Not the cookbook I was looking for

I tend to buy a lot of books, especially cook books or anything relating to food, and I'd been given a Kindle for my last birthday, so I buy them, download them, and wait for time to read them.  I had a few minutes to look at a book, and I wanted to look over some recipes, and one of the books had a picture of pickled preserves on the front and a cute title (Heaven Preserve Us) and I thought: hmm, I want to make some pickled eggs, maybe there are some good tips in here.  So I tap the cover and start reading...and it is really interesting, and good, but its a story.  I kept going, thinking it was an introduction into why the author had written a preserves book and...at the end of the chapter finally looked.  It was a cozy mystery!  Not a cook book at all. So I'm glad to have started it, but disappointed there wasn't a pickled egg recipe!

I love e-books, but I wonder if this would have happened with a paper-and-glue sort.  I'd have known picking it up that it wasn't the cook book I was aiming for.  Still, not a bad happenstance.  I got to start a new story that I might not have grabbed for a while. Sometimes mistakes can make us happy, too.

sound alike?

I was listening to the radio in the car the other day at a very low volume, and a song came on.  My brain started to fill in the lyrics because I could only hear the melody a little bit, but then I realized it wasn't the song I thought it was.  I turned the volume up. But, still, I've gone to listen to the two songs and I think a small portion of one sounds like a small portion of the other.  Just curious if anyone else can hear the same thing?

So, the Muse song Panic Station.  And Michael Jackson's Thriller.

I know!  Very different songs.

But the bit in the Muse song where it goes:

Ooh, 1, 2, 3, 4 fire's in your eyes
And this chaos, it defies imagination
Ooh, 5, 6, 7 minus 9 lives
You've arrived at panic station

Against the part of the Thriller song, where it goes:

You close your eyes
And hope that this is just imagination
But all the while
You hear a creature creepin' up behind

Give or take a little bit, since the speed and the lyrics don't really match exactly.

Obviously, not the rest of either song, but just that little bit.

risotto in the crock-pot

I have some cooking away right now.

Did you know it was even possible?  Generally recipes call for constant, continuous, never-ending stirring at the stove-top to make risotto.  But, it can actually be made in the crock-pot.  It takes about 3 hours.

You cook up a few of the things on the stove-top, like onions and garlic, and the rice, and some of the liquid.  Then you put it into the crock-pot with the remainder of the ingredients, usually enough broth for the rice to absorb, and you leave the crock-pot on high for a bit, and ignore it.  When you come back 3 hours later--risotto!

I am a big fan of the crock-pot, for many reasons.  Braising tends to make things delicious (crock-pots essentially braise meat--long, wet cooking time).  And the crock-pot doesn't use as much energy as using the stove.  Plus, you can make a lot, and then save the leftovers--and then you have lunch or dinner the next day!

What Goes Around...

...comes around. 

I've heard that saying for a long, long time.  I suppose it must be associated, also, with the idea of karma.  That you reap what you sow. 

It isn't a singular saying, we have a lot of them for this concept.

And then there are some days, where I can't help but hope it might be true.  Some days, in your daily dealings, you come across people who could be much nicer and kinder, but just aren't. Those are really tough people to put behind you, because they can be so insidious.

I won't be around to see if what they dished out will come back to them, and perhaps this isn't very magnanimous of me, but I wouldn't be terribly sad if things came back around again to them. 

*takes extra super deep breath*

Okay, so I am going to go and indulge in some reading--a happy, fluffy story will get my mind off people with mean insides, and I will drink some mint tea with honey in it, and fall asleep and dream of nice things, like spring flowers and gardening, and choosing roses to put out on my back deck this year.

pot hole season

I couldn't help but notice all the pot holes that have developed in the roads over the winter.  They're starting to get pretty bad.

Last year at this time I had a truly harrowing pot hole experience where I hit a series of exceptionally deep ones, and busted both tires on one side.  Two tires at once!  It was pretty spectacularly terrible.

Lately, I feel like when I got out on the roads that I'm driving an obstacle course.

Here's hoping that Spring comes soon, and the road crews can get out there and patch things up!

Small colds

Last year I was very lucky and didn't get hardly a single cold.  This year I must have passed under a darker sign, because this is the fourth or fifth cold of the season. 

All I crave right now is soup, more soup, and maybe some tea with honey in it.

Also, a very looooooong sleep tonight in a warm bed.

It does make it quite difficult to get things done.  But, again, I'll keep thinking of it as research.  If my last cold was years ago, then perhaps I would have forgotten too much about it to write it very well.  Hmmm.  If I write a character being ill, perhaps my own cold will seem much less worse.  Just by comparison, mind you.

My short story "The Way to a Fisherman's Heart" just published yesterday!  It is included in an Anthology of a collection of wonderful stories (of which I just started reading myself, and they are very, very good).

The description for the Anthology:
"Just because there's snow on the roof, doesn't mean the fire's gone out in the furnace." There's something to be said for maturity and experience, and in all of these relationships, at least one of the lovers is over forty. Whether it's a May/December romance, a second chance at love, or finding a soul mate later in life, these stories prove that it's never too late for love.

Here's a link to the book:   Snow on the Roof

And a story description!

Jim loves fishing, but there's more than just the water and fresh air that lures him out to the fishing hole.  Franklin is often there, with tips and tales of a well-spent lifetime of angling.  He's rugged and handsome, with a deft hand at the sport, and he draws Jim's attention each time they're together. Will there ever be a right moment for Jim to find out if the attraction is mutual, or will this be the one that got away?