TBR Additions (vol. 3): Listening to the Voices of Others

All week I've been watching the news and social media and thinking about what to say and do. It's horrifying to hear of the violence enacted against an unarmed man in the way that George Floyd suffered and died. It's even more horrifying that this is far from an isolated incident, in the United States…

Easter 2020

As it did for so many, Easter looked very different for our family this year. For us, Easter is centred around gathering with our church - a Good Friday service, sometimes an early morning beach service on Sunday morning, followed by the main service at church, full of excitement. For the past four years we've…

Life: One Month

It's been one month since the night Peter and I learned there were confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our town. We live in a small community, located a forty minute ferry ride from Vancouver. So although we aren't far from the Big City, it can feel very separate. Yet that night we knew what people…

Reading with Pearl & Rose: Laura Ingalls Wilder

One of the most fun things for me as a parent is introducing my girls to the books I loved when I was a kid. I hadn't read anything by Laura Ingalls Wilder in years but when Pearl turned four last year and we started reading chapter books with her at bedtime, I thought we'd…

Life: Spring Break in a Pandemic

It is a strange, strange time in our world right now. While we remain largely unaffected in our community, we know that we are not immune to what's happening in the world and we know we can't quite continue life as normal. Spring Break for our family began this week, as planned, but it is…

Book Review: The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant – Michel Tremblay

The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant - Michel Tremblay (Talonbooks, 2008) This Quebecois classic takes place in a single day - 2 May 1942 - and mostly on one street. Working class Montreal, three years into World War Two. This is a Francophone neighbourhood where it just so happens that seven women are pregnant…

Writers Fest 2020 Challenge

Every year (since 1982) my small town has played host to the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts. It's the longest-running writers festival featuring solely Canadian writers. It's a wonderful weekend in August that celebrates Canadian writers and brings readers together. It's an intimate and thought-provoking few days and one of the highlights of…