• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This excerpt is from The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott (to be published September 27, 2011). I’m currently reading an ARC courtesy of the publisher.

“The hotel room was warm from the Quebec stove bravely hissing. Mama sat sewing lace saved from her wedding peignoir to the collars of their ivory shirtwaists, and recalling her own mother, who’d ad some success in the legitimate theatre, long before the current refinement of vaudeville.” (pg.68)

SlutWalk Toronto is a rally that began in response to the victim-blaming that occurs throughout society in response to rape and sexual abuse. The tipping point was when Constable Michael Sanguinetti of the Toronto Police Service advised women at York University to “not dress like sluts” to avoid getting sexually assaulted. Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. In Manitoba, Judge Robert Dewar sentenced a rapist only to house arrest attributing it to the way the victim was dressed and behaved.

If this victim-blaming occurs in Canada, where we have a strange reputation for ‘politeness’, I dread to think what is happening in other countries around the world. Many women have it worse than us living in First World countries, but I strongly believe that action starts at home. Blaming victims of a sex crime—in any country—just doesn’t sit right with me.

A fantastic article was circulated last week (I saw it on Facebook and Twitter) about what would happen if we blamed the victims of other crimes. Do we blame people who are robbed for having expensive items in their home? Do we blame people who are the victims of credit card fraud or identity theft? No! Because that would be ridiculous.

So, this Sunday, May 15, 2011, I will be participating in SlutWalk Vancouver because “whatever I wear, it is never an invitation for sexual objectification, sexual harassment or sexual abuse. Never.”¹

Hope you all had a great Book Blogger Appreciation Week. I was so happy to be involved with the design for BBAW and sorry I wasn’t able to participate more. Congratulations to all the nominees, winners, giveaway recipients, and big thanks to the whole BBAW Committee!

P.S. Sorry I haven’t been around much — but lots of reading has been happening, I assure you! Expect some reviews soon-ish.

My only beef with the system is downstairs (where the books are at my local Value Village) the signage says, “Buy 3, Get The 4th Free” but upstairs at the till (for the employees) it says, “Buy 4, Get the 5th Free”. They didn’t believe me and although I am stubborn enough to make a staff member go check, there were other people in line so I didn’t push it. We had four books (I had three, CW had one) and the people behind us at the till had one. They suggested we get their book for free and they would give us $5 for it. Problem solved.

Now, the books. CW got a copy of Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind, the first book in the Sword of Truth series. This is his favourite series and we each have a copy of the entire series (his is in England, mine is here). We also have several extra copies that CW likes to lend to friends but the first book in the series is MIA.

I picked up three books: The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards; Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant; and Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean.

Why did I pick up these books? I heard good things about The Memory Keeper’s Daughter when it first came out. Come, Thou Tortoise is the first novel by Canadian author Jessica Grant, and was getting gushing reviews. Also, she just won Amazon.ca’s First Novel Award. I am a big Stuart McLean fan and Secrets from the Vinyl Cafe is one of the (few) Vinyl Cafe books I don’t yet own.

I received this box from Daniel Wagstaff. Dan tweeted about having a few packs of YA books from Penguin Group USA. I figured I’d give them a shot since I’ve enjoyed a lot of YA in the past. They arrived in this classy slipcase with five young adult titles all from different genres:

• The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller (YA Romance) release date: August 2010
• The Replacements by Brenna Yovanoff (YA Horror) release date: September 2010
• Nightshade by Andrea Cremer (Paranormal YA) release date: October 2010
• Matched by Ally Condie (Dystopia YA) release date: November 2010
• Sapphique by Catherine Fisher (Fantasy YA) release date: December 2010

My sister is going to Moncton University in New Brunswick for the summer to learn French through the Explore Program. I went to one of my favourite used bookstores downtown, MacLeod’s Books, and asked the owner for some recommendations. I asked if there were any New Brunswick authors who had written some fiction that represented the Maritime provinces well.

It wasn’t until he found some books by Antonine Maillet that we discovered a gem. Antoinine Maillet was born in New Brunswick and received her BA from Moncton University. I found copies of Pélagie-la-Charrette (1979) in both French and English and thought it was perfect.

While I was in MacLeod’s, I couldn’t help be sucked in by some more amazing Canadian literature. These are all titles I’ve been meaning to find for a long while. I am now the owner of The Outlander by Gil Adamson; Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, a memoir by Evelyn Lau; and Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards.

Uploaded Images and Photos on Flickr

I have gone back in all my uploaded photos (here on the blog) till October of last year and altered the titles and alt text. I’ve been naughty and haven’t been keeping that up to date. But as suggested by Alexandre in the SEO session at Northern Voice: start using good practices immediately and they will start to come naturally.

