Hello my Blogville friends. Thanks for joining me today as I sip my green tea with a little honey and lemon. I’m not sure that I will be able to write this blog, and even if I do, I’ll need to decide if it is a good idea publish it on my website. What I do know is that I need to write it. Writing helps me process things. If you are reading this blog you know what my decision is. NOTE: I offer you a Trigger Alert for grief and loss. Please consider your frame of mind before continuing to read.

As a preface to the rest of this blog, please know that I am a person who randomly tries to reconnect (and hopefully stay connected) with people who have crossed life paths with me. For example, I recently reconnected with one of my bridesmaids and now we chat monthly on the phone. I honestly enjoy finding old friends, seeing who and how they are now, and attempting to keep in touch. Sometimes it is enough just to find and connect with a person once, other times we stay connected and keep in touch. Yep, I’m that person!

So my story begins in Kindergarten about 60 years ago when I met my friend whom I will call J. We became fast friends and instantly ‘pretend sisters’ as each of us was cursed with having only brothers. J and I did everything together, well, as much as our parents would let us do. We lived close enough to each other, and to our school, that we would walk together pretty well every day. There was a fountain between our two addresses on the route to school where we would usually meet, and then walk the rest of the way together. In those days town children did not have a bus, nor did our parents drive us to school. In my case, my parents did not even own a car until I was 16 years old.

Our walks were fraught with the magic of children’s conversations making unrealistic plans about what our futures would look like. We planned that our houses would be across the street from each other, if not right next door, so our children could play together. Our husbands would be best friends or maybe even brothers! We wished for puppies and had to settle for goldfish. We wished for new bikes, she got one and I got my brother’s used one, and our bike adventures began. 

We would walk holding hands and swinging our arms in perfect tandem with each other. In the late spring as we passed a hillside house with a huge rolling lawn, we would look at each other and run screaming to the top before tumbling down together. The resulting grass stains hardly showed on our navy school uniforms but the elbows of our white blouses often gave us away. I am still amazed today how our mothers managed to get those blouses back to a perfect white every time, even the elbows! In the winter, naturally the draw to slide down that same rolling, then snow covered, lawn/hill was equally irresistible. Those walks to school were filled with the magic of young girls’ imaginations every single day. 

Even the best of friends have disagreements and we were no different. My fondest memories are of how we would use our parents as ‘weapons’ in our little ‘fights’. Her father, a food wholesaler, and my father, a railway employee were deployed in our imaginations to make the other’s life miserable. J threatened that she would have her father stop selling my family food so that we would starve to death unless I would acknowledge she was right about whatever we were arguing about at that moment. I, also looking to be right would inform her that my father would stop the supply trains where her father got the food rendering his wholesale shelves empty, and causing his business to fail. Our childhood omnipotence was rampant on the rare occasions we fought.

One of my favourite stories about J and I is the time that, in addition to Sunday services, we had to attend a Mass on our own as part of our Catholic Education curriculum, maybe it was for Lent or something, I’m not really sure. So one day, walking home together after school, we could see that there was a Mass going on by the number of cars in the parking lot. People were still going in so we knew it hadn’t started yet and we looked at each other and spontaneously decided to attend the Mass to complete our assignment. We would be the first ones in our class to achieve the ‘Attend Mass’ goal and we could proudly ‘tick that box’. So in we went, in our school uniforms, and took a seat in one of the pews. 

People in the church that day seemed quite sad, so we mirrored their sad faces. We guessed that they were not happy about attending an extra Mass either. People stood up and we followed suit, though they really blocked our view of the main aisle. We caught a glimpse of a shiny box draped in a white cloth rolling up the aisle but had no idea what that box might be for. I am pretty empathetic as a person, even back then, so I found myself tearing up at the increasing sobbing sounds filling the church. We sat through the Mass, even squeezing around that shiny box to receive communion, and snuck out a side door once the Mass was over.

Obviously these were the ‘days before cell phones’ so our mothers were quite upset with us by the time we got home. Apparently our dads had been trying to find us when we had not arrived home after school as expected. Not surprisingly, no one thought to check for us at the church  service. In hindsight, no one but the teacher was yet even aware of the new class assignment to attend an weekday Mass.

