Writer in progress

Since I last wrote, after 4 years of renting, we bought a townhome. It's so wonderful to have a place of our own, that I'm happy to see that mortgage payment leave our account each month! We *finally* timed a real estate purchase properly! Plus, our townhome is the very rare kind that has our own small fenced backyard and there is no association! No fees and we can landscape as we want!

Tomorrow the Man and I are headed out to purchase our garden seedlings and get my raised bed started!  I'm planning on Fresh tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, parsley, basil, and thyme.  It's the little things.  I'm so grateful to be able to raise fresh produce in our backyard.

On the reading front, I, not too long, ago reviewed a lovely book for Project Fandom and you can see the review here.  If you are looking for a captivating story to read this summer, this is an excellent choice!

The school year is wrapping up and our oldest GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL. We are very lucky to live in-district for our local community college so Mr. P is able to continue his education, close to home and get those required classed completed at the lowest cost possible.  At work, I see tuition bills for schools from coast to coast and the average cost of a year at a 4-year college/university is more than I make in a year.  Now it is true I don't make a ton of money but should college cost  $30, 40 grand a year? It makes it unaffordable for most people to attend, or they suck it up and take out loans they are still paying back in their 50s.

Alright, I'm off my soapbox.  Now back to me.  I've been working on my book. It has no title, but I have the series name already picked out.  I call it "Creating Cakes: Book 1."  My plan moving forward is to post with some consistency on this blog and share how the writing is going. Also, I plan to do a bit of crowdsourcing for some of my editorial decisions. 

I hope you will stay tuned and provide your two cents as I write.  Here is my first bit of crowdsourcing, my first chapter is in decent shape.  If I had it here to read, would you be interested in reading it if there was a $1.00 fee for the chapter and that fee offered future VIP perks?  Comment below and let me know!

The Grad enjoying the best present ever, Hamilton Tickets!

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!