Musa Publishing One Year Anniversary Blog Hop!

Hello and welcome to the Musa Publishing One Year Anniversary Blog Hop!

It looks like the only person missing the blog hop will be me. Oh no! I need some frowny faces! If you can read this blog between October 1 to 7, 2012 then that means I successfully figured out how to preset this blog to publish on the evening of September 30! Yay for me! Actually I did a couple of tests before going out of town so I'm pretty sure this will work.

By the time you're reading this I will have already been away for a week and where I'm going I have the choice of no Internet service or    v-e-r-y   s-s-s-l-l-l-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-w-w-w-w-w, very expensive $$$$$$$$ Internet service. I have chosen the no Internet option and left my laptop at home. And before people start thinking about an empty house with an abandoned laptop for the taking....not everyone in the household is out of town!

In honor of Musa's one year anniversary, and also my one year anniversary of Musa - I signed a contract for Ringer in October, 2011 - I will be holding a contest to win a copy of Ringer. To enter, leave a comment telling me about your dream vacation. I will draw a winner on October 9, 2012 from everyone who enters, so don't worry if you think someone else picked a cooler vacation destination. Everyone gets their name in the hat.

One more thing in case you're the winner, I'll need a way to contact you. If your profile has your contact info - good! Otherwise, leave an email address when you tell me about your dream vacation.

To help you out, I'll start. My dream vacation is to the Galapagos Islands. I'm an environmentalist, I love animals, I'm a photographer, and I love warm weather destinations, so a trip to the Galapagos would be the adventure of a lifetime for me.

Without Internet or my lap top I am unable to blog hop nor show up to say thanks and comment on messages my readers have left about their dream vacation, and I apologize for not being connected and interactive. So there's my excuse, as flimsy as it may be. Please don't let my absence stop you from participating in Musa Publishing's anniversary blog hop. Scroll to the bottom of this post to check out the links where my fellow Musa authors will also be holding contests to win copies of their books. Check out their blogs after you leave here, enter to win some books, and good luck!

Ringer is available from Musa Publishing and just about every online store including iTunes. Don't forget to ask your librarian to order it from their Overdrive system for ebooks.

A sneak peek is available on Amazon.

A horse who is a dead ringer for a mising racehorse. A missing cousin whose body was never found. An attempted murder. Is anything what it seems? Holly Thompson is drawn into the middle of this puzzle when she rescues sexy horse trainer Matt Winter and flees with him and the look-a-like horse.

Holly and Matt follow clues from British Columbia to Matt's home in Oregon to a horserace in California, trying to find who is behind the horse-swapping scheme. Matt didn't count on losing his heart to a feisty woman who can saddle her own horse and hotwire a truck. And Holly has done the unthinkable: fallen in love with a horseman, something she vowed she'd never do. Is Matt a wealthy racehorse owner or just another backstretch con artist, cheatin on horses and women? And will he ride to her rescue when they unravel the mystery of the ringer?

On December 28, 2012 Musa Publishing presents HORSEMAN SPELL!

 

 

Pam never expected to be spending time at the racetrack again, but a romantic connection with Scott - her new next door neighbor and ex-boyfriend's brother - throws her back into the exciting world of horseracing.

 

Dealing with trips to the racetrack, mysterious phone calls, unknown late night visitors, and an unexplained light appearing upon the hill, the tranquil farm life Pam loves has been turned upside down ever since Scott moved in.

 

If Pam's life hadn't already become chaotic enough, her relationship with Scott is threatened when his brother, Lyle, returns to town.

 

Playing at the Clova September 21 to September 27, 2012

Playing at the Clova this week from September 21 to the 27th is:

7pm - The Words

8:50pm - The Campaign

Last show lets out around 10:15pm.

Admission is $8, stay for one or both movies. Two people pay $15 and add $4 for each extra person.

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Playing at the Clova from September 14 to September 20, 2012

Playing this week at the Clova from September 14 to 20th, 2012 is:

7pm - The Bourne Legacy

9:30pm - The Expendables 2

Last show lets out around 11:12pm. Admission is $8, stay for one or both movies. If there are 2 people in your party price is $15. Add $4 for each extra person.

Largest Human Peace Sign in Cloverdale at Millenium Park

I just heard on the news that they are trying to create the largest human peace sign at Cloverdale's Millenium Park today at 1:30pm.

The Millenium Park is located on the corner of 176th Street and 64th Avenue. The best place to look for a parking spot is to go to 62nd Avenue, reached off 176th Street, and there are parking lots on this street including down past the Agriplex at the end of the street.

The news said they were asking for people to arrive by noon so they can start setting up.

CIBC Brickyard Station Cloverdale Grand Opening Sept 8, 2012

The CIBC in Cloverdale's Brickyard Station at the corner of Highway 10 and the Cloverdale Bypass is having their grand opening on Saturday, September 8, 2012 from 10am to 2pm.

The CIBC is located in the southeast corner of the complex alongside the Cloverdale Bypass, across the street from the Husky/Mohawk gas station. You enter the Brickyard Station complex either from 57th Avenue or from Highway 10.

They will have a BBQ and Trevor Linden will be there from 11am and 1pm so bring your Canucks gear down for an autograph.

First Day of School

The first day of school will be this coming Tuesday September 4, the day after Labour Day.

My elementary school, Cloverdale Elementary, is still there on Highway 10 inbetween 177B Street and 180th Street, but is now known as Cloverdale Traditional School.

When I was going there, about 400 students attended Cloverdale Elementary. Most grades had 2 classes and sometimes there were split classes with a different grade. Cloverdale Elementary was a pink two story school with a blue annex on the other side of the gymnasium. The old horse barn used to be behind the annex and that was where the kids parked their bikes.

The annex was a basement play area split into boys and girls and upstairs were 3 or 4 classrooms, mostly housing grade 4 students. At some point a portable classroom ended up in front of the school. The annex, the barn, and the portable are all long gone.

Some say you'll never forget your first day of school but I have long since forgotten it. I used to keep a red scrapbook with class photos and other things of school. I thought it was on my bookshelf but when I went to look at it just now I couldn't find it. I was trying to remember who my first and second grade teachers were. I remember the names, Mrs. Bell and Mrs. Stewart, just not who was grade one or two. I am pretty sure Mrs. Bell was grade one.

The one thing I remember about Mrs. Bell was that she was a tall woman with a very long neck. She was constantly stroking her neck. When I was little I thought that was how she grew her neck by stroking it. She was younger than most of the other teachers, probably in her late twenties. She was nice enough but I don't remember her being a good teacher. Back then women only had two career choices: teacher or nurse. Teaching probably was not her calling more than what was expected of her. There were probably only 4 or 5 men at Cloverdale Elementary. The principal Mr. Vickery, the vice-principal Mr. Black., two male teachers that I recall in grade 5 and 7, and another man who taught for a year and then moved back to his home country, either grade 6 or 7 and he wasn't my teacher. There was a male teacher who taught the band class but he was from Cloverdale Junior High and only came down once or twice a week for a half hour or so to teach band. That was in grade 5. And then another male teacher took over the band class in grades 6 and 7.

If I could find my old scrapbook with my grade one photo it would show the little girls wearing nice dresses and the little boys wearing bow ties. Styles have changed a lot! In fact they changed a lot during the 7 years I went to Cloverdale Elementary when it became more common for girls to wear pants and then jeans.