About ribbons and books

Diane with green Lyme Awareness ribbon

Change of pace required! It feels as if I've been running a marathon these last few weeks, and I'm sure many others feel the same way. This month of May has surely been a busy one with Lyme awareness being pushed far and wide. Hoping and praying that there will come a change, soon, before more people have to lose their health, their sanity and possibly their livelihood!

I've been sending packages of Lyme Awareness bracelets all over the place and am waiting for pictures to arrive.

Here's Diane in England, a long-time friend who also spent time with her family of growing boys with us. That is almost a decade ago now!

Diane wore her green Lyme awareness ribbon and bracelet to work, making copies of brochures to hand out and generally spreading the word as best she could. Thank you so very much!

More ribbons and bracelets were sent to China, Sweden and elsewhere in Canada. Packages were also sent to South Africa, but oh my goodness, the postal service .... So far, nothing reported as having arrived. A birthday card I sent to a friend in November 2012 "only" took 6 months to be delivered, so I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Book giveaway

If you've been playing around on this blog, you might have noticed the headings on the right side, with favourite books, a personal Goodreads reading challenge, and so on. I've been using Goodreads for some years now to keep track of various books I read and still want to read, and especially of series of books by particular authors. The Lyme brain needs all the help possible!

Daughter-in-law Jenni, a graphics artist, does wonderful work and has been asking me to write down some of the stories I usually bored the family with at dinners or other get-togethers. She enjoyed the stories about growing up with meerkats, chameleons, hedgehogs, various cats and dogs and other critters. Our family was not the usual, I suppose. And I love all sorts of creatures, including bats, snakes, grasshoppers, colourful caterpillars, spiders and such.

So, for Christmas 2012, we put together a little book with about a dozen stories. She illustrated them beautifully, filled with joy and sunbeams. We printed copies to give to family and friends.

Front cover

The little booklets were received with much joy from kind people who supported our work. I couldn't believe how much work was involved and how many times the pages, stories, wording and more had to be redone, reread, checked and changed!

Below is one of the early versions of a page, showing one of Jenn's lovely illustrations. Some pages contain black-and-white illustrations.

If you would like to have a copy as well, three are up for grabs, available to Canada, USA, Australia and Great Britain. We don't choose the winners; they are chosen by Goodreads. Below is the information:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Tiny Tales

by Marlene Ziehl Spies

Giveaway ends July 27, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Various eBook versions
For an eBook version, you can buy a copy or give away as a gift to someone else if you wish. We've kept the price very low in order for more people to enjoy a copy themselves, to read while waiting for an appointment or in line. It is available in all the most popular versions, including Epub.
Buy from Indigo.ca ; or Kobo ; or  Nook  ; or  Certification
Various other formats, including reading online in HTML format: Tiny Tales 

Thanks for reading, commenting or not, and sharing this blog and my journey through the maze of Lyme Disease.

Ebook published

To everyone stopping by this blog -- my apologies for being Missing In Action! Apart from some health issues, we also had to do a quick trip to find the sun in Florida, using some points and airmiles or risk losing all. We just spent time reading and relaxing, really. I enjoyed a few swims in the warm water, savouring the taste and feel of the ocean again. Dear hubby was sick and spent most of his time trying not to move too much or risk coughing and losing his breath!

But --- the excitement is that a work that Jenni and I have been working on, is now available as an Ebook in a variety of formats, for Kindle, Nook, Sony, Kobo and others. If you don't have an electronic reader, the book can also be downloaded and read on your computer.

Please take a look if you are interested!

You can download a sample after registering for free at Smashwords, where you might also find many other books for free or purchase. LINK

Tiny Tales is not really a children's book, although it is perfectly safe for children to read, of course. You can read this anywhere, while waiting for an appointment, or to give as a gift to someone else. Jenni's wonderful illustrations add so much to the little stories, which are indexed so you can jump around.

We hope to work on more stories, and maybe a follow-up edition or something now that we have done the initial work to see how e-publishing works. It is not as easy as I thought a little book like this might be, and many, many hours went into the preparation!

I grew up with meerkats as pets, and have played with many unusual pets, like chameleons, hedgehogs and even a snake. Jenni loved the stories told in conversation and asked me to try writing a few for her to illustrate. Her dream is getting into the illustration industry.

She takes commissions as well! She uses many different styles, depending on what she is doing.

Please let us know what you think about this first combination effort? Thanks!

Tiny Tales on Smashworks