Christian Fiction?

 Why are my books labeled 'Christian Fiction'? It's very simple. When I write I don't dictate what is happening so much as my subconscious just lets things fall out of it onto the page. Apparently, my characters have a basic belief in a Christian God and pray. It just happens as I write and I don't edit those bits out.  

I know this is highly offensive and radical in this day and age but I'm the author and if you don't like it, don't read my books. These books are not preachy but they abide by Christian principles and so they get that label. Being Christian is not a main theme - that generally tends to be family relationships. 

I have a lot of fun when I write and I like to indulge my sense of humor. Books that make me laugh are my favorite. I hope you enjoy them too. 

Still Here

Nope, I haven't died yet. I know you were all wondering. It's like this; my father died several years ago and he was my biggest writing cheerleader. It's been hard to write anything since then. Everything stalled out, books, blog, you name it. But I've moved my books over from Smashwords to Draft2Digital so that's step one. 

I'm posting here so that's step two. 

Next, I will finish my third book, The Book Between Us. It's been nearly finished for a very long time. I just haven't had the heart to finish it and publish it. It's a light-hearted tongue in cheek book and feeling sad every time I write hasn't been the correct mood to polish this particular book off. 

But time passes, wounds heal and sunshine comes back to my soul. 

Book Trama

 It seems like I haven't posted a hypocritical book rant lately. Since I had surgery and I can't do much yet and I'm bored out of my mind I think it's about time I did.

Know what I'm sick of? Traumatizing books. Seriously. Don't you think there's enough trauma in life already? Why do we have to read about it too? There are ways of having conflict and meaning in a book without requiring the reader to have therapy for the next ten years. 

I read a lovely book the other day and read the reviews for it. So many people complaining about how it wasn't detailed enough with the tragic factors in it. Really? Is this what we've come to? 

What's so wrong about reading something that actually makes us feel good when we're done? Why are positive feelings considered 'trite' and negative feelings considered 'real'? 

Why do people feel the need to justify the fact that they liked something uplifting, constructive and good?

We've got a weird kind of prejudice in this world where optimistic things are, at best, dealt with in a patronizing tone and at worst vilified as unreal and damaging. 

This kind of idea has crept into the way we deal with others too. What happened to giving others the benefit of the doubt? What happened to assuming others are not being deliberately malicious? What happened to extending grace to the imperfections of others and forgiving that lack of perfection? 

Maybe it's time to take a step back and evaluate our own
lives, our own behavior our own humanity and make some changes that we actually have some control over - ourselves.

I'm Back! And you know what that means!

 

You know what this means, right? 

You guessed it. Sick again. I can't complain. It's been a long, long time since I've felt lousy enough to post on this blog! (Or even remember it exists.) 

Aren't you glad you're such a priority in my life? 

It also means I've been writing sub par novels again!

I don't know if my reading public can handle all this excitement.  

So I've been digging around my files and found the novel that I'd almost completed and I've been - well- completing it.  

I know what you're thinking. Why would I inflict the general public with another book? Because I can. Self publishing has made this all too easy but there's always hope. The technology may have outstripped my middle aged ability to decode it. I may never be able to convert it into the proper ebook format. It may never make it into the vast ocean of self published anonymity. 

Stay tuned for the rest of this gripping tale...

Planning Menus Isn't the Same as Cooking

 

As if this blog isn't eclectic enough already, today we're talking menus! Oh boy! 

I should state here and now that I hate cooking. Motivating myself to get a meal on the table is a daily challenge. For years the kids cooked all the meals. Then they went and grew up and got jobs, got married, went to school and all that. The nerve. 

Anyway, there are three adult children still in my house - ie - the unmarried ones. (Anyone know a matchmaker? Ha ha... just kidding... but no, really is that still a thing? Asking for a friend.) One works, one is in school full time and one is doing a service mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

That leaves me cooking more often than I like - which is more than ... well... never.

