Month: May 2015

I’m on a journey to get healthier. It started earlier this year with a cheap pedometer that wasn’t very accurate. Now I have a Fitbit Zip, log everything I eat, and actually spend time thinking about how to get more plant matter into the mix. I’ve always loved mason jars, so the leap to mason jar salads was a short one. I took my first to work today. Okay, really nice, KD, but what’s with the writing comparison? I’ll tell you. 1) I can throw anything in there I want. I’ve seen a lot of variations. Some people put salsa in their mason jars first, then everything else to make a Chipotle-copy burrito bowl. Some are making normal-ish tossed salads with creamy dressings in first. One person (at least) is making “noodles” with zucchini and a “spiralizer” whatever that is. The variety is amazing, and fascinating, and I’m looking forward to trying a ton of cool stuff.

Continue reading

So, I’ve been in between projects for a bit. I haven’t felt motivated enough to dive into Fireborn or Survivor yet, so I’ve been noodling about what comes next. Per my muse, it needed to be brand spankin’ new so most of my projects were disqualified. And I have plans of getting back to the waiting ones (**cough** Fireborn and Survivor and maybe Ever Touched **cough**) but I needed a break. So that’s when I rediscovered The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo. If you’re not familiar with the idea of ghost marriage, it’s where a woman is married to a deceased man for various reasons — to placate a spirit that’s restless (hauntings) or to provide lineage to a child, or even to elevate a concubine to wife. (Here is the Wikipedia link that goes into more detail.) When I first learned of this, months upon months ago, I thought it was really intriguing. How would a woman feel to be married to a ghost? Would the ghost acknowledge the wife in any way? And, lastly, how does it work, exactly (apparently using an effigy dressed in wedding attire as a stand-in for deceased spouse-to-be)?

Continue reading

Good morning, friends! I hope you’re all having a lovely Tuesday and that the sun is shining and birds are chirping, but not too loudly and at a reasonable time, unlike the birds that chirp outside my bedroom at freaking 5 am. You know what sucks about being a creative sort of person? You have SO MANY things you want to do, and the majority of those things are never going to get done. Yesterday I was going through my story idea document, and I noticed several story ideas where I had plotted out a short story or novel in its entirety, and then apparently I’d never gone any further.

Continue reading

It’s springtime here in southern Ontario, Canada. We’ve had a long, cold winter and everyone was heartily sick of it months ago, but spring took its sweet time getting here. A warm day now and again, and then the thermometer would dip once more. Such a tease. Finally, this weekend, we had gorgeous sunny weather. I went out of town on Friday. (I was visiting Ottawa again. Only six weeks ago, it was a frozen winter city; now it’s warm enough for patio dining.) By the time I got back on Monday, the season had changed.

Continue reading