Made it Through the First Round!

Okay, so I'm pretty excited.  My novel Rell made it through the first round of Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Competition, where they cut the entries from 5,000 to 1,000.   Still a long way to go, but something to be happy about!   They announce the quarterfinalists (the cut to 500) on March 20th.

Edit: The next cut is actually from 1,000 to 250.  (There are two categories, so it's 500 total) 

All Sorts of Things

Sorry about being such a slacker on the blogging, it's been an ups and downs couple of weeks, but I think I'll focus on the positives:

-I conquered one of my cooking demons last week by successfully making chocolate chip cookies that were good.  My mom, the queen of all cookie making gave me some of her secrets and I think that really helped.  They still weren't quite as good as hers, but they were good enough that Tracy was disappointed when they were all gone.

-My writing buddy Pam started a book club and we had our first book club meeting tonight.  It was great fun.  I'm really glad I've made such good friends here, and it's great to get to know new people as well.

-We're got this fairly amazing deal on a new dryer and it's being delivered Tuesday.  (See how I made that into a positive?  Good work, huh?)

-I met with my dissertation adviser and she agreed with the plan to turn my dissertation from five chapters to four.  It means a bit more revising but it definitely will be less work overall.

And it's almost the end of February...which means winter is drawing to a close, and so far (cross fingers, knock on wood) it's been a mild winter here.   I'm definitely looking forward to spring!

Midnight in Austenland

So Shannon Hale's new book Midnight in Austenland was released on Tuesday.  I swore I was going to be good and frugal and get it from the library....

Then my writing buddy Pam invited me to go to the book launch party and signing today, and with encouragement from Tracy that I should in fact buy the book and take advantage of the opportunity I went.  It was extremely fun, Shannon Hale was gracious and funny, and it was so nice to go with a good friend. 

So I'm feeling extremely spoiled, that for the second time I've been able to chat, if even for a few moments, with one of my favorite authors and have two personalized books on my bookshelf.  It also made me grateful for my sweet husband and good friends. 

Oh, and the book is awesome! I've laughed out loud several times. 

Another Extension and Brussels Sprouts

Just wanted to let everyone know that while we don't have any long term news, Tracy's contract was extended again until mid-March.  So that, at least, keeps us going another month.

On the cooking front, last week I made roasted brussels sprouts.  We received them in our Bountiful Basket and one time on one of my research trips I'd had roasted ones that were really good so I roasted them in the oven.  They were pretty good.  Not something I'd go out of my way to buy, but nice that I was able to make a vegetable that's often spoken about with dread in an edible fashion.

Multiple Personalities

So I've always joked that I kind of have multiple personalities. To be clear I'm not claiming or mocking actual dissociative identity disorder, but I do think that I have a tendency to have personality shifts as I do different things in life.

Well, now I have some additional proof of that theory.  Apparently I can also write like multiple personalities.  There's this site called "I Write Like" (iwl.me) where you paste in a sample of your writing and it tells you what semi-famous author you write like.  Well I used a chunk of my first novel and it told me I wrote like Margaret Mitchell (as in Gone With the Wind)  and when I used a chunk from my second novel and from my blog it told me I wrote like edgy YA novelist Cory Doctorow. 

I did hope that the two novels were very different in tone, so not only is this funny, it's actually a good thing.

Chicken Pot Pie Meets Biscuits and Gravy

I'm trying to gently and frugally expand my recipe set and cooking skills, so yesterday when looking at a magazine I saw a post-Thanksgiving sandwich idea that suggested making a sandwich with turkey and veggies in gravy put on a biscuit to taste like chicken pot pie. 

Riffing on that idea and knowing we had a pretty good stash of canned chicken and biscuit mix I took the idea and made it into biscuits and gravy.  I sauteed onions and carrots in butter with some rosemary and sage.  Then I made some turkey gravy (started homemade but I threw in a packet to stretch it) and put the veggies and a can of chicken in it.  It tasted a little heavy so I sprinkled in some lemon juice and at the very end added some frozen peas.  Then we spooned the stuff over the biscuits.  Now I doubt it would win any cooking competitions, but it is yummy and fast and cheap.  Hurray!

Ray of Hope

I thought everybody would be happy to know that Verizon extended Tracy's contract until February 4th and apparently they are still trying to hire him full-time.  If nothing else it gives him a little more time to find a job. 

Nice to have some good news to share!