I’ve been adding photos to my Flickr and have removed almost all photos from my Facebook. I bought Flickr Pro in February and I am loving it. I’ll still be posting photos on the blog but now, I’ll try to link to the appropriate Flickr album for more photos when it isn’t necessary in a blog post.

Speaking of Facebook, I also deleted all my videos and will make sure to keep my YouTube channel up-to-date. However, most of the videos I upload to YouTube get embedded here. Which leads us to our next topic…. plugins.

WordPress Plugins

I am using Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin right now, but I just downloaded the Apture plugin to make these cute little icons in front of my links. But Apture also has an embed function, so do I need to keep Viper? Also, if I uninstall Viper, will it break my current embeds (mostly YouTube).

I already love how AddThis Social Bookmarking plugin works. I also recently activated the All in One SEO plugin and I’m exploring that more too. I’ve also been making sure to add tags to all my posts. This how-to video from WordPressTV that was suggested by kmore on Twitter has been a big help for doing all this tag updating.

Do you have any plugin suggestions that are vital to your blog well-being?

Improving my Workflow

I am interested in exploring Evernote to keep track of things. I already really like my “To Do” list on my iTouch and I use my iCal religiously. I’m interested in how Evernote can be integrated into my workflow. (And maybe it will make me less dorky at conferences when I whip out my pad of paper and favourite pen).

There’s one love that we all share: yarn. Blog about a particular yarn you have used in the past or own in your stash, or perhaps one that you covet from afar. If it is a yarn you have used you could show the project that you used it for, perhaps writing a mini ‘review’. Perhaps, instead, you pine for the feel of the almost mythical qiviut? You could explore and research the raw material and manufacturing process if you were feeling investigative.

My favourite yarn brand is Mirasol. In my stash (Ravelry link) I have Miski, Hacho, and Sulka. The Sulka became a cowl for our Festivus Knitting Swap, and the Miski I am just lusting over (as is my cat!). The Miski is 100% baby llama.

Here is Henry molesting my Miski yarn. He seems to have a thing for “pure” fibres. What a spoiled boy!

My second favourite brand is probably Blue Sky Alpacas. I love love love their colours and the feel of their cottons and alpaca blends. I’m a little less obsessive about finding the perfect project. I’ve knit a few items out of the Blue Sky Alpaca cotton such as my toque and my hot water bottle cozy.

Another yarn that I really like is my Artesano Aran (see right). I found it in the UK and bought it. I love it and cannot bear to make something sub-standard out of it. I only have two skeins but the FO must be amazing. Same goes for my single skein of Malabrigo. I love love love how soft it is, but still need to find the perfect project. Suggestions for these two yarns are welcome!

Bring the fortune and life of a past finished project up to the present. Document the current state and use of an object you have knitted or crocheted, whether it is the hat your sister wears to school almost every day, or a pair of socks you wore until they were full of hole. Or maybe that jumper that your did just didn’t like that much…

Here is what Dad’s beautiful felt clogs looked like when I finished them (December 2007):

Here is what they looked like in October 2009 when I was doing damage control:

And (drumroll please) here are his new slippers (pre-felting) for his birthday in April:

He has since reported that his grey slippers are leaving fluffy bits all over the house as they crumble to nothingness. But, he still wants me to repair them (replace the soles, put on suede bottoms) so he can have the new navy blue pair to go with navy blue pyjamas and the grey pair to go with his grey pyjamas. Who knew men liked to match.

Yarnpiggy posted about Knit & Crochet Blog Week 2010 last week sometime and piqued my interest. Eskimimi Knits is hosting the first inaugural Knit & Crochet Blog Week to celebrate fibre bloggers and talk about our shared passion. There are discussion topics for each day, as well as a “wild card” if you aren’t particularly inspired by the daily topic.

So, onto the first topic!

Starting Out: How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting? Was it a skill passed down through generations of your family, or something you learned from Knitting For Dummies? What or who made you pick up the needles/hook for the first time? Was it the celebrity knitting ‘trend’ or your great aunt Hilda?

I first picked up knitting needles in grade 8 (age 13) when my art teacher decided we all needed to learn to knit. She wanted to see a finished product, no matter how ugly or misshapen. So for a couple weeks in the fall at our school, you would see 13-year-old boys and girls sitting in the hallway knitting.

My grandmother, Nanny, passed away when I was about seven years old, but she was an avid knitter and sewer. I have inherited some of her FOs and, more recently, needles, yarn, and sewing patterns. Once I was older than seven, my Nanny probably would have taught me to knit herself.

Now crochet is a different matter. I wanted to learn and expressed an interest while I was living in England in 2007/2008. My boyfriend’s grandmother invited her neighbour over to teach me to crochet. I sat there and created the Ugly Square of test crochet while they gossiped about the latest community meeting they had. Every-so-often I was told to stop hunching over and sit up straight, and that my crochet looked great. But once I got home to Vancouver, I got Chelle to sit down with me to teach me (again).