Twilight Mania: Forks Geocache 2.0

Okay, all you Twihards, listen up!

That geocache (high tech treasure hunt) of amazingness in Forks, Wa? The one with 10 different stops and 10 different clues? The clues you had to solve to get the final latitude and longitude coordinates to find the TREASURE BOX of amazingness? The one I blogged about here? The one with the clues printed out above?

I have confirmation from the people who placed the treasure box that I have the CORRECT coordinates.

I am now officially committed to going back to Forks, WA, to claim that cache. Heck, I have cutie pie readergirlz buttons that I want to put in the box!!

Twilight: Mecca to Forks + Geocaching (of course)

A day off of school? Precious time with a Twi-struck kiddo? What's a mom to do? Why, pack the stationwagon for a mecca to Forks, WA, to celebrate all things Twilight.

And of course, while at it, squeeze in a geocache. Yes, folks, there is a Twilight geocache, placed in Forks, WA just a few weeks ago. Now, I've done some seriously crazy-making geocaches, but this one was pretty strenuous given our time constraint: 10 stops, puzzles to solve at every single one of them, and then a final challenge...

We fortified ourselves at Sully's after the 3.5 hour drive + ferry ride. Thanks to Gypsy Wings who made her mecca to Forks earlier this year, I was armed with the inside scoop, including indulging in a Bella Burger. Did I miss a reference in the book--but why was there pineapple wedged in the burger? Was it because Bella is a little prickly? A little tart?

The geocache began at the Chamber of Commerce with Bella's truck. (The clue involved a few bolts, adding digits together, and division.)

Next, we zipped over to the hospital where Dr. Cullen had his own parking spot. (Those jaded among you might be rolling your eyes. However, just think: a book spawned all of this fandom. A book! That is worth celebrating!) I personally loved how the town has thrown itself into the characters.

And then a trip to the Swan house, followed by a quick stop at the Cullen house. (I have to admit, the Cullen house used in the movie completely captured the family. Bravo, location scout!)

We braved the perfect vampire conditions of rain and wind to make it to Jacob's stomping grounds where we claimed the last clue: counting those orange balls above the water.

Bummer! After all that, we were skunked by the final coordinates. We tromped around in the mud and muck in prime Twilight woods for half an hour before we gave up. The ferry was calling and we had to run...despite the readergirlz buttons we were going to drop into the cache. With the movie coming out in November, there will be a next time.

Twilight Mania: The Geocache

With all the Twilight DVD mania going around, my sis who's on spring break and I are taking the newest Twiharder in the family to Forks, WA tomorrow, bright and early. Even better, there's a Twilight GEOCACHE that we're going to find.

Wish us luck!

The Most Beautiful Things: Winners!

Last week, I hosted a geocache-o-rama, sending the readers of my blog all over the Internet to the places I found most beautiful. Here's the round up of the answers and winners.

Day 1: Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
A boy with a cleft lip is featured in my novel. So which Oscar-winning short documentary focuses on SmileTrain, the group that fixes cleft lips? And the Oscar goes to Smile Pinki and Seeking Neverland for sleuthing it out!




Day 2: Bedazzled Beauty
So I'm holding a Find Beauty Challenge on YouTube and asked which marvy videographer loaded the first entry? Woo hoo to friendsvslovefans and to Mrs. F-B's Book Blog for winning the challenge!



Day 3: Divas Divine
Who are the four amazingly amazing YA authors who run readergirlz along with me? Let's give it up for Melissa Walker, Lorie Ann Grover, Holly Cupala, and Dia Calhoun. Congrats to Paradox!


Day 4: Shaping Beauty--and I'm Not Talking Spanx
Which high-powered, high-energy, high-intellect woman is rocking the Internet with her lobbying to use media in smart ways? Let's give a shout out to Amy Jussel at Shaping Youth!
Congrats to Stacy Nyikos!

Day 5: Beauty--One Etsy Step at a Time
Who created the beautiful custom jewelry for Girl Overboard and readergirlz? None other than rgz member Gypsy Wings who adores all things Twilight. Congrats to Lisa all the way in Korea!

