MAMACADABRA
by Carrie Monroe O'Keefe
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GENRE: Memoir
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BLURB:
Starting
her third year of marriage, Carrie Monroe O’Keefe had already been on the
roller coaster of extreme highs and lows of a newly blended family. Thinking she could do a better job of
navigating marriage, stepmotherhood, working full time, and all of the things,
she embarked on a year of “what if.”
Settling
into her role as wife and mom, she tried to find ways to do things better, see
things differently, and reframe her thinking to create a better home for her
family and to feel more at home herself. With humor, unwavering honesty,
vulnerability, and sarcasm, Carrie finds her way through the year and to her
true self.
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EXCERPT
From Chapter: This House is Not a Home (Currently)
It’s a bright Saturday morning and I’m looking around my
kitchen wondering when, exactly, I let it get THIS bad. The dishwasher has been
run, but nobody has bothered to unload it, resulting in piles of dirty dishes
in and around the sink. There are empty cereal boxes lined up, I assume, so I
can cut out the Box Tops for Education labels…because I’m the only one who can
what…use scissors? Break down the boxes for recycling? Throw away the empty bag
inside the boxes that once held cereal?
Speaking of recycling, there’s a bag of recycling on a stool
waiting to be taken out on our “next trip” out of the house. It’s been there
for three days and we have, in fact, left the house several times in those
three days.
The clincher, though, is the kitchen table. Our puppy has a
best friend that lives next door. He comes over to our back deck door and barks
for Sullivan to come out to play. They wrestle, run around, investigate, bark
at each other, bark at passersby, lay down to rest, and then start over. When
they’re out and I’m working or writing, I bring my laptop up to the kitchen
table so I can check on the dogs from time to time.
At this very moment, I’m sitting at my kitchen table and
surrounding my laptop are:
• One little
girl’s black shoe.
• One little
girl’s gold shoe.
• One little
girl’s pink slipper.
• The Nancy
Drew book we’re currently reading.
• Large bag
of colored pencils.
• Pair of my
husband’s dirty socks.
• Empty
napkin holder on its side.
• The art
project brought home by my littlest little girl.
• Pad of
paper with my work notes scribbled on it.
• Three place
mats (one was a casualty of yesterday’s juice fiasco).
• One black
marker.
• Work
documents of my husband’s.
• A partially
completed drawing.
My kitchen table isn’t even big! How, or perhaps a better
question is WHY, is there so much sh*t sitting on it?!! And does anybody else
find it a teensy bit disconcerting that there are two shoes, a slipper, and
dirty socks on the table at which we EAT OUR MEALS? Anyone???
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Carrie
Monroe O’Keefe started blogging about her life by sharing stories of marriage,
stepmotherhood, and how to navigate it all on mamacadabra.com in 2012. People
said they loved reading the posts, so she kept writing. In addition to
blogging, she released her middle-grade fiction book, The Whole Truth, in 2019.
Carrie
lives outside of Minneapolis with her husband, two daughters, and dog Finlay.
http://www.mamacadabra.com
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/book/1144367657?ean=9781733629935
Amazon https://a.co/d/2gsB29C
Instagram: @monroeokeefe
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The author will award a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn commenter.
Thank you so much for hosting today!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for hosting my book today! I hope people enjoy the excerpt!
ReplyDeleteI am so excited to read this I am a grammy now but oh the memories
DeleteCute cover. Sounds like a good story.
ReplyDeleteThis looks like a great novel. Thanks for hosting this giveaway.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a wonderful read!
ReplyDelete