I've always wanted to go to San Diego. I'm not really sure why other than as a kid I loved watching nature shows with my grandpa and they often would show bits and pieces of the San Diego Zoo. Last week, my husband and I finally spent a week there.
Compared to Cleveland, it was pretty much heaven. Blue skies and bright sun every day, high temperatures in the mid 70's, and lows in the high 50's! Back home we have grey, cloudy yuck about 362 days of the year.
Then there's the ocean and all of its beautiful bounty-- pelicans, seals, sea lions, the sound of waves crashing to shore... Ahhhh
La Jolla Beach -just north of San Diego
Year round flowers and green trees--bougainvillea, palm trees, roses...
Rose Garden in Balboa Park
The Zoo lived up to my childhood dreams-- we got to see koala bears, sleepily munching eucalyptus in their trees! Yes, they are just as cute as expected!! There was a giant elephant enclosure with jungle gym like toys to keep the elephants happily playing (I hope they were happy at least); tigers, cheetahs, lemurs, meerkats, mandrills, and so many other monkey-like animals.
*TIP: Definitely get there right when it opens, it gets quite crowded later in the day with a plethora of parents pushing multi-child strollers. In the morning, we got to see many of the little fur-balls active and having breakfast and we didn't have to make our way through a maze of strollers.
We had such a wonderfully relaxing time, it was definitely hard to head back home-though we missed our own little fluffy beasts (a beagle, a dachshund, and a toy Aussie Shepherd) and of course our kids (who are mostly adults but still mostly kids. 🤣🤣
And that is part of the reason that I totally forgot to post my IWSG on Wednesday! I was so excited last month to start posting again regularly and already on my second month I'm posting late :(
So sorry!
THE IWSG!!!!!
If you're new to the IWSG, it's all about connecting and supporting other writers. Here is the official mission statement of the IWSG.
Purpose:To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting:The first Wednesday of every month is officiallyInsecure Writer’s Support Groupday. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!
Let’s rock the neurotic writing world! Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.
Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. Remember, the question is optional
November 6 question - What creative activity do you engage in when you're not writing?
I have two other main creative loves:
1. Figure skating, which as far as I'm concerned, is equally art and athleticism is my first love after writing. I have been skating maybe longer than I've actually been writing. Being originally from Michigan, where many babies are born with skates on, I started skating almost as soon as I could walk--which was before I could hold a pen or pencil in my hand to make letters. I've continued to actively skate my whole life with the only time off when I was pregnant with my kids. I've spent almost 35 years coaching skaters and one of my favorite things is creating programs for the kids in which they can tell a story to the crowd.
Video below is me a couple months ago. :)
2. Cooking/Baking is my other creative love. There is just about nothing better than creating a meal that brings people together. Special memories and bonds are made when friends and family sit together around a table talking, laughing, and enjoying great food. I love cooking so much that my next writing project is actually creating a cookbook. Right now I'm in the process of gathering all my recipes and cooking them to make sure they are written correctly! Every now and then I'll be posting them here on the blog.
Here's what I baked this afternoon with fresh Ohio apples-you'll have to wait for the recipe!
Apple cinnamon muffins. Yum
Can't wait to read what you all do besides writing!
Take time to take care of yourselves this month and then have a wonderful love filled Thanksgiving!!!
My husband has been very motivated to get healthy this year by playing men's league hockey three times a week, weight lifting, and by eating right. He came home from weight lifting one night saying he wanted simple ground beef and veggies and that's it. That sounded kind of boring to me. So I thought, why not make it like a mix between a fried rice and a basic taco meat. Here's what I came up with. It is now my husband's favorite meal!
Let me know what you think!
Beef Stir Fry
1.5 pounds lean ground beef-- I use 92% lean (you can also use ground turkey)
1.5 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper (if you like really spicy feel free to add more!)
1.5 tsp oregano
4 eggs (I use 2 eggs and 1/2 cup egg whites)
1/2 onion-finely diced
4 cloves garlic-finely chopped
About 8 mini red peppers thinly sliced
About 6 mushrooms/shitake or button work great in this
2-3 Tb vegetable oil-I've been using avocado oil lately
1.5 cups Spinach- rinsed, dried and chopped into ribbons (kale works too if you prefer)
Fresh parsley-optional
Cooked Rice
Teriyaki sauce drizzle on top
Jalapeno optional
Teriyaki Sauce:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup dark mirin
1/4 cup granulated sugar
Teriyaki Sauce Directions
Heat soy sauce and mirin in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Bring to a slow simmer and stir in the sugar until dissolved. Continue to simmer about 5-8 minutes until it thickens to desired consistency. Allow it to cool while making the stir fry, sauce will continue to thicken as it cools.
Beef Stir Fry Directions
1. Start cooking rice.
2. Cut up onions, garlic, peppers, mushrooms, and spinach.
3. Put all the spices (cumin, salt, crushed red pepper, and oregano) in a little bowl and combine.
4. Crack eggs into a bowl and add egg whites.
5. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat.
6. Add a Tb of oil to the pan.
7. Brown the ground beef.
8. Add all the spices and cook for another minute.
9. Remove ground beef from pan and pour into a large serving bowl.
10. Add more oil if necessary to the pan and saute the mushrooms and peppers for a minute or two and then add onions, and garlic and saute until fragrant and translucent.
