Signing Off

Truth be told, I've been putting this post off for... about 3 weeks. Although it's time, it's been difficult to go through with my decision. 

I'm signing off. 

Why?

One can't predict the twists and turns that are going to happen along the way in life. One twist my life has taken this year is I've decided to write a book. Another is I've lost some passion for food blogging. I'm not saying I'm going to be gone forever, but I will be gone for an indefinite amount of time. Until the book is done I've decided and I just don't know how long that will be. A month, 2 months, 6 months, a year... who knows? All I know is this is best choice for me now, especially with it being summer. Between the garden, the yard, the house, my book, family and friends, I don't have time to devote to blogging like I used to. And time it does take.

May 2017- So far!

Ugh, what am I? The worst blogger in the world? Probably 😂

I admit, my posts have been more sporadic than even I intended. I'm just so in the zone working on my fiction piece. I keep thinking I've got it finished, and as I go to do my final read, I usually decide I want to add more and write furiously until I think I've finished again. At this point, the cycle repeats itself. It's quite the process, trying to write a book. I've been doing research online to see how many words adult novels are supposed to be and I've found quite the wide range of answers. I've read 55,000 words would be considered adult fiction while other sites state that's way too short. Some say 110,000 words is the maximum amount of words a novel should be, but then I discovered some of my most favorite novels are way longer than that so-called ceiling. 'Gone Girl'? 145,700 words. 'Big Little Lies'? 142,600 words. 'The Martian' hits 124,000 and 'The Da Vinci Code' comes in at 138,000. I think my new goal is 90,000. I vacillate daily from thinking I'm utterly crazy and destined to fail, to believing I can do this while pumping one fist in the air. So, to quote what has become my official party line, I apologize for the lack of recipes and posts. I've barely been cooking while in the zone, let alone working on any photography.

A Day In the Life: April 2017

I haven't done a "Day in the Life" post in forever (since February of 2013!!), so today I thought I'd have some fun. I'm also changing the format of the traditional "Day in the Life" post, just cause I can 😜

I woke up yesterday with the intention to blog. It was one of those mornings where I felt completely uninspired and couldn't come up with anything to say. I wrote out a post and then I reread it. Even I was bored. Deleted. One of my intentions since coming back from my break was to share quality work, not just sharing work for the sake of sharing. So I decided to take the day off from posting. To work in the garden. To do some yoga. To enjoy my pups. It was then that I had the idea to do a "Day in the Life" post so I decided to take some pictures throughout the day.

Oh yes, it's definitely time for a fun post! Let's get started-

It's Almost Spring!

Actually, I guess it is spring. 

Hello!

I know it's been awhile, but I'm feeling ready to get back in the swing of things. There's something about spring that's just so inspiring for me, I'm starting to burst from wanting to share recipes and photos again. Winter is my least favorite season, it always feels bleak to me. I know there's many wonderful things about winter, and I appreciate them... for awhile. But then I'm ready for renewal. I love when the early daffodils pop, when there's buds on all the trees, when I start seeing juvenile cardinals and gold finches at the feeders again. It's magical. I have a few items in my garden that just pop up all on their own, like little gifts from nature. Such as my chives, above. They just burst from the ground one day, green and beautiful, full of hope.

Books Read in 2016

You guys...

I almost didn't share the books I read in 2016. I'm embarrassed. I only read 13 books in 2016, and 31% of them were those fluffy romance novels you buy at the grocery store. The kind of books that you would never review and probably not recommend either. Fun for you, but they are what they are- brain candy. The literary equivalent of a pint of ice cream. It goes down smooth and easy with no thought whatsoever. Ironically, I also read 31% of the years books in the last 2 weeks of the year, while I was on my Oregon vacation. It was a tough year. Dealing with my back injury for the entire year took its toll. Along with the injury, I also fought depression for most of the year. And when I'm depressed, my concentration is affected. My attention span is nil. It makes it tough and sometimes impossible to read. That being said, I did read some wonderful books that I'd definitely recommend. I hope next years list is more prolific but 2016 was what it was. In 2016, I read-

2016: By The Numbers

Summer 2016; Wine in the garden

Well, well, well. Here it is the first day of 2017 and I'm going to wrap-up the year of 2016 before I even wrap up the month of December 2016. Why? Because I want to. Because I'm a rebel. But mostly because, as per usual this year, I'm running behind. The story of my life 😄