I remember explaining the class assignment to my parents and letting them know how weird it was to go to a Mass on a weekday. I asked them what was in the box because J and I were hoping they would open it and let us see but, to our disappointment, it had remained closed. I’m sure you can imagine my reaction when they explained what a funeral mass was, and delicately, what was in the box. The worst part at the time? The teacher did not let us count it as our Mass commitment. If I am not mistaken (it has been a while) I think we just ended up attending an after school Mass as a class. That funeral mass was J’s and my introduction to loss, and people’s reaction to loss. 

Speaking of loss, J moved on to a private school in grade nine and despite our tears and promises to remain best friends, life changed for us both. Her school was in a different community, and I cannot honestly recall if we even exchanged one letter or birthday card, despite our commitment to the idea of keeping in touch. As is the way of life, our commitment waned and it was many, many years later that J and I reconnected. I know she was invited, but I cannot definitively recall if she was at my wedding.

I think it was about ten years ago when I remembered that J resided in the large city that I would be attending for work, so I randomly reached out to her through social media, and we were able to get together. She came to collect me from my hotel and we spent some time on her sailboat, an adventure I had never been on before. At this point I had a growing family in Northern Ontario and she remained unmarried and living in Southern Ontario. I just love how the years melt away when spending time with childhood friends. Despite our promise to stay in touch, life got in the way, and we lost touch again.

Many years later I was visiting with one of my children and his family down south and I reached out to J again as they were now living in her city. She met my son, his wife and their new baby, then she and I went off for brunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon reminiscing. She showed me where she worked and we went to her gated community for tea so I could see her apartment/condo. It was a wonderful visit. 

About a year later we reconnected again as her brother had passed away and she would be coming north for his service/internment. I went up to the small community we had grown up in to attend the service. I met J’s friend, A, that she had travelled up with, and met some of her relatives and friends of her family. It was a peaceful event followed by a luncheon at a local restaurant. I got to know a few of the people who had attended the service and we shared some stories and laughter. When I had to leave to drive home J came outside and we hugged. She promised to contact me when she would be coming up to settle the estate and sell her family home within the coming weeks or months and I promised to make the short drive up and help her or even just to visit. We hugged again and I left for the drive home. This was last month.

A couple of weeks ago I was staying overnight in North Bay and contacted another ‘old’ friend to see if we could get together. We met for tea at a local restaurant and had a great visit despite the years between seeing each other. We talked about J and the loss of her brother as well as the fact that J and I had gotten the chance to see each other again. We talked about our J’s and my plan to get together upon her return to manage her brother’s estate. My North Bay friend and I also talked about getting together again when I would be passing through the next time. 

Here is the possible grief and loss trigger. Earlier this week I got a long distance call from J’s friend, A, who had come up with my friend for her brother’s funeral. Thinking J was driving, and so her friend was calling, I expected her to say they were on their way north to deal with the estate. Instead, J’s friend told me that J is gone, that she passed away. Fraught with disbelief I barely registered the details of what had happened to J. I can honestly say that I did not fully believe the friend until I received a link to the obituary and funeral information from her in my inbox. What her friend said is true, J is gone. The promise of seeing her again, is gone, in an instant, leaving me with a wish. I wish I had stayed longer after her brother’s funeral, that I had kept in touch more, and that I had told her what a good friend she had been when we were children. 

My message to you? Look around you, look at your life and see who mattered/matters then and now? Can you find those people or that one person? I am so grateful, despite the circumstances of losing her brother, to have had those precious hours with my friend before she passed so suddenly and unexpectedly. I am grateful to have had the chance to have a cup of tea with my other friend in North Bay, and I hope to have many more cups of tea with her. I am grateful to chat with friends by phone regularly and to keep up with their lives while sharing the details of my life with them. To use a pasta reference, we do not know if we have a strand of spaghetti or an elbow macaroni left in our pot so please do not waste one more minute. Find that friend, or family member and reach out. Paraphrasing Walter Payton, ‘Today is here, tomorrow is not promised!’ Don’t be left with a regret. 

Thank you for stopping by! Remember, I love reading your comments whether you comment here publicly, or whether you reach out to me via my email: [email protected]. I hope to see you next time with your cup of tea in hand, visiting with me in Blogville. You can tell me about reconnecting with your old friends! 
Hello my Blogville friends. Thanks for joining me today as I sip my green tea with a little honey and lemon. I’m not sure that I will be able to write this blog, and even if I do, I’ll need to decide if it is a good idea publish it on my website. What I do know is that I need to write it. Writing helps me process things. If you are reading this blog you know what my decision is. NOTE: I offer you a Trigger Alert for grief and loss. Please consider your frame of mind before continuing to read.

