Giving Thanks

I have a lot of things in my life to grateful for and I do my best to acknowledge these things throughout the whole year and not just during this season. This year, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do for the holidays. My whole family has recently made an abrupt shift in their lives, with my moving out on my own and my parents moving to Texas, where my brother already lives. Work and life prevented me from traveling to Texas for the holidays, but I’m very blessed in that I have really great friends here.

I was invited to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with my godparents and their family. It a huge gathering with so much food, which is a staple of a great Thanksgiving bash. There were a number of people present who I hadn’t met before, so I was able to meet a lot of fun new people, hear great stories from past holiday experiences (always a laugh), and try new foods, which you guys know always thrills me. Can you believe I’ve never had cranberry jelly before? Super-sweet! And brussel sprouts, which I am super-surprised that I liked, but also really excited. Oh, and pecan pie, which I like just about as much as I like pecans (which is a lot).

So I had a ton of fun spending time with people who are a lot like a second family to me, and I’m really grateful for the really great people who happily invited me to enjoy the holiday with them.

I hope you had as good a Thanksgiving as I did, that you ate great food, had an afternoon zone-out on the couch watching football or reading a book, and that you were surrounded by friends and family who mean a lot to you.

Have a great holiday, and don’t forget to be grateful tomorrow for all the things you remembered to be grateful for today.

– Casey

Pride & Prejudice

My hometown’s high school put on a performance of Pride and Prejudice Saturday evening. My mom somehow heard about and I bought a ticket to go see it. I’m not quite finished with the book yet, but I didn’t want to miss the chance at the show.

I am so glad that I went. Though the play was shortened so we weren’t there all night, I was incredibly impressed with the skill of the actors. I graduated in 2006, so it’s been some years since I’ve been back at the high school and I didn’t know anyone who was acting in the play. I was thrilled to watch the actors put themselves into the minds of characters from an era past and to see how well they portrayed not only the characters but also the time.

The costumes were impressive, the facial expressions of the actors while in character were lovely, and the set was beautifully done. I was very impressed with anything and I am so sure now that I need to finish the book. Thank you for the wonderful show, Hughesville High School. You did a fantastic job!

– Casey

Experimental Meal 002

Thick Stir-Fry Omelette

Ingredients:

3 large eggs
2 tbsp ground flax seed
4 slices cheese
1 tbsp butter
1 steamable bag of stir-fry (baby corn, broccoli, snow peas, carrots)
Oregano
Parsley
Rosemary
Thyme
Red peppercorns
Salt
Pepper
1 tbsp parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Steam stir-fry mix as directed and put in dish to the side.

2. Break three eggs into a bowl. Mix in all spices, parmesan cheese, and ground flax seed. Scramble until smooth.

3. Heat medium-sized skillet and melt tbsp of butter until bottom of pan is aptly coated.

4. Pour scrambled egg mixture into skillet and cover with lid. Let cook until bottom of egg cake is somewhat solid.

5. Flip egg cake. Cover half of the cake with stir-fry mixture. Cover stir-fry with two pieces of cheese. Fold empty half of egg cake over stir-fry side. Cover pan with lid and let cook for a minute.

6. Flip omelette. Place two slices of cheese on omelette and cover. Let cook for a minute.

7. Shut off stove. Move omelette to plate and add any spices desired to still-wet cheese. Cover with desired condiments (I prefer ketchup or peach jam) and eat.

If you try the recipe, let me know what you think!

– Casey

Giving Up the Magic

The following post should not be read by children/teens who are expecting a fat man in a red suit to come down their chimney. If you are expecting Santa to visit you and you still read this blog, I will know. I will tell Santa, and you will get coal.

Let’s Just Run Away

Do you ever feel like you just need to run away for a little while?

I’ve been feeling very crowded lately, bogged down, and tired. I think some of it is probably the onset of the cold weather and the too-early sunsets, but I’m also just plain exhausted. Granted, I’m always busy and I ought to be used to having about a million things to do in a week’s time, but I’m struggling to finish my book (nevermind NaNoWriMo’s demands), while working full-time at a job that doesn’t test me creatively, and searching for another part-time job because I don’t have enough to do and please inflate the cost of living some more.

