Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!!!

Click the picture to follow it to the source.

Snapshot... Mystical Miniature

Hosted by Alyce @ At Home With Books... you've stumbled upon me practicing miniature photography this fine Saturday.

Enter the mystical world of... my back yard!!

I took a bazillion pix & none of 'em look just right. Lol. But this little moss growth on this rock looks just like something out of The Hobbit, doesn't it?!  It looks like an adventure waiting to happen. Those thingame's, whatever they are, are about 1/2" high.

Here's another view...

For Easter... I'm hiding a bunch of chocolates around the house for the kids to find in the morning. We've decorated eggs, too, for an outdoor "real egg" hunt at the relative's after church. The chocolate hunt is a big hit. It's one of those things we really agree on. Chocolate. What are you doing for Easter?

Hoppy Easter - Spirit of Lost Angels

Woohoo!!  Amidst all the chocolate, bunnies and... hoppiness!  I have a seriously great read for a lot of winners. It's time (drum roll please) to bring in... the angels!!

Or rather... one angel, really... more of a talisman, actually. Oh, I'll hush now and let you check it out for yourself...

Hosted by I Am a Reader, Not a Writer & Read Now Sleep Later

Spirit of Lost Angels
by Liza Perrat
Paperback, 378 pages
Published June 2nd 2012 by Perrat Publishing

Her mother executed for witchcraft, her father dead at the hand of a noble, Victoire Charpentier vows to rise above her poor peasant roots.

Forced to leave her village of Lucie-sur-Vionne for domestic work in Paris, Victoire suffers gruesome abuse under the ancien régime. Can she muster the bravery and skill to join the revolutionary force gripping France, and overthrow the corrupt, diabolical aristocracy?

Spirit of Lost Angels traces the journey of a bone angel talisman passed down through generations. The women of L’Auberge des Anges face tragedy and betrayal in a world where their gift can be their curse. 

Amidst the tumult of revolutionary France, this is a story of courage, hope and love.

AmazonUK * Smashwords

Please welcome Liza Perrat to Colorimetry to talk about her book!!

What kind of research did you do for Spirit of Lost Angels?

A lot. Before I wrote the novel, I knew nothing about the French Revolution, or the 18^th century. I read everything about the period I could get my hands on: fiction and non-fiction. The best part was watching all those revolution-related movies; relaxation and entertainment under the guise of research! Pre-revolutionary France was a time of great turmoil at all levels of society, as people were, finally, questioning the old regime. I wanted to explore what led the people to revolt, and how this affected the mass of the population: the peasants and the poverty-stricken. More particularly, I hoped to show how women were affected by this conflict; how they reacted, struggled and fought, and how they evolved in the face of such great upheaval.

Do you have a favorite scene?

My favourite scene, or rather scenes, would have to be in La Salpêtrière asylum of Paris. I was fascinated, and appalled by the conditions under which the women were imprisoned, and the rules women had to learn to survive. Located in the 13^th arrondissement of Paris, it was known as a cruel and harsh place to which people suffering from “mental” problems were sent … as well as other “conditions” such as beggars, prostitutes, epileptics, orphans, Jews, drunks, witches, blind women, adulteresses, magicians, bohemians and suicidals. The old, the young, the children, all imprisoned together, sent there by husbands, doctors, neighbours…

I have written a post about La Salpêtrière on my blog:

http://lizaperrat.blogspot.fr/2012/10/mad-women-of-hell-of-la-salpetriere.html

Can you share more of how you met your husband in Bangkok?

I’d been working as a midwife in Sydney, and was on my way to a 12-month midwifery job in Saudi Arabia, a fairly fashionable thing to do for Australians in the late 80s. I’d planned a month in Thailand, 3 months trekking in Nepal, then a month in India, before arriving in Saudi Arabia. Meeting a man was the furthest thing from my mind. On my first day in Bangkok, I caught an overnight bus south, and sat next to two young French lads. I knew not a word of French, and one of them couldn’t speak English, so we “conversed” via his friend, who had some English. We spent a wonderful month in Thailand together and, as I headed off for Nepal, he asked me to come to France. We got married a year later and, twenty-four years on, I’ve still never taken that job in Saudi Arabia.

Ha! How fun!!  Thank you for coming to visit... and sharing about your book and your life! 

