Special Challenge Participant Feature - Sherry Ellis of Gone Gardening!

Today is the last of our Special Challenge Participant feature! And I’m honored to bring to you Sherry Ellis of Gone Gardening. Her theme was “Gardens Around the World,” which fits the theme of her blog. Ah, but she had to follow the alphabet – added challenge! So, please welcome Sherry!

Your blog is all about gardens, which made your theme natural. Why the interest in gardens?

My interest in gardens and gardening came from my mother, who is an avid gardener. Growing up, I remember all of the pretty flowers around the house. My mom would point out what they were, and tell me all about them. Now that I’m an adult, I like to garden, too, but I have to admit that I don’t have as much time to do it as my mother, because I’m so ridiculously busy.

As far as the traveling aspect of my gardening blog is concerned, I used to do a considerable amount of traveling before I had children. My career as a musician and SCUBA diving instructor took my all over the world. I always made it a point to seek out gardens, because I find them to be very peaceful and beautiful.

What percentage of the gardens you’ve featured have you visited?

I’m laughing, Alex, because now you’re making me do math! I have personally visited 18 of the 26 gardens featured in the A-Z challenge, which makes the answer 69% of the gardens. I have seen all of the English gardens, most of the European gardens, the Canadian gardens, most of the Chinese and Japanese gardens, the Australian garden, and the African gardens.

Which garden is your favorite?

That’s a tough one! I really enjoy English gardens. Of those, I like the Hidcote Manor Garden, in Gloucestershire, England, and the Exbury Gardens, in Hampshire, England.

I’d have to also say that the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Capetown, South Africa, are just gorgeous! They have summer sunset concerts there, too – a perfect combination – music and gardens!

You had a real word for X. (As opposed to many of us who make up a fake word!) Tell us about the gardens for X.

Ah, yes – X! My X garden was the Xishuangbanna Tropical Garden in Xishaungbanna, China. It’s China’s largest tropical garden, covering almost 2,000 acres. It’s used for research by the Chinese Academy of Science, and contains over 10,000 species of tropical plants!

What’s the biggest garden in the world?

Okay, Mister Trivia Man, I know how much you like trivia, so here you go: The world’s largest botanic garden is the Shaanxi Botanical Garden, located in Shaanxi, China. It covers over 300 square miles!

What garden would you like to see some day?

I would like to see the Keukenhof Garden in the Netherlands (which, by the way, is the world’s largest flower garden). That’s where all those beautiful tulips and spring bulbs are grown. I bet it’s just gorgeous in the spring!

Do you have a garden? Is it real or plastic?

Yes, I have a garden, and no, it’s not plastic! I don’t do plastic gardens! I actually have several: a shade garden with plants like hostas, astilbes, and ferns, a sun garden, along the front of my house (I think I win the prize in my neighborhood for the most summer flowers), and a vegetable garden.

For the Challenge next year, will you stick with the theme of gardens?

I think I will, and feature gardens in the United States. I’d have to make sure I can find gardens for the letters Q, X, and Z first, before I commit to anything!

Thanks for having me as a guest!

Thanks for being here, Sherry!

Co-host Ninja Captain Alex is the author of CassaStar and CassaFire and his blog can be found HERE

Alphabet Soup - Only One

This word puzzle is brought to you by Nicole at The Madlab Post...

Since Loca4Crafts won the previous Alphabet Soup game, today’s word scramble was going to focus on Letter L. We already covered that letter in all three of the Friday Fun Time series, so I decided to move on to the next one in the alphabet that has not yet been featured in Alphabet Soup -- O. It stands for One, particularly where movie titles are concerned.

Unscramble the following movie titles that make up one word only. The first commenter who is able to correctly unscramble all or most of these one-word titles at best wins this weeks’ Alphabet Soup game. Answers to the game and the name of the winner will be posted here at the A to Z blog during the next Friday Fun Time - Alphabet Remix.

1. bOdoyl is _________________________.
2. Osssebde is ______________________.
3. Opucossyt is ______________________.
4. hOanpr is ________________________.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Make sure to satisfy your curiosities about all of the A to Z Co-Hosts by adding a comment to the 2013 Co-Host Questionnaire.

Have a Fun Friday, Everybody!

Nicole
Also @MadlabPost on Twitter

Sign up for the Monday Movie Meme, a weekly group blogging series that inspires discussion about entertainment in a whole new light and provides recommendations for your DVD, on-demand or theater fix. New topics are posted every Monday at The Madlab Post!

How The Heck Does The Hubble Space Telescope Do It?

Ever wonder how in the world the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) takes those awesomely fascinating photos of galaxies, stars, planets, nubulaes, and supernova remnants more that are a gazillion light years away from us?

Here's The Process: Scientists point the HST to a particular region of space. The HST exposes an image for a long time to collect more light rather than zooming in on them. It collects as many photons as possible on optical sensors which relays the data to computers here on earth which recombines the data into pictures.

The HST takes pictures using the full spectrum of light from infrared to ultraviolet that the human eye cannot see. It even uses X-rays. It uses lenses that either captures or filters different wavelengths. It sees or filters out different colors such as red, blue, and green . This tells us what we are looking at, such as hydrogen atoms, oxygen atoms, and nitrogen ions. 