North of Beautiful: Geocache-o-rama #5

Welcome to Day 5 (the final day...sob! sob!) of the North of Beautiful Geocache-o-rama. One of my favorite, if not most neurotic, things to do is...to change up my house. Rearrange furniture! Create new displays! Move my artwork!

So in today's cache--Beauty: One Etsy Step at a Time--I take you to one of my favorite sources of inspiration. And to one of my favorite jewelers of all who created readergirlz pendents for my divas divine as well as Girl Overboard necklaces for my editors.

How to play:
1. Visit the coordinates listed below.
2. Find the answer to the question, also below.
3. Drop a comment on this blog with the answer, your name, and your email.
4. Winner receives...a mystery cache of galleys! Woo hoo!

Coordinates:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5068559

Clues:
Inspiration comes on wings for her.

Question:
What is the working name of this artist AND can you tell which YA novel she luuuuurves?

North of Beautiful: Geocache-o-rama #4

Welcome to Day 4 of the North of Beautiful Geocache-o-rama! Can I just say how fun it is to share my true geekiness with all of you?

Come play with me!
1. Visit the coordinates below.
2. Answer the question by commenting on this blog. Include your name and email address.
3. I'll choose a winner randomly who shall receive...one of the last limited edition North of Beautiful geocaching tins! Woo hoo!



So...today's virtual cache, SHAPING BEAUTY and I'm not talking about Spanx, takes you to one of the most beautiful, powerful, and empowering women on the web. I absolutely love how this woman advocates for us to use the power of media to make positive change.

Coordinates:
http://blog.shapingyouth.org/

Question:
What is the name of the organization and who is its incredible executive director?

North of Beautiful: Geocache-o-rama #2

Welcome to Day 2 of the North of Beautiful Geocache-o-Rama! Today's virtual cache? BEZAZZLED BEAUTY!

How do you play?

• Visit the link that I provide below.
• Read the clue(s).
• Drop me a comment here with the Answer plus your name and email.
• A lucky winner will be chosen at random.
  

What will you win?

• Limited edition readergirlz buttons today!
  

Coordinates:
http://www.youtube.com/northofbeautiful

Clue:
What does beauty mean to you?

QUESTION:
What is the name of the videographer who created the FIRST (and awesome) entry to the FIND BEAUTY CHALLENGE?? (Bonus points to those who drop on a comment on her video!)

North of Beautiful: The Official Geocache!

One of the most truly beautiful gifts anyone has ever given to me was made by the multi-talented Dia Calhoun. (She creates art! Writes fantasy! And verse! And fights off cougars!) A few weeks before I left for China last summer, she and Lorie Ann Grover met me in Winthrop--the setting for North of Beautiful.

They spirited me to Dia's favorite fishing hole...where Dia presented me with the official North of Beautiful geocache! Not only did she create a cache--stuffing it with keepsakes and symbols from my book, but she had scoped out a site for the cache, too.


We were giggling as we took the coordinates... N 48° 08.290 W 120° 01.022.



Your mission: Go to the Methow Valley. You won't be sorry. And now can you find the cache?


Today I am grateful for friends who know my heart.

North of Beautiful Blog Stop: Bibliophile

Welcome to the fourth day of my North of Beautiful Book Blog Tour. Today's blog host of fabulosity is Jennifer Rothschild who is participating in more reading challenges than my feeble mind can keep up with! (And she wrote a hilarious Twilight poem: check her Jan 23 post.) Be the first to answer Jennifer's posted question on Bibliophile, and you'll win an autographed copy of North of Beautiful.

Here's a tidbit from our chat:

Sarah: Did you start geocaching before it became one of Jacob's hobbies, or did it move from the book into the rest of your life?

Justina: Years ago, I had read about geocaching—high tech treasure hunting using a GPS—in an article. It later occurred to me that geocaching could be symbolic of Terra’s controlling mapmaker of a father who tries to box her into a grid and the boy who uses maps to break open her world. So in the name of research, I bought a GPS, created an account at www.geocaching.com, and hauled my kids on an expedition. We were hooked!


