âCome and be worshiped, come and be caressed, My dark Vanessa, crimson-barred, my blest My Admirable butterfly! Explain How could you, in the gloom of Lilac Lane, Have let uncouth, hysterical John Shade Blubber your face, and ear, and shoulder-blade?â
âHe compared my hair to the color of maple leaves, slipped poetry into my hands – Emily, Edna, Sylvia. He made me see myself as he did, a girl with the power to rise with red hair and eat him like air.â
âShielded by the desk, he reaches down and pats my knee gently, gingerly, the way you might pet a dog before youâre sure it wonât turn mean and bite you. I donât bite him. I donât move. I donât even breathe. He keeps writing notes on the poem while his other hand strokes my knee and my mind slips out of me. It brushes up against the ceiling so I can see myself from above – hunched shoulders, thousand-yard stare, bright red hair,â
Just a normal week, some new recipes to try and one redo. But did a great job in using up the food we got delivered with very little waste. Still feeling great and still finding new foods to try.
Blurb: When Willow is born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, her parents are devastated–she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. Every expectant parent will tell you that they don’t want a perfect baby, just a healthy one. Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe would have asked for a healthy baby, too, if they’d been given the choice. Instead, their lives are made up of sleepless nights, mounting bills, the pitying stares of “luckier” parents, and maybe worst of all, the what-ifs. What if their child had been born healthy? But it’s all worth it because Willow is, funny as it seems, perfect. She’s smart as a whip, on her way to being as pretty as her mother, kind, brave, and for a five-year-old an unexpectedly deep source of wisdom. Willow is Willow, in sickness and in health.
Everything changes, though, after a series of events forces Charlotte and her husband to confront the most serious what-ifs of all. What if Charlotte had known earlier of Willow’s illness? What if things could have been different? What if their beloved Willow had never been born? To do Willow justice, Charlotte must ask herself these questions and one more. What constitutes a valuable life?
A few weeks ago I signed up with Imperfect Foods. I love the thought behind it but wanted to try it out for myself and see if it makes sense for us. If it wouldn’t provide decent enough produce, or if it was more expensive than I normal pay for groceries, or if I am still having to go to the local grocery store, then that doesn’t make sense to continue. So far, I have been happy with it.
My first order.
Pros:
Less trips to the grocery store.
I get an email when it’s time to shop.
100% customizable basket.
No plastic produce bags or grocery bags.
Helping fight food waste.
I can skip a delivery anytime if I am not going to be home.
Cons:
Some items have been small in size. Making it harder to plan in advance.
Some items have been wilted and must be used right away.
Due to holidays my delivery date has been different every week. Also making it harder to plan ahead.
Overall, my cons have been no big deal and I am able to adjust my weekly menu around it. I have been loving being able to shop for my groceries online on Saturday and then plan out my menu for the week on Sunday. I try to leave my basket with what they have picked for me as much as possible. I know that what they put in is what needs to be eaten to avoid going to waste so I really try to work around that. I have made adjustments though if I just don’t need any more potatoes or carrots etc, or they keep trying to give me chicken. It does have this awesome option though to remove an item from my basket and never select it again, or you can add items to put in every week, like green leaf lettuce. It is a great way to try new foods too. I tried baby broccoli for the first time (will detail below). Whatever the hubs and I don’t eat, we feed to our reptiles and feeder insects. Variety is key for everyone.
Grilled Sea Bass with Roasted Green Beans and Potatoes by Cooktoria. Just a simple season on the fish (salt, pepper, Cajun seasoning) and grilled on the Traeger. The beans, I followed exactly as the recipe states. These were really good and I think paired well with the fish but would be good with almost any meat.
Ground Beef Enchiladas by Yellow Bliss Road. I made these in both corn and flour tortillas. Both turned out very yummy. This is a super simple enchilada recipe that anyone could make for a weekday meal. I left out the green onions only because I didn’t have any on hand. I used cheddar cheese instead of cheddar jack. I’m all about use what you got. Topped with lettuce, and Coconut sour cream.
Instant Pot Zuppa Toscana by Unbound Wellness. I do not have an Instant Pot but I have a similar pressure cooker that I used for this one. The recipe does provide a stove top option if you don’t have either. I used a Mild Italian sausage, turkey broth instead of chicken, and russet potatoes instead of sweet. I didn’t have fresh parsley so I used dried as well, about 1-2 tsp. This is another great cold weather soup to make!