Today I was talking to a friend who loves to cook but hates coming up with menus. I don't mind making menus. I have definite opinions about what I want to eat and in what combinations. I just object to the whole 'cooking' part. 

So here is a sample of menu planning that we are in the middle of preparing and eating. 

It all started by getting a rotisserie chicken from Costco. 

Meal # 1. Rotisserie Chicken with Stovetop stuffing (I like it okay? Leave me alone.) and frozen mixed vegetables. (Green beans, carrots, peas, and corn)

So then I have left over chicken.  That leads to:

Meal #2. (See photo above.) Cobb Salad (romaine lettuce, feta cheese, tomatoes, green peppers, green onions, avocado, bacon, chicken, boiled eggs) and homemade bread (bread maker - hey I'm not a masochist)

Since I'm cooking up bacon for the cobb salad, I cook all the bacon in preparation for:

Meal # 3 BLTS (bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches) with chilled fresh watermelon on the side. 

Ok, so can I just say something here? This is good bacon. The real thing that we bought from a local farmer. I don't know what that weird other white meat they sell in grocery stores is, but there's no way that's pork. No. Don't buy that garbage. Find yourself a nice farmer who raises pigs and get the good stuff. 

The other thing we did after constructing our cobb salad was to put the chicken carcass in a crock pot with some veg and now we're making bone broth, which we will make into gravy. As it should be. Have I mentioned my love affair with gravy? Pretty sure I have somewhere on this strange blog. Which leads us to:

Meal #4 Mashed potatoes, with chicken and gravy and fresh carrots with dip. Pure comfort food. 

So that's sets us up for a new round of anything we want. I'm thinking:

Meal #5 Ruebens (Sandwiches with corned beef, swiss cheese, pickle, and sauerkraut on rye bread) with cherries on the side - it is cherry season after all. And let's not forget a few potato chips. 

Meal #6 Do it yourself burritos. This is a great, quick meal. You put out all the stuff and let everyone make their own. Generally, ours involves taco meat, refried beans, cheese, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, sour cream, corn, salsa, guacamole, and black olives, but you can do it anyway you want. Seriously, this is quicker than fast food. 

Meal # 7 Chinese night. Stir fry on rice, wonton soup, and egg rolls. So great. 

This is easy too. We get a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables and fry them with no sauce. We have a variety of sauces and everyone picks their own. The wontons we get frozen from Costco and use some broth (vegetable or chicken are both good) to cook them in with some fresh green onions sliced up with it. There's an Asian market near us so we get our spring rolls there. We fry them up and for dessert - cream cheese wontons - my favorite! Sometimes we'll fry up some potstickers too. It all depends on what we feel like. 

And there you have it. A week of meals. 

      

Minimalist? Not Yet.

Like everyone else during this pandemic, I've been clearing out my house. I actually do this from time to time but this time - this time I'm digging deep. I've been clearing out... (drum roll)... shoes.

Yeah, you heard me right. I said shoes. I've become a reformed shoe-aholic... at least I hope so. It's been a while since I've fallen off the wagon and I have to stay vigilant and I don't allow myself to cheat.

I only allow myself a pair of shoes if I've completed 50 workouts. Yes, I mean exercise. It's my reward for doing it. I had to think of something that really motivated me.

Thing is, I've discovered something. I can live without all those shoes. I didn't know that. I can even live without buying them. (gasp) 

For my reward, I started out buying whatever my heart desired but for the past year I carefully weighed what I wanted then after a while I started carefully weighing what I needed. When it comes to shoes, this is a completely foreign concept. And, I think you'll agree, an enormous step forward. 

For my reward this time I bought a pair of shoes to replace a pair that needs to be pitched. Weird. Who ever would have thought that would happen to me? After 50 gut busting workouts I bought replacement shoes! I have so matured.

Let's not forget all the shoes I've given away or thrown away. So many. Too many to reveal here. It's too embarrassing. But that's all behind me now! I am a new woman!

