Valerean

This is a first, right? Ha. Now you can see that I have never exaggerated about my white hair. I hope your Thanksgiving was fun. Ours was a huge hit, thanks to your suggestions. Both turkeys came out damn near perfect. Oliver fell asleep in my arms and slept through dinner, proving once again that he is the perfect grandchild. P.S. everyone went home with plenty of leftovers so no one has to cook this weekend. Anyway, I'm taking off today and the weekend because I earned it. :) See you on Monday.

Happy Thanksgiving -- and may your day be filled with family, food and fun. Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

I crossed the finish line at 4:00 pm today.

Trying today to see if I can do a text wrap on this post that doesn't look ridiculous. My grandmother never wrote down a recipe for any dish she made; neither did my dad. They just went into the kitchen and made magic, and both of them were fabulous cooks. My daughter is turning out to be the same way. I did not get that gift. I don't mind that I'll never be a chef. I'm a pretty good baker, as it turns out. I do enjoy cooking, too, as long as I have a recipe to follow and it isn't too complicated. Since I'm not able to toss ingredients together to make a delicious dish I've collected cookbooks and cooking magazines over the years; enough to fill this baker's rack. When I was younger Betty Crocker was my old reliable source; most of what I made for dinner dishes came from the big red BC cookbook my mom gave to me when I was a teenager. I still make quite a few for the family, only tweaked to be a little healthier. I now mix in vegan and diabe...

As a family we don't say grace or pray at the table. My guy and I are ex-Catholics (he's agnositc; I'm simply spiritual), and our children are not religious. We always try to respect the beliefs and practices of others, but the guests who will be here for Thanksgiving this year are also not religious. During a holiday dinner I always try to steer the conversation toward good memories, or things that are upbeat. I have lots of holiday cooking stories about my dad which are very happy. I'll also admit to my own disasters, which are pretty funny. I've tried the "Thing you're most grateful for" round the table conversation, but everyone groans when I do so I gave up on that. Bella Grace magazine sent me a link to a free printable list of conversation starters for Thanksgiving that are pretty interesting. I don't think I'll print them or hand them out, but they definitely give me some ideas. Relating to today's post image, I want to...

On behalf of all diabetics out there, here's a dessert you can make for Thanksgiving or the holidays that is sugarfree, vegan, and tastes delicious. Chocolate Nice Cream 2 overripe peeled bananas 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder 2 to 4 teaspoons of plant-based milk Freeze overnight the two bananas. I froze mine whole, but you can slice them up in advance, too. Chop the frozen bananas into thin slices or small chunks, and add to a food processor with 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder and 2 to 4 teaspoons of plant-based milk (it takes me 4 to get the right consistency.) Pulse in your processor (stopping and scraping down the sides a few times) until creamy. This does have a faint banana taste to it, but that works nicely with the chocolate flavor. To me it’s so much like ice cream I can’t tell the difference.

For Thanksgiving week I thought I'd share some recipes that are easy, delicious and actually make nice hostess or holiday gifts. This first one is a coffee cake recipe I found online and tweaked a bit. It's all made in one pan, doesn't require special ingredients, and comes out absolutely delicious. It's great as a breakfast treat as well as a dessert. My guy loves it so much I make it for him at least once a month. GRANDMA'S COFFEE CRUMB CAKE INGREDIENTS For the Crumb Topping: 3 tablespoons flour ¼ cup sugar ¼ cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon 3 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces Optional: Confectioner’s sugar to sprinkle on top after baking For the Cake: 2 cups all-purpose flour ¾ cup sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon 2 teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 1 tsp vanilla extract 5 tablespoons butter, softened 1 egg 1 cup milk INSTRUCTIONS 1. Preheat the oven to 375F. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan or layer cake pan. 2. In a smal...

One odd coincidence with my NaNoWriMo novel is that I will finish it on my 21st anniversary of becoming a pro writer. This is (partly) what that looks like in books: If I included all of the freelance and ghostwriter work I've done, there would be another four or five shelves. But these two contain what I published under my byline: When I think of all the work involved it really doesn't look like much. But I'm happy I got the chance to write these stories, and that's what counts. Over on the NaNoWriMo forums there was a writer asking for opinions about going the traditional publishing route or self-publishing. Since I've done both I replied, but I really thought about it first. I have no regrets about my career. I know it was a privilege to publish traditional. I'll always be grateful for the opportunities I was given. But traditional publishing and the people involved in it also took a lot out of me, and from me, often more than I ever imagined. ...