To read the whole interview, please visit Jennifer's blog at www.tushuguan.blogspot.com.


NEXT UP

Feb 6, Friday
Teen Book Review with Jocelyn Pearce
www.teenbookreview.wordpress.com

North of Beautiful: It's Out?!

The Headley's are here! My in-laws came to town for the long weekend. I don't think they were fully expecting a weekend of photo shoots (I hired Jennifer Winter to take pictures of my kids with both sets of grandparents), geocaching, and loooong, cold walks through the Arboretum and around Green Lake. And what did they give me in return? An overnight at my sister's house and empty laundry baskets. My mother-in-law was the laundry fairy. I teared up! How lucky am I?!
I was kicking myself for not timing their visit better to coincide with my book party for North of Beautiful on February 1.

But then...

After claiming a cache in Seattle, we swung into a Barnes & Noble to warm up. I was so busy devouring my friend Nikki Grimes' lyrical new book, BARACK OBAMA: SON OF PROMISE, CHILD OF HOPE, I didn't look what was next to me until my daughter said, "MOM! They have your book!"

Can you spot it on the bookshelf?

And then! What do I find at Mitali Perkins' booksigning but an entire table of my books. May I just say that the jacket designer at Little, Brown--Miss Saho--absolutely rocks? I have been so lucky with my book covers, thanks to Gail Doobinin and her team of geniuses. Thank you!!!

And looky here! My first book sale to a teen reader--none other than Sarah, a devoted readergirlz member who spoke so eloquently about the power of books while she recovered from all her surgeries on KING 5 when we celebrated Operation Teen Book Drop back in April '08. I couldn't think of a more beautiful girl to hold my first book sale.

Today I am grateful for teens who thrill in the power of story. And booksellers who work so hard to get books into the right hands.

Geocaching for Teens & Libraries!

Calling all teachers and librarians! This just in from Little Willow and quoted from the YALSA website: GITA, the Geospatial Information & Technology Association has a program called Location in Education where educators can borrow 10-15 GPS units.

http://yalsa.ala.org/blog/2008/11/23/geocaching/

I am a geocaching geek...so much so that my next novel features geocaching! Seek out your inner geek and tell your fave teachers and librarians to snag these devices. So fun!

Geocaching: Skunked in Shanghai

For months, I have wanted to go geocaching in Shanghai. For you geocaching muggle neophytes, think high tech treasure hunting. Thousands and thousands of treasures are stashed around the world--some even near you.

Finally, armed with a bike, three intrepid scouts, our handy-dandy GPS, and our latitude and longitude coordinates, we headed to Century Park, the largest public park in Shanghai. After peddling around the park for 20 minutes, we landed on the coordinates and skulked around. I was a little worried that some lookiloos would report us for suspicious behavior. Which wouldn't have been a problem if we had found the cache and could point to it as tangible evidence of FUN, not FOUL play.

However. No amount of skulking, poking, shaking, inspecting, crouching uncovered the "glass container with a white lid."

Our theory: perhaps some aggressive recycler assumed that the glass container was JUNK. Oh, well. It was wonderful to get out to a part of Shanghai that we had never visited before.

Today I am thankful for my adventurous buddies who happily troop beside me. Even when I get odd ideas and inspiration.

Charmed, I'm Sure!

When I wrote the Mama Lecture Series in Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies), I never really thought I'd be scripting my own lectures. But here I am, telling (lecturing) my kids that nothing really matters in life except for friends and family. (This, I'm sure, will come back to haunt me when it's back to school time and the kiddos are slacking off: But, Mom, you said nothing mattered more than friends. I want to hang out with my new ones in China!)

How important friends are has become so clear now that we're down to our last week in the U.S. LAST WEEK! LAST 7 DAYS!!

In between getting our final shots--who knew that there'd be a run on the rabies vaccinations in the U.S.?--we've been saying our last goodbyes to dear friends.

(Note: The Japanese encephalitis shot hurts.)

Readergirlz diva Lorie Ann Grover has been a great sport, going geocaching with me in the HOT, DRY heat in Winthrop where I love to write.