Thank you kindly, Laura, for giving me this opportunity to feature on Colorimetry.

Liza grew up in Wollongong, Australia, where she worked as a general nurse and midwife for fifteen years.

When she met her French husband on a Bangkok bus, she moved to France, where she has been living with her husband and three children for twenty years. She works part-time as a French-English medical translator.

Since completing a Creative Writing course ten years ago, several of her short stories have won awards, notably the Writers Bureau annual competition of 2004 and her stories have been published widely in anthologies and small press magazines. Her articles on French culture and tradition have been published in international magazines such as France Magazine and France Today.

She is represented by Judith Murdoch of the Judith Murdoch Literary Agency and has completed four novels, and a short-story collection (Friends, Family and OtherStrangers from Downunder)

Spirit of Lost Angels is the first in a historical series set against a backdrop of rural France. The second novel in this series – Wolfsangel – will be published in December this year. Liza is working on the third in the series – Angel of the Blood Rose – the story of a 14^th century French midwife, set against a backdrop of the Black Plague.

Website * Blog * Twitter * Goodreads

Triskele Books website * Triskele Books blog

Giveaway:

A Moment of Bunny Rabbit...

I am astonished at all the non-owners of Bunny Rabbits for the Lunar Love Giveaway. For all of you who don't have fluffy bunny cuteness, this should do ya:

  

  

  

  

  

Lol. I'm going to go skip in a field full of flowers, now!

(These pictures can all be sourced thru Pinterest)

Saturday Snapshot - Easter and Winner!!

Ugh.

Have you ever written an entire post and then lost it?!  Links, pix, incredibly witty sentences?!  *sigh*  I don't know whether to give up and mope or rewrite it.

I'd like to say I took the "high road" and just rewrote it.  But I'm excessively grumpy... the result is nothing like the fun-lovin' post I originally created:

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by At Home with Books... real pix... real fun!

Here's the cute picture of some eggs we colored.

This is my silly picture of our Passover Sedar.

The way-cool thought behind this goofy plate was how we ended up having a great discussion about Passover and Easter which involved "death of firstborn" *gasp* and being "covered" by the blood. *gasp again*  It was a great conversation spurred by such a silly dish. (The digression from real Sedar ingredients is all my fault & I don't mean any insult to the amazingly awesome Passover meal.)

We visited with family - here's Trinity showing me she found the egg Nana had decorated:

As for the Easter Eggstravaganza Hop...

I enjoyed everyone's responses on how they celebrate Easter or memories of times past.  I thought I was the only kid who woke up to find chocolate hiding in bookshelves, so it's very fun to see how many remember similar fun. Miri's comment was so fun, I wanted to quote it:

Miri

we went on a walk all together and the weather was beautifully. And every now and then, my siblings or I found a some sweets all along the way. I KNEW that somehow my parents and grandparents must have put them there (I learend later that they carried a bag with them and just dropped the sweets whenever we didn't look), but I couldn't figure out how they did it. It was really magical - and I was excited because we found magical sweets and there was sun and I was with my family.

As for the winner  (You may roll your tongue in drum roll, if you like. I am.)

Emily @ Falling For YAApr 9, 2012 05:28 PMI don't really have any Easter memories. When my sister was younger though she didn't believe in the Easter bunny so I made up this HUGE lie about how I saw him and blah blah, she told all her friends about it and believed in the Easter Bunny until she was like 13, even after she had found out Santa isn't real. It was actually pretty funny.

You Wha?!

Maybe we should pick a different winner?! Someone who honors FAMILY for Easter instead of teasing younger sisters 'til their 13???!!!

What's up with that Emily @ Falling for YA?!?!



I just like to ::razz:: my winners.

You won the journal and awesome peacock feather w/ pen & chocolate!!

Hoppy Easter Eggstravaganza Giveaway Hop

Hoppy giveaway brought to us 

by 

Once Upon a Twilight 

& 

I Am A Reader, Not A Writer....

I love Easter.

