Hope for a Sea Change on Audible and a Giveaway!

My Shebooks' mini-memoir Hope for a Sea Change is available now as an Audible selection. You can download it for $2.99 or get it free with a 30-day trial subscription of Audible. It's strange to listen to your own words read by someone else, but I really like the reader and am excited and honored to have it recorded.

I have ten free download codes for a copy and will give one to each of the first ten people to leave a comment here and also share the link on their own social media channels.

Here's the link:

HOPE FOR A SEA CHANGE AUDIBLE VERSION

A Year of Writing Dangerously

Isn't that a great title for a book about writing? My dear friend and writing mentor, Barbara Abercrombie, is one of those teachers who you never forget. She's the person who led a workshop I attended at UCLA many years ago and inspired me to begin writing again after ten years. An impeccable editor, she encouraged me to keep writing and still inspires me today with her own prodigious output and commitment to the writer process.This is what she says about her new book:

If you want to be a writer, or if you're thinking of keeping a journal or writing a blog or an autobiography for your family, this is the book to get you started. If you're already a writer, this is the book to keep you going with 365 daily anecdotes, commiseration and funny stories from some rock star writers.

You are lucky today because I'm the pimp to what those in the book business like to call The Marketing Whore, and I have a signed copy of A Year of Writing Dangerously to give away. All you have to do is leave a comment with a bit of writing advice of your own! It can be silly, funny, inspiring or illicit. The pimp (me) will decide on her favorite comment/advice and pick a winner on July 15th --

So, live and write dangerously! Leave a comment! Win a book! Go buy the book! Write!

Oh, and watch this:

I've got nothing but a $100 Visa Card to offer you

It's your last chance to take a chance and win a $100 Visa Card in the Don'tFrettheSweat campaign. The end of the giveaway is tomorrow, November 4th. Someone HAS to win, right?

It might be you. Enter here.

(Although I do have a fortune from a Chinese cookie in my wallet, yellowing, that says:

YOU WILL SOON WITNESS A MIRACLE

I am waiting.

Giveaway Winners and other business

Drum roll, please!

The winner of the UPrinting giveaway is the lovely Radish King!

Please email me at elsophie AT gmail DOT com to claim your prize.

Don't despair if you didn't win, because you still have a chance to win a $100 Visa card in the Don'tFretTheSweat campaign. Unilever is running this sweepstakes and has a lot of interesting information about adolescents and -- sweating. I'm serious! Leave a comment here for a chance to win. You have until November 4th!

Selling one's soul, again

I'm waxing poetic about boys, adolescence and deodorant over at my review blog. If you have a minute, go over there, read the post, leave a comment and get a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card. Seriously! Think of how much deodorant you could buy with $100.

What I found on my camera when I downloaded some photos

Would you like to win a $100 gift card?
More.

Giveaway and Sports

Australian women's swimming team - 1919

In case you missed it, I'm riffing on sports and Gatorade as well as giving away a $100 gift card to Dick's Sporting Goods.

All uncharacteristic, but you do what you gotta do. Look on it as kind of, sort of bailing me out of 24-hour childcare.

Go here, read about my boys and sports, win some sports stuff for your man, your boys, your girls or yourself. As for the significance of the photo above, there is none -- other than that I liked it and swimming was actually the only sport that I kind of sort of excelled at (excelled being a slight exaggeration).

iPad Mania

I'm still sick, but I wanted to tell you about a pretty fantastic giveaway over at Marissa's Bunny. Marissa is a little girl who suffers from infantile spasms, the same seizure disorder that my Sophie was diagnosed with nearly sixteen years ago. Marissa's father is a terrific advocate for not only his daughter but for all children with seizure disorders and other healthcare issues. His company is going to give away FIVE iPads in a merit-based contest. Read about it here.

Drum roll, please

The fantastic Shabby Dress giveaway WINNER is hereby announced with the help of Henry of the beautiful hands and  recently recovered from the flu :

CONGRATULATIONS, SHEILA!

(Sheila is an artist and has the most wonderful blog, Watching the Paint Dry, featuring her art and her adorable little girls. You should check it out -- maybe she'll model the dress when she gets it!)

Shabby Apple Dress Giveaway Reminder

Don't forget to visit Shabby Apple, leave a comment for me HERE and enter the great-looking dress giveaway! I'll be announcing the winner today at NOON, Pacific Coast time!). If you missed the original post, here's what you could win:

Read more about it HERE.

Feeling Shabby

When I scroll down and read my posts of late, I realize with not a little embarrassment that the overall tone is one of negativity, frustration, a bit of moodiness and a lot of sarcasm. I haven't really dwelled, too much, on anything positive, and there's a whole lot of positive going on right now. I want to write about it: I want to tell you all about it, but I'm still too darn superstitious.

