How many activities can I squeeze this Summer? Chicago offers and embarrasment of riches.

Summer is here! Kids are out, the sun is high, and the humidity is rising. June is my favorite month. We get lots of sun, I'm on a summer schedule, and the days are still getting longer.  June is like the Friday of summer. Everyone, for the most part, is in a good mood knowing we still have Saturday (July) and Sunday (August) ahead of us.

I aim to enjoy this summer to the fullest; and that is easy to do with the multitude of  outdoor concerts, festivals, and community events  taking place in Chicago. To kick things off, me and the family, are going to go to the Printers Row Lit Fest and Blues Fest this weekend. I'm looking forward to picking up some new books, meeting authors, and then enjoy fabulous music against the gorgeous background of Chicago's skyline.

Writing wise, here's what I'm up to this week.  First of all, I skipped writing for a couple days but I am definitely increasing how often I am writing and it helps to keep that momentum going. I continue to struggle with when is the best time for me to write, and I am still very easily distracted.  I think that as I continue to build up my writing stamina this will get better? I hope.  My philosophy is writing is like running, don't think about it just do it. I mean, Nike said it best, right?

Have a great Monday!
xoxo

What's in my ear holes this week? #HitParade and #Keepit!

If you haven't taken advantage of the amazing world of podcasts, you need to start listening now! There literally hundreds of amazing podcasts on any subject you can possibly imagine.  Have a hobby?  Have an interest?  Want to catch up on World History or listen to a fictional tale?  All is yours in the land of podcast.  But wait there's more! Almost all are offered free to you the listener, so put a podcast your ear holes today!

One of my new favorite podcasts is Hit Parade from Slate. You don't have to be well versed in popular  music to find it fascinating.  One recent episode discusses how the Billboard Top 100 changed a few years ago to include You Tube music video plays vs. just purchases of music. Most interesting was learning that if someone makes a parody or fan video and uses the original song audio; that fan video or parody counts toward the original song's number of plays.  So when a song goes viral with a dance, like the Harlem Shake, and thousands of people film themselves dancing--the original song gets the credit.

You can listen to the latest episode HERE (or at iTunes, Stitcher, etc.)

Do you like pop culture?  Ira, Kara and Louis give a weekly review of the biggest happenings in pop culture and call people on the absurdity of it all. They shade those who deserve it and point out whats good.  And they laugh, a lot.  It's infectious.  I look forward to Keep It hitting my feed each week.

You can find the latest Keep It HERE (or at iTunes, Stitcher, etc.)

Gardening at Night

Not really but it is the song title of a good REM song that was released 26 years ago.




Me and the Man have been gardening by day.  Last weekend it was cloudy and the temps didn't get above 55,  and this weekend we are in the 90s!  Look, one thing Chicago weather  can be counted on for is its unpredictability.  This however is beyond the typical fluctuations.

 I hope my plants aren't too upset about being planted in this heat.  Some people think you can communicate with plants, I don't see any harm in talking to them so if you seem me mumbling in the garden , I'm just trying to raise happy plants. I haven't had a backyard garden in eight years, so I want generous plants that provide us with tasty yields of cherry tomatoes, squash, and orange heirloom peppers.

On writing, I am closing in on a scene that will take place in a local library.  I need to go visit the library so I can refresh myself with the layout and general vibe. However, I don't see myself making it over there until next Friday at the soonest.  What I have decided is the best course of action for me is to keep writing daily and not wait until I actually go  the library. I can add in details and switch things around as necessary after my visit. Otherwise, I'll use my upcoming library field trip as an excuse to skip writing for the next week. I'm quickly learning writing is much easier if I write something, anything daily, versus saving up until that magic moment when I have "extra time".  I know myself well enough to understand that I am incredibly good at finding other things I *must* do instead of writing!

Happy Tuesday!
xoxo

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!

Snow Day

An unexpected snow day arrived today. Unexpected in that we didn't know a large snow fall was going to be occurring at this time last week. Expected if you watched any local Chicagoland News the past 72 hours.

If you ask me, all large snowfalls should occur on Fridays. This gives everyone who can work from home or skip work the opportunity of sorts for a bit of a 3 day weekend. It also allows two days for roads to be cleared for the Monday commute.

