Ten great gifts to give for less than $35
Mother’s Day is coming. Soonish, people! Have you shopped, clicked & shipped? I have 10 awesome finds to share, all under $35, for those of us on a tight budget. Most of these storefronts offer a variety of gift worthy items…I just picked my personal favorites. Click on each to open in a new window. Here we go:
1. Wine Cork Trivet — $12.98 Cute, simple, useful. Check, check, check. Pair it with a nice bottle of wine to start Mom’s cork collection.
2. Floral Measuring Cups — $29.95 These are so adorable, they definitely don’t belong stored in the drawer with the plastic measuring cups.
3. Large Dahlia style earrings — $27 (sale price) Love! Check out the site for other unique items made from sustainable materials.
4. My Mom interview journal — $9.95 Great journal for Mom…and one to be passed down and cherished.
5. LED book light — $12.99 A must-have for all of us moms who read while others sleep. Purple too, yay!
6. Journals handmade from vintage books — $14 (free shipping in the U.S.) Looking for a unique writing journal? Bingo.
7. Amethyst prayer bead bracelet –$25 Beautiful! Many other pretty things here, but I’m partial to purple:)
8. Internet password organizer — $9.95 Okay, this is a little boring. But practical. And it will make Mom’s life easier. I seriously need this…I have about thirty different password combinations scribbled on little bits of paper in my desk drawer. Shameful.
9. Lemon Verbena Bath Salts — $28 Let Mom enjoy soaking in a tub with these lovely bath salts. $1 of every $5 you spend on this site is donated to the charity of your choice!
10. Book Lover’s Journal — $10.19 (as of this post) A place to record books she’s read, wants to read, borrowed, lent, or given. Awesome gift for your book lovin’ Momma!
I would love anything on this list. Maybe your mom would too. Happy Shopping!
A Moment of Valentine Mushiness
My kids are awesome. Yours too, right? My son is in kindergarten and I was at his class party today when he did something pretty amazing. Imagine twenty 5-or-6-year-olds on a massive sugar high, music playing, wrappers flying, lots of mess and noise…you get the picture. And in one corner, a girl crying.When we were about to leave, my son noticed this friend crying. He gave her a big hug and asked what was wrong. She had received a stuffed animal in the gift exchange that didn’t make her heart pitter-patter like the one she gave away did. He pulled out the teddy bear he had received (and had already named) and offered it to her. The tears stopped immediately. More hugging. As we walked out of the school he told me he would miss his bear, “Red”, but wanted his friend to be happy and have a good Valentine’s Day. Mission accomplished.
Just one of those snapshot moments of a little, everyday kind of thing that made a big difference to someone. He might not remember it for long, but I will. A proud mom moment. He’s got a big heart and a bottomless bucket of *good*, *kind*, & *amazing* to spread around. Score one for the planet.
Mushy-mommy post done:) Happy Valentine’s Day!
What is genre?
You’ve just read a novel with a 17 year-old heroine, characters that transform into coyotes, and a dreamy, forbidden love interest for the leading lady.
What genre is it? Young Adult? No. Romance? Yes Paranormal? Yes >> It’s a paranormal romance, written for a young adult audience.
Definition of GENRE (from Merriam-Webster)
genre
noun
\ˈzhän-rə, ˈzhäⁿ-; ˈzhäⁿr; ˈjän-rə\
1
: a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content
It’s common to see Young Adult listed as a genre, but YA is actually a category describing a book’s target audience.
Young Adult (YA), Middle-Grade (MG), Picture Book (PB) = Categories used to describe target audience
The key to understanding what genre means is remembering that books in the same genre have a common thread in setting or plot. In book stores and libraries, books for teens and younger are sometimes grouped only by target audience/age range, but think of it this way: if that YA novel was written for adults, in what section of the book store would it be found? That’s the genre.
Romance, Sci-fi, Mystery, Fantasy, Horror, Dystopian, Western, Realistic, Christian, Historical, Humorous = examples of genre
There are also many sub-genres within genres (for example, “steampunk” and “cyberpunk”are two of the sub-genres of sci-fi).
Books with intersecting genres and/or more descriptive sub-genres are common: Paranormal Romance, Historical Fantasy, Christian Sci-fi, Contemporary Realistic, Steampunk, Western Romance…
Examples of MG/YA books in popular genres/sub-genres:
MG Contemporary Realistic: The Lemonade Wars by Jacqueline Davies, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer, Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo, Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
MG Fantasy: Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer
YA Contemporary Realistic: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney, Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr
YA Dystopian: Matched trilogy by Ally Condie, XVI by Julia Karr, Divergent by Veronica Roth
YA Paranormal Romance: Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, The Hollow trilogy by Jessica Verday
YA Steampunk: The Clockwork Giant by Brooke Johnson
If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at this great YouTube video of books dancing after the shop is closed up for the night: The Joy of Books
Happy reading/writing, book lovers!
