Hey, folks! WordPress informs me that I have an anniversary. As of yesterday, I have been blogging for fourteen years.
Truth be told—and as many of you know—I don’t blog as often as I used to, but I’ll try to keep posting for a few years yet. And maybe Gord and Lou Purry can do more guest posts to help out!
I have also reached my 2025 Reading Challenge as of yesterday, with fifty books read, all accounted for on Goodreads.
Have you taken a Reading Challenge this year? And bloggers: how long have you been blogging?
Hi Everyone! It’s been a while since I tossed a Blogger Bouquet or featured a Friday Fiction post. My guest today, Darlene Foster, makes for a perfect opportunity to feature both. A fellow Canadian blogger and writer, Darlene is the author of the Amanda Travels middle-grade fiction series. The latest in the series is Amanda in Ireland: the Body in the Bog.
Darlene Foster grew up on a ranch in Alberta, Canada, where her love of reading inspired her to see the world and write stories. Her Amanda Travels series features spunky Amanda Ross, a twelve-year-old girl who loves to travel. All ages enjoy following Amanda as she unravels one mystery after another in unique destinations. Darlene is retired and has a house in Spain where she writes full-time. Her constant interest and enthusiasm for everything keep her young at heart. When not travelling, meeting interesting people, and collecting ideas for her books, Darlene enjoys spending time with her family in Canada and with her husband and entertaining dogs in Spain.
The blurb for Amanda in Ireland: The Body in the Bog
Twelve-year-old Amanda Jane Ross is invited to be a bridesmaid for her cousin’s wedding, in Ireland! She falls in love with this emerald isle the moment she lands in Dublin. The warm, friendly Irish people immediately make her feel at home. Towering castles, ancient graveyards, and the stunning green countryside are filled with fascinating legends, enthralling folktales, and alarming secrets.
Things take a dark turn when disaster strikes. Amanda wonders if there will be a wedding at all. As she joins the search for a missing horse, she stumbles upon a world of screaming banshees, bloody battles, and dangerous peat bogs. The closer she gets to the truth, the more dangerous things become. Will she become another body in the bog?
Thank you for joining me today, Darlene. I love that you do, but may I ask why you include an animal in each of your Amanda books?
Darlene: I have always been an animal lover. We had all kinds of animals on the farm, including a pet antelope, and later I had dogs and cats as pets for my kids. I now have two adorable rescue dogs here in Spain. It was only natural that Amanda would be an animal lover too. In the first book, Amanda meets a camel called Ali Baba when she visits the United Arab Emirates. Ali Baba became a favourite character for many readers. There is a dancing pony called Pedro in Amanda in Spain, Rupert the bookstore cat in Amanda in England, and Joey the abandoned puppy in Amanda in Holland to name a few. Kids have an affinity with animals and they add something to the stories.
I remember that camel Ali Baba in your first of the series! What are some of the books with animals you enjoyed as a child?
Darlene: Black Beauty by Anna Sewell immediately comes to mind. I loved that book so much. Others I loved were Old Yeller by Fred Gipson, The Yearling by Marjorie KInnan Rawlings, and Beautiful Joe by Quinn Currie. I tear up thinking about these books even after all these years.
Yes, you mention a couple of my own favourites there. Is there an animal in Amanda in Ireland?
Darlene: Yes there is. A beautiful horse called Aiofe.
Excerpt:
After leaving the airport, Amanda enjoyed the drive through the countryside, past rolling green hills, fields dotted with black and white cows, and white-fenced paddocks.
Taylor pointed to the left. “Over there are the stables where Roisin keeps her horse.”
“Do you own a horse?” Amanda’s eyes widened as she pushed up her glasses.
“Yes. But I don’t get much time to ride her anymore. Would you like to meet Aoife while you’re here?” Roisin opened her phone and showed Amanda a picture of a gorgeous white horse with a dark brown mane.
“That would be awesome. I love horses. And she’s beautiful. How do you pronounce her name?”
Roisin grinned proudly. “Her name is pronounced Ee-fa. Almost like Eva with an f. And it means ‘beautiful’.”
Darlene, I wanted to mention that I have another of your books on my “To Be Read” list: “You Can Take the Girl From the Prairie: Stories about growing up on the Canadian prairies”. I’m looking forward to that one as well.
🎶🎶“Doot, doot, do, lookin’ out my back front door” 🎶🎶
💕💕💕
“All my life has been a series of doors in my face And then suddenly I bumped into you… With you, I found my place With you, I see your face And it’s nothing like l’ve ever known before Love is an open door.”*
I honestly can’t believe how fast this year flew by. 2023 was quite eventful, what with signing a new publishing contract—YAY!—as well as reaching a couple of personal milestones. More on those in a bit.
Not everything was rosy, however.
As many of you know, we had to say goodbye to our Vivian in November. Eight weeks later, the grief is still so raw, so fresh. I think the only way to ease the loss is to rescue another cat, or two, come spring.
Now for the milestones. In 2023, our house here on Perry’s Point turned one hundred years old!
We’ve lived here since we left the city in 2010, with very few regrets. Paul and I love it here next to the ocean and away from the hustle and bustle of urban life.
