Happy November! Thanksgiving is Coming and I'm in Holiday Planning Mode #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 

How was your first week of November?  I feel pretty good about mine. I ordered our Christmas photo cards from Walgreens. I ordered a few heat-and-serve side dishes from Boston Market for our Thanksgiving Feast, it's a family Tradition. I took down the Halloween decorations, left up all the general fall decorations, and added my Thanksgiving decorations. This year I finally got a blow-up turkey for our front yard, something I've been wanting to do for years but the price wasn't right until this year! I also ordered a couple of Thanksgiving-themed Snoopy shirts. Fun for me and fun to wear when I work at the school with kiddos. Plus I canvassed twice for my congressman, and we completed and dropped off our mail-in ballots. 

I also sent my Tastefully Simple recipe newsletter  Here is a link to it if you'd like to check it out click here

What have you been up to? Do you happen to have any fun Christmas-themed reads you can recommend to me? Esp. if I can do an audiobook--

Today I'm finishing Cold Days another book in the Harry Dresden Files and I will have a review on either Monday or Tuesday. Then I'm diving into a Lucy Stone Thanksgiving-themed mystery! 

#TheSundayPost -- It's Sunday Already?

 

The Sunday Post is a weekly 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 our blog for the week ahead.  See rules here: Sunday Post Meme

Hello!  How was your week?  For me, this was a week that flew by, except for the part when I was doing my 9-mile long run, that part of my Saturday went by very slowly. But I finished the whole 9 miles, hooray for me!  Next week double digits! I also made the decision to start selling Tastefully Simple again, I really loved my days talking about and selling food and I'm excited to do it again!  

I didn't get as much reading done as I was planning on reading, but that was due to watching a couple of very entertaining TV shows on Netflix. The first show we watched has two seasons but we accidentally watched season two before season one. It's called The Mire  97 it's a Polish show and it's about a murder in a small town.  Super entertaining.  And then I wanted to watch something without subtitles, but nothing caught my eye until I saw a preview of Biohackers  This is a German show, it's a thriller about shady scientific research and illegal gene manipulation, the main characters are compelling and I feel like I know enough German to occasionally follow a line or two of dialogue.  I recommend both shows. 

Reading for this week, my hold on Last Chance Books was available, so I'm reading that this week as well as Floor Time by Liz Crowe and The Ghost and Mrs. McClure by Cleo Coyle.

Focusing On What I Can Control!

Read some breaking news alerts about the Coronavirus.  It's really disappointing that this is a novel virus and not just a fancy way of saying you drank too much beer and have a hangover.

I may need to reallocate seven minutes of worry today from cancer to the coronavirus.  Where is my worry time most effective?  Oh yes, that's right.  Worrying doesn't have any actual power to do anything except possibly raise my blood pressure.

So as always, it's best to focus on what you can control.  One thing *I* can control is the answer to the question: "What's for Dinner?"  Yesterday I toiled away at a freezer meal workshop and now I have ten meals prepped in my freezer.  Okay technically it wasn't a toil, and I actually have only 9 meals left because I cooked one last night.

This was my first attempt at a homemade pot pie.  It's Chicken Broccoli (and ample tasty cheese)

This is what it looked liked prepped. Becky McNeill coordinated the event so we used Tastefully Simple products, this was a nice shortcut option. 

And here it is golden brown!

What I learned is that when you make a pot pie in a disposable foil pan, you should put the pan on a cookie sheet when baking or it's difficult to take out of the oven and you will likely break the top crust like I did here.  My smiley face is a little cracked!

I also learned you should let the baked pot pie sit for a while before you cut it or it will probably look like this on a plate.  But I was hungry!

I sprinkled paprika on top.  Paprika goes well with chicken/cheese and broccoli. I give this dish 4 out of 5 stars-would recommend- will make again!

I was pretty tuckered out last night but this will make dinners for the remainder of my radiation a breeze. I think we are going to do another workshop once spring arrives and prep meals for the grill.  I loved grilling out, especially since The Man is Griller in Chief.  :-)

Committing to writing weekly and a new adventure

I have goals for this year. One of which is to blog twice a week.  I have not managed to achieve this goal as of yet, but the time is now!  I'm naming it and claiming it and all that jazz.  Here is the first of many 2018 post from me to you.

So to begin, how have you been?  Well I hope.  Over at my house we have been continuing to duck and weave against that flu going around. May we continue to avoid it and may it be gone and Spring arrive ASAP.

In the big news to start the year category, I retired from Tastefully Simple  after 15 years.  I am very excited to enjoy only having one job (in addition to the raising of the teens and so on and so forth). One of the ways, I am enjoying my free time is to work on writing more.  Clearly not here on my blog thus far, as I've been quite lax in posting.  Anyway I'm proud to say I am now a contributor for Project Fandom !  It's a great website and podcast devoted to all things entertainment.  My first assignment was a book review for the book The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley. You can read my review here. 

Next month I start my first TV series review for the website, and yes I'm nervous about that, a reoccurring six episode assignment. This is as close to my childhood dream of being a newspaper reporter coming true.  I'm reporting weekly on a TV show, you see a parallel right?  Close enough to call it a dream come true?  I say yes!  Make sure to follow, like and share Project Fandom on your social media,. As I  said it's a great place to keep up on all your favorite movies, comics, TV shows and book--and find new favorites as well.

That's what is new with me. Next week I will have more new with me news.  So stay tuned! In the meantime, Williams-Sonoma  sent me an email recipe, as they do daily, and I was pleasantly surprised to find I have everything on hand to make it for dinner. It's a sheet pan recipe and it looks delicious.  You can see it here: Mexican Stuffed Peppers with Chipotle Sweet Potatoes.  Looks good, right?  If you are a Pinterest user, you can find it on my "Sheet Pan Recipes" board and my name is Victoria7401 if you want to follow me.

Thanks for reading!  Have a great day!