For one, the Semana Santa party-ers got the right idea, 'cause they skip out of town as of Wednesday/Thursday - heading to the BEACH - and the culmination is on Friday, when Jesus announced, "It is finished!" and they wind down on Sunday to return home and back to work. So, they're already celebrating. *jealous*

When we lived in Sonora (Mexico!), we drove two hours to an isolated fishing village on the Gulfo de California. Electricity wasn't even missed as we set up camps all along the beach, which was suddenly jamb-packed with people from the cities. We ate fresh fish cooked in those deep fryers (OMG so good!!) and begged boat rides off the residents. There was a mud pit full of 4-wheelers, tons of soda for sale, carted out in coolers with ice (water not-so-much). Such a huge campout!

My sister's heading to a waterfall, being too far from any beaches... she can't believe my kids are in school this week. Me, neither!!

I grew up attending a Sunrise Service on Sunday, however, since traditional churches in the USA focus on Sunday... "He is risen", "He is risen, indeed!"  I remember being woken up before dawn (painful!) on that special Sunday, dressing in my new adorable outfit of pink or purple complete with new hat and gloves and joining the congregation out on the school field on icy cold bleachers to catch the sunrise and listen to the Pastor (or rather not, unfortunately. I was just trying to sit upright 'cause the grass was a long way down!) And then walking over to the church for community breakfast. Yum!  Scrambled eggs, of course, and pancakes - tons of 'em!!

Naturally there was an Easter Egg Hunt #1 up at the grandparents in the afternoon complete with a baked ham. (Ham?!) Every year I rec'd a new plush bunny resulting in a frightful collection over the years.  Since this event was primarily about real eggs, which we had decorated over the week... we also had an Easter Egg Hunt #2 at home involving the chocolate variety!!  :-D  Gotta have all that chocolate!!  I would save my stash, as a kid, 'til Halloween (when I could replenish it) making my parents jealous with sudden splurges of Cadbury cream eggs, my favorite.

Now we give this experience to our kids... hiding chocolate in the living room for them to find and then driving out to my parent's house, so they can hunt eggs we decorate on Friday or Saturday.  We even make them dress up some.  We don't do the sunrise service, however, or party at the beach. *sigh*

I do attempt my funky version of the Passover. 'Cause Jesus ate Passover and it has the greatest, richest history of all the celebrations dating back to the children of Israel fleeing Egypt in Genesis. Just the idea of having a meal where every food means something is bad to the bone!!  There's salt water for tears, bitter herbs for slavery, a bone for the sacrificial lamb (or chicken!), eggs for new beginnings... I love it.  I get confused every year and some years we're so hungry by the time I get it on the table, we skip the "what's this cracker for?" bits, defeating the purpose, but I still love it.  I'll blog about if I pull it together this year.

Of all the holidays, this one feels the most serious to me. Sometimes it's easier to focus on the cute bunnies and decorated eggs... but I always have moments where I pause and think about how Jesus felt this day back then. What a horrible week he experienced. When the thoughts hit me, cualquier moment, I go with it. Rather than shove it away, I *pause* or tear up or just whisper "thank you". 'Cause sometimes celebrating feels wrong, but there isn't really a better alternative, either. It's not like we should mope or get depressed, you know? But what a mulit-layered holiday. Which is why I love Easter.

(Pictures courtesy of Pinterest!)

For this giveaway, you totally know I want your thoughts on Easter!!!

Do you have great Easter memories?  

Which traditions do you like best 
or want to keep up? 

Or not?!  

For this International Giveaway, there is a unique prize:

 * new Markings lined Journal to record your memories so you have more to share!!  It has a magnetic closure & vine-y script embossing - and it's red.

 * a peacock feather from the next door neighbor's peacock. I did not harm any birds to get it for you, they shed their feathers every fall for us lowly humans. This one's the right size to use as a bookmark!

 * Pro+ Bic easy-rollin' black pen. The right pen is essential for inspiration!!

 * Easter chocolate!  (Amount of chocolate depends on shipping. The chocolate pictured may not survive 'til the end of the giveaway. Negotiations to commence with winner!!)




To enter to win, you must follow Colorimetry - Thx!!!! - must be at least 13 (or know someone who is). See all my rules on the About Me Page. I will choose the winner randomly sometime after the giveaway ends. Winner will have 48 hours (or so) to get back to me after I get around to contacting them.

I look forward to your answer to my awesome question, as always, and I hope to publish some of them (of course!) If you comment, you are consenting to being published unless you say otherwise!