Ten Things I Would Change About the Writing Life Anthology Asses: I'd like to revamp the whole anthology system, but to start I'd have any editor of them sign a contract promising not to make ignorant or unkind personal remarks about a writer whom they earlier begged to contribute something. Said writer almost always finds out. I did, and that's why I never again accepted an antho invite. Books to Cons ratio: For every conference a writer attends, they should first write two stories (okay, I used to say novels, but with all the stress on writers these days that seems a little mean. So two short stories will suffice.) Disperse the Herd: After 20+ years of watching all the harm they've done, careers they've destroyed and general havoc they've created, I believe all writer organizations without exception should be disbanded and made illegal. Also, anyone thinking of start a new one should be sentenced to helping kids with their English homework, prefe...

With only nine days left in National Novel Writing Month I'm feeling fairly confident I'll cross the 50K finish line in the next week; I just passed 35K. I've been staying pretty much on course, making my quota of at least 1667 words a day. Last Sunday I wrote 3334 new words so I'm another day ahead of schedule. Starting to feel the burn a little, too -- I didn't take a break in between my last work project and this book -- and I want to get the next work project done early. Too ambitious, probably, but I'd rather push myself than drag my feet. I've been trying to be a better NaNo buddy this past week (Theo, you'll have to grade me on that) and also get over and read some of the topics on the NaNoWriMo forum. Instead of feeling ancient and saying nothing, this week I've made myself leave a few comments where I thought I contribute something useful. That's also good for me, and gives my high horse a rest. I have missed this, a lot. I thi...

Last night I dug through my scraps, and found the white-on-white fabric leftover from my mom's birthday quilt. It was just enough to back my frosty window piece and add two strips on the ends (it needed those to fit in Skye's crate.) Then I pulled a scrap piece of batting from my leftover batting bag that also fit. I love when that happens. Since I'm giving it to the dog, I'm not going to do any fancy embroidery. I'll just quilt it with silver and light blue holographic Sulky for some extra sparkle.

Thanks to some sketchy information I stumbled across on the internet, there's one possible reason for why I dislike the color yellow: I may be a tetrachromat. Like bees, I could have four types of color-sensing cones in my eyes (the norm for humans is three.) This is a mutation evidently in a slim percentage of the population. There's an online test here you can take to see how many colors you can detect (note: it's been debunked already, so this is just for fun.) Whether or not I actually have the mutation, I know I've always seen more colors than other people. It takes me forever to pick out paint or fabric by color because to my eye there are so many variations. I also regularly point out shades of color that family and friends tell me they don't see. Then I've been seriously irritated by the color yellow my entire life, which seems to be a prominent tell for tetrachromats. I'll never know for sure, but it's interesting to think that may b...

Since my neck has been feeling better I'm going to try to do another little art quilt in my Winter series. I thought I'd use only fabrics I picked up in the scrap stacks I bought at the county quilt show, so I pulled these: Rather than do another miniature art quilt, I decided to cut the pieces into strips of random lengths and sew them together ala Valerie Nesbitt's 40 minute scrap quilt top method. Since I only had four different fabrics I did sort the strips into piles, and sewed one from each to keep the colors from clumping together during the piecing. Here's how it turned out: I like the results; it looks a bit like a frosty window on a cold night with just bits of the sky and stars showing through (okay, if you squint it does.) So tomorrow I'll bat and back it, and then decide if I want to embroider it or just hand quilt it with some appropriately sparkly thread.

Here are three of the more unusual quilts I saw at the county quilt show: This was made as a wedding gift for a young bride and groom. The hearts contain hand-written messages from their family members and friends in the US and overseas. I thought it was a really lovely remembrance piece. I have never seen a wedding ring quilt made with Christmas novelty fabrics. Simple but very charming. This quilt's background was actually white, but the lighting and my camera turned it yellow. The colored fabrics used are from a line by Moda. I thought the composition was neat.

