Welcome to New Year Dreams [RANTINGS]

I have a few hours left to resolve my goals for 2016. I find myself reflecting on a talk I have heard numerous times that reminds us that when you put the most important goals first, everything else falls into place. With that in mind, I think I shall keep my goals simple. That should also keep my daughter from missing me too much while I type out a years worth of potential frustrations or successes.

So my hobbit-sized goals for 2016 include but are probably not limited to:

1. Be the best mother I can be.
2. Remind my husband every day how lucky I am to have him.
3. Read and watch more inspirational stories and talks.
4. Make the world I live in a better place.
5. Sort through the recipes that keep inspiring me and find the very best ones. (Anyone want to volunteer to help me eat my creations?)
6. Spend less time on frivolous things and people.
7. Follow little promptings even when they seem illogical or take me out of my comfort zone.

Given my lack of success with previous resolutions, I won't distress us with a longer list. What are your major goals for next year? Will they help the little goals fall into place?

Now get out there and ring in the new year. I will be doing so in the warm swaddle of my freshly laundered sheets unless my sweet little boss wakes me for some momma daughter time. May your plans be equally wonderful.

Boo [REVIEW]

Lack of sleep made my befuddled mind take a little prompting to get into this story, but Richard Laymon offered me an assist by throwing in a character dressed like Yoda. The little troop of trick or treaters made the terrifying journey from well lit front porch to next inviting house with the normal amount of enthusiasm. Even an unusual occurrence didn't stop them, though it probably should have. It even led to a longer night of collecting. To find out what happens, you'll have to find a copy and read it yourself.

I made some buckeye brownies, but my half asleep mind didn't compute the ingredients efficiently, so the final product was not photogenic. I baked a box of Ghiardelli double chocolate brownies and topped it with a mixture of butter, peanut butter, and too much powdered sugar. I topped that with a basic chocolate ganache of milk and semi-sweet chocolate. My husband assures me the flavor far outweighs the mess made by the super crumbly peanut butter filling.

Clearly, I thought I would eventually take some pictures and make the photogenic version of those delicious brownies. The holidays and momming clearly won the day and the following day and the day after that... You get the picture. May your holidays be filled with Star Wars awesome but very little terror. (I also have moved the identifying tags to the end of each post's title. I think it should clean up a few issues for me. Thanks for your understanding.)

[REVIEW] Delusion

Peter Abrahams received a rave review from Stephen King. With that endorsement, I couldn't resist reading Delusion. The first page introduced me to a prisoner named Pirate who identified people by the sounds of their footsteps. The description of his person, including some infirmities one would expect for a pirate, affirmed my reading selection, so I settled in for an entertaining read.

A hurricane unearthed evidence that Pirate was innocent of the crime that sent him to jail. Since she was the eyewitness who sent him away for the murder of her boyfriend, everything Nell Jarreau knew dissolved into disorder . How could she trust anything if she couldn't trust her own eyes? Her doubts sent her searching for more information about what she witnessed twenty years earlier. While Nell tried to find evidence that would make her memories more clear, Pirate sought some form of retribution for the years he had lost.

Then a local reporter contacted both of them time after time in hopes of getting a scoop. Information she brought to light brought more questions for Nell and Pirate as their lives continued to intersect.

Nell's own amateur investigations produced more evidence that caused her to question who she could trust. She even grew distrustful of her husband, the local sheriff, as her memories blurred. Somehow, she found answers in places as far away as the Bahamas, but all the answers brought her back home and back to the place where she watched one man she loved die.

I found the flashback scenes interesting because the author referred to Nell as Nellie which softened her. Somehow this made her younger and more carefree. He also dropped enough hints to piece together where her memories end and delusions begin while weaving enough action into the plot to make you still want to read to the very last word.

Time to clean up some of my old posts, so here is one that never got posted because I never found a recipe to attach, so I shall post it as a solitary critique. Enjoy!

The Christmas Season [RANTINGS]

Clearly, National Novel Writing Month was a bust for me this year. I'd feel more guilty if I were not the only one keeping tabs on where that tale was going. Still, I feel the need to open up my brain and share for the holiday season, particularly since I realized I have some old posts that I started writing and forgot to finish. This December, consider what I hope will be a plethora of posts my Christmas present to you.

The title of this first post promised to address thoughts on the Christmas season. I feel equipped to speak since my giving began already. While other people were pushing each other through department store doors and scrambling for alleged bargains at major shopping centers, I presented my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law with gifts that needed to be given at the beginning of the holiday season, advent calendars made with my own hobbit hands. They were both pleased and grandma even leaned in conspiratorially to encourage me to keep thinking up gifts to make for her. While I always have a small part of my mind searching for great gift ideas that say I love you, I hope to to focus on some of the more important aspects of Christmas this year.

My to seasonal do list includes:

1. Reading the scriptures in search of my own perfect advent scriptures for future holiday celebrations. I borrowed some from another website this year since I was pressed for time when I remembered that I had begun work on this project at the end of last December. (I always get inspired during the holiday and never find time until it is over to put forth the effort required to make more Christmas magic.)
2. Make a mix of Christmas cookies and candy for those special people on my list who always inspire me to be a little sweeter. I fear I will not have the time or energy to make all of my favorite candies from chocolate covered cherries to maple creams, but we will see. If you just realized you are on the coveted candy list, cross your fingers and pray for me.
3. Get enough sleep to fend off the invasion of sicknesses that circulate at this time of year and be pleasant to those around me.
4. Be grateful for my everyday blessings and the gifts I receive, even the ones that confuse me such as the year I was given a bottle of wine.
5. Commit to a few ideas for future Christmases that will make wonderful memories for my daughter and bring our family closer together.
6. Stop worrying so much about lists and enjoy time with those I love.

I wonder what goals my astute readers would like to share with me...

(P.S. In case you didn't notice, I have moved the identifying tags to the end of the title of each post. I hope this helps clean up the look of this journal.)