Whisking It All Brings The Heat!

 Do you love a good romance? Are you a fan of the Food Channel?  Do you dig an age gap?  If you said "Yes, Chef" to any of the above, you have to read Whisking it All by Cara Dion. Cara promises sexy times, small-town vibes, and lots of delicious cooking and baking and she delivers. In this book, Tesse returns to her hometown after years of being gone and has a memorable night with Jamie the handsome chef who runs a high-end restaurant on Aster Bay. He also happens to be Tesse's dad's best friend! 

This is the first book in Cara Dion's New Aster Bay series and if you like age-gap, high heat, forbidden love,  small-town romances, this series is for you. Plus, the epilogue of Whisking It All gives you a hint about who is the male lead for book two. 

5 Stars for Whisking It All  Here's a link to find it on Amazon.

This book is available on Kindle Unlimited. 

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If you are reading this in the US on the day I published it, Happy Friday! This weekend youngest Child is going back to college so we will be back down to a three-person household again. I am looking forward to the great reduction in laundry to be washed. But seriously, it gets almost too quiet around here when the kids go back to college. 

Time for a Series in a Month!

 In keeping with my renewed effort to read and write, I'm participating in Because Reading's  Series in a Month (#SIAM) challenge. This time around Michelle and Berls are offering a twist. You can read the Night Rebel series as the #SIAM and participate in Anne of Books are my Heart's Realdalong of the Night Huntress World at the same time. 

I do love a two-for so, I'm in for the #SIAM read of the Night Rebel books!

Here are the books:

*Shades of Wicked (to be reviewed Jan 9)

*Wicked Bite (to be reviewed Jan 23) 

*Wicked All Night (to be reviewed Jan 30) 

And speaking of series, I recently finished reading most of the Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher.  Here is a quick review. Overall if you like Fantasy of any sort, you should do yourself a favor and start this series. The book  I just finished is called Skin Game and it is book number fifteen. 

As I have mentioned before, I prefer the books that are set in Chicago and involved humans over when the book is basically all Fae. This book was a 5-star book for me because it was basically a heist story, which was a fun departure and humans were central to the story -- esp. Murphy and Micheal. I would have liked more Molly. Now I only have two books left to read and I don't even know if they have a finality to them as I

think Jim Buther is still writing Harry's tale. 

It's That Time Of Year! Winter Reading Challenge #TheSundayPost

 

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly, or for a monthly wrap-up. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme 

Each year my wonderful local library has two reading contests.  Adults read books and get raffle tickets to use to win various prizes donated by local businesses.  I know, it is a really nice thing for the library and businesses to do! The contest started this past week and I'll be making a concerted effort to try and win a prize!  I need to read as many books as I can! One prize is an Aero Garden! How nice would that be to win! 

Do you participate in any annual reading challenges? 

This week is the monthly Cozy Mystery Book Club Live Stream, so I have a post about that tomorrow!  I really enjoyed this month's book!

And here is an old Winter picture of the hubs and the kiddos- 

Boo It's Monday

Since I write this blog as a digital journal for me I long ago gave up trying to write titles that drive clicks and social engagement to my little blog. Even so, I find it quite difficult thinking up titles for whatever I ramble on about, as you can see from the title used here.

Today I began week two of radiation.  I did a bit of a disservice to myself today by reading about radiation-induced sarcomas following radiation for breast cancer.   I did this because I saw an anecdotal report that people who are BRCA 1or 2 *might* be more prone to this. Yikes. Is the internet my friend? Not today!

During the treatment, the nurses said to relax my shoulder.  My shoulders were probably up around my ears from reading the aforementioned radiation-induced sarcomas articles.  In any case, it's very difficult to simultaneously relax your shoulder and hold your breath at the same time!  It's like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time, except much harder. Try it!  Take a breath, hold it, now try to relax your shoulders- not easy.

Tonight I was updating my planner for a few upcoming events I didn't know the kids had, and I saw this:

An excellent reminder is it not?  Happiness is a choice.

Where Is My Medal?

Man-o-Man yesterday was a long day for me! Good thing it was Friday. If it had been a Tuesday and I still had the rest of the workweek ahead of me, I might have cried.  I had scheduled to do a Secret Shop after my radiation.  Wouldn't you know that the one day I had a time-sensitive errand is the day that the radiation appointment took literally three times as long as usual? 

I made it to the secret shop with about 20 seconds to spare and then the shop took just under two hours. Ideally, it would have taken  40 min. So that was longer than expected. 

But then we get to the real trying part of my day.  I went to Jewel at 6pm on a Friday.  That's just crazy. The worst time to go!  Busy and all the carts were wet because it was raining. Wait, there is more. Then Jewel was sold out of all the really good 3-day specials that were the basis of my grocery list and the whole point of going to Jewel over Aldi.

Nevertheless, I persisted. I was home by 8pm. Long day.  I would have skipped the grocery store if not for the looming "Winter Storm Warning." I was freaking exhausted.  The fact that I don't like the family to put away the groceries because they don't know how to do it the right way really worked against me. I plan to spend the weekend recovering from my very long but not bad Friday.

In all honesty, it's a delight to complain about simple things like a lack of $1.99 ground turkey.

5 radiation treatments down, 20 to go.  The universe smiled upon me this morning when I was greeted by 5 crocus buds about to blossom.

Sunday is for Soup: January is for Joy

I don't like winter.  I will admit snow looks pretty and a day off work due to a blizzard is a nice way to break up the monotony of a workweek but other than that I'm not a fan.

However, winter is a quarter of the year and I don't want to spend 25% of my year crabby.  I have done an excellent job of achieving 100% crabbiness for the 25% of the year known as winter in the past; and now that I am nearly a full 50% of a century years old, it's time for a change.

Therefore one of my goals for January is to find the joy in January.  Today is day 5 of January and here is what I've come up with thus far...

When I am out for a run and it snows the snow makes everything quiet and muffled like I am alone in the midst of everything around me.  It also cushions my fall when I slip on the ice I couldn't see. 

Lucky for me so far, so far this year it's been mild and the snow isn't sticking around for more than a day on the sidewalks.  That fact helps me enjoy winter.  The gloomy grey sky is like a blanket blocking out the arctic air keeping our temps above freezing during the day. 

A cozy blanket of clouds is better than a blanket of snow!

The smell of a wood-burning fireplace is an unmitigated plus in my book, so that is nice and also during the winter it is much easier to stay home and not feel compelled to go out and do stuff. Winter is also when I regret not buying a car with a remote start.  As you can see my quest to find the joy in January is a work in progress.

One thing I do know is that winter is a good time to try new soup recipes and a bowl of flavorful soup is a joy.  This week another soup from Real Simple Magazine.

I made a few changes. I used 1 lb of ground pork and 1/2 a lb of ground turkey. I didn't have mirin so I used pinot grigio and I used 3 tablespoons of grated ginger. 1 tablespoon in the meatballs, 1 tablespoon sauteed in the pot and then 1 tablespoon more when the soup was done. I also added a splash of oil when the soup was done because it needed a little something more and toasted sesame seed oil was the right little something.  Lastly, my grocery store didn't have baby bok choy so I cut up 1.5 full-size bok choy like you would cut celery.  (see below)

Happy Sunday!