• I write books.

    I do! It's true. I have written for all sorts of different audiences. My first book was literary adult fiction and I've written many many books that have fallen into the category "juvenile fiction" and "YA fiction". I talk about my books and writing in general on my other site, which is at www.karenrivers.com. (I don't know how to make that a live link, so you may have to copy and paste.) (Sorry.) THIS site is about me, my hair, my kids, my appliances, and that time that I rode my bike down a cliff and then got stung by a bee. It may not all be appropriately awesome (or even slightly interesting) to kids, so if you are young, LOOK AWAY. That said, there is nothing harmful here, except the occasional swear, which I ask you to edit out with your eyes. Blink blink.
  • I take pictures.

    Parksville, Day 3

    Thetis Lake, Thursday

    Thetis Lake, Thursday

    More Photos
  • Is it safe to eat raw bacon?

    No. You shouldn't eat any raw pork products. You could get trichinosis and no doubt a number of other food-borne illnesses. With the recent change in food safety standards, I'd frankly cook the crap out of any meat product I purchased before eating it. Even if it's already cooked. Seriously. Keep in mind that I am not a raw bacon expert, I just play one on the web.

  • I Flock
  • Categories

The Bachelorette: The Season I Swore I Would Not Watch, BY GOD, I SWORE. But I watched. And so, I blog.

So I watched the first episode of Ali’s Bachelorette season and now I feel like a human failure, a giant sponge of enormous failosity, because I said I wouldn’t watch and I have made myself a liar.  There is something about Ali in general that makes me feel unkind, and it’s not just her inability [...]

Silent Sunday and It Is Actually Sunday and This Is Actually Silent.

    

Long Weekend UnCamping, the UnCatholics go to Catholic School, and MY BRAIN IS A PARAGRAPH.

We are UnCamping this weekend because we forgot to book a campsite in a timely manner and have nowhere to camp, which is a relief to me because we got the camper yesterday from where it is stored at my sister’s house (because in our municipality you are actually banished if you store a camper [...]

Because I learn nothing from experience, I bought a new pool.

I’m sure you all remember last year when Wading Pool Season began and I tried to siphon my previous year’s wading pool using a sawed off piece of garden hose and accidentally drank a big, giant Slurpee sized gulp of SLIME AND BACTERIA and HOLY HELL I’M NOT LYING WHEN I SAY THAT I CAN [...]

Some days are slippy, other days sloppy.

I was driving along yesterday eating jellybeans, as one does when one is driving, when all of a sudden, I choked.  On a jellybean.   Among the things I didn’t do were a) stop or b) die.   I kept choking until I was coughing so hard that I thought for sure I was going [...]

On iPads and SlapChops and Tiny, Tiny Boots.

It was Mother’s Day yesterday and I got an iPad and a SlapChop.   Getting an iPad for Mother’s Day seems surreal but then a lot of things in my life lately have seemed surreal, so why not an iPad for Mother’s Day?   I’m pretty sure that Mr. Spuddle bought the iPad for my [...]