As a preface to the rest of this blog, please know that I am a person who randomly tries to reconnect (and hopefully stay connected) with people who have crossed life paths with me. For example, I recently reconnected with one of my bridesmaids and now we chat monthly on the phone. I honestly enjoy finding old friends, seeing who and how they are now, and attempting to keep in touch. Sometimes it is enough just to find and connect with a person once, other times we stay connected and keep in touch. Yep, I’m that person!

So my story begins in Kindergarten about 60 years ago when I met my friend whom I will call J. We became fast friends and instantly ‘pretend sisters’ as each of us was cursed with having only brothers. J and I did everything together, well, as much as our parents would let us do. We lived close enough to each other, and to our school, that we would walk together pretty well every day. There was a fountain between our two addresses on the route to school where we would usually meet, and then walk the rest of the way together. In those days town children did not have a bus, nor did our parents drive us to school. In my case, my parents did not even own a car until I was 16 years old.

Our walks were fraught with the magic of children’s conversations making unrealistic plans about what our futures would look like. We planned that our houses would be across the street from each other, if not right next door, so our children could play together. Our husbands would be best friends or maybe even brothers! We wished for puppies and had to settle for goldfish. We wished for new bikes, she got one and I got my brother’s used one, and our bike adventures began. 

We would walk holding hands and swinging our arms in perfect tandem with each other. In the late spring as we passed a hillside house with a huge rolling lawn, we would look at each other and run screaming to the top before tumbling down together. The resulting grass stains hardly showed on our navy school uniforms but the elbows of our white blouses often gave us away. I am still amazed today how our mothers managed to get those blouses back to a perfect white every time, even the elbows! In the winter, naturally the draw to slide down that same rolling, then snow covered, lawn/hill was equally irresistible. Those walks to school were filled with the magic of young girls’ imaginations every single day. 

Even the best of friends have disagreements and we were no different. My fondest memories are of how we would use our parents as ‘weapons’ in our little ‘fights’. Her father, a food wholesaler, and my father, a railway employee were deployed in our imaginations to make the other’s life miserable. J threatened that she would have her father stop selling my family food so that we would starve to death unless I would acknowledge she was right about whatever we were arguing about at that moment. I, also looking to be right would inform her that my father would stop the supply trains where her father got the food rendering his wholesale shelves empty, and causing his business to fail. Our childhood omnipotence was rampant on the rare occasions we fought.

One of my favourite stories about J and I is the time that, in addition to Sunday services, we had to attend a Mass on our own as part of our Catholic Education curriculum, maybe it was for Lent or something, I’m not really sure. So one day, walking home together after school, we could see that there was a Mass going on by the number of cars in the parking lot. People were still going in so we knew it hadn’t started yet and we looked at each other and spontaneously decided to attend the Mass to complete our assignment. We would be the first ones in our class to achieve the ‘Attend Mass’ goal and we could proudly ‘tick that box’. So in we went, in our school uniforms, and took a seat in one of the pews. 

People in the church that day seemed quite sad, so we mirrored their sad faces. We guessed that they were not happy about attending an extra Mass either. People stood up and we followed suit, though they really blocked our view of the main aisle. We caught a glimpse of a shiny box draped in a white cloth rolling up the aisle but had no idea what that box might be for. I am pretty empathetic as a person, even back then, so I found myself tearing up at the increasing sobbing sounds filling the church. We sat through the Mass, even squeezing around that shiny box to receive communion, and snuck out a side door once the Mass was over.

Obviously these were the ‘days before cell phones’ so our mothers were quite upset with us by the time we got home. Apparently our dads had been trying to find us when we had not arrived home after school as expected. Not surprisingly, no one thought to check for us at the church  service. In hindsight, no one but the teacher was yet even aware of the new class assignment to attend an weekday Mass.