I just love Kale. A little trick with Kale is to chop and then rinse it. When kale is chopped it releases an enzyme that creates a bitter taste, when we rinse it after chopping, it washes that enzyme and bitterness away. Wah lah! Yummy tasting kale!
Here we made two different cookies for Christmas. One for the hubs and one for me.
Classic Snickerdoodles Cookies by Cake Whiz. For these, no adjustments were made. I will be honest, I ate some and oh my are they good. Hard to keep them to a minimum. đ
Fluffy Frosted Eggnog Sugar Cookies by Vegan Guide to the Galaxy. For the flour, I used Bob’s Red Mill GF 1-1 Baking Flour. The “eggnog” I used So Delicious Coconut Holiday Nog. For the butter, I used Country Crock Plant Butter with Avocado Oil. The recipe says to be careful not to overcook and they are so right to keep them nice and soft. Wait till the cookies are totally cooled before frosting or it will melt. I kept these in the fridge for the first day until the frosting set as my house was a little too warm.
Christmas Dinner for Two!
First up are cocktails! A Pomegranate Gin and Tonic for me. 1.5 oz of gin, 2 oz Pomegranate juice, 2 oz tonic water, and a squeeze of lime. A Whiskey Sour for the hubs. 1 oz whiskey, 1 oz water, 1 oz simple syrup, 1 oz lemon juice. I added an orange peel and maraschino cherry.
Appetizers: Stuffed Mushrooms. Carefully pop stems off 10 mushrooms and dice stems into smalls pieces. Carefully scrape gills off with a spoon. Saute 1/4 lb hot Italian sausage with diced mushrooms bits, 1 clove minced garlic, 1 Tbsp butter, and 1 Tbsp soy sauce until sausage is cooked. Spoon filling into each mushroom cap, melt 1 Tbsp butter and pour into each on top of filling. Top with shredded Parmesan cheese. Bake in oven at 350 for 20-25 min, until mushroom has shortened and cheese melted.
Smoked Prime Rib – The day before season with Salt and pepper, fresh rosemary, thyme, and parsley, and Traeger Prime Rib Rub. We smoked the roast for 1 hour, I prefer using a Mesquite as it gives it a really good Smokey flavor. Turn Traeger all the way up to 475 – 500 and cook 10 min a side to render the fat and create a crust. Then turn down to 300 and cook until internal temperature is 135 -145 depending on your preference. This will take a long ass time, be prepared for at least 6 hours for a 3 lb roast. But oh so worth it!
We accompanied this with a double baked potato (recipe listed in I Love Potatoes) and Roasted Brussel Sprouts. I like the little ones best, cut in half and put in bowl. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Dump out onto a sheet pan, cut side down. Roast in oven at 400 for 15-20 min.
I had a cauliflower in the fridge that was about to go bad, so in the essence of sustainable cooking I decided to make Two Ingredient Cauliflower Tortillas by Paleo Gluten Free Eats. I will say that these were not worth the trouble in making. And were only good the first day I made them, tried again another day after being kept in the fridge and they were hard and brittle. I had some left over Chorizo and Potato Taco filling (recipe in I Love Potatoes) that I put on these, topped with coconut sour cream and salsa verde. I will stick to my corn tortillas.
Cajun Asparagus and Sausage Skillet by The Simple Supper. I used russet potatoes instead of red, I left out the bell pepper, and added sliced zucchini. The Cajun seasoning, I would use your judgment on how spicy you want, 2 tsp is a lot, if you want just a little you can just dust it instead. I added the zucchini right at the end with the asparagus to just heat through but not make soft.
Prime Rib Quesadillas by Little House Big Alaska. When you left over prime rib and itâs Taco Tuesday. I used corn tortillas but everything else I followed. Made some homemade Guacamole by Will Cook for Smiles to accompany them with some coconut sour cream.
Oven-Baked Blackened Mahi Mahi by Wanderlust &Wellness with Roasted Broccolini by Don’t Go Bacon My Heart. So I only have one oven and these were at different temps so I cooked the fish on the Traeger instead. It didn’t get it quite as “blackened” but it was still very good. You could use a cast iron pan and cook it on the stove top but I didn’t want to smell my house up. đ The broccoli was so good too. There were a few thicker stems that I wish I would have peeled to soften them up but definitely will be making again.
