September 10, 2010

We had friends over for lunch on Labor Day and, among many other dishes, I made up a batch of Roasted Rosemary Cashews from Ina Garten's, Barefoot in Paris: Easy French Food You Can Really Make at Home.  They were a huge hit; absolutely delicious and oh-so-easy to make (which is pretty much favorite sort of recipe) and they made good use of the rosemary from my herb garden. Give these a try next time you have company or just want to make a special treat to enjoy at home. Enjoy!

Rosemary Roasted Cashews 

3. In a large bowl, combine the rosemary, cayenne, sugar, salt, and butter. Thoroughly toss the warm cashews with the spiced butter and serve warm. 

September 7, 2010

Sometimes, I go through weeks and weeks when I can't find anything interesting to blog about.  This is not one of those times.  But rather than fill you in on everything in one extended entry, I'm going to tease it out for the next few days, item by item, beginning with the big news.

Cobbled Court number four, titled, THROUGH THE EYE OF A NEEDLE, is finished, sent off to my editor, and will be coming to a bookstore near you on May 31, 2011.  

Oh, how long I have waited to write that simple and entirely inadequate sentence!  This was probably the most challenging book I've ever tackled.  Certainly I've never gone through as many drafts of a manuscript as I have for this book but I believe the effort was worth it.  This story introduces us to two new characters, Tessa Woodruff and Madelyn Beecher, two women who grew up in New Bern, left to pursue very different lives, and have returned as adults, one because she wants to and one because she has to.  These friends who fell out of friendship are flawed and fixable, bold and timid, sometimes selfless and sometimes selfish, scarred by the past but longing for transformation, even though they doubts it's existence, and very, very human.  

I like Madelyn and Tessa a lot.  I'm sure you will too.

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August 7, 2010

This evening, my youngest son, age 17, said, "Mom, when a you ask a girl what's wrong and she says, 'Nothing.', she doesn't mean that, does she?"

"No, darling.  She doesn't."  

I was about to explain that this is one of the many coded messages that women send out, that nothing does not, in fact, mean nothing.  Nothing means, "You know what's bothering me! And if you don't, you should!"  However, my son beat me to the punch.

"I think, when they say that, what they really mean is that something is wrong and that I should be able to figure that out."

Impressive. To realize this out at the age of seventeen shows remarkable insight; his father was twice his age before he cracked the code.  

I explained to my beloved boy that pretty much every woman on the planet sets her jaw and says, "Nothing" when she means, "Something" and that this has been going on for at least a few thousand years.

"Well, that's dumb," he said. "If something is bothering you, why not say so? If you want me to do something, tell me what it is and I will.  You should tell women to stop it."

I would, dear boy, but somehow I don't think it would make any difference.  

July 18, 2010

I was going to begin this post by apologizing for failing to blog in so long but I've apologized for that on so many occasions that, at some point, it just begins to feel disingenuous.  

I'm not disingenuous.  Truly, I am not. I sincerely regret not being more faithful about these things but regret is not the same as resolve, is it?  The truth is, I cannot tell you with any certainty that I'll be better about blogging in the future, only that I want to.  But, really, does that do any good?  

I want to blog twice a week, every week.  I want to compose pithy, witty, insightful little snippets that will make you smile and think, posts you'll want to forward to friends in need of encouragement.  I want my house to be clean all the time.  I really want to get everyone (and by "everyone" I mean mostly me) to stop dumping their junk on the kitchen counter; it's driving me nuts.  I want to get up every single day and walk three miles right after breakfast at a brisk 4.5 miles per hour.  I want to lose twenty pounds.  Or ten.  I want to raise chickens and goats and make my own goat cheese.  I want to quit squinting when I read and doing that weird laugh thing I just realized I do.  I want to organize my fabric stash.  I want to stitch the binding on my son and daughter-in-love's wedding quilt before the baby is born.  I want to be there one hundred percent for everyone I should be there for whenever it is they need me.  Oh, and I want to finally get to the garden store and buy a bigger pot for my poor gardenia.  The leaves are starting to turn a very distressing shade of yellow. 

But as my mother, The Sage, has been known to say, "wantin' ain't gettin'".  

Indeed not.

History has proven that, while I sincerely want to do all these things, in the foreseeable future I will probably only accomplish some small percentage of them and, even then, incompletely.  I do hold out some hope for re-potting the gardenia, binding the quilt, and possibly clearing off the kitchen counters, but beyond that....

When they were little, my kids were big apologizers.  They apologized at the drop of a hat or the slightest hint of a maternal scowl.  This made me crazy because I knew they didn't mean it.  About six words into their speech of faux remorse I'd shout, "Don't be sorry!  Be different!"

So, I'm not going to apologize today.  If I can't promise you my apology will result in a change of behavior, then what is the point?  

However, I can promise you this; I'm trying to be different.  Certainly I want to be different.  

It isn't much.  I know that.  It sure isn't a guarantee.  But it is a start.  And a start, a sincere one, is nothing to sneeze at.  After all, everything we ever do begins with everything we ever start to do.  At the moment, that's the best I've got.

June 16, 2010

It's a long drive from my home in Connecticut to Columbus, Ohio, so I decided to stop in Pennsylvania and spend the night with my friend, Deb Tucker.  (Deb is the talented woman who designed the Star Crossed Love table runner pattern available free to registered Reading Friends and the full Star Crossed Love quilt available on her website www.studio180design.net).

Yesterday I was just about to Deb's and looking forward to a delicious dinner at her home when, as I was driving in the passing lane at 60 miles an hour, the tire fell off my car!  No, not a blowout, the whole tire came off!

Somehow, on the three remaining wheels, I was able to steer the car to the right side of the road and come safely to a stop.  I was remarkably calm until it was all over; only then did my hands begin to shake. I called Deb on my cell and told her of my predicament.  

She was on the scene pretty quickly and when she saw my car sitting there by the side of the road, tireless and tilted to the left, and me unharmed, she said, "How in the world did you manage to drive it that way?"  

"Because God was my co-pilot," I answered.  The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it's true!