I remember explaining the class assignment to my parents and letting them know how weird it was to go to a Mass on a weekday. I asked them what was in the box because J and I were hoping they would open it and let us see but, to our disappointment, it had remained closed. I’m sure you can imagine my reaction when they explained what a funeral mass was, and delicately, what was in the box. The worst part at the time? The teacher did not let us count it as our Mass commitment. If I am not mistaken (it has been a while) I think we just ended up attending an after school Mass as a class. That funeral mass was J’s and my introduction to loss, and people’s reaction to loss. 

Speaking of loss, J moved on to a private school in grade nine and despite our tears and promises to remain best friends, life changed for us both. Her school was in a different community, and I cannot honestly recall if we even exchanged one letter or birthday card, despite our commitment to the idea of keeping in touch. As is the way of life, our commitment waned and it was many, many years later that J and I reconnected. I know she was invited, but I cannot definitively recall if she was at my wedding.

I think it was about ten years ago when I remembered that J resided in the large city that I would be attending for work, so I randomly reached out to her through social media, and we were able to get together. She came to collect me from my hotel and we spent some time on her sailboat, an adventure I had never been on before. At this point I had a growing family in Northern Ontario and she remained unmarried and living in Southern Ontario. I just love how the years melt away when spending time with childhood friends. Despite our promise to stay in touch, life got in the way, and we lost touch again.

Many years later I was visiting with one of my children and his family down south and I reached out to J again as they were now living in her city. She met my son, his wife and their new baby, then she and I went off for brunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon reminiscing. She showed me where she worked and we went to her gated community for tea so I could see her apartment/condo. It was a wonderful visit. 

About a year later we reconnected again as her brother had passed away and she would be coming north for his service/internment. I went up to the small community we had grown up in to attend the service. I met J’s friend, A, that she had travelled up with, and met some of her relatives and friends of her family. It was a peaceful event followed by a luncheon at a local restaurant. I got to know a few of the people who had attended the service and we shared some stories and laughter. When I had to leave to drive home J came outside and we hugged. She promised to contact me when she would be coming up to settle the estate and sell her family home within the coming weeks or months and I promised to make the short drive up and help her or even just to visit. We hugged again and I left for the drive home. This was last month.

A couple of weeks ago I was staying overnight in North Bay and contacted another ‘old’ friend to see if we could get together. We met for tea at a local restaurant and had a great visit despite the years between seeing each other. We talked about J and the loss of her brother as well as the fact that J and I had gotten the chance to see each other again. We talked about our J’s and my plan to get together upon her return to manage her brother’s estate. My North Bay friend and I also talked about getting together again when I would be passing through the next time. 

Here is the possible grief and loss trigger. Earlier this week I got a long distance call from J’s friend, A, who had come up with my friend for her brother’s funeral. Thinking J was driving, and so her friend was calling, I expected her to say they were on their way north to deal with the estate. Instead, J’s friend told me that J is gone, that she passed away. Fraught with disbelief I barely registered the details of what had happened to J. I can honestly say that I did not fully believe the friend until I received a link to the obituary and funeral information from her in my inbox. What her friend said is true, J is gone. The promise of seeing her again, is gone, in an instant, leaving me with a wish. I wish I had stayed longer after her brother’s funeral, that I had kept in touch more, and that I had told her what a good friend she had been when we were children. 

My message to you? Look around you, look at your life and see who mattered/matters then and now? Can you find those people or that one person? I am so grateful, despite the circumstances of losing her brother, to have had those precious hours with my friend before she passed so suddenly and unexpectedly. I am grateful to have had the chance to have a cup of tea with my other friend in North Bay, and I hope to have many more cups of tea with her. I am grateful to chat with friends by phone regularly and to keep up with their lives while sharing the details of my life with them. To use a pasta reference, we do not know if we have a strand of spaghetti or an elbow macaroni left in our pot so please do not waste one more minute. Find that friend, or family member and reach out. Paraphrasing Walter Payton, ‘Today is here, tomorrow is not promised!’ Don’t be left with a regret. 

Thank you for stopping by! Remember, I love  your comments whether you comment here publicly, or whether you reach out to me via my email: [email protected]. I hope to see you next time with your cup of tea in hand, visiting me in Blogville. You can tell me about reconnecting with old friends!