Grilled Ribeye steak with a Cucumber, Tomato, Avocado Salad by Cooktoria. The steak is just another super simple one. Seasoned with just salt and pepper and grilled on the Traeger until internal temp reaches 145. The salad was so good too. My avocados were a little more ripe than I wanted for this but you will have that some times, you just gotta roll with it. Instead of using grape or cherry, I needed to use up my vine ripened tomatoes. This was nice and light and fresh, perfect to accompany a heavy protein. đ
A Dark Academia book (A book that has an academic setting, with characters that explore dark urges, crimes, or dark secrets)
This book has been on my TBR pile for too long and I have heard good things about it. So I am going to start the new year off with this one first. I think it fits so perfectly with this prompt too. I love the cover, it’s so beautiful. I love the black and white with the deep purple spine. It just draws you to it.
Blurb:Â Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naĂŻve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.
2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenagerâand who professed to worship only herâmay be far different from what she has always believed?
Alternating between Vanessaâs present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.
I did read some really good books last year, you can check them out in my 2020 Ratings and Review page but I am so excited for what is in store. I have some great books on deck. I will be finishing up my 50 Books, 50 States challenge, I have 23 left to go. I have also joined the 2021 Popsugar Reading Challenge as well! They have a printable list on their site you can download if you join in.
âSomething was affecting the very being of every animal species in Decoy that it didnât kill, something that caused madness as well as created intelligence – something, something. But what?â
âWhat are we going to find in there?â he asked, noting the hospital, and remembered why they were there. âNothing you havenât already seen,â said Hollie, exiting the Humvee. But it wasnât true. There were plenty of dead bodies; however these were nothing like the corpses Kaufman had seen out in the desert. The remains here were ghastly, like malformed ghouls out of some horror video game. Most of the beds were empty at first, but as Hollie led them nearer the terminal ward, they were almost all filled with the abhorrent forms.â
âThis is exactly what he wants,â he said. âHeâs been luring us here from the very start.â
2020 was definitely not a normal year for any of us. It felt, at times, like we were living in one of the books we read, and not one we want to. But we made it through and are settling in to our new normal, whatever that may look like. I, like so many, experienced an emotional tribulation that took a few months to overcome. In that time, I remembered that reading books was not a competition on how many I can get through in a month or a year but something that I love doing. I have a tendency to set goals and then obsess over them. I am working on breaking this unhealthy habit. I also don’t need to feel like I must write a blog post everyday. If I do, that’s awesome, if not, its not a big deal and people will not unfollow me because of it. There are so many other things that I enjoy doing as well and I don’t want to forget about those or spending time with the people that I love.
So, 2021 will be about having fun and doing what makes me happy every day.
2020 books completed: 36 Books 12,454 pages My average rating – 3.9 đ
I have realized that since starting this, potatoes have become a huge staple for dinners. I would say that in looking back on my photos, we have them at least 3 nights a week. In the back of my mind I keep thinking about everything we were taught for so long, potatoes are bad and unhealthy. Yet we are finally starting to realize that it’s not the potato that is bad but how we cook it. They actually have really good qualities to them. They are low in calories and a good source of vitamins C and B6, manganese, phosphorus, niacin and pantothenic acid.Â
I haven’t read a sci-fi book in awhile. Sounds very interesting. đ¤
Blurb: The first great evolutionary leap took mankind to the moon. The second is going to take us beyond the grave.
Kaufman Striker spent his whole life learning to be unfeeling; it took hanging himself to change that. Ten years ago, he thought he’d gotten away from being the town’s peculiar celebrity; thought he’d gotten away from his father’s warped ideas about self-mastery, but his dogmatic dear old dad has reached out from the past to continue his education with a letter encouraging Kaufman to take his own life.
For today in Decoy, Nevada, death isn’t permanent.
In an underground military facility, a top-secret resurrection project has been sabotaged. Except scientific resurrection doesn’t account for everything. Not the bipedal coyotes that stalk the streets or the thousands of missing town’s people, nor Kaufman’s own subtle âenhancements.â
Part psychological thriller, part dystopian sci-fi, Posthuman is a suspense-horror novel that probes what would happen if science discovered proof of life after death â and then nudged evolution to take us there. With deep themes and a rich, intricate plot, Posthuman has enough twists, turns, and surprises that once you reach the last page, youâll want to start reading it all over again.