I'm grateful that if we must have a bunch of snow in February,  it has occurred this Friday and not next Friday.  Both Anna and Patrick are heading to Disney (and Universal) for their respective music department trips and these trips have been months (Patrick) and years (Anna) in the making.

Additionally I'm grateful that when it comes February snows,  I'm able to look at it this way; snow in February is just one last hurdle before we welcome Spring. Yes, I'm well aware it often snows in March, but IDC, IDC.  March is virtually Spring.

If you are snowed in, and are looking for something to binge, let me recommend Altered Carbon on Netflix Great futuristic show, 10 episodes so perfect for a snowy weekend.

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!

We tried Blue Apron! And I am so behind on my holiday shopping

Who else can't believe that it's already 2 weeks until Christmas?  I'm in big trouble as I have barely started shopping! Don't tell Patrick but I am hoping he will like his 'big present' I went out on a limb as he didn't ask for this, but I got tickets to see Hamilton! Cheap seats to be sure, but still a big expense. This afternoon he was singing a song from the show so I think he will be excited.
Fingers crossed.

Then for BMO all he wants is one thing...a Nintendo Switch. Ugh they are $299 and you can't get any good deal on those.  Don't let anyone tell you kids aren't expensive.

picture from digitaltrends.com

Anna wants a few items, including REAL Ugg boots.  I was hoping Uggs weren't really a thing anymore, but apparently they are, and only REAL Uggs are acceptable.  I don't know that Uggs will be happening. I just don't see the value in purchasing the 'real' boots when the basic style are $20 - $30 and function as well. Also they are bad for feet, they have zero arch support.

Clearly I'm already broke with these three kids. :)

I did get a nice deal from a coworker. She gave me a code for free meals from Blue Apron and I tried a couple of meals this week. Instead of three free two-person meals, I got two of the family meals, those serve four people. I knew at least one kid wouldn't like something about whatever meals I picked, so we would be fine, quantity wise.  Also,  I added extra potatoes for the sides with each meal so there was more food  for the man. I liked the quality of produce and meat that we received.  The steps were a bit more labor intensive than I had anticipated, but nothing too taxing.  The food was definitely restaurant quality and assuming that to eat at a restaurant is at least $12 per person, Blue Apron is less expensive and you can eat in your pajamas. I think we will get Blue Apron about once a month moving forward, it's easy to pick meals and I like to try new recipes.  Maybe at some point I'll be able to mince garlic fine enough to turn it into a garlic paste- something both my recipes asked me to do and I failed at doing.  

Braised Chicken & Smashed Potatoes with Olives, Herbs, & Broccoli

I liked the capers in the smashed potatoes, a nice way to add flavor!

Shiitake & Hoisin Beef Burgers with Miso Mayonnaise & Roasted Sweet Potatoes

You top the burger with baby bok choy.  This was easy to make and I'll use the recipe again.  

So far I'm enjoying the Blue Apron, basically it's meals I would try at a restaurant that I can  make at home without too much effort. I'm looking forward to see what recipes come up in 2018!

November Recap!

Happy  Thanksgiving! I hope you had a lovely one.  I have been neglectful of my blog, because I have been participating in my first NaNoWriMo!  One month, 50,000 words,  1667 new words  per day.  I was keeping up for the first couple of weeks, getting up at 5:30AM to try and put as many words down as possible.  Well I managed to stress myself out so much I was having trouble sleeping by day 14.   Writing a book is something I want to do and not hate doing, so I decided to focus on writing everyday and not counting the words.  I had to take a break from obsessing over winning the month, and rebalance.  In the end, I finished November with over 30,000 words.

If you ask me, I think this was a great first year effort and I'm feeling good about my Cozy Mystery book in process:  Temporary Name: Creating Cakes, Book 1, (I'm looking for a punny title but have come up short so far)  Creaking Cakes, Book 1 is about 25 percent finished and I'm excited with where I am going,  as I recently introduced my main character "Jane" to her future love interest "Mr. Northmen"  He  looks like this...

(picture from pindaddy.com )


He is an 8th Grade teacher. Yes, picture Keanu Reeves as a middle school teacher.  Jane just ran into him while volunteering at the school this past Friday.  I could go on, but I should focus on actually writing the book not writing about writing the book.

For Thanksgiving I tried a new turkey cooking recipe and that bird turned out delicious!   The high heat locked in the juices. After it was done, I lowered the temperature and cooked the sides.  Anna made the mashed potatoes with a recipe from Williams-Sonoma.