Ugh.

There’s this great big part of me that is tempted to just sell my stuff, pack what little I’d be keeping in the car, and go. Where? I don’t know. Could end up anywhere.

Of course, that’s not realistic, but the little part of me that thought started in has been growing and growing, and it keeps getting bigger. And the reasons for sticking around? Well, there aren’t many, to be honest. I’ve got a full-time job here and I know the area well, and I have some close friends nearby. That’s pretty much it and when it comes down to it, I can get a job anywhere, I’m a quick learner, and my friends know my phone number.

I’m not running yet, but the thought is definitely there, and it reappears when things get particularly suffocating. Maybe it’s unhealthy to think that the good solution is to run away, but I don’t know. It could be fun.

I’ve Been Reading A Lot Lately

I’m always writing, as you know. If a day goes by without my putting pen to paper to spell out some fiction, I’m usually going a little stir crazy by that midnight hour. Lately, however, I have been finding time to read more than I’ve recently been able. Or, more accurately, to listen to audiobooks. It’s not the same as reading, since I’m pretty sure my brain takes things in differently when I’m visually reading the words, but it’s still just as entertaining.

I’ve listened to Odd Thomas, by Dean Koontz, mostly for nostalgia, as I read the book years ago, and because I’ve recently watched (and bawled over) the very well-done movie. I have also listened to The Darkest Evening of the Year, also by Dean Koontz, The Third Gate, by Lincoln Child, and made it a few disks into another book before I decided it wasn’t for me. I’m awaiting on the arrival of The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien, 77 Shadow Street, by Dean Koontz, and It, by Stephen King to arrive at the library. I am pretty much beyond merely being thrilled with all of the potential books that I have spread out in front of me. I’ve missed having someone else’s story unfold in my head.

I watched Lawnmower Man on Saturday – a movie I saw years ago and enjoyed. I enjoyed it on Saturday, too, but not as much, because The Third Gate was sitting there, screaming to be listened to, and I couldn’t quite get all of my attention on Job. I feel a little bad, but it wasn’t me that drove him crackerjacks, at least.

So… I’ve given up on movies for the moment. It’s almost ridiculous, but they’re not holding my attention. I’ve even postponed my Netflix subscription, because I’m not using it. Instead, I’m going to frolic through the stories spread out in front of my like blades of grass in an endless, winterless meadow. Currently, yesterday being Sunday and the library being closed, I resorted to a free trial on Audible.com. I am presently listening to Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King, a story I haven’t read before but heard a lot about. And I need to get back to it, because I’m suffering book withdrawal!

Happy Monday, you lot! Have a great week!

Turn the page to a new world.

– Casey

Confessions of Earth’s Paladin

Dear Diary,

Today I saved the world with a spoon. I wish I had been able to finish my granola first, though. Really, where are these aliens’ manners? They come here unannounced, stop airline traffic by parking their ship illegally over the runway, interrupt my breakfast, and then try to shoot me in the back? And they skipped out on their parking ticket! Rude. I am so not inviting them to my graduation party. 

– Abby, Paladin of Earth

PS: I have a date with Zack on Tuesday!!! Ahhhh! I need to go shopping!

---

Abby, Paladin of Earth is an urban science fiction series I’ve had on the brain for a few months now. With so many other projects in the works, it’s being pushed on the very full backburner I have of story ideas, but it’s definitely inching its way toward the top. Especially since the first story (the one involving the spoon, yes) is mostly-written in my head. Who knows? Maybe that story will make its debut before the rest.

As always, I’d love your thoughts!

Turn the page to a new world.

– Casey

Breaking the Monotony

I love to try new things. I’m incredibly experimental in my life and I tend to live by the rule that I will “try anything once” and then decide my own opinion on it. There are some exceptions to this rule, mostly for health reasons. I have no desire to try smoking, for instance, just as I do not care to taste-test sulfuric acid. Alternatively, there are some foods that I avoid eating due to familial allergies I fear to have inherited. Anaphylaxis does not sound entertaining.

