Seven Quick Takes for Sunshine's 4th Birthday

Today Sunshine turns four.  Even though she's been talking about this for the past several months, I'm still wondering how she got so old so fast.  Was it really four years ago today that I held her for the first time?  That seems both so long ago and yet not so long ago.

— 1 —

While we were engaged, my husband sometimes joked about having a "honeymoon baby."  I told him to watch what he wished for.  Guess I should have told him that more often.  Maybe you can't blame our families and friends for being surprised when we told them, just a month after the wedding (we couldn't wait for the usual first trimester announcement) that we were expecting.  My mom said, "I'm too young to be a grandma!"

— 2 —

Sunshine has always been our social butterfly.  I think she gets that from her dad, though sometimes we blame it on the fact that we took her to church when she was a week old.  The entire youth group (whom my husband and I helped lead) wanted to hold her.  Being the girl who'd always held everyone else's babies at church, I said yes.  Being the protective first-time dad, my husband said no.  Sunshine never played shy with anyone.  When we moved to northern Alberta, we joked that she made friends faster than we did.  We'd be introducing ourselves to someone and have to say, "Oh, and we have a daughter... she's... uh, just over there with that grandma."

— 3 —

Some of Sunshine's favourite things.

— 4 —

Sunshine enjoys being a big sister.  Yesterday, for example, she came downstairs to ask Daddy for help because she couldn't get the diaper back on Lilibet.  He went upstairs to find the poopy diaper in the garbage already and Lilibet running around half-naked.  We've also had to tell Sunshine she's not allowed to help her little sister into the high chair.  She often chooses clothes for Lilibet to wear and encourages Lilibet to go potty while she's going potty.  If we are out walking, they like to hold hands, earning them smiles from any passersby.

— 5 —

Sunshine is quite proud of the fact that she's a "big girl" who can go to school like Mommy and Daddy.  Before she started preschool, one of her favourite games was to pack a pencil and a notepad into a bag or a purse, then to tell me, "Goodbye, Mommy, I'm going to school."  She'd then walk down the hallway to the door, turn around and walk back and say, "I'm home again!"  My job was to say "goodbye" and "hello!  How was your day?"  Preschool is the highlight of her week.

— 6 —

I had this idea, before Sunshine was born, that motherhood wouldn't be too hard because I had lots of babysitting experience and knew how to change diapers and take care of kids.  It didn't take very long for that idea to fade away.  Motherhood has been a journey in which I learn as many new things as Sunshine does.  Being a mom has the incredible highs of loving this unique little person and the incredible challenges of giving so much more of myself than I could have ever imagined.

— 7 —

Sunshine is, as most of you know, the nickname I use for my oldest daughter on my blog.  Like many mommy bloggers, I've tried to protect the privacy of my family by not using their names or pictures online.  My husband chose Sunshine's nickname as a play on her middle name, but I like it just for it's meaning.  In so many ways, she is my sunshine.  She makes me smile and laugh and brightens my day.  I'm so grateful to God for bringing her into my life.  So happy fourth birthday, Sunshine!

Looking at Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent in the Catholic Church (and other denominations).  I have to admit that as I saw it creeping up on my calendar, I thought, "Aw, shucks, I guess I better think of something to give up."  I found myself wishing I could ignore Lent with its inconvenient emphasis on fasting and abstinence.  Then I found myself questioning both my attitude and my assumptions.

Just as Advent is a season of preparation for Christmas, Lent is a season of preparation for Easter.  This year, as I spent time preparing for Christmas, I found my anticipation growing.  Easter is one of my favourite seasons of the year, so why wouldn't I want to spend time reflecting upon it and preparing for it?  That thought changed my whole perspective on Lent.

Growing up Lutheran, I often gave up something for Lent with my family—usually sweets (we didn't have a TV).  One year, my parents and I decided to give up dessert, but my brothers didn't.  If they wanted cookies or pies, they had to make it for themselves (which they did), resulting in lots of joking around our house that year.  My husband once gave up sugar for Lent, and he now drinks his coffee with only cream.  And Facebook gets awfully quiet around this time of year, as many people say goodbye for forty days.

But why?  I found myself wondering about something that I've always just done.  One explanation I've heard is that craving those things—food or TV or social networks—can remind us to pray or turn our attention to God.  I've also heard people suggest that instead of giving up something for Lent, we could add something—extra time for prayer or Bible reading.  Yet like the extra attention that charities get at Christmas as we all try to be as generous as the turned-around Scrooge, I wondered why we do these things only at this time of year.