Then, she and Dia Calhoun sent me off with the most gorgeous readergirlz yearbook, filled with photos of everything our group did in the last 18 months! 31 Flavorite Authors! Operation Teen Book Drop! Books for Your BFF! And all the authors we've brought to teen readers over the year.

Dia also created a geocache in honor of North of Beautiful!

Here we are, sneakily hiding the cache together in a super secret location for other treasure hunters to find.




Two nights ago, my StrataGem group--the fabulous women who worked with me to help women and children--threw a party for me. It was the first time in 2 years when all of us were able to get together on the same night (except for Birgit who lives in Vienna). It was a miracle, I tell you. They created a charm bracelet for me with each of the charms symbolizing a special moment together. Like the Christmas box for the boxes we created for kids in third world countries. And the snowflake for our retreat at the Sleeping Lady Lodge where we figured out how to fix the world! (Of course, fixing our own worlds--how on earth do you balance family with career with philanthropy?!--was and is a conundrum.)

And then the readergirlz of Seattle went (what else?) geocaching with me for one final time as we filmed footage for a future North of Beautiful video.



Pictured here: Dia Calhoun, Jackie Parker (Interactive Reader & postergirlz), Holly Cupala, Sara Easterly (rgz publicist), me, Lorie Ann Grover, Janet Lee Carey, and Nancy Pearl (honorary readergirlz).

Friends, I tell you. They make up a charmed life.

Faeries and Cougars and Potties...Oh, My!

Ever wonder where stories come from? You read a book and think: how on earth did the author imagine this one? Well, I got to see one of my favorite fantasy authors and magi of words (and my readergirlz co-founder) in her natural habitat: the Methow Valley. Meet Dia Calhoun...

and her infamous cougar stick...

a necessary precaution considering she's seen two cougars prowling her sprawling paradise of apple, pear, and Rainier cherry orchards. Not to worry! The threat of wild creatures doesn't inhibit Dia's creativity. Case in point: here is one of Dia's most ardent fans reading FIREGOLD, published many moons ago. (FIREGOLD was inspired here at Dia's farm. Just read a passage, and you will swear you get a whiff of apples off the page.)

Very generously, Dia took out time from her precious writing day to tour me and the kiddos around the farm...including the Apple Faery's gate. And the Haunted Outhouse. Which really did creak and moan almost on cue...

That made the second special outhouse my kids and I "encountered" in the last two days. The first was on a geocache, appropriately named Faery Loo:

Don't worry. We closed the door tight to keep out trolls just as the faeries asked. But the door to our writerly imaginations has been sprung wide open after this visit to Dia's Writing Wonderland!

Geeking out with Nancy Pearl

Way back in October, Nancy Pearl--as in Librarian with her own shushing Action Figure--invited me on her show, BookLust. After a devastating fashion faux pas (word to the televised: never, never, never wear the same color as the chair on a set lest you be a floating head), I managed to pull myself together enough to tell Nancy about my latest obsession: geocaching!

Think of geocaching as electronic treasure hunting, the ultimate in geekdom. You use a GPS device to find exact longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates (I warned you this was geeky). And hidden away in very sneaky places, geocachers have socked cool stashes of little treasures. For those wondering how I learned of geocaching, let me just say this: research for my forthcoming novel, NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL. Need I say more?

So today, the readergirlz divas and my kids went geocaching with Nancy.

Pictured here: Lorie Ann Grover, Nancy Pearl, moi, Janet Lee Carey, and Dia Calhoun.

Even after bushwhacking through brambles and spiderwebs, we were skunked by two of the caches. (Did I mention that I get hopelessly lost...and yet I love geocaching?)

Luckily, right when we were giving up hope, Dia spotted the teeny, tiny microcache wedged underneath a bench. Don't let Dia's Renaissance beauty fool you; the woman wields a cougar stick and isn't afraid to use it.

And here is Nancy, claiming her cache. Notice the glee with which she is signing her name on the log sheet! Now all she needs is to update her action figure with a GPS device, and BookLuster (her new geocaching nickname) is all set to geek out.