Now that the holidays are almost over and the hubby and I are tucked back into our own house again, it's time to make it a better year. I mean, there's no election this year so we already know it's got to be a superior year, right? 😉 Right. I'm going to save my New Year's goals (and 2016's learning experiences) for another day, and simply talk numbers. Here's 2016 by the numbers-

Wrapping Up October: 2016

Ok, I just really wanted to start the post off with a cute puppy picture. Mission accomplished 😁🐶❤️

Can you believe it's November already? In 6 short weeks, the hubby and I will be leaving for Oregon! I'm in shock. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was telling the hubby it was time for a Christmas in Oregon. And now it's almost here! Unbelievable. 

But for now, now it's time to wrap up October! In October...

Since I've Been Gone: July

Hi friends! It's been soooooooooo long. I didn't even mean to take such a long break, it just kind of... happened. I've had a pretty full house since I've been gone, but sadly, it's now empty. My family came to visit for almost a month, and it was AWESOME. Awesome to see and have all my family here, but I did suffer a touch of writer's block. I meant to post the week before everyone got here, but each day was crammed with chores to get the house ready for family. It seemed like every night I went to bed before their visit with a to-do list for the next day pounding in my head. This left little thought for writing.

Wrapping up June: 2016

Hola amigos!

Yeah, I'm a couple days late with my monthly wrap-up. This summer, infinitely more than the past 3 summers, has been full of work. It seems like the longer we live in the house, the more work there is to do. I guess this makes sense. When we first moved in 3 years ago, we didn't even have grass. Now, we have landscaping times 100! The hubby and I were talking about how we had binged "Lost" back in the day, in 2009. I think one day we watched 15 episodes of the show. We got to talking about how in the world did we find that much time to watch the show, and we both came up with the fact that we lived in a rental whose yard consisted of an approximately 5 x 5 patch of grass. Not only were we not actively improving the property like people do with homes they own, but we had no yard. Of course we had oodles of time!

Summing up May: 2016

Another month, in the books.

Ah, I know. I'm a bad blogger. I was supposed to get this posted yesterday, but I had urgent garden affairs to attend to. Some of my tomato starts had become root-bound and were starting to die. They had to be transplanted immediately. All is well though. The best of the starts are moved, I've gotten a wee-bit sunburned, and I'll just post my monthly wrap-up today. 

May's weather left something to be desired. It was an extremely rainy month. We've had a huge pile of dirt in our yard for most of the month, waiting for dry weather, just itching to be moved into future flower beds. We're also tapping our feet for the yard to dry out so we can get in and build our fence. Thankfully the end of May was not too wet, and we were able to get the flower beds out front done. Hopefully by the time I write my June wrap-up, the side and back flower beds will be done and the fence will be installed. In the meantime, let's look at the front flower bed-

Soft & Chewy Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

aka The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies ever!

I told you they were coming. Let's kick off May recipes with a bang! A little chew. Lots of chocolate. And just the tiniest, tastiest smattering of salt. These cookies will rock your world!

I'm not kidding. These are famous at the hubby's work. In fact, when their Spring project started at his office, people who'd been there before and had these cookies requested them. People had heard about them. This tickles me to no end!

April, Abbreviated: 2016

It's May, you guys. How is it May? Almost half the year is gone already! On the plus side... it will be summer soon. Outside, the trees all have leaves or are actively growing new ones, the weeds have bloomed, the wasps are out *grumbles*, and we are on the cusp of humidity here in NE Kentucky. Yes, it is currently that short, maybe 2-week period we have here where the weather is warm and sunny, but the humidity is low. Because when the humidity kicks in, whew, it's tough to be outside in the afternoon. The garden is growing by leaps and bounds, to my delight. It also appears our bees have decided to stay. What I can I say? April kicked ass. Let's summarize the whirlwind that was last month-

Got Bees?

Yesterday was the day! 

The hubby left the house at 5:30 am yesterday morning, to pick up one of his co-workers and drive west to Morehead, KY to get our bees. He was home by 11 am with a big box of what seemed like a million bees. The hum could be heard from quite a distance away. I was fascinated.