Hello everyone, welcome back to Blogville. I’m so excited to have you visit again. Today I am drinking a tea called Gaba Guava as it is meant to boost focus. Let’s hope it works because, as you well know, I tend to wander all over the place in my blog posts. That’s ok, my husband has a tee-shirt that says, “Not all who wander, are lost!” Today’s blog is really directed towards adoptive parents. I am hoping to give them some insight, and perhaps a quick retort or two, into situations where people somehow feel free to speak their thoughts and opinions to adopting or adoptive parents. 


I have found that the general public starts the adoption process off on the wrong foot, usually by immediately sharing their opinion. I mean if a young couple (non-adoptive) mention that they are thinking about starting a family, I usually hear comment like, ‘that’s wonderful’, ‘children make life so much more interesting’, or even, ‘its about time’. I will admit there are exceptions to the rule, but one does not usually hear, “so, you are having sex’, or ‘you know you have to have intercourse to create a child’, or ‘I hope his sperm and your eggs are healthy’ or other such comments. Conception is mostly a personal issue people do not feel is theirs to discuss (yes, there are exceptions to every rule, I know.) It is like people forfeit their right to privacy when they announce that they are thinking of adopting. In fact, I am often surprised that adoptive parents even disclose that they are adoptive parents, or that they are seeking to become adoptive parents at all! In my experience adoptive parents are simply trying to share their pride or excitement but then they are often met with, well let’s just call them “uneducated” questions or comments. I just want to share a few of my thoughts, (look out) about how these, usually unsolicited, comments might be managed.


The first common statement that comes to mind is, “oh, so you can’t/couldn’t have children of your own?” I have commented on this in a number of my blogs as you know because that particular comment begs the question, ‘If not ours, whose children are they?’ To me, a great response by the parents might be, ‘Well actually, though they were/will not be born to us, they are/will be very much our own’. People who know me would expect me to facetiously add, ‘They even give us ownership papers’ (i.e. Final Adoption Order and/or amended birth certificates).


These same, considerate folks often follow up with, ‘Good for you, I could never accept a child that wasn’t born to me’. Ironically, there are people who do not accept children that were actually born to them, that is one of the reasons why adoption exists, or even potentially why some child abuse and child abandonment exist. Yes, I know these people actually mean they could never ‘raise’ a child not born to them, often without realizing that this means step-children as well! These are the comments adoptive applicants or adoptive families face too often. What should people say when they meet approved, excited adoptive applicants or when they meet adoptive parents? What can you say? How about simply “Congratulations!” Just like they do when they find out someone is pregnant or that someone has a new baby?


Oh, do not worry, I am aware of the folks that tell expectant parents the horror stories about their own pregnancies or childbirth experiences but I often find others nearby will caution them not to ‘scare’ the newly expecting or the new parents. Few people step up to stop folks from ‘scaring’ hopeful adoptive applicants or parents with a new child placed with them. If you overhear this type of thing, what can you say? How about saying, “I’m sure they will get (or have gotten) appropriate training about adopting. In fact, I understand that they learn more about parenting and child development than parents of biological children do!”


Another of my favourites, is the ‘bad blood’ thinking. This involves comments like “Really, aren’t you afraid there will be something genetically wrong with them?” I mean, there could be something genetically ‘wrong’ with anyone’s child right? Domestic adoptive parents are provided with a thorough Social and Medical History about the child and their birth family members. The information on these documents (including medical history) usually goes back two generations. When confronted with ‘bad blood’ thinkers, you might be tempted to say, ‘I hope, for your children’s sake, that insensitivity isn’t genetic.’ Instead, what can the new parents say? I think one acceptable response might be, “I know you will be (or were) lucky enough to able to interview your and your partners’ parents and grandparents regarding family health history and genetics before you decide(d) to have a birth child.”


One day I happened to be sitting on a bench at the mall waiting for one of my children who was shopping in one of the stores. I noticed a mom racing after a toddler who appeared to be of a different heritage than she. A lady blocked the toddler’s path so the mom could catch up and when she did the woman praised her for ‘saving that child’ through adoption. The young mom was spared having to respond when a man, obviously of the same heritage as the child, came out of the bookstore causing the toddler to squeal with delight and run toward him. Without comment or apology the offensive woman turned on her heel and walked away. The young mom looked over at me and rolled her eyes while I shrugged my own exasperation at what I had just witnessed, and the young family moved on down the mall. Conversely, I have actually overheard people who see families whom I know were created through international adoption say, “What? Weren’t there enough children in Canada available to adopt?” I mean, I want to recommend you retort ‘We were afraid a domestic child might be related to you.” But that would be almost as rude. What you can say instead might be something simple like, “I’m glad that now you are aware children around the world are in need of families.”