Here we are working together to roll out the pasta
My daughter, Alyssa, and I love to cook together and we love going to cooking classes. This week we decided to bring my husband along with us to learn how to make homemade pasta. We weren't sure how he would do in the kitchen since he's not really a regular around the stove. But he made us proud.
Throwing lasagna noodles into pot
It was great fun! We each had a little work station and prepared our own dough, which was surprisingly simple to make, just eggs flour and salt with a little liquid (milk or other flavoring) to moisten it. He learned how to kneed and roll out dough, which will come in handy for Thanksgiving pies!
He was put in charge of cooking the lasagna noodles, then Alyssa and I had to grab them out of an ice bath and dry them off with a towel before handing them off to the next couple who layered them in the pan. It was quite an assembly line. I can see why Italians have such big families. They need all the help in the kitchen to make great pasta!
Using pasta machine
It was delicious. The best pasta I have ever eaten. I don't know how pasta from a box will ever be good enough now. We will have to try making it at home as a family project. Should be interesting.
****
Here is Part II of Sally's post about her grandma Harriet.
Hetty circa 1917
Harriet was a great seamstress using
a Singer treadle sewing machine making both her eldest daughter’s wedding dress
in the 1950’s. She would bake cakes and
biscuits and cook everyday of her life, roast dinners on Sundays, cold meat and
mash on Monday, then various meals during the week, including rabbit pies and
always served with a dessert.
Harriet was a very hard worker and
worked for the local farmer from spring to autumn hop training, hop picking,
fruit picking and potato picking. She
would also go primrose picking (taking myself with her) in the woods which were
then bundled up into posies and taken to the next train and put on the train
and sent to Convent Garden market in London.
Hetty circa 1920
She loved
a social life and would attend the Darby and Joan Club (a social club for older
members), the Women’s Institute, known as the W.I. and Whist Drives, (Group Games/Card Games) a
social gathering where whist is played; the winners of each hand move to
different tables to play the losers of the previous hand Collins English Dictionary), and Bingo during the evenings in the week.
On every Sunday
evening she would provide a cold supper for her brother and sister-in-law (Bert
and Dorothy) who would visit their house where they would play cards and socialise
together.
Harriet
wasn’t a very tall lady but quite a feisty one.
She would have rows with her neighbour over some disagreement. Fred and Hetty could go days and weeks
without actually talking to each other because they’d had a disagreement but
nobody could deny they loved each other deeply.
In her
80’s she suffered a heart attack and after recovering from those began to
display the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
Her last move was to a lovely facility with people who could look after
her 24 hours a day where she spent the last four or five years of her
life. Her family visited her as much as
we could and we took the new generations to meet her as well.
Harriet died in her 93rd
year having lived through two World Wars and saw many inventions, cars,
televisions and telephones. Even with
all these inventions she never had a telephone in her house and didn’t possess
a washing machine.
Harriet's 89th birthday. Back row: June, Sally (me), Margaret Front: my kids, Hetty, and a cousin
I spent a lot of time with my
grandmother and loved every minute of it.
****
Thanks so much, Sally, for sharing your grandmother's history.
I have one more thing today. As part of the Healthy Writers Club, hosted by Shallee McArthur just a quick update on my success at getting out of my chair this week.
Since the weather was great, on Wednesday my son and I went outside and played baseball together. We had lots of fun running around in the leaves.
I also started learning the new set of moves, (they are actually called "Moves", I know not the most creative term!), for my next skating test. Yay!
Have a great weekend everyone!
And don't forget next Thursday is the next Knights of MicroFiction. The prompt is: In 300 words or less write a scene where the main character realizes he/she is thankful for something. Include the words "turkey" and "Mayflower" (this could be May flowers too or other creative variations).
It was around 8:00 last night and I was craving chocolate. We only had various types of chocolate chips, nothing special. Time to do something crazy, I thought. I had put off making chocolate eclairs for a couple weeks now. My daughter, Jessica, wanted to make them with me but having never made them before, I was a little intimidated, so I procrastinated. Last night I decided I would finally act.
Jessica using her big muscles to stir
We read through the recipe from Julia Child's book, Baking With Julia, a couple of times so we would be familiar with all the steps. We got out all the ingredients for the pastry and forged ahead. Now I realize that making these on the spur of the moment may not have been the best plan, but hey I'm a busy working mom.
Mistake #1: I forgot to bring the eggs to room temp.
Mistake #2: I added most of the eggs all at once. (I swear I read "add the eggs separately" but somehow in the heat of the moment I forgot.) It was turning into a comedy cooking show. Jessica stirred vigorously to mix my mess together. Finally it did form a dough. Maybe we had done it after all. Oops....
Chocolatey Mess
Mistake #3: Make sure all items are ready for use before starting the recipe! I had to quickly search for our pastry bags and tips before the batter cooled too much. I couldn't find what we needed so I slapped together a big plastic bag instead and cut off the corner.... well I cut a pretty large hole not thinking it would matter. Jessica did a great job piping the dough onto the cookie sheets and brushing them with egg wash. We cooked them and realized they were giant sized!
Mistake #4: I never seem to be content with a single recipe and therefore I try to combine multiple recipes. Sometimes this works.....other times not so well. We did not have 1 recipe for a filling. We wanted chocolate inside but how? SO I went to my favorite www.foodnetwork.com and quickly combined a couple different chocolate filling recipes.
Well in the end we were both covered in a big chocolate mess.... but ooooh was it delicious.