I am proud to say, I've got the total count down to less than 40!!! Hooray! 

What? I said I wasn't a minimalist yet!  Sheesh.

White Cabinets

When my husband and I first got married in 1991, we moved into a quirky, downstairs apartment. It was the basement of a duplex that hadn't changed much since it had been built - probably in the 1950's. There was something in the kitchen I loved. White cabinets. In the 1990's white cabinets were a rarity, most were made of oak. Any that weren't already oak were doomed to a gruesome fate.

So why did I like my white cabinets? Because I could see every little dirty speck on them. If I saw a speck, I could wipe it up - walah! Clean cabinets! It took a couple seconds every so often to keep them looking crisp and clean.

 I've had quite a few apartments over my renting days and had all kinds of interesting (we'll use the word charitably here) cabinet materials over the years and I can tell you, by the time I realized they were dirty I had a nasty task ahead of me. It would take buckets of soap and loads of elbow grease to get whatever horrors were encrusted off of there. I really prefer the whole, 'quick swipe of the rag and I'm done' - method. Clean as I go, nice and easy.

Fast forward to our first (and only) home purchase. We moved into our current home in 1999. I thought we'd live here about five years (I say this 21 years later) and I thought after about a year in our home we'd be upgrading the kitchen into something thrilling. So we went with builder basic. It didn't matter. We were going to tear it all out anyway (ah, so young and naïve). That meant oak cabinets.

Don't get me wrong, I like oak. There is nothing more beautiful than oak that's 100 years old and has a gorgeous warm patina. Mission style oak also has a beautiful finish. But brand new oak? Light oak with a coat of polyurethane on top? Blah.

The company my husband worked for went under about 4 months after we moved in. He found work 6 months later and I realized we would not be upgrading our kitchen any time soon.

After realizing we also would not be moving any time soon, I did something that horrified everyone I knew. I painted my oak cabinets white (gasp!). Oak was the fashion, but I painted them anyway.

It's been 17 years of white cabinets. Do I regret it? No. Have I ever regretted it? No. When white cabinets finally came in style, everyone suddenly thought I was some kind of style forecaster - ahead of my time - amazingly fashion forward!!!

When white cabinets are dated (trust me, they will be) I will be outdated, and not in a good way (is there a good way? hmmm... another post, another time perhaps). Will my cabinets still be white? Yes. Will my children and children's children be horrified that my cabinets are still white? Yes. Will that make me change them? No. Not only do they look clean, I know they are clean. I think if 17 years and 5 children hasn't changed my mind, then it's pretty safe to say I like white cabinets.

I've got a story for that!

People who know me well know I have a story for everything. These stories are things that come from my life, or the life of someone I know. If you name a topic, I've got a story. I'm famous for it. Well, okay, I'm not famous in any sense of the word, but you could say it's my super power. I suspect it has something to do with my crazy long term memory.

So, the other day, while I was sleeping, I dreamed I was asked to speak to a large congregation. The topic I was given was, 'How is a banana like seven days?'. As soon as I heard the subject I said, "I have the perfect story for that!". I even had a memento to go with the story. I was fully prepared.

I woke up from this dream and rolled over and thought, "Great, now I'm just making fun of myself," and went back to sleep.

Fortune Cookie (meaning quick post)

Overheard at my house today.

Kid #1 - Get back here!
Kid#2 - I gotta use the toilet!
Kid #1 - You gotta get back here and learn about chicken slapping!


And here I thought when they were adults these kinds of conversations would stop.

Kid Quotes 5

The infamous ham gravy.

Here is the last installment of Kid Quotes. The kids were quite young for these which is making me feel nostalgic.

41. Guess what happens when you leave chicken in the crock pot all day and all night and forget about it?

Chicken jerky.

I'm telling you; I'm never going to get this domestic gig figured out.
(Actually, I'd like to blame this one on my kids, but it was me.)

42.

