not only the talent that is blogging, but also the community that develops between bloggers. All of it began to seem a whole lot less impersonal. So, here I am, dipping my toes into this ocean and attempting to gain my own first hand blogging experience. Wish me luck!

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Okay, so my toes did more than just a playful splash in this blogging ocean and while I have so much more to explore & learn, I must say, I have loved this blogging adventure.  I am so glad I have embarked on it. 

Come back tomorrow to see what we're working on next.  And if you are participating in SITS Back 2 Blogging event, let me know so that I can come by & see your take on it!! :>