My Kingdom for a fuel nozzle…

January 2, 2010 Day 2 without heat and I’m inspired to blog. So far 2010 is proving to be ‘character-building’, shall we say? After waking yesterday to a 50 degree house and outdoors in the twenties, the husband spent New Years Day battling the furnace at the end of which he emerged filthy and carrying a tiny brass fitting that he declared the culprit for our lack of heat. Being New Years Day, and the fact all the trades in NY, including plumbing supply houses, are union, no one was open so in a last ditch effort, said part is now soaking in my nailpolish remover, in hopes to rid it of a possible clog. Keep in mind we woke to the sound of snowplows this morning so no, it hasn’t gotten warmer here in the northern ‘burbs of NY State. So what did we do for heat?  This is the part where all you people who are building or renovating a home, or just interested in various home heating methods, should take note. Thankfully, when we installed a new tile floor in the kitchen a few years back, we put electric heat beneath the floor. Easiest thing ever. Buy the wired […]

The Dawn of a New Year

New Years Eve. A time for reflection, goals and resolutions, change, introspection, and a chance to look toward the future. All of this has never been more true for me than this year because at the close of 2009, Linden Bay Romance will be shut down. No I don’t think someone will be waiting by the computer to disable the website at midnight tonight, but then again, I don’t know, perhaps these things can be set up in advance. What I do know is that as of 2010 I go from an author with over 2 dozen published full length novels, novellas and short stories, to one with just a handful. So what am I doing? For one, I have made my Facebook page, which had been private for a bit because of some issues, public again. I need a strong web presence to build my career and for better or worse, Facebook is part of that marketing plan. I am trying to focus on reworking my backlist to get them back out there. And to keep my sanity I began that cooking project I told you about in the last post. How is that going? Well there have been […]

The Fine Art of Procrastination and French Cooking

As a testament to the fact I will do pretty much anything besides what I am supposed to be doing, today I read Julie Powell’s “The Julie/Julia Project” blog from 2002 and cooked two recipes out of my new cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. (To see the beginning of my new obsession click HERE) Yes, I should be working on Jack (Red Hot & Blue, Book 2) to submit to my editor so I can get a date and get my now out of print backlist back out there. Instead I made Quiche Lorraine for breakfast and Cream of Mushroom Soup for Dinner, with food shopping for ingredients wedged in the middle there. How did the recipes come out? Well I cheated on the quiche because 1) I had no lard to make fresh crust and 2) I did have a frozen piecrust. Aside from some over spillage onto the cookie sheet in the oven, it was very tasty. The soup was easier than I thought though I kind of had to cheat there too. I am SURE I had half & half in my hand in the foodstore. I know I put it in […]