I fell down on the job and completely forgot to take a picture of my outgoing package, but I tried to find candy that I thought was uniquely Canadian. While I couldn’t find any Mack toffee, I included a Kinder Egg (okay, not Canadian, but not widely available in the US, from what I understand), a mix of mini-chocolate bars including KitKats, Coffee Crisps and Smarties, some Kerr’s gumdrops, and a box of Thrills Gum. Jennifer’s son said they should use the Thrills Gum for punishment!<\/p>\n Thanks to Scattered Mom for inviting us to play along! It was fun!<\/p>\n Speaking of good things that come in the mail, after a rather long drought that I sated by reading The Calligrapher<\/a>, I have been blessed by the book gods lately. Nadine <\/a>sent me two “just because” books, both of which will likely turn up in the 10-page-in reviews soon. (It’s good to have friends who work for publishers!) Then I was offered a review copy of Missy Chase Lepine’s The Sneaky Chef<\/em> <\/a>cookbook – review also pending. <\/p>\n And finally, have you heard about MotherTalk<\/a>? I had the great priviledge of being a part of a MotherTalk salon back in October when we were in Toronto for the Motherlode conference, and I’ll be blogging on the upcoming tour for the Dangerous Book for Boys<\/em> <\/a>(which arrived in the mail the very same day as The Sneaky Chef<\/em>!) <\/p>\n But what I wanted to tell you about today is another one of MotherTalk’s new initiatives: the MotherTalk Blog Bonanza. According to the e-mail from Miriam Peskowitz<\/a>, this is how it will work:<\/p>\n MotherTalk will suggest a topic, post it on our blog and email an announcement. Whoever wants to blog, join us. This is not about an elite in-group with a secret code. No way, it’s about sharing an experience, writing together, and feeling connected through our blogs. I can already imagine what fun it will be to click through each other’s blogs and read all the posts.<\/p>\n For each MotherTalk Blog Bonanza, we also hope to have an informal contest, where the author might pick a favorite post, and send that blogger an autographed book, say. We’re not big into competition, we just want to spice it up, and send you a MotherTalk Blog Bonanza Winner emblem for your sidebar. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Next Friday (April 27) is Fearless Friday<\/a>, inspired by Arianna Huffington’s book, On Becoming Fearless<\/em><\/a>. From the MotherTalk blog:<\/p>\n Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all write about times in our lives when we stepped out of our comfort zones, when we challenged our usual fears and anxieties and all the nervousness that keeps us in line, keeps us in our places, and prevents us from having as much fun, as much influence, as much personal, inner-voice purpose in the world. Whether this stepping-out, this fear-overcoming, happens at home, on the playground, at school, work, in writing or in the aisles of Congress, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tell our stories, inspire each other, and make a place for ourselves in the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Click through to the MotherTalk blog <\/a>for further instructions if you want to play along!<\/p>\n Have you seen True Mom Confessions <\/a>yet? It’s part post-secret<\/a>, part group therapy. I first found it via one of my government \/ social media buddies, Ian Ketcheson<\/a>, and Ali <\/a>had a post up about it yesterday. I found it irresistibly compelling for the first little while. I love how you can vote “me too”<\/a> but not “you’re a moron” or “are you kidding me?”, and I love that there is no commentary. But since the last time I checked, now they’ve added discussion forums <\/a>and I think it takes away from the elegant simplicity of the original concept. Still madly addictive, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is going to be another of those posts where I dump the contents of my brain (and my in-box) into your lap and let you sort through it like bargain hunters at a flea market to find the shiny bits in amongst all the drivel. First and coincidentally, I think it was the last … Continue reading “Confessions, candy swaps, connections – and books”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,19,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-how-i-love-the-interwebs","category-memes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/bp2.blogger.com\/_F8hCQ7IbS40\/RiVforKJoDI\/AAAAAAAAAM4\/fHUCgH8o16w\/s320\/IMG_4350.JPG\")
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