Children's Book Week Giveaway - Celebrating Reading

Established in 1919, Children's Book Week is the longest-running literacy initiative in the country. Each year, books for young people and the joy of reading are feted for a full week with author and illustrator appearances, storytelling, parties, and other book-related events at schools, libraries, bookstores, museums, and homes from coast to coast! Visit Book Week Online for more information.

This giveaway hop to celebrate and promote Children's Book Week is hosted by KidLitFrenzy, Classic Children's Books, Mymcbooks and I Am A Reader, Not A Writer. I will be giving away a paperback copy of Thomas Riley by Nick Valentino. The reading age is 13 and Up, and this giveaway is open to US residents only.

Weekend Pictures - The Northwest Trek Wildlife Park

Hi everyone, hope your weekend has been going well? I am sharing some pictures today of a kind of Safari experience, right here in the USA. The NorthWest trek appealed to me because of the combination of a guided tour through a wildlife reserve and nature hiking.

Posing with the logo of the Park

The guided tour aspect involved riding a tram across the expanse where the wildlife roams freely, and we got to see bison, Roosevelt elk, moose, mountain goats and other native animals, up close in the wild.

After that, we trekked through the well marked trails in the park, a kind of self-guided zoo experience that included grizzly bears, wolves, mountain lions, beavers, wolverines and some birds like the owls and eagles in very natural looking exhibits. Enjoy.

Yanni's Secret - Romance Meets Music

I was listening to Yanni last week and came across this song which was used as a sound track in Serendipity - a romantic movie starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. I love the song, and may just look for the movie. Has anyone seen it? What do you think?

The Purist and the Pragmatist - Atala Writes

I am the Purist. I am the Pragmatist.

I am the Purist. I believe in the ideal. I believe in absolutes. I believe in rigour. I believe in order. I believe in discipline. I believe in principle.

I am the Pragmatist. I believe in the real. I believe in relatives. I believe in flexibility. I believe in spontaneity. I believe in passion. I believe in tolerance.

I am the Purist. I believe in black and white; good and evil; darkness and light. He who is not for me is against me, and he who is not against me is for me. In the fight for good, there can be no middle ground - that is for wafflers, equivocators and flip-floppers.

I am the Pragmatist. I believe in a continuum of shades of grey; what appears dark to one may appear light to another. My friend's enemy may be my enemy today for this cause, and my friend tomorrow for another cause. Life is too complex to be reduced to dichotomies.

The Secret Love Letter

If you care to know, I fell in love at a very tender age of 8 and the subject of my love was no other than the handsome bespectacled class captain Joseph Obayanju. I was a shy child and so when I tripped and fell head over heels with Joseph there was little I could do. Being a child with lots of writing paper, a pen and a good grasp of the English Language I decided to put my heart on paper and damn the consequences.

You see, it was quite unusual at the time for an 8 year old girl to declare her love for an 8 year old boy. It was an even stranger thing to see for a girl of that age to be so sure that she had found the one who she wanted to share her life with. It was therefore with this fear that I picked my pen that beautiful Tuesday during the 2nd term holidays and wrote down my feelings for the man…boy I loved.

I started out by asking him how the holiday had been then plunged right in and told him I loved him. Now that I look back I do not know what I expected from Joseph. But at that time it made a lot of sense to me and because it made sense to write the letter, it also made sense to send the letter to him, so when school resumed for the third term I was armed with my new school bag, new books and the love letter burning a hole in my bag.

My Addendum to Grandma's Love and Sex Tips

Some of you may already have seen this. It was first published by Nerve.com last month and picked up yesterday by Huffington Post after going viral on the interwebs. I have to say that for Grandma, with age came wisdom. Read my notes in bold italics, and let's discuss.

Image Source - Nerve.com

1. To know if you are both in love, you feel a "connection" in bed. If you feel ALONE in bed when having sex, you are with the wrong man. This is CRITICAL! The connection of mind, body, soul!
- Is Grandma saying what I am thinking?!

2. There is real love that everyone wants but it does not happen to everyone - it is called "soul-mates," spiritual, supernatural. This is the highest form of love - it is a religious feeling. You have found God. You know instantly, "love at first sight." You know he was meant for you and he is your real husband, and he knows you are his wife-to-be.
- Amen. Preach it, Sister!

3. When having sex and the female does not enjoy it, I strongly recommend that the female gets on top of the man. It always works, the female has a climax and enjoyment. If he wants to perform oral sex on you, enjoy it!
- LOL...Probably different for everyone. Did Grandma every try it from the back? Ahem!

Love Perseveres, It is People Who Change

This short piece was submitted by a writer I work with, and is an inspirational article on dealing with break-ups and heart break. I hope you like it, and please do leave a comment.

Meeting someone new is quite easy; it is forgetting the old person that is the hard part. Not many people have the strength to do that, while in other cases, the will is clearly non-existent. Some find it incredibly difficult to agree that it really is over. No one ever thinks it’s going to end, but it does, and more often than not. I mean, the reality is glaring yet they hold on to a long faded idea.

Choose - Happiness, Money, Love, Health or Fame

So I saw this picture on Facebook and decided to share here. It asks, how would you rank happiness, money, love, health and fame in your life? Seems pretty simple, right?

I chose health, happiness, love, money, fame. But it wasn't an easy choice, and I'm still not sure I shouldn't re-arrange. I thought to put love first, but I am a fan of happy ever afters, and that's not possible without health. And surely that also means happiness must be present to feed the love?

Anyway, the picture got as many different itirations as the number of comments I got on the status update. Most people put fame last, except one friend who put fame before money. Another peace first.

What about you? How do you choose, and do you think something is missing?

Do you Call Him Boo or Baby in Public?

Or do you only call them the pet names in private?

I ask because most people usually have a personal name they call their partners, those sweet, romantic names like boo, baby, sweetie, honeypie, sugar, daddy, mummy, etc. These endearments are used most often in private, and sometimes there are those deeper ones one uses only during tender, intimate moments, like ahem, ahem :)

But what if one gets so used to using those names that it comes out in public? I have found myself in that situation a few times,but it was OK because it was just one or two close friends around. In a real crowd, I'm usually more self aware when it comes to calling Atala's name.

Spring Fling Giveaway Hop - International

Hey, and welcome to the Spring Fling hop hosted by I Am A Reader, Not A Writer and Eve's Fan Garden. I am an author of romance novels and I will be giving away to the lucky winner, an eBook of my first novel, A Heart to Mend. The synopsis of AHTM...

Gladys moves to live with an estranged aunt in Lagos and to continue her search for a job. Before long she lands the job of her dreams with the foremost oil company in the city and makes several new friends. She also gradually resolves the mystery of why her aunt previously cut all ties with their family. But the best part about her new life is meeting Edward Bestman.