I did finally bring Sophie to the pediatrician after three successive nights of outrageously high fevers. I suspected that perhaps she did have a secondary infection and might need antibiotics. Lately, I've been nearly bragging about how none of my children have been on antibiotics -- Sophie not in well over a decade, and the boys literally never. I don't know why I'm so arrogant about this because God knows, it's not like some sort of triumph or competition. In fact, it carries about the same weight as your baby walking early or any of those other milestones that mothers and fathers sometimes like to pull out and take credit for. Anyway, I imagined my statements about antibiotics might have somehow jinxed me and that Sophie would, indeed, get a prescription for one. But, you know what? The pediatrician listened to her lungs, looked into her ears and did an examination, but she decided that Sophie was suffering from the flu and that antibiotics were just not necessary.

And you know what else? I'm just going to be thankful for that. That's all. And when I'm good and ready and not nervous about jinxing everything, I'll tell you all about some other stuff.

In the meantime,  I can express my gratitude to you because I have a wonderful Giveaway! Shabby Apple is an online vintage-inspired boutique, filled with really fabulous women's dresses and little girls' dresses.  They even tell you what dresses fit your body type -- apples, pears, asparagus, pumpkins, string beans -- it looks like they have something for everyone. They've got maternity dresses, too! I am happy to tell you that you can be the not-so-shabby, apple-of-someone's-eye owner of the great-looking Cider dress:

Isn't that cute? Leave a comment here if you want to enter the giveaway. Tell me something funny or tell me something sweet. Tell me something not too shabby and then hop on over to ShabbyApple and check out the website. You should also "friend" Shabby Apple on Facebook and receive some really great discounts and notices of promotions. That link is HERE.

Finally, if you visit the site and just have to have something, right now, right away, Shabby Apple is offering a 10% discount to my readers. Just leave the code amoon10off.


Good luck! Winner will be announced next Monday.

REMINDER: A Mother's Day Out Giveaway for Southern Californians or Visitors

I have two tickets to give away for you and a guest to have a special afternoon and evening of entertainment featuring a new show called "In Mother Words." This show, "written by some of contemporary theater's most talented voices, tackles the subject of motherhood in an eye-opening, hilarious and irresistible night of theater and makes its West Coast debut with award-winning actors Jane Kaczmarek, Saidah Arrika Ekulona and James Lecesne." 

I plan on attending with a friend and am excited to have the opportunity to give two tickets away to one of you!

The show will be at The Geffen Playhouse, here in Los Angeles on February 19th at 8:00 PM. The Geffen Playhouse is a non-profit that gives back to the community every year. This event, like all programs at the Geffen Playhouse, will go to benefit numerous community outreach programs. The Geffen Playhouse has six major education initiatives that engage more than 18,000 students and community members in the live arts each year, touching people of all ages who otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to experience theater. These programs extend the reach of traditional educatio programs to include children from as young as toddlers at the theater's Saturday Scene performances, to seniors as old as 100 with the Geffen's landmark CREATE program. So, not only will you be able to enjoy a fun day, but you'll also be helping the theater to give back to the southern California community!

Please leave a comment if you're interested in entering the giveaway. I will randomly choose a winner and announce the winner on Wednesday, February 2nd!

Good luck!

A Pampered Chef Giveaway

What's a pampered chef?

I have no idea. The Husband is a chef but he is so NOT the pampered chef. He works, literally, twelve to eighteen hours a day and owns his own business, better known on this blog as The Mistress. When people tell me you're so lucky to be married to a chef, I roll my eyes. Sometimes they even roll all the way backward into my head and fall out, back there.

What's a Hopeful Parent? 

A hopeful parent of a child with special healthcare needs is a parent who periodically goes insane with the burden of it all and then bounces back, miraculously, it would seem. I suppose that makes me a hopeful parent, even if The Husband is NOT a Pampered Chef.

What does this have to do with a giveaway?

We have exactly one week left before the Pampered Chef fundraiser at the Hopeful Parents blog closes. Hopeful Parents is giving away a $50 gift certificate redeemable through the Pampered Chef. Here are the rules:

1. Visit the Hopeful Parents homepage here and direct your eyes (mine are still rolling around in my head) to the sidebar to place your order. You will be entered into a raffle for a $50 gift certificate to the Pampered Chef.

2. If you write a blog post encouraging your friends to participate in the Pampered Chef fundraiser AND publish a link to the Hopeful Parents home page, directing your readers to our sidebar to place their orders -- well, you'll be entered in the raffle.

3. If you do make a purchase through the Pampered Chef fundraiser and send an email to writehopefulparents [at] gmail [dot] com, indicating that you heard about the Pampered Chef fundraiser from me, rolling eyes me from a moon, worn as if it had been a shell, and my email which is elsophie [at] gmail [dot] com, you AND I will BOTH be entered into the raffle for the $50 gift certificate from the Pampered Chef. (And as the wife of a CHEF, I'm not pampered, so this would be a windfall for me!)

4. In your message, please include your name, blog name and email address. Anonymity is fine, but they do need an email address in case you win. Go on over to Hopeful Parents and check the sidebar for all the links. And if none of this makes sense, it will when you go over there.

HAVE FUN!

Giveaway Winner Announced!

Drum roll, please!

(my favorite drummer)

I am happy to announce that Only a Movie is the winner of The Shroud. Please email (elsophie at gmail dot com) me your snail address and I will send you this wonderful book -- pronto!