Sandra Hurst's Blog, page 9
November 10, 2016
Giftapalooza 2016
Giftapalooza is an online charity event started by best selling author T.E. Ridener in 2013.
Her only goal the first year that time was to help families in need provide a decent Christmas for their kids. Most, if not all of you reading this post, have been in that situation before. You know, the one where bills are piling up and you can’t seem to stretch your paycheck as far as you need to.
I, too, have known the hardships of poverty, sickness, emergencies in the family, and unexpected financial changes. When Giftapalooza, was created the only purpose was to make a difference for families in need. Tonya was thinking about the single mothers and fathers working two jobs just to put food on the table; the family who unexpectedly lost someone important in their lives and now scramble to pay for the funeral; the dad who just lost his job because the company couldn’t afford to keep him on. No matter the circumstances behind the reason for needing help, this is exactly why Giftapalooza exists.
We are aware there are tons of charities out there with this specific goal in mind, but what makes Giftapalooza unique is the fact it is for indie families in need, and the Santas are also from the indie community. Authors, bloggers, and readers come together during the months of November and December to make some serious Christmas magic happen.
In 2015, we gave $4,203 worth of gifts to 43 families. It is my sincere hope we can double that number this year, but we can’t do it without your help. Even if you only purchase one gift for a child in need, you’ve already made a world of difference. For more information on how you can donate a thank-you gift, join the event, or get assistance, you can visit their website. We are so excited to get this year started and to help as many families as we can.
This is my second year donating to Giftapalooza, I’m excited to see the number of Christmas smiles increase this year. Hope to see you there!
June 21, 2016
My Guardian – Alanea Alder
I have been a fan of Alanea Alder’s Bewitched and Bewildered series ever since young Meryl thumped her shifter mate with the back of his own toilet. There are no vapid women in need of rescuing, or overbearing male ego’s that everyone has to bow down to in these books. My Guardian is no exception.
Adriel is a yummy vampire ruled by hundreds of years of tradition and hiding a family secret he daren’t reveal.
Eva is a texas lion shifter. This cowgal isn’t about to let any fangboy, no matter how sexy, stop her from protecting her pack.
Into this mix comes Meryn, a tiny human dynamo setting off every protective instinct that Eva has.
Can Adriel serve Noctem Falls as its Unit Commander and still keep an eye out for Eva and her pregnant human cub? The answer is hilarious.
This was one fast, fun, all night read. Highly Recommended!
May 7, 2016
Not-Mother’s Day
To those who were not called. I salute you.
Loving women giving life to everyone around them
You hear the voices, and not only on Mother’s day
“So…. When are you going to start having kids?”
And, “it’s selfish not share yourself with a family.”
Please forgive them. They don’t know that
you have chosen the world as your family.
Seeing and loving, beyond blood lines.
We need you, badly. You are the gypsies, the seekers,
The ones whose zest for life in all its colours brightens our sky.
It is a beautiful thing, and sacred, To be a mom.
It is a beautiful thing, and sacred, To not be.
April 7, 2016
The Fault in our Stars
This book isn’t new, and many people have read or reviewed it before me. For that reason alone I had been avoiding it. I hate going along with the ‘popular current’ whether in books or movies.
Yesterday I broke down and finally opened the book. I was sad, hurt, happy, angry, any and all of the emotions poured through me within the hours I spent in Hazel Grace’s life.
I was struck by how much of her life, and to a lesser extent Augustus’ life centred not around their own diagnosis but rather around making other people feel better about their diagnosis.
It broke me to see how much guilt and anger Hazel felt because she was making her parents unhappy. Something I’m going to have to think about in how I deal with my own children and parents.
The writing is raw and painful with amazing stars of brightness and clarity shining through the story. Highly Recommended.
April 5, 2016
Taken by the Weremoose.
I downloaded the Kindle version of this ebook on a flyer.
I normally like shifter romances and a Weremoose? Really?
By the time I hit page 3 the Canadian jokes were grating, by page 5 they were annoying and by the end of the book my cheek was hurting from all the chewing I did on it.
This felt like a book about Canadians written by someone who has never been here based only on Tim Hortons commercials and Hockey on CBC.
Shallow characters, no real plot.
Don’t buy it. I’ll let you have my copy.
April 1, 2016
Don DeLillo terrifies me
I only recently learned about Mr. DeLillo and I have to say I’m in shock. Before I had read any of his books I can see that he, like Guy Gavriel Kay, is the type of author who can make words dance and sentences MEAN things. I would give my left ovary (not so dramatic a thing since at 53 those parts are hardly crucial) to sit down with either of these gentlemen, or even better their writing notes, for an afternoon!
They don’t tell stories.. they become them.
I ran into Mr. DeLillo while listening to a lecture on sentence structure (of all things) and his remark about the purpose of a sentence “… a sentence is the cell beyond which the life of a book cannot be traced.” just floored me. Who the hell writes sentences like that for a textbook!
“As belief shrinks from the world, it is more necessary than ever that someone believe. Wild-eyed men in caves. Nuns in black. Monks who do not speak. We are left to believe. Fools, children. Those who have abandoned belief must still believe in us. They are sure they are right not to believe but they know belief must not fade completely. Hell is when no one believes.”…DON DELILLO, White Noise
Here is another one (quoting from memory- so not guaranteed accurate) from a Mr. Berger (Author of Little Big Man)
“… only the sentence can be proven to exist. Even at the stage of a paragraph things are becoming theoretical and arbitrary. The novel is an utter hallucination as no definition of it can distinguish it in any significant way from a laundry list.”
And my favourite fantasy author -Guy Gavriel Kay
“There are kinds of action, for good or ill, that lie so far outside the boundaries of normal behavior that they force us, in acknowledging that they have occurred, to restructure our own understanding of reality. We have to make room for them.”
What is so frightening about all of this, you ask?
Each one of these sentences dances on the page for me. So full of space, meaning, life, thought. I want to write like this, I want to look at a page of letters and see each cursive curl and flip dance from the joy within them.
Anything less than this is failing, but I have to fail, and fail, and fail miserably again to ever see it happen.
it terrifies me.