According to my Catechism, the practice of fasting is based upon Jesus' time in the desert after his baptism.  Luke tells us, "Jesus returned from the Jordan River full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.  There he was tempted for forty days by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and afterward Jesus was starving." (4:1-2 CEB). Since that happens at the beginning of his ministry, and his resurrection is at the end of his ministry, I wasn't sure how they'd be connected.  The Catechism says, "Jesus' victory over the tempter in the desert anticipates victory at the Passion, the supreme act of obedience of his filial love for the Father. ... By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert" (539-540).

That's all very interesting (and makes me think I should ask questions like this more often—I'd be a lot smarter :).  So Lent, instead of just being about a bunch of "don'ts," is really about preparation and looking forward to Easter.  I'm giving up sweets again this year (more on that later), but I'm actually excited for this season now.

____________________

Now for some business... the lucky winner of my Valentine's Day giveaway is my friend Joanna of To a Pretty Life.  Congratulations, Joanna!  I'll put the prize in the mail ASAP.  There's also still time to enter the draw for a copy of Julianne Harvey's eBook Authentic = Happy.  And finally, I joined Twitter.  If you're there too, come find me (@KoalaBearWriter) and say hi!

Do you up something for Lent?  Or, if you've never heard of Lent before, what do you think of these traditions?

Tracy Krauss Launches Play It Again

Tracy Krauss, a fellow Inscriber and author of edgy inspirational fiction, is launching her book PLAY IT AGAIN on Tuesday, February 21 (tomorrow!). You can help her achieve best seller status by purchasing the book at amazon.com on Tuesday – and receive all kinds of cool free gifts while you’re at it!

Here’s how:
1. Go to the Landing Page on Tracy’s website
2. Buy the book at amazon.
3. Go back to the Landing Page and fill in the form with your name, email and purchase number

It’s that easy! You’ll be directed to your free gifts and all you have to do is choose which ones you want.

About the book:

An unlikely duo meet in Play It Again, a story of love, life and faith. Sparks fly when an ex-rock and roll junkie and a stuffy accountant rendezvous at a local resort, but neither are prepared for the emotional entanglements, family complications, and threat from the past that unexpectedly resurfaces. 

Set in the 1980s, this story brings two opposing forces together in a clash of romance and danger, while its musical undertones highlight the theme that God can turn anything into beautiful music. Play It Again is the much anticipated prequel to Tracy’s debut novel And the Beat Goes On. Find out where Mark Graham’s journey began in this, the story of his parents.

What others are saying about PLAY IT AGAIN:
“This is one of the best contemporary novels I've read all year. . . Not only was it well-written, but it was edgy in that the story dared to be honest. . . I can see this touching a lot of people who have thought about God but have been afraid to move forward.”

-  Michelle Sutton, author of more than a dozen inspirational novels

“This book is hot property, and grabs your interest from page one.”

-   Yvonne Pat Wright, author of From Spice to Eternity

Author bio:
Tracy Krauss is a high school teacher by profession, and a prolific author, artist, playwright and director by choice. She received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Saskatchewan and has gone on to teach Art, Drama and English – all the things she is passionate about. After raising four children, she and her husband now reside in beautiful Tumbler Ridge, BC where she continues to pursue all of her creative interests. Her first two books (And the Beat Goes On and My Mother the Man-Eater) were both nominated for the Indie Excellence Book Awards for religious fiction in 2011. 

Free Stuff:
Here’s just a sampling of the FREE e-gifts from generous supporters:

-        An e-copy of Lisa Lickel’s award winning novel Meander Scar

-        Sample chapters from The Promise of Deer Run by Elaine Cooper, Warring Spirits by April Gardner, and The Right Person by Stacy Padula

-        Beautiful downloadable art cards by author and artist Brenda Hendricks

-        A free subscription to ‘PixApple’

-        Your copy of Frazzled No More by Shelley Hitz

-        A cool Daily Scheduler developed by author Janalyn Voigt

-        And much more!

All if you buy your copy of PLAY IT AGAIN at amazon.com on Feb. 21!  All links will be operational on the ‘Landing Page’ at www.tracykrauss.com/.

DISCLAIMER: This Best Seller book launch has been coordinated with the help of the ‘John 3:16 Marketing Network’ and many other generous supporters. The free gifts are deliverable electronically over the internet or by email by individual authors and supporters. They are not in any way associated with, nor deliverable by, amazon.com.


And don't forget that I'll draw one lucky winner on WEDNESDAY for my Valentine's Day giveaway!

Book Review: Authentic = Happy by Julianne Harvey

Since I met Julianne Harvey at a writing event a couple years ago, I've followed her blog as she's written about chasing her writing goals and shared about working through some personal struggles.  She has organized writing retreats and helped create spaces for other writers in the community to focus on their own writing, launched a new website, and released a children's book.  Now she's written an eBook, Authentic = Happy: A Guide to Dismantling Your Disguise, about being true to yourself and living authentically.

