Blogging

Time to Get Cooking… Coronavirus Day 2

So being shut in your house really gives you time to sit and think and think and think some more. Oy! I have to keep the radio or tv on or else I’m going nuts. And here we are on day 2. Okay, I might be overexaggerating right now. Truthfully, ask me on day 8 or 9 and that might actually be the truth. You never know.

But one thing that I have been thinking about a lot is cooking my way through the Julia Child Cookbook. Guys, this isn’t a new thought. Quite the contrary. I mentioned this in a blog post in 2018. OMG, I just looked up the original blog post to include with this. Get this, it was written on March 21, 2018. How close is that to current date? Today is March 15. That’s crazy.

I really want to do this. I’ve been talking to my husband a lot about in the last couple of months. I have a couple of holdbacks. First… have you seen the massive size of the cookbook? It’s huge. 2nd, While I try extremely hard not to be a picky eater, I’m afraid I might be too picky of an eater for this cookbook. (more…)

Book Review: Bridget Jones’s Diary

 

I know this is a movie that came out, oh gosh, way back when. But here’s the thing with this book… prior to starting Grad School, I bought this book, at a book sale at work for a quarter. It sat there waiting for me to read it for years. I’m talking years! Jump forward to grad school. I took a British Comedy class. I really had no choice. And this was actually on the book list that we had to read. Shhhh… I still never read it. I glossed over it enough to be able to talk in class about it, but I didn’t read it. I had this class the same semester that I had comps and this was the furthest thing from my mind. Oh, and watching the movie DOESN’T help unless you’re comparing how the book and the movie are DIFFERENT!

Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

a 30-something Singleton who is certain she would have all the answers if she could:
a. lose 7 pounds
b. stop smoking
c. develop Inner Poise (more…)

Book Review: The Paris Wife

Earlier this year a friend of mine took some “test” on Facebook. You know, those weird tests. It was about 1,000 books that you should have read. It was interesting. I figured with grad school that I would have read more than 52 of them. 52/1000… not good odds… One of the books was The Paris Wife. I actually hadn’t read it yet, but I owned it. It was a book I came across a while back… we’re talking over a year ago. It was a physical book even. Sadly, it just sat there waiting for me to read it. Once I saw it on the list and realized I had it but hadn’t read it yet, I jumped on reading it.

Gosh, for as many books I’ve read about Paris, I need to visit Paris. Truthfully, I want to visit 1920 Paris and 1940 Paris, not current Paris. Although don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see current Paris too. I think it is just all the reading of I’d about a Paris I’ll never truly get to experience. (more…)

Keto Diet, month 1

Now… let’s put this out here first… My husband and I are doing Keto. No, I don’t need you telling me we’re stupid. I don’t need judgment. I just don’t. We did research and are doing with a doctor’s supervision so please don’t judge, yell, or tell me we’re stupid. 

Now that we have that out of the way… let’s proceed on. We are doing Keto. A lot of people are. It’s probably one of those fad diets honestly. So it’s a high fat, medium protein, no/low carb. That kills me. Quite almost literally. I love my breads and pastas. I’m not a huge dessert or candy fan and gosh I want those too. Really, I am a savory person, but right now I want sweets so bad sort of. 

So your carb intake is based on net carbs. So you take the carbs in your food, subtract out fiber and alcohol sugars, and that gives you the net carbs. You have to eat less than 25 net carbs per day. I’ve also read 20. Either way, 5 doesn’t really make you or break you. 2 days per week you are supposed to bump that up to 50 carbs to help avoid health problems you hear about. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE PASTA? That’s totally random at this point but I can’t help myself. (more…)

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

For school, the little has to read at home for at least 30 minutes per day. Every 15 minutes, we get to count a “step.” They are supposed to have 4 steps per day as a minimum. She gets 2 at school and 2 at home to equal the 4. But sometimes she and I go over the top. 

