Virginia Presseault's funny family...plus a special giveaway

We're pleased to introduce Virginia Presseault today, who is here to talk about family with us as part of our theme month and feature her novel, Mother Load. She has a $25 Amazon gift card to share with a lucky reader!

Virginia Presseault has long held the belief that laughter gives the heart a much needed respite from the bravery it takes to wake up and face the complexities of an uncertain world. She is an avid reader, writer, and humorist; most of her life has been spent in observation of the eccentricities of the human experience. Her imagination has also inspired her to write a children’s book and take on those infamous critics; children. Visit her at her Life and Wellness Coaching website.

Synopsis:
Meet Ginny, a career woman with three dogs, two cats, a bag of crazy patients, a mystery to solve, and oh yeah, not to mention an overbearing Macedonian mother. She is a counselor that has her fair share of quirky clients, there is Dora whose biological clock is ticking fast, “her eggs are cracking as we speak.” She has a mother who ardently believes that being married will elevate you to sainthood, a cousin who needs help finding the money her stepfather stole from her mother, and a hunky love interest all leading to a series of amusing adventures and mishaps. Get ready to laugh out loud at the journey of this modern-day career woman. (Courtesy of Amazon.)


What is an inside joke or funny saying you share with a member of your family?
Several of us were visiting my aunt one day and she was sitting there watching TV. A commercial came on that extolled the virtues of interactive toys for children. She looked at the TV, and then at all the cousins gathered there and said, "Maybe that’s why you all didn’t get the smarts. We gave you our old shoes and refrigerator boxes to play with. You ate dirt and drank from the hose, so it’s good that you all got some good looks though."
So now when one of us does something idiotic we say, "My you're gorgeous."

Which celebrity would you like to have in your family?
It’s a tie. Ricky Gervais or Ellen DeGeneres. Our family thrives on humour. To have another crazy individual with no filters at times would fit right in.
Head slapping and eye rolling are a staple in our family. It gets us through the day. Both of these comedians love to have fun and look at the funnier side of life.

To which family member are you most similar?
I actually posed this question to my extended family since there have been many instances where I had problems understanding how I could be related to any of them. This was a response given to me by my cousin (please note I had also given her booze-filled chocolate as a gift before she wrote this for me):
"Your dad; he had a great sense of humour, was generous and helpful, he had a love of family, loved to laugh and was social and well-liked."

Who is your favorite family from a novel?
My first response was to say the Corleone family from the Godfather, not because we go around whacking people, but because of the intensity in which they live their lives and how family is everything. I settled on Janet Evanovich’s family in the Stephanie Plum novels. They are outrageous, out loud funny and just plain loud and devoted to each other.

Who is your oldest living family member?
Well, here’s the thing, I have a suspicion but no one can confirm it because she refuses to give up her age. I was at the hospital visiting one of my elderly relatives. The doctor saunters in wanting to take her medical history. He asks her innocently enough, “So, how old are you?”
She piped up, “Hey Mister, that’s a my business. I don’t ask you your personal business so you don’t gotta know mine," which stunned the doctor into silence. So the policy is don’t ask, don’t tell.
So until this very day, none of us really know how old she is.

What is your favorite family tradition?
Almost everything I can think of involves food; eating it, thinking about it and sharing it with others. My background is Macedonian and we celebrate almost everything with food. We never dare enter someone’s house without the gift of food. A baby is born, food is brought in for the parents to remind them they won’t ever be able to sit and eat a quiet meal ever again. Weddings have so much food that leftovers could feed a small country. Even in death we have a nosh at the gravesite to enjoy one last meal with the deceased, although they don’t participate that much, but that doesn’t stop us. We have bread there as symbol of the body of Christ, grain that comes from the earth and where we return and wine to forget the reason we are there, at least I think that’s why it’s there. Food has become the symbol of gathering, to come together to share, laugh, grieve and build a community.

Thanks to Jessica Alex Marketing for organizing the interview and to Virginia for sharing the gift card with our readers.

How to win: Use Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. If you have trouble using Rafflecopter on our blog, enter the giveaway here. 

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Giveaway ends October 4th at midnight EST.