6 Click-Worthy Links
The kids don’t have school this week–and there is much to do around here before Thanksgiving–so in keeping with the every-moment-counts theme, here are six great links that are well worth the time spent there:
1) My heart goes out to this author and her family. $5 can help support her in her battle against Stage IV cancer…and each $5 donation is a raffle ticket for some fantastic prizes. A total win-win for the holiday season: Sandi Rog fundraiser
2) & 3) These inspirational posts will help you dial down the stress and keep your writing and family life relaxing, productive, and fun over the holidays: Nancy J Nicholson’s Power of 3 and Rachelle Gardner’s Holiday Writing Plan
4) Love this post on the Guide to Literary Agents blog: Your Job is to Write, Not Worry
5) For writers working on their social networking platform, great post by Kristin Lamb: Beware the Social Media Snuggie
6) Last but not least, if you haven’t seen it yet, for the love of everything with a caramel center, go watch the Hunger Games Trailer! (And it goes without saying, if you haven’t read all 3 books yet, hurry and do so before the movie premiers in March!) Hunger Games Trailer
Timing is everything
A few weeks ago, while driving the kids to school, we saw something pretty amazing. Probably a once in a lifetime sighting: an all white deer. (I tweeted about it, and a Twitter friend suggested it was my patronus. Love that!)
It was a buck, and a large one, for this area of Texas. I stepped on the brakes, not believing what I was seeing. The kids were asking me, “Is it real?” Of course I didn’t have my camera, and I couldn’t stop for long because we were on a main road, but I’m so glad we were there at just the right moment.
The deer was crossing a small drive that loops around the soccer fields my son practices at. And a little further down that drive, not more than 20 feet from the buck, was a man out on a morning walk. Which would have been really incredible for that man…had he not been walking the other direction, his back to the deer. He was so close to an incredible encounter. Missed it by seconds. If he had set out on his walk a minute earlier, or stopped to tie his shoe, the deer would have crossed right in front of him instead of right behind him.
Bummer.
Timing is everything, isn’t it? We can meet Mister or Misses Right, but if one of us isn’t ready, for whatever reason, it won’t work. We can find a posting for a fantastic job–seemingly written with our specific skill set and career path in mind–only to find the position has *just* been filled. Those of us who write might put the finishing touches on a manuscript we’ve labored long and hard over, finally ready to send it to that editor who had shown interest previously…and find out that editor has *just* retired.
Bummer.
But sometimes it happens the other way, too.
Sometimes we are in the right place, at the right time, with the right person (agent/editor), and the right manuscript. Writers have to believe in that. In the karma of timing…that it will come around…it will be our time one of these days, if we just keep at it.
Because talent, perseverance, and hard work are absolutely essential.
But still, timing is everything, isn’t it?
Keep at it! Your time will come.
E-topia?
E-this, E-that, E-everything. And I know you’re just dying to read yet another blog post on the changes to the publishing industry and book sales with the surge in e-readers. I actually think technology is nifty. I get my daily news from the Internet. I’ve become semi-addicted to tweeting. And I love posting random thoughts or tips or inspirational whatsits on my blog–and reading the same on others’.
Technology is (mostly) great.
Except when I think about future generations of kids who might never walk into a big library and get that overwhelmed-in-a-good-way, heart-racing, fluttery feeling of being surrounded by thousands and thousands of books and wondering
how they will possibly read them all in one lifetime, and in which section they should begin. I stumbled upon some of the most delightful books that way when I was a kid…just getting lost in the library, reading jacket flap copy of book after book until I found the ones I couldn’t put down.
We own a lot of books too…old, favorite, hand me downs, and shiny new hardcovers we couldn’t resist. If I had to guess, I’d say that between myself, hubby, & three kids, we probably own somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 books. I ran across this article a couple of days ago: 15 Signs You’ll Raise a Genius. Here’s # 5:
A child who is raised in a home containing at least 500 books is 36 percent more likely to graduate from high school and 19 percent more likely to graduate from college than an otherwise similar child raised in a home containing few or no books.
Of course studies like this are very arbitrary, and there are any number of lists out there telling parents what to do, or not do. But #5 really got me thinking about how this will translate for kids who are raised in houses without books, not because of socioeconomic factors, but because the family’s reading material comes from electronic sources only. There’s something so wonderful about holding a book and turning the pages. Not just richly illustrated picture books either. All books. Great authors (and illustrators) are artists of the highest calling, in my opinion. E-readers can be a wonderful tool to distribute their work to scads more people than might have seen it otherwise. But…here’s the thing:
The book, in its tangible form, is what turns the words into a work of art that I can hold in my hands, pass down to my children, and truly appreciate.
So, getting back to that article…am I raising three geniuses in my house of 800 books? Who knows?
But I’m definitely raising three book lovers!
Have a great weekend!
Guitars & Paddywhacks
Love this guitar…one of several giant, hand painted guitars on display in ABIA. Very cool. Not sure if they are still there…this picture was taken several months ago.
So that takes care of the guitar reference. What about the paddywhacks? What the heck is a paddywhack? You know….“knick, knack, paddywhack, give the dog a bone” ? According to yourdictionary.com:
noun
- BRIT., DIALECTAL a rage; temper
- INFORMAL a beating or spanking
So, um, that makes me think twice about that cute little kiddie song.
I’m taking a few paddywhacks myself, trying to finish my revisions and keep my thoughts from wandering to my WIP.
BTW, extra points if you got the Guitars & Cadillacs reference. Dwight’s CDs have their own shelf in my collection (yes, I still play CDs…resident teenager took over my ipod a while back and knew how to use it better than I did within 5 nanoseconds).
I hope your week is filled with great music and no paddywhacks. 