One of my favourites is what I call a “fishing” comment, like “What were their real parents like?” They often really want to know what kind of ‘bad blood’ your child might have running through their veins. I mean, I want you to say, “You’re looking at a ‘real’ parent, what do I seem like to you? Oh, wait, I guess you meant what were the birth parents like?” But I suppose that might be considered rude. I think what you can say is something like, “Well, I do know that their particular birth parents selflessly put the needs of their child before their own when they chose an adoption plan.” Or, “I do know that, true or false, the birth family must have felt an adoptive family could meet their child’s needs better than they could at that time.” Or you can even say, “I feel that the birth parents did not have the family, or even community, support necessary to safely raise their child.”


I can never seem to get over the concept of ‘real’ parents in adoption.I have been asked about my ‘real parents’. So many years later, I still hear people ask children about their ‘real parents’. Seriously? Don’t worry, your children see you as ‘real’ (defined as ‘actually existing, not imagined’). Your children know that, even if the people around them seem confused, you are their ‘real’ parents. Depending on their age and stage of development, they know that they have birth parents too, even if other people in society are not privy to that information. Families often look different, two-parent, single-parent, two parents of the same gender, blended families, multi-heritage families, biological children, step-children, children in kinship scenarios being raised by extended family. Phew, it can be a lot.

So, I respectfully suggest to you that, instead of guessing, you can say to children, “Tell me about your family.”


Thank you so much for stopping by and having a tea with me. I do love hearing your comments about what I write and if it impacts on you. Or just your thoughts. As ever, if you prefer a less public forum, please feel free to reach me at [email protected]
‘See’ you next time.

​Welcome back to Blogville. Today I am sipping on a nice white tea, mmmmm, lemongrass and jasmine flavours. Oh, sorry, enjoying my tea and it distracted me. I’m so glad you stopped by. This blog is a bit scattered between my thoughts as a reader, as a writer, 

So, I know you must be a reader or you wouldn’t be here, well, you are either a reader, a friend or former colleague, or you are related to me lol, so I’d like to chat about bookstores and selling one’s own book. If we do not actually know each other I welcome you here. As an avid reader, I LOVE bookstores and I can spend hours in one simply browsing or even just seeing what’s new. I might even occasionally be caught snapping a quick photo of an interesting or unique recipe in a $59.00 recipe book. I consider that photo kind of a ‘living bookmark’ because if I like the recipe I will often save up and go back to purchase the recipe book. 

I love to look at books, and the graphics on book covers! I enjoy reading the back of the book to see if my favourite mystery writer has suddenly turned into a romantic novelist (it has happened). Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice . . . well books are just too expensive to be caught more than once. I love reading the plot summary on the back of the book of a favourite author or even a new author. Is it an enticing plot line? Does it have any of my favourite characters from their other books (in the case of my favourite authors)? All good things to look at and consider. It turns out that I should really simply determine if I have read the book already lol. Or maybe start carrying a list of books I have read. Thank goodness for patient booksellers who will allow me to exchange the book for something I haven’t already read, and that is only when I realize early enough why the plot sounds so familiar. I mean, there is no law that says you can only read a good book once, but it gets expensive buying books I have read already. While young people reading this blog may be shocked at the idea of accidentally re-purchasing and re-reading a book, people my age are reading this and thinking, “yep, I’ve done that.” 

Regarding the unique personalities of booksellers, there is something to be said about talking with the folks who work in brick and mortar bookstores or libraries. They know their business and they can talk about how the letters on the page jump right into your imagination and take you on a journey. If they get to know you they call out and say, “Lynn! One of your favourite authors’ has new book that has come in!” Or “Lynn. Have you read this author yet? I think you will love their work.” It is quite a different experience from reading on-line reviews. I mean, sure Stephen King might be raving about a new author’s work, but when you stop to think about it . . . I know Stephen King’s work and whether or not I like it, but do I really share the same taste in the books that Stephen King reads? However, my librarian or my bookseller? That is someone who knows what I like to read and what books to recommend to me. Plus, if it turns out I have already read a book, it is easier to return it to the bookstore and exchange it than go through the whole Amazon item return ordeal. Sometimes, when I mistakenly check out a library book that I have already read, I keep it just long enough for the librarian to be impressed with how quickly I read the book before I return it. Sometimes I remember that the librarian actually knows how many times I have checked that book out, but also I know that many librarians like re-reading books too, sometimes more than once.