If you are going to make a turkey for Christmas,  you have got to try this recipe!  So easy and it works! The Simplest Roast Turkey, is a recipe by famed chef Thomas Keller which I found on the Epicurious website. Give it a try and you can feel that you are in the rarified air of professional chefs when you serve this roast turkey to your family!

Happy December!  Happy Advent !  Has this been a long year or what? 

Thanks for reading today and I'll blog again much sooner. 

xoxo

Deadly Brew, from the Dewberry Farm Series. And the answer to the Question , What is a Dewberry?

Deadly Brew by Karen MacInerney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I got this book through my kindle unlimited subscription, I chose it because I was looking for Seasonal Cozy Mysteries and this takes place around Halloween. It's book 3, so ideally I would prefer to read the series in order, but I wasn't paying attention and didn't realize it was third in the series. About 3/4 of the way through this mystery, I started listening to the Audio Version of Book 1 (Killer Jam). I'll be finishing that and reviewing it very soon.

I enjoyed this book, it was fairly easy to surmise who the killer was, but the why took longer, which is fine with me. I enjoy both the mystery and the why's when I read Cozy Mysteries. I will be catching up with this series by mid November and then I'll be looking forward to book 4 (Mistletoe Murder) to be out December 11th---a Christmas Themed book! (I like those holiday reads and I'm not going to apologize for it.)

There are a few reasons why I am enjoying this series. First, Lucy our protagonist is in her 30s and a former Houston reporter. She has lived some life before we met her and I find that to be a big plus. Second, the mystery takes center stage, i.e. we don't get a subplot where Lucy is filled with angst over a man. Third, I enjoy the small farm setting, Lucy and her friends are environmentally conscious; it's not an overt message of caring for the environment and being responsible, but it is there, interwoven into the books' adventures.

My only issue with the series is that I don't feel that the writer has provided enough description of what the characters look like- I don't know if this is because I began on book 3, or I'm reading too fast and missing it or if the writer has done this on purpose.

All in all, it's a good Cozy Mystery series, especially enjoyable for me is Lucy learning how to homestead at her family farm. Here you can see the first book in this series: Killer Jam

View all my reviews

 Now what is a Dewberry? Have you heard of Deweberries before? I had not. Turns out they are very similar to blackberries and grow throughout the Northern Hemisphere. One type is know as Texas Dewberry and that is found in ...wait for it... Texas (and some of Louisiana). They ripen before blackberries so that is a plus for anyone who loves berries. You can find out more here

First Annual Family Halloween Craft Day #ThrowbackThursday

 

With the kids being teens, I see the writing on the wall, our time together as a family under one roof is limited.  Therefore, I'm on a memory making mission.  Heck I even put Throwback Thursday on this post so it will be easy to find in 5 years when Anna goes off to college and I'm a giant puddle of nostalgia.

This past Saturday was declared by me as Family Craft Day.  The craft I chose was Halloween Mason Jars.  You may notice we didn't actually use Mason Jars. Being frugal and ecofriendly, I saved jars, soaked off the labels and we were set. I still have about 6 jars we can use for Christmas Crafts. 

 Should you be looking to make your own Halloween Luminaries, there are literally thousands of different webpages like this one, and Pinterest Pins devote to this craft.   I got buy-in for this craft project from 2 of 3 kids, so I took it as a win and we are now enjoy the whimsical fruits of  our labors.

 I also spent some time being creative in the kitchen and here is what I came up with for Sunday Dinner.  Jewel had a sale on pork loin, so I paid $11 for a loin I cut into 5 pork roasts. Such a Deal!  I froze all but one for future meals. This one I first covered with Garlic Garlic, Onion Onion, salt and pepper and seared it on all sides in a cast iron skillet.  Then I placed the roast in a roasting pan and added a couple of sliced apples, an onion, 4 potatoes and 4 wedges of cabbage.  I seasoned the vegetables and poured 1/2 cup of Pomegranate Balsamic Vinegar over everything.   I covered the pan with aluminum foil and roasted  until the pork roast was fall-apart tender ( 300 degrees F for about 3 hours). It worked out really well. The sweet/sour/savory flavors melded together quite well. Tom and I enjoyed ours with a Ballast Point Pumpkin Ale.