February 2023 Round Up

Posted on February 24, 2023 by Karyn Good

The Round Up

Despite the still frigid temperatures, there is something about the light in February that warms my soul. Maybe it’s because January was so foggy and cloudy. Beautiful, but the landscape was snow white everywhere you looked. Luckily, this month the sun has been shining more often than not.

This month has been full of birthdays and valentines but very little reading. I’ve been in a reading slump and not because of the books that I picked but because I’ve been in a slump. Damn you, February in Saskatchewan. To combat that slump, I turned to a favourite author to pull me out. I picked up the first book in Nora Roberts’ The Guardian Trilogy, The Stars of Fortune. And it’s working. This is exactly the kind of story I needed. It takes place on the sunny island of Corfu. It’s fantastical. And sexy. And delightful.

The 100 Day Project

I’ve also signed up The 100 Day Project which is a free global art project that takes place online. You can follow along using the hashtag #the100dayproject. The idea is to pick a project and work on it every day for a hundred days, even if it’s for five minutes a day. I’m working on a cross stitch project that I’ve started. It’s an abstract design centred around a butterfly using leftover threads from other projects. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

I’m also brainstorming an art project for our bedroom. Very excited about that too. And Whisper Creek Book One is coming along and I’m relieved to say the words are once again starting to flow.

Until next time…

How do you pass the February days? Maybe you went on a much needed vacation? Read a great book? Baked a cake? Or watch a great show? Let me know.

Fall on the Prairies

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Karyn Good

It’s October and the temperatures and cooling down. I’m enjoying the moment and the last of the fall days. Being able to be outside these last four months has been a lifesaver. Hopefully, October will see lots of backyard fires, blankets and cups of tea under the Big Dipper and the North Star.

Fall is raking leaves, blowing out sprinklers, cleaning out flower pots. I love fall, but it can be short in this part of the world. Winter is on the horizon. I even ordered a new winter coat yesterday. I’m determined to spend more time outside this winter.

Somehow fall also means organizing to me. Watching The Home Edit on Netflix was timely incentive. I’ve tackled the storage area in the basement and gotten rid of the first of the things that need to be recycled or taken to the dump and put together a donation pile.

But I still had time to read some books!

My Thoughts On:

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Just when you think you have nothing left to lose, they come for your dreams.

Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden – but what they don’t know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves.

I’m one of those people that love to read dystopian books, even in the midst of a pandemic. I LOVED this book. There is a reason this book has won or been shortlisted for many awards. Though The Marrow Thieves is a young adult book, it’s also a book for all ages. Set in a near future ravaged by pollution and climate change. it’s the story of group of Indigenous companions who struggle to make their way north while being hunted for their marrow, their very essence, by white people who have lost the ability to dream and their humanity.

Each member of the tight knit group of characters has a coming-to story, a harrowing tale of what they survived before they found the group. By witnessing their stories, we learn how the destruction of the world began and what lengths people will go to save their way of life. Both the hunted and the hunter. A talented writer, Cherie Dimaline has a way with words. With storytelling. With craft.

It is gripping, and bleak, and enlightening. But hopeful. Dark, but somehow full of colour.

“‘Dreams get caught in the webs woven in your bones. That’s where they live, in that marrow there.’”
Miig, The Marrow Thieves

Until next time…

Do you like to organize your spaces? Have you watched The Home Edit? Or read The Marrow Thieves? What did you think?

Canadian Book Settings

Posted on September 15, 2020 by Karyn Good

I love Canadian settings. I think it started when I was a young girl with Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery which was set on the beautiful province of Prince Edward Island. It continued with Gail Bowen‘s Joanne Killbourn mystery series, which remains a favourite of mine, that is set in and around Regina, Saskatchewan. And so many others. For much of my twenties, I read a lot of Canadian literature. A lot.

Canada is more than maple syrup and hockey.

Not knock an often touted cliche, but while a picture can give you a great first impression of the sights, a book gives you the whole picture. A book can describe the tastes, the smells, the sounds, and the texture of a place.

Books can take you to a place you’ve never been, especially in a time when we’re not going anywhere, and if you want to know what life in Canada smells like, tastes like, sounds like, or feels like, there are a no end of books that can bring you here.

I’m going to leave you with four books that are not recent releases, with the exception of Mistakes to Run With, but ones that will give you a glimpse into the corners of Canada that you might not know existed or have read about, and not all of them paint a pretty picture.

Elizabeth Hay, Late Nights on Air