Yesterday I attended our county quilt show, which was moved from February to November by the local guild in hopes of attracting more traffic. I skipped the 2018 show because I was worried about catching the flu after the shots proved ineffective for about half the people who got them. So I was eager to attend this year's show. The above is my favorite quilt from the whole show. I love the colors and the optical illusion of movement it has. It felt so lovely to be at the show, too. I gave up all my sewing and quilting this month for NaNoWriMo, and I've missed it. I'll get all of my gripes out of the way first. There were a lot of machine-embroidered quilts this year, probably about a third of the entries, of which I'm not a big fan. They looked perfect, like something you'd buy in a store. The other quilts in the show were mostly simple patterned or kit quilts. I saw one whole cloth quilt, and no crazies at all. Almost everything was machine quilted, t...

We interrupt this blog for another grandmotherly moment: I took this pic of Katherine and Oliver to prove my hair DNA theory. Our boy has his Mom's nose and chin, but that hair is definitely from his aunt. I think he might have her eyebrows, too. P.S., neither of my kids look like me. People used to assume I was their babysitter.

By this time this appears on the blog I should be almost halfway to 50K with my novel for National Novel Writing Month. I'm also staying on schedule at the day job, something that worried me a bit. I'm a day ahead on my daily quota, so even if I can't write any extra words for the rest of the month I can take off on Thanksgiving Day and still make 50K. Not writing in my universe for the last five years hasn't hurt me. For the last week the words have just been pouring out of me every time I sit down to write. To keep from beaver-damming myself I've stopped back reading, and I edit only for typos during a fast sweep before I upload. I can't tell you if what I'm writing is decent. I really don't care. At this point I just want to enjoy writing what I like. I've been trying to get over to the forums at the NaNoWriMo web site and socialize a bit, but sometimes I feel positively ancient when I read certain discussions. I see a lot of me-at-13ne...

I found this in my old stories archives when I was looking for Twenty-One. I wrote it as a guest post for The Good, The Bad and The Unread waaaaay back in 2012. It's just as funny now as it was then (at least to me, anyway.) Revisiting the Vault When I had a chance to pitch to my publisher some new books set in the Darkyn universe, I didn’t just jump at the opportunity; I flung myself at it, knocked it down and sat on it until I had a contract. I was pretty sure this would make my readers, who have been asking for more Darkyn ever since my publisher ended the original series, very happy. I was also delighted, as I’d never had the time to write all the stories I’d wanted. Once I’d signed the contract, I took out all my old Darkyn files. While I’d never stopped thinking about the Darkyn, it had been a few years since I’d featured them as main characters. I wanted to look over things and chat with my immortals so I could explain the new venture. Of course I expected them t...

Our college kid decided to spend the weekend with us, so Saturday I doubled up on my wordcount quota so I could "take off" Sunday to spend with her. Then on Sunday night she went to bed early, so I wrote my daily quota anyway, and now I'm 1667 words ahead of plan. I can't always double up on my quota; it's actually pretty rare for me to do that. The free time + creative energy it requires is harder to come by, especially in the evenings, which is when I usually work on my NaNo novel. It takes me about two hours to write the daily quota. Twice that can take another two or three hours. Also, by the time I get to my writing session for NaNo, I've already spent eight to ten hours working at my day job plus whatever I needed to do for family and home. Still, on the days I do write more than my quota, or I can double up, I feel very good. It's like adding an extra couple of hours or even a whole day to November.

Some pics of the pumpkin decor at our farmer's market: I love this banner. I want this banner. I wish I could do something like this to decorate for Thanksgiving, but I don't have the room. Maybe a mini version . . . . I thought it was really clever, writing the recipe for pumpkin pie directly on the pumpkin. Wouldn't be the country without the classic hay bale, weird squash and wooden cart display. Now I'm definitely in the mood for Thanksgiving.