If you haven’t already, check out my post from 2020, Ten Years in This Old House, to see how we spruced it up before we moved in.
Milestone Number 2: On August 15th, Paul and I celebrated our silver wedding anniversary.
25 years married to my best friend. Of course Paul always reminds me we were together four years before our wedding day. 💕
I am deeply thankful on this New Year’s Eve for many things, and one of them is having you, my blogger friends, in my life. Each of you have made blogging much more meaningful than I ever thought possible when I started this journey. Which just so happened to be on New Year’s Eve, 2011.
The time has come to blog about something I’ve always dreaded, and the tears will be inevitable as I write it. It has taken me a while to accept the heartbreaking fact that, after a brief but devastating illness, our precious Vivian is no longer with us.
Vivian K. Perry
Life is too quiet now. Our home will never be the same. Perry’s Point will never be the same. I’m still grieving far too much to make these words eloquent, so just know that our pain and loss is real.
Vivian was our constant companion and our family member for over sixteen wonderful years. Her love and her devotion to Paul and me was unconditional and mutual. She will remain in our hearts forever.
Her last night on my lap—November 2/23
My hope is that she is reunited with her sister Maisie, enjoying all kinds of capers, cuddles and catnaps in a sweet kitty afterlife.
🐾 🐾 ❤️❤️ 🐾 🐾
Rest easy, sweet kitty!
I’m sharing Vivian’s first guest post on my blog from 2012 below:
Hello, Peeps and Pets! Vivian K. Perry here, fondly looking back on a memory from Summer 2022. Oh, how I miss the warm days on Perry’s Point! The brilliant sunshine, the butterflies and buttercups, the soft sea breezes and birds aplenty—yes, I know they will all come again, but I can’t wait.
The Photo Challenge prompt over at Xingfu Mama is Pull up a Seat.*
Well, a picnic table certainly counts, doesn’t it? Of course it does.
I don’t like going outside for very long when it’s cold. So in the meantime, I will endure the long winter by taking lots of naps, with pleasant dreams of long summery days. The good news? The days are getting longer! Do you look forward to summer as much as I do?
Oh! Before I forget, let me share Jennifer’s blogging anniversary. This blog, Jennifer’s Journal, has now entered its twelfth year! Meow and Wow!
Vivian K. Perry here, covering for Jennifer while she takes a little more time away from her blogging routine. Both of my staff have been rather busy lately, what with personal and work trips, but Jennifer promises she will return to a more regular blogging schedule—and to drop in on your lovely blogs—very soon.
I was happy to travel with my peeps on our usual two-week stay in the capital city in July, but I stay home and hold the fort when they go on short road trips for work. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll hear more about all of that before you know it.
In the meantime, I will save her place in more ways than one. Enjoy the rest of summer, dear friends! 💕
Hello everyone! Vivian K. Perry here, eager to bring you a fresh look of me enjoying Perry’s Point this morning.
It’s been an odd sort of winter here in Newfoundland and Labrador, with less snow than usual, particularly here on the Bonavista North coastline where a strong gale often whisks the flakes away before they can even think about settling. But overnight last night the light wind allowed a pretty layer of snow to fall, and the sun came out, so I couldn’t wait to go outside and explore.
This was my second trip outside this morning. Time to make more tracks!
I’ve made plenty of paw prints but I look for the dry spots too.
I think I’ve had enough for now. Time to go inside for a cuddle.
“You know, sometimes the world seems like a pretty mean place. That’s why animals are so soft and huggy.” – Bill Watterson
Check out my very short YouTube video below to see how I try to retrace my snow-prints! ~ love, Vivian
Jennifer’s Journal all started with a little procrastination on my part because I couldn’t pull myself away from my best-loved musical / fantasy / children’s movie, The Wizard of Oz. Check it out!
Follow the Yellow Brick Road…
PUBLISHED ON
Hello, and welcome to my Journal! This is my first foray into the world of blogging, so being a total newbie at this, I am not even sure where my words will take us. The one thing I can tell you, Dear Reader, is that Jennifer’s Journal will be a sharing of my thoughts in the forms of prose, poetry and musings. As well, I plan to include selections of photography that I think you will like.
New Year’s Eve 2011 is upon us, and 2012 beckons with promise. I should be getting gussied up for the Ball at the Barbour site here in Newtown in a few hours, the first one in several years for us. I should be primping and preening, painting my nails, curling my locks and donning a frock to ring in the new year in style with the local revelers. Instead, I’ve happened upon The (wonderful) Wizard of Oz, a movie that has hijacked my attention for the hundredth time.
And once again, I ask myself, What is it about the Scarecrow (always my favorite), that makes my silly heart melt? Is it the way he falls about in his straw-filled pants, like he hasn’t a bone in his body, or is it the way he talks so kindly to Dorothy, making me wish I was her? Yes, I smile at the Tin Man, and I laugh at the Cowardly Lion, but it is the Scarecrow that makes me PVR the rest of the movie before I am reluctantly pulled away.
And I know it is the last day of the year, but I didn’t want to wait for January One, which would have been the expected start date of a blog. I had to ask that very important question today.
Jennifer's Journal 