One of my favorite things to experiment with is food. You have all seen my blog posts of cooking new recipes, and especially those where I grab a bunch of ingredients, throw them together, and see what happens. It’s not just cooking new things that thrills me, though. Often, I just like to visit new restaurants and try something I have never tried before. I discovered my love of mushrooms at a Longhorn Steakhouse when I went out on a limb and tried chicken portobello.

It was at a chinese buffet with friends that I first tried sushi, discovering that I really didn’t like the raw sushi, but I was head-over-heels for the cooked. It was at an oriental restaurant years later that I tried my first bit of caviar and found, to my surprise, that I quite enjoyed that. It was perhaps four months ago when I discovered I liked tofu. Two years ago, I realized I don’t like okra.

When I travel, and I try to do so often, I get a thrill when I have the chance to try a new restaurant or cultural food that I haven’t been able to eat before. My first trip to Texas let me try an authentic mexican restaurant, and I am an eternal fan of enchiladas. There was also Fuddruckers. On top of having awesome food and fun new choices (buffalo burgers!), they also have the coolest name.

My first trip to California led me to the doorstep of Shawarma House. I have wanted to try shawarma since watching Avengers (I doubt I’m the only one) and I jumped on the chance to eat there, and I was not displeased. I would like to go back.

I don’t limit myself to new foods, however. I have done lots of interesting things in the course of expanding my experiences. I have hiked a long path around waterfalls, ridden horses, held pythons and tarantulas (though how I managed the latter still baffles me), seen live shows in theatre, wandered through museums for hours, and gotten lost more times than I care to count. Everything is an experience that breaks up the monotony of a potentially-boring life and I love it. I look forward to the next thing I can find to do, even if it’s just popping into a new restaurant I’ve not been to before and picking something entirely alien on the menu, or wandering around until I discover somewhere new to explore.

Make life fun. Try something new.

Turn the page to a new world.

– Casey

Voldemort Is All Authors

I think Voldemort is meant to be a representation of authors.

He creates horcruxes, objects that allow him to potentially retain immortality, by murdering people. These horcruxes can take any form, of course, but one was actually in the form of a book, furthering this hypothesis.

And what do writers do for a living? We create books – tomes filled with stories written by way of unburdening our troubled hearts. And how many characters have we slain to appease the story, spreading shadows across the page in order to twist this fictitious fate to our whim? And in the end, what do we have but a blood-soaked packet of pages bound in the misery of characters called to do battle against our own demons? Within these pages are not just fantasies and wishes, but bits and pieces of our own souls. Pieces that bind themselves irrevocably to the minds of readers, thereby giving us a form of immortality.

I have done this. I have killed characters to fill books with bits of my soul, hoping the pages will consume the minds of those who turn them and let me live forever in the story I have scribed.

Conclusion: I am Lord Voldemort.

Excerpt 03

“Ves’qa la roseau,” she whispered, voice breaking on the words.

“Rose?” Michiric asked, glancing over and startling to see tears falling down Zeva’s cheeks.

“Roseau,” Zeva corrected, drawing out the long O sound of the word. “In the language of the north, the tenor of the Badlands where I am from, it means Heart.” She pressed a hand to her breast and whispered the full phraseagain.

“Ves’qa la Roseau. Song of my Heart.”

“Or as the legends simply call it,” Cari added, “The Heartsong.”

“Your Heartsong?” Michiric asked, confused. He wasn’t aware her species could have such a thing, but Zeva shook her head.

“Not mine. Hers.” She knelt and presses her fingers to the earth. “She lives as much as any of us. More yet. It is her song. The song of Senexus. The song of this world’s heart.”

“And if these words are spread out so easily that I can stumble upon them,” Cari said, eyeing the map suspiciously, “then the heart of this world is in danger.”