For Thanksgiving this year we've invited some guests from Oliver's mom's side of the family, so I have to start prepping now to get the house in shape for the big day. The first major thing is having the carpets cleaned, which we've scheduled for next week. This weekend I'll be cleaning out four rooms to get them ready for that. I started with my front dining room, which I use as my sewing room. It was kind of a mess already, so it felt good to get everything cleared out. We'll be having ten people at dinner plus two babies, so this will give me a chance to figure out how to arrange two tables in this space. I think this will be my last time hosting a big Thanksgiving gathering. Mike has started his family with a lovely girl who has a huge, close-knit family of her own, while Katherine will likely be off at grad school out of state for the next several years. I'm also not getting any younger. My guy and I will always celebrate Thanksgiving, but ...

Since this is my fifth year (not in a row) that I've participated in National Novel Writing Month, I thought I'd put together a list of: Ten Things I'd Change About NaNoWriMo A Return to Sanity by Getting Rid of the Change: I'd ditch the new website and go back to the old one. This new piece of crap website is not half as useful or fun, it's constantly glitching, and the Twitter-style messaging is simply pissing me off. People in the forums are seriously discussing starting their own site, and I'm with them. So: go back to what worked, and don't mess with it again. Ban Cheaters: Writing 50K in 30 days is hard freaking work, but you should be able to prove you did it. If you're caught cheating at NaNoWriMo by any means (and by anyone, even your mom), then you should be exposed and banned from participating. For life. Also, I personally think you should be publicly stripped and flogged by a writer who plowed through the thirty days and neve...

I think the first week of NaNoWriMo went well for me. I got my words down, and fell back into the groove of the story. I only had one time where I didn't make quota, and made up for what I lacked in the next session. I'm not feeling any burn from working on work and fun stuff each day. Quite the contrary. What I'd hoped -- that this would help recharge me creatively -- is one of the side effects I'm enjoying. It's also just nice to be me again on the page. In other, unrelated news, this arrived: I bought this vintage sewing basket from eBay, which I plan to clean up and turn into a holiday gift for my daughter. She likes retro, and this is definitely that. It's in good shape, and stuffed with notions. A lot of notions! She won't need all this stuff, so I get a couple presents too.

Today I didn't think I'd have the time to write a single word on my NaNoWriMo project. I had a massive project to finish for work (and work must come first), and that took me all day to wrap up. I even made my guy eat leftovers for dinner so I wouldn't have to cook. By the time I finished my work project I had about an hour and a half left to write for fun -- and I was tired. So tired, in fact, I considered skipping the fun, and then I thought, Nope. Give it a shot. So I did. I just wrote -- I didn't edit, I didn't worry about it, I didn't think -- I just had fun. I wrote right up until midnight, and then calculated my total, and made my daily quota. Okay, to be absolutely honest it was 12:07 when I stopped, but what's seven minutes, right? Some days I feel like I could do this gig all day every day. Then there are days (not many) like today when I actually do. This is when I really love National Novel Writing Month, right at this moment, when ...

Of all the (very few) things I don't hate about the new NaNoWriMo website , the simple wordcount updater is one of them. I hit the plus sign, enter my new total and click update, and I'm done. I also hunted around to see where the verification widget is now. According to what I read in the forums they've done away with it. So I no longer have to cut and paste my manuscript to get the win at the end of November. I think this is going to lead to a bit of cheating, but according to the forums some people had already been cheating on the old site, so there you go. One thing does puzzle me: why would anyone cheat at NaNoWriMo? So they can win? To impress friends? To get the t-shirt? I cannot fathom this. Anyway, to plan and track my wordcount goals these days I use Excel. It does all the math for me, and generates a list I can print out and put on my desk if I think I need daily visual prodding. A wordcount spreadsheet is especially helpful when you're add...

Our local Friends of the Library had a fill-a-bag for $3 sale, and I had some books to donate to them, so I stopped by and ended up with these gems. They're all in great to like-new condition. I enjoy Anne Perry's historical mysteries, and I think the Anne Rice novel predates her rediscovering religion. We'll see. The bread machine cookbook has 300 recipes, which will be very helpful during the holidays, and give me a chance to use my machine again. The Love Letters book has all these cool little tucks with reproduction letters in them. I also found someone's wedding pic in one of the tucks. I paid $3 for the pile, and then donated another $2 because I felt each one was worth at least a buck. Then I donated about $100 in nearly-new books to the library, so I feel I earned my little haul.