Mathew instructing Benjamin in the ways of face washing: "...and then you have to pay attention to whether it says 'cream' or 'wash' because if it's a cream and you wash it off, it doesn't do any good and if it's a wash and you leave it on it BURNS!!"

I about died laughing. I think Mathew may be slightly offended now.

43. After being told to go brush her teeth, Sarah comes crawling into my room choking and gasps before passing out on my chair, "The bathroom stinks!"
No drama here.

44. Random Mathew quote: Those chocolate chips were morally incorrect so I ate them.

45. Me: You people need to get your work done. You're going to want to hang out with friends and I'm going to say, 'no! this place is a mess! do your chores!' and then you're all going to be all, 'waaaaaa!' So you may as well do them now.

Benjamin in an undertone to Sarah: Mom really knows us doesn't she?

Sarah quietly back: I know, right?

Ya know guys, some things don't take a genius.

46. How can a blue and green table cloth look like a dead yak?????

47. "I feel so smart spouting off facts in my glasses and you guys are all looking at me like, 'I think his glasses are on his head too tight.'"

48. Brian: We're out of ranch.
Me: The horror.
Brian: We need more.
Me: Too bad.
Brian: For a second I thought you understood the gravity of the situation.
(author's note: After posting this on facebook my neighbor shows up at my door with a bottle of ranch dressing and says, "I understand the gravity of the situation!" I have the best neighbors.)

49. My kids are threatening to juice the ham so it will make more ham gravy. They seemed to think putting it through a cider press would work best.

50. I'm officially loosing it. I drove the middle school carpool this morning and was out of the neighborhood and on my way to the middle school when I realized I had no kids in my car! I had to go back and get them.

51. Apparently, loading the dishwasher is the end of world as we know it.

_^52. Me: Hurry and get your shoes on.

Sarah: You're just enjoying ruling over me.
I walk away rolling my eyes.
Where, oh where does this attitude come from.... hmmm....

53. Mathew had his wisdom teeth out yesterday. On our way home he suddenly exclaimed, "I shouldn't be driving!" (he wasn't) "I thought those three girls were six girls back there!" (There were four girls). He also thought he could walk by himself when he got home and hit the garage door! I was too small to stop him. I should have brought Brian with me. Me helping Mathew alone was a joke.

54. Ham gravy again tonight. My kids were positively frolicking in it. One of them said he was going to put it on his cereal in the morning after which a serious discussion about exactly which cereal would taste best with ham gravy on it ensued.
(author's note - the decided on cereal was Corn Chex)

55. In the car James suddenly sits bolt upright and says, "We have to go to the store!
Me: "Why?"
James: "We left Brian home alone with the milk!"
Cue the horror movie music.

56.  made ham gravy tonight with dinner so James grabs some raw broccoli off the veggie tray and starts dunking it and says, "Everything tastes better with gravy on it." So naturally they all have to test the various vegetables out in the gravy. Trust my kids to come up with an incredibly unhealthy way to eat their veggies.

57. Mathew: This cut is getting infected.

James: I never get infections. I'm too sexy for that sort of thing.

Heaven help us all.

58. James has a cut that looks infected. Bad karma?

59.I think James is feeling better. He pretended to swat his sister and said, "This is the part where you freak out."
I said, "Let's just skip that part."
James said, "But that's my favorite part."
Sarah just sat there and ignored the whole thing. This is what comes of having 4 brothers.

60. After Richard asked James to do something tonight he added, 'and let's skip the routine where I have to ask you 15 times before you do it.'
James says 'Awww, but I like that routine!'
That would explain a lot. 

61, I was in Home Depot with James. We walk by a decorated Christmas tree. James says, "That's the fakest looking tree I've seen in my life!"
The problem?
It was real.
We've owned too many fake trees.

62. Mathew calls the cordless phone a portaphone.... now how am I supposed to not laugh at that?

63. Last night Sarah informed me she'd been dramatized. Normally I can hold it in, but this time I burst out laughing, at which she became even more dramatized.