Example:Hydrogen emits red light. If the HST did not do filter out the color red, most pictures would be kind of reddish as hydrogen is by far the most abundant element in the universe. Hence, astronomers can tell by color just what the heck they are looking at. By combining these images scientists can create full-color pictures.

And the images are enhanced too. There is nothing wrong with doing this.

Okay, enough of this blah blah blah. Just sit back and enjoy images (Image Credits via NASA) made possible by the Hubble Space Telescope taken in the backyard that is our universe!

Interacting Galaxy Pair ARP 87

The Sombrero Galaxy

Spiral Galaxy M74

Most Distant Galaxy Candidates

Mosaic of the Crab Nebulae

Red Super Giant Star V838 Monocerotis

Saturn 

Help With our 2013 Co-Host Questionnaire!

We're hard at work preparing for the 2013 A-to-Z Challenge, and we need your help!

Last year, each of us co-hosts answered a set of questions in a Getting to Know You post, so participants could learn a little about us and know who it was they'd be talking to or dealing with throughout the challenge.  You'll find last year's list of questions below.

This year, we want to know what YOU want to know about us.  We're asking you to create our questionnaire for us.  What would you like to ask us?  Leave a comment with your question(s).  You can suggest as many as you'd like.  Have fun with it!  No question is too silly.

For ideas, see the list below or click on the names of last year's co-hosts to read our answers to last year's questions.  Maybe you'll get some ideas based on what we said in 2012.

If we get enough questions, we'll each be choosing a set number to answer for ourselves, rather than answering all the same questions.  This way, you get a little variety.

Last year's Getting to Know You posts:

Alex J. Cavanaugh
Arlee Bird
Damyanti Biswas
DL Hammons
Elizabeth Mueller
Jenny Pearson
Jeremy Hawkins (Retro-Zombie)
Konstanz Silverbow
Matthew MacNish
Shannon Lawrence (The Warrior Muse)
Stephen Tremp
Tina Downey

Our 10 Getting to Know You Questions:

What is the most daring thing you've ever done?
What is your favorite article of clothing?
What is your favorite monster?
If you had to dress up as your favorite literary character, who would it be?
What is your favorite fairy tale, urban legend or nursery rhyme?
What is a cause near and dear to your heart?
What's the strangest item you've used as a bookmark?
Do you have any nicknames?  What are they, and how did you earn them?
Name one habit you want to change in yourself.
Tell us something interesting or shocking about yourself.

And our 5 A-to-Z Questions: 

What was your favorite A-to-Z post from 2011?
What brought you to the A-to-Z originally?  Tell us about your first A-to-Z.
Are you doing a theme?
Are you writing and scheduling posts in advance?
What is your favorite letter of the alphabet, and why?  What letter do you like least?

What questions do you want us to answer?  What do you want to know about your 2013 A-to-Z co-hosts? Can you get us to tell our deepest, darkest secrets?

May you find your Muse.

Shannon Lawrence
The Warrior Muse

Shauna Kelley: The Joy of the Season and the Benefits of Blogging

Please join me in welcoming Shauna Kelley, who participated in the challenge for the first time last year. I'm happy to say she'll be joining us again. She's here today to tell us about the books she's published recently.  

I am honored to be here. The A to Z Challenge was the first challenge I particulate in, and has helped to  welcome me into/teach me about blogging.  I am particularly grateful to be here in December!

December is my favorite month. I am a lover of decorating, a huge fan of baking, and most of all, a rabid gift-giver. I am doing a Friday series over on my blog on my favorite gifts, but here I want to focus on the gifts that being part of this blog community provides me. 

I blog because I write. I started my blog to promote my first book, Max and Menna, and, as people who blog solely to promote their work often learn, it was ineffectual. I took too long to realize that my blog was not a podium, but a conversation. 

I now know that the benefit of my blog is not in having space to talk about my work, but in having a way to connect with writers. For centuries, writing has been an isolated profession. Now, the blog world offers us a community in which to support, encourage, and celebrate with each other. This is a gift, and one of the best ones I’ve received in a long, long time.  

The power of this gift rang through loud and clear during the launch of my second book,  Don't Wake Up, which was deemed by more than 40 agents and small presses to be “unmarketable.” It is the story of Gillian, who plays a dangerous game with her husband. He awoke from a coma claiming he cannot remember their life, but she recalls all too well years of manipulation and pain. She invents a family in attempt to get Ricky to acknowledge that this, too, is a lie. However, as her deceit grows, she begins to wonder how far she can go to punish a man for sins he cannot remember committing.

After so many rejections, I might never have published the book if it weren’t for the community around my blog helping me to understand:

• When you’re telling your community about an achievement (like publishing a book) it is no longer just self promotion (which I find very uncomfortable) but instead becomes sharing good news with friends.
• The market for my “unmarketable” book is right here. I have friends here that appreciate my book despite its length, its subject, and everything that makes it “high risk” to a press.  

We’re all here for different reasons, but we’re all here. And now that you can definitely tell that Christmas brings out my mushy side, know that I am thankful to be writing now when I have this gift of a community!

Thanks for being with us, and  helping to get us in the spirit of the Christmas season.
- Tina