Things that count, parents/siblings/grandparents reading to them, them reading to the family member, reading books, magazines, etc. A Kindergartener’s book if you’ve looked lately is very thin. That means that you can read 1-6 books in 15 minutes. Sometimes though she and I go for chapter books. And I’m not really sure how, but late last fall we got into watching all the Harry Potter movies. She loved them. I was a bit leery at first, afraid we’d deal with nightmares. Not that they are that scary, but she’s 5. They could be scary to a 5-year-old… She is team Gryffindor. Her favorite character is Hermione. Pretty sure because she’s the lead female character. At that age, it matters.

So I figured if she liked the movies so well, we should read the books. I have Kindle Unlimited and they are on there so no big deal. We can only read 1-2 chapters a night depending on the length. Toward the end, she starts getting restless but that happens when we read 16 children’s books too. We started it on December 11, 2019, and ended on January 6, 2020. (more…)

Book Review: Blue Bayou by Jiffy Kate

I had a hard time with this book. It was an easy read but the writing was a little lackluster after reading everything else I have this year. I wasn’t impressed with the writing. Then I realized that this was two writers. I could see a difference. I hate to say that it was easy, but it kind of was. The writing just didn’t seem to flow as easily. I will give this story props too, it gave both characters side of the book. I really like that.

Blue Bayou by Jiffy Kate

The road to self-discovery leads Maverick Kensington deep into the heart of New Orleans. The colorful characters, beautiful scenery and the hot mess of a woman he finds along the way offer him the perfect place to reinvent himself. (more…)

Book Review: I Dare You – Ilsa Madden-Mills

Once I realized I read these in the wrong order, I had to continue :). This was an interesting book to me. All the main characters of the Ilsa Madden-Mills books have been interesting. I’m glad this turned out the way it did. While you can kind of bet it will… you never know. Sometimes stories surprise you.

I liked the character of Maverick. I really did. And while Samantha Christy bounces back and forth or stays on one character for multiple chapters, Ilsa Madden-Mills makes the chapters as they’re needed in each voice. It’s quite an interesting way to read. I like it. I really do.

I Dare You – Ilsa Madden-Mills

Wall Street Journal bestselling author Ilsa Madden-Mills returns with an all-new swoon-fest of a novel about what happens when you look beyond labels and take a chance on love. 

Badass Athlete: I dare you to…
Delaney Shaw: Who is this?

The late-night text is random, but “Badass Athlete” sure seems to know who she is… (more…)

Book Review: I Bet You – Ilsa Madden-Mills

 

While these are stand-alone books, I really wish I’d have read them in the correct order. I didn’t so oh well. It was interesting to see the ending of the third book in the series and then see what kind of lead up to the beginning of the book. haha.

I Bet You – Ilsa Madden-Mills

New Standalone Sports Romance

Sexy Athlete: I bet you . . .
Penelope Graham: Burn in hell, quarterback.

The text is random but Penelope figures out exactly who “Sexy Athlete” is. And why she shouldn’t take his wager. (more…)

Book Review: I Hate You – Ilsa Madden-Mills

I was ready to read about the last firefighter in The Man on Fire Series by Samantha Christy, but the 3rd book isn’t out yet. So that meant I had to venture off and read something different. I had never heard of Ilsa Madden-Mills, but I hadn’t heard of Samantha Christy either. Something caused me to go ahead and take a chance. I’m really glad I did. However, I did find this was a stand-alone that was the third of another series. Stand-alone as in you can read and not miss anything, but I read this series out of order and wished I hadn’t. So news flash, this is the 3rd book. Start with I Dare You and then I Bet You before you read I Hate You.

Now that we have that cleared up… (more…)

Book Review: Sparking Sara – Samantha Christy

After reading Igniting Ivy I was leery to read this next book. While reading Igniting Ivy I kept wondering who was going to be the next firefighter to have a book. I had it narrowed down to 3 candidates and this one was one of my 3 choices. I love that it was Denver in fact. Especially because you saw part of his story in Stealing Sawyer. We got more of the story and we were able to watch it all unfold. I was cool with that! (more…)