Great news about Scrap! You can now order the ebook on Amazon!
Sorry for shouting! I’m just excited. Here’s the link:
If you haven’t read Scrap: Salvaging a Family I hope you will. And if you have, I hope you like it and will share with others who might like it or find it helpful, especially with generational trauma, family dysfunction and abuse, or writing outside the boundaries of genre.
If you’ve written a review for Scrap and are on BookBub, the book will show up there soon–it’s pending approval. I’d appreciate it if you could copy your review over there!
Years ago I was writing posts inspired by the Dawn Raffel book The Secret Life of Objects. My magical music box, one of the objects, has shown up in Scrap. I still own it, too! Actually I wrote about it twice on this blog. The first time was to introduce the music box. At that time I didn’t know what music it plays. The second time was after I discovered the song it plays: La Paloma.
You know what I just realized? I’ve never let Hudson hear or even see the music box. He spent the night last weekend and then was here all day yesterday because school was closed. He’s almost 2.5. Can you believe it?!
I’ll have to share the music box with him. He loves music, and I want him to experience it as I did.
Yesterday we went to storytime at the library (lots of exercise for Grandma as story is more like “story” called movement), got lunch with chocolate milk, swam (with Grandpa), played with Mickey Mouse playdough (his favorite character is not the usual for kids today–it’s Minnie Mouse!), played the piano, and painted. Of course painted. He insisted and kept bringing it up. He paints with acrylics on canvas so it’s quite a mess. But another beautiful painting was added to his portfolio.
Yay! (Does this mean BookBub will now list it?)
Yes! just email you hah. It’s pending approval with BB right now.
Maybe we can figure out BB together…I was overwhelmed.
Congratulations on Scrap appearing as an ebook! A wonderful option. Also, I love Hudson’s painting. He’s an artist in the bud. 🥰
Thank you! I love the painting, too. No matter what he ends up doing with his life when he’s older, he definitely values his creativity. He just loves expressing himself!
Hah! So many websites and apps and this and that, it wears me out.
Tell me about it….
Congrats on the book and that was quite an exhausting day!
Thanks, Kate! It’s been so distressing not to have the ebook up there, so it’s a relief. SO exhausting. I am still so tired today. Seeing double, pretty sure.
Congrats on the ebook, and lovely that you have so much fun with your grandson!
Thank you, Merril! He is such a blast. I’m still exhausted today though!We are going to go on vacation with he and his family later this summer :).
You’re welcome, Luanne! Wonderful!
Cheers all around!
Thank you, Joy! It hasn’t bee approved on BookBub yet, but I’ll try to remember to let you know when it is :).
Congratulations, and Hudson is a natural artist!
Thank you, Lori! He really does love to put his heart into everything he does!
Good news that the ebook is now available!! I really enjoy hearing about how much Hudson loves painting.
It is such good news. Whew. You know, I wonder if Hudson getting the opportunity when he just turned two of having acrylics and a huge canvas (that his mom wanted for over their couch) really opened up the possibilities of painting to him whereas usually we give kids some scrap paper and some weak watercolors. Does that make sense?
It makes perfect sense! That is how master teacher Jennie Fitzkee teaches art to her preschoolers. They have an annual art exhibit at the local post office. The children’s art is the real deal! https://jenniefitzkee.com/2026/04/25/the-art-show-4/
Liz, thank you so much for sharing this. I love Jennie’s post. I wrote a comment about how it reminds me of Kenneth Koch’s method for teaching poetry to children in his book Rose, Where Did You Get that Red?
You’re welcome, Luanne. I read Jennie’s blog religiously because each post gives me hope for the future in our children.
She’s VERY uplifting. I just wish she were cloned across the country! Well, you know what I mean!
I absolutely do know what you mean!
I love Hudson’s painting! The color palette is wonderful. Cleaning up the mess is such a small price for such delightful creative work – I’m glad for both of you that you are willing to make that investment. 🙂
He is so worth it. And his grandma is a big kid anyway ;). It’s fascinating to watch him paint. I only let him choose a few colors. This time 3. White, teal, orange. Once he paints he realizes if he doesn’t want a color to be predominant and then starts to mix it up. He started by painting the canvas with the white! Then when he added other colors, he realized he liked the green he made better than the orange. Then I loved how he put the little white “dots” across the painting on an angle at the very end.
Hudson is keeping you busy! And he really has an eye for color 🩷
He has been! He is a busy little guy! He seems to prefer the less bright colors. When he has a bright color like orange or hot pink to work with he covers up most of it and creates new colors. He’s not satisfied until he does that.
By the way, I sent you an email 🙂 Just want to make sure you see it since you’ve said how you get lots of emails xo
I got it, so sorry! I had a lot going on this weekend! Will write by tomorrow for sure. Today was the all day ekphrastic marathon and then taking Lily to the vet again. More on that through email.
🩷