Julianne points out that when we live without disguises, we are happier.  Most of us have disguises—masks we put on to please those around us or to keep from getting hurt—but it takes a lot of effort to maintain those disguises.  Sometimes, in keeping track of all the masks we wear, we lose sight of who we really are (or who we want to be).  And when we are trying to be someone we aren't, we won't be happy.  Julianne presents five steps for letting go of those disguises and finding ourselves.

As I read Julianne's words, I found myself nodding and remembering my childhood and teenage years.  I used to think that if I could be the perfect daughter, my parents would love me more (and be happier themselves).  If I could be the perfect friend, I would have more friends.  The problem was that I often tried to be like my friends instead of being myself.  When I reached university, I found new friends.  We all had different majors, different backgrounds, different opinions on a lot of things—but as I hung out with them, I found I could be myself and still be accepted.

The one thing I wanted from Julianne's book was more examples like that.  Authentic = Happy is full of concrete steps and advice, but I wanted some personal experience—a few stories that would help me picture those steps in action and encourage me to apply them.

At the end of the book, Julianne includes some Group Discussion Questions.  Reading this book with a couple of close friends who can encourage you in the journey would be an excellent idea.  The questions could also be used in a personal journal.  Authentic = Happy is a short, quick read available on Smashwords or any major online retailer.  For more information about Julianne, check out her website.

Julianne is giving away two copies of her new eBook.  Leave a comment below for your chance to win.  Do you agree with Julianne's assertion that authenticity and happiness are linked?  And don't forget to enter my Valentine's Day giveaway too.

Memories, Memoir and Personal Essay

Last week I was struggling to write a lyric essay for my workshop on Friday.  I had an idea (a story about my time in Alice Springs, Australia) and some research (a book I picked up while I was there about a girl who grew up in the Telegraph Station), but the essay wasn't coming together.  I wrote a draft and scrapped it.  Wrote another draft and considered scrapping it too, but I was out of time.  I finally printed it, then spent all night mentally rewriting it.  Three things jumped out to me that I need to work on.

Memory

My trip to Australia happened seven years ago, so my memory is getting foggy about some things.  Other things still evoke a strong picture in my mind or strong feelings.  To work on this essay, I pulled out my scrapbook and journal from the trip, as well as the guidebook I'd taken with me.  As I flipped through the guidebook, I saw places marked with stars—places that stirred no memories.  Had I marked them because I wanted to go there or because I had gone there?

As I read through my journal, I found other differences between my memories and actual events.  For example, I thought I flew from Sydney to Alice Springs.  According to my journal, I flew via Adelaide, and actually got off the plane and back on again.  I don't remember that at all.  Other things I do remember aren't written down or are mentioned by a brief note that doesn't encompass everything that happened.  Thus my journal was a useful tool for names and chronology, but little else.  However, personal essays are so much more than just memories.

Tension

My memories of my trip are, of course, interesting to me and perhaps to the small group of family and friends whom I emailed or called while I was there.  If I'm going to write about them, however, I need to find a way to make the stories accessible to a wider audience—to include the universal theme necessary for a personal essay.  As I look back upon my memories, I know those three months were a significant time in my life.  A coming of age time.  A lonely time.  A time of deepening faith.  Yet putting all of that into words, or showing it in my essay rather than just telling the reader about it, is a struggle.

Writing is one way to explore that time, to sift through my memories and what that trip meant to me.  Yet that's just the first draft—the spilling of the story onto the page.  After that come the revisions, the diving deeper into the story, adding dramatic tension, the reason for telling this story.

Details

This seems to be a weak point for me in both my fiction and my nonfiction.  It's easy to write detailed descriptions when I'm right in the moment.  It's much harder to write detailed descriptions about things that happened seven years ago or to write, say, a short story about a girl in a park when I'm sitting at my desk.  (I've thought about taking my Netbook out to a park and working on that story to capture the setting, but it hasn't happened yet.)  I know how much I appreciate great details in the stories and novels I read, but I find it hard to write that myself (unlike the poets in my class, who seem to turn out descriptive phrases as easily as I'd make a chocolate brownie).  Yet readers want to see, smell, hear, taste, and touch the things that I see, smell, hear, taste and touch in my stories, so I need to describe those things, to bring them alive.

Have you noticed trends in your writing that you need to work on?  Can you identify what it is that you really like about your favourite author or book?  And don't forget to enter my Valentine's Day giveaway!

How to Start Your Digital Scrapbook

Last year, I tried digital scrapbooking for the first time when I found a coupon online.  I'd kinda given up on putting photos in albums as it took so much time to get them printed and sorted, much less add any descriptions or pretty backgrounds.  A friend of mine with lots of scrapbooking experience had done several digital albums, so I thought it was worth a try.  Long story short—I fell in love and recently finished a second album.