On the topic of recommending books. If you ask my friends, they will tell you that I believe books should be circulating out there and not collecting dust on a bookshelf in my house. I keep some works of course but usually I buy, read, and then give the book to a friend or relative whom I know likes that author or genre of book. (So maybe now you can see why I forget I have read a book already lol) l. Sometimes I include books in my food bank donations, especially children’s books, and I sometimes donate books to shelters when I donate socks, slippers, and other necessities.

Speaking of books collecting dust, I feel that the humane thing to do for the several copies of my book that are collecting dust in boxes in my office, is to contact me to purchase one of them directly, I will even sign it. Just kidding, just kidding. There are many places you can order my book, and I thank you for each and every purchase. But I want to talk for a minute about self-published authors who are trying to get their books into readers’ hands. In my case, it has been a challenge trying to get the book into the hands of families who are travelling adoption, kinship and alternate care journeys. 

When my book first came out I was in awe of how it looked and felt in my hands. I could hardly believe what my birth sister and I had created together! Then I began the journey of making my book available to families travelling their adoption or kinship journey. For a self-published author this is no easy task. Apparently bookstores are not half as excited as I am to add mine to their collection lol. Who knew? I have to give a shout out to Mike Young, owner of Altered Reality in Timmins who offered to carry my book in his store when the book was initially released. Other shout outs go to: Claudette, owner of Aline’s Tea Shop in Timmins, Ontario; Gina at Coles Bookstore in the Timmins Square; and to Manticore Books in Orillia, Ontario for  accepting my book on their shelves! Thank you all for your support of this indie author.

When I was in Toronto, in the early days following the publication of the book, I went into a Chapters/Indigo store. I first went on the in-store computer to look for Charlie Angus’ new book. They didn’t have it in stock but the helpful bookseller referred me to a location nearby. I then looked up my book when she got busy. I cannot even begin to describe the butterflies in my stomach when I saw my book on that computer screen. So overwhelming. Misunderstanding the look that must have been on my face, the bookseller said, “I’m sorry, you are not having much luck today finding books.” I replied, “Actually, I have several copies of this book at my home because I wrote it!” Then I asked if she minded if I took a picture or two. Yes folks, I took a picture of myself and a computer screen displaying my book. (If you want to stop following my blog at this point, I understand lol.) But, it was honestly an AMAZING experience. I still get butterflies when I see a copy of my book or a book cover image when I’m not expecting it.

Yes, I admit to sitting at home and searching my book title. It is fun to see the places carrying it like Chapters Indigo.ca, Walmart.com, Target.com, Better World Books.com, The Book Bungalow, booktopia.com.au, and, wait for it . . .EBay! I have no idea how these sites select the books they carry but I’m grateful for every one. But I have to say, there is nothing like walking into a bookstore and seeing your book on the shelf. Remember when you first fell in love with your partner and when you would see them unexpectedly, there was that little happy feeling in the pit of your stomach? Well, that is how it feels to see my book on an actual shelf in a bookstore or at a library. I get an even warmer feeling if I meet someone who has purchased it for themselves or as a gift, often as an adoption finalization gift! Oh and I recently learned something; did you know that if you request that your library carry my book they will likely order it! So by making a simple request of your local,library, many families can benefit from the book without having buy a copy!

I also worked hard to ensure that the book as accessible for children and families who might struggle with the printed copies. Therefore, the book is available as an ebook and I invested in creating an audiobook for families who might need that format or even simply to take along in their car. I even narrate the audiobook! I know for a fact that children in adoption and kinship families have questions and I know that my book will help families discuss these questions in a colourful, relatable way when using the book as a discussion starter. Trust me, your children want to know things and have many questions! Don’t be afraid to talk to them. If you don’t know how or when to start talking, my book can help.

I thank you for joining me in Blogville today. I always appreciate your comments on my thoughts whether here, or more privately, by email [email protected] Take good care of each other.