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.

Blackberry Nectarine Lush

Happy Monday everyone!

I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing Easter. I know we did! The hubby and I headed out to his sister's house to have dinner with the family. It also happened to be my mother-in-law's birthday, so we had quite the Easter celebration. We had it all. A turkey and a ham. Two pasta salads. A big chocolatey, butterfinger-y birthday cake. Kids hopped up on way too much sugar... You know, the normal Easter fare 😂

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-

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-

Top 16 Recipes of 2016

Ah, long time, no see everyone!

Yes, it's the 2nd to last day of our Oregon trip and I've finally found a few moments to write. It has been Busy with a capitol B! We've been going non-stop, but man, it has been fun. I'll save pictures for when I do my Oregon or December wrap-up but we've basically been on what I like to call a "Food and Drink Tour" of Oregon. Seriously! We've travelled to Southern Oregon to dine at a couple of places in Ashland. We've stopped at a restaurant in Eugene. We've traveled to Portland to visit family and wine-taste with friends. There was a boozy breakfast in Albany. We saw "Holiday Office Party" in Corvallis. Drove the backroads through Independence. Had a wine-and-hor-dourves night with some of my biggest blog fans (Hello Glaeser family!) I can safely say I've seen the entire I-5 corridor of Oregon on this visit 😁

Sorghum-Glazed Veggie Medley

-with roasted salmon

It took more than a few tries and a couple of weeks, but I finally got this dish where I want it 😀

Yes, rest assured friends, this veggie medley is amazing. I've been eating it for 3 weeks straight. I literally can't stop. I don't want to stop. Sweet potatoes have been discovered and there's no putting that love back in the box. 

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...

Alpine Strawberry Mascarpone Tart

Ok, so I posted 3 casseroles/oven bakes in a row...

Easy Tortellini Bake

Pumpkin Spinach Lasagna Rolls

Untraditional Green Bean Casserole

It's time for dessert! 😋

Wrapping Up September: 2016

Is it really October? This cannot be!! I cannot believe how fast this year is flying by. September was yet another whirlwind month. In September...

Strawberry Cream Cheese Danish

All right. Here's the deal- 

Over the next couple of days, I'm going to be crafting a recipe with my alpine strawberries. I know I said last month that my strawberries were starting to peter out, but I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, WRONG. They are still going and I'm collecting about 20 berries every 2 days. Something needs to be made with these lovely little berries...

Over a year ago (geez) the hubby and I went to Oregon for our 2015 trip. Whilst on our fantastic trip, my brother's girlfriend whipped up a couple of desserts for us. Her parents own an upscale hotel and restaurant in Ashland, OR, and it's safe to say cooking skills and knowledge were passed from parent to child. She made a delectable homemade raspberry tart with the most amazing filling. One of the best parts of the tart, however, was the crust. Oh, that crust. I asked her for the recipe and I've had it in my back pocket for well over a year now. I'm guessing you know where this is going...

Raspberry Peach Jam

Fall is coming!

Yeah, it's still August, but it's starting to feel a bit like fall around here. Some of my trees are changing color and losing leaves already. The hummingbirds are beginning to get fatter and there's a lot more of them around the last couple of days, something that usually doesn't happen for a couple of weeks around here. This morning when I let the dogs out, my glasses didn't fog up which means... dun dun dun...no humidity. Always a sign of fall around here. 

How can this be happening already? Wasn't I just lamenting that late frost we had in March? Didn't I just get tomato starts to baby before planting in the raised beds? How does summer always go so fast?

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!

Strawberry & Avocado Pasta Salad

- with balsamic dressing

Well, it's finally happened. 

Almost 3 months after we got the bees, one of the dogs has been stung. Poor little Mariota. Just the other morning, I was letting the boys out- all four of them. I say four because my mother-in-law's Pekingese was staying with us. All of them were sniffing around in front of the bee hives. I hate when they get right in front because I'm always afraid they are going to get stung (obviously for good reason!). So, there I am, hollering away at the top of my lungs for the dogs to get away from the bees. They were all moving my way when I saw Mariota snap at his hind quarters. And then his front quarters. And then... the cries. Oh, I felt so bad for him. He came squealing up to me with no idea what had happened to his little body. 

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-

Cherry Berry Power Smoothies

Let's talk smoothies.

I don't post a lot of smoothies. In my mind, they could be considered one of those things that doesn't even need a recipe. I always tend to hesitantly publish smoothie recipes, bracing myself for anyone that might comment that smoothies are hardly recipes. People do make those comments! Just the other day, (no names, y'all) a blogger posted a strawberry parfait that really was just strawberries layered with piped whipped cream, and someone left a comment on her post saying "Um, when did strawberries and whipped cream become a recipe?". I hate seeing comments like that. I mean, for one, even if I was thinking that myself, I would never say it. We all work way too hard on posts to be harassed by mean-spirited comments. And two, I started wondering if people thought that about my recipes.

It's a slippery slope. 

3 Solid Recipes from 2015 That Never Made The Blog

Ok friends. Over my break, I cleaned up the innards of the blog. Mainly, I went through the posts I hadn't published yet to see what I had. There were a few recipes I knew I had (the 3 below) and a couple I'd forgotten about (the last 5). All the photos for these recipes were taken with my old lens. I've finally come to conclusion that I'm done with all those old photos. Some of the recipes were over a year old! I decided that if I hadn't posted them in the first 365 days that I'd finished the pictures, that I never was. A few of the recipes were solid, delicious and share-worthy. A few were what I finally deduced as "worthless". Recipe that would need to be completely reworked, therefore needing completely new pictures. So, to get rid of anything having to do with the old camera lens, I'm going to share the 3 recipes that were really quite tasty and deserving of a repeat. 

Here we go!

Blackberry-Swirled Peach Pops

March Musings: 2016

Holy April Batman!

Wow. My break went super-duper fast. Gone in the blink of an eye. I needed it badly. Truth be told, my expectations surrounding my back injury have really sent me straight through the ringer, and right back again. Back in January, I thought I'd be running by April. The timeline has not gone that smoothly in reality, and I'm in a bit of a holding pattern. I have no news to share on that front, and that's the problem. Right now, it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and that's been a hard thing to accept.

Vanilla Quick Bread

There is a strategic reason I'm posting this bread today. I'm posting it today because it is, officially, the perfect vehicle for my Blackberry-Nectarine Preserves. The two go hand-in-hand like chips and dip, or bacon and eggs. Although, I must confess, this bread is a great companion for pretty much any fruit spread. I slathered some Raspberry Jam on it, and my taste buds were equally pleased. Perfect for breakfast to serve alongside coffee, or a light dessert if you want to add some pudding and whip cream to the mix. Yummmmmm....

Blackberry-Nectarine Preserves

Yeah, I know it's still winter. And preserves are probably the last thing on your mind right now. However, I was at Sam's Club a while ago and they had lovely bags of nectarines they were selling. You may not know this about me, but I have a compelling weakness for stone fruits. Peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries... I devour each equally. Seeing as how it was late February, one could say it had been a considerable amount of time since I'd had any stone fruit. And the nectarines looked amazing, I couldn't resist.