Quite a few websites offer digital scrapbooking (below are the ones I've tried).  Each has software to download onto your computer and use to create your book.  You can choose what size and style of book you want.  The software offers various backgrounds and layout suggestions, as well as other tools for cropping and framing photos and adding text.  When you are done creating your project, you upload it to the website and the company prints it, then ships it to your door.

For me, digital scrapbooking was super easy because there was no mess; no glue, paper, scissors, stickers or pictures for Sunshine to get into and "help" with.  I could work on the project for a few minutes, then close it and leave without having to clean up everything.  I also love the small size of the digital scrapbook—it takes up very little space on my crowded bookshelves and is easy to show off to friends and family.

My scrapbooks: 12x12 blue Australia album, 8x8 black Jasper album, and 11x8 brown digital album

If you want to try digital scrapbooking, I suggest watching for coupons.  I got both my photobooks for less than half price by grabbing deals offered on Groupon.  The websites also offer deals and sales, such as two for one deals if you want to order books for grandparents; simply create the digital album and then wait for the deal to pop up before you order.

Picaboo - I used Picaboo last year to create an album for 2010.  It took me a few days to learn everything that Picaboo's software offered.  Once I'd put a few pages together and noticed what all the buttons and options were, the rest of the album was easy.  You can edit your photos (fixing red eye, changing to black and white or sepia, etc).  I particularly liked the layout options in Picaboo; it was easy to add captions and text to the page, explaining where/what/when/why and anything else I wanted to say about our adventures.

Photobook Canada - One of my projects for my Christmas break this year was to scrapbook 2011 using Photobook's software.  While the software was similar to Picaboo's, it offered much fewer background options.  This made it easier to keep a consistent theme to my album, but left me frustrated when I wanted season-specific pages (there was nothing that looked Christmasy).  I also couldn't edit the photos and captions had to be inserted as text boxes (a bit awkward).  The software did have digital "stickers" that I could use to ornament my pictures.

VistaPrint  - I've used VistaPrint for photo calendars rather than photobooks, but they offer a wide range of photo products.  Both this year and last year, I created calendars of the girls for our families.  VistaPrint was the cheapest company and produced nice coil-bound calendars.  They do send out a lot of emails, so if you aren't watching for a good sale, you'll want to unsubscribe from their mailing list.  If you are ordering Christmas products, try to do it in November to get the cheapest shipping.

Creative Memories - My scrapbooking friend recommends this  software, which can either be downloaded or ordered on a disc (you can try it free for 40 days before purchasing).  Creative Memories allows you to create individual pages (8x8 or 12x12) which you can then print at Costco and add to your album; my friend likes mixing traditional pages with digital pages in her albums; she says, "That way, I can keep up with my scrapbook if I don't have time to individually traditionally scrapbook each page."  Creative Memories also lets you edit your photos, layer paper, add embellishments, etc.

As a mom, digital scrapbooking is a perfect solution—quick and easy and mess-free.  And I don't have to worry about the girls pulling pictures out of the albums if they want to look (which they love doing).  Do you enjoy scrapbooking?  How do you organize your photos?

Don't forget to enter my Valentine's Day giveaway. 

Book Review: I Just Can't Take It Anymore! by Anthony DeStefano

The title says it all.  I've had days when I feel like I just can't take it anymore—when the girls won't stop whining, when I didn't get enough sleep, when the toys are scattered around the house faster than I can pick them up, when schoolwork plus housework seem like too much, when I just want to scream or cry or run away and hide. 

I Just Can't Take It Anymore!, a picture book for adults by Anthony DeStefano, puts a new perspective on those days by pairing heart-warming and smile-inducing photos with thoughts and questions we've all had.  Written as a simple prayer, this book takes us through the big questions like "why me?" and helps us think about what God's purpose in our day-to-day circumstances—whatever they are—might be. 

“Sometimes people just need to be reminded that there are always things to be grateful for. No one ever has to suffer alone,” DeStefano says.  His book doesn't provide any answers, but it does provide inspiration and encouragement in a short, quick, easily accessible dose.  My tough times as a mom might be tiny compared to your tough times, but this "child-like" book can encourage all of us to greater faith.

DeStefano adds that "even though [the book] is filled with pictures of children, it’s really meant to help adults who are stressed out or who are just hurting a little bit."  He is the author of numerous books, including the award-winning children's books This Little Prayer of Mine and Little Star.  For more information about him, including video clips and reviews, drop by his website.  You can also read the first few pages of the book here. 

Where do you find support or encouragement when you are facing a rough situation?

Don't forget to enter my Valentine's Day giveaway.  I'd also like to give a shout-out to Lisa Johnson for being my 60th blog follower.  Thanks, Lisa!