In Which Chocolate Upstages an Artichoke

For those who've asked, here's me on our local ABC affiliate's morning show, Good Things Utah, from Wednesday.

This clip has more than the 5 minute segment you'll find on their site. We have bonus material! It includes all the teasers they did throughout and (best of all) the fun at the end of the show when Angel Shannon was at the table to talk about an artichoke but the hostesses were passing around the cookie batter.

And in case you haven't voted yet, yes, I'm pestering again. I have two stories in the running at the Tweet Me a Story contest. You can vote for both (plus other favorites). My group, 13, had to use the word special in a story that consists of only 140 characters, including spaces and punctuation.

If you've voted already, THANK YOU!!! If you haven't voted, here's a HANDY LINK!

A Particularly Odd Writing Day

I've been splitting my time today between a freelance edit for a friend and my own revisions for my WIP. (Remember how I promised myself it would be ready to submit on May 10th? That's one week away, and I have two field trips I'm chaperoning between now and then, plus a book signing. YIPES!)

So I've had two windows up on my computer all day, and I've been swapping back and forth between them (and that's between attempts at conquering the mountain of laundry and dishes and other sundries).

Sometimes I'd click on one window, thinking it's my book but get confused when I'm reading about something totally different, only to realize it's my friend's book.

Can we say "brain fry"?

And then there's the fact that I'm pulling out stacks of critiques from my group (things I should have addressed and rewritten months ago but sorta didn't get around to because of other things like, oh, Whitney judging, reading Whitney finalists, preparation for the Storymakers conference, chocolate cookbook photo shoots . . .).

I've been grabbing a stack here and there of critiques and working through whatever's on top.

So far today, I've been at chapters eighteen and nineteen, near the end. Later I hit chapter fifteen. Then fourteen. The next stack begins on page 65. It's a bit of a time warp to be revising your work so out of order. I hope the story isn't getting all redundant or wacko in the process.

It works in my head, and yes, of course I'll do a thorough read-through from start to finish before turning it in, but for now, it's sure been weird to fix stuff that happens in the last fourth of the book and then suddenly be working on a scene from the first fourth and then hop to the middle.

Some of the changes are really small (extra adverbs, clunky phrasing, an inadvertent POV shift). But there was one scene in particular I dreaded rewriting, to the point that I was messing around on Twitter this morning to avoid it.

When I read it aloud, everyone in our group (including me) agreed that it just didn't work. On more than one level.

So I knew the scene would need a serious overhaul, and I've been putting it off. (Much easier to fix an errant comma or missing word.) The great news, though, is that I found a relatively easy way to fix that scene. Yes, a lot of it is new, but as fixes go, this one was easy. Best of all, the scene is much truer to the character, emotions, and events, and now I like it. Yay!

Other notables from the day that likely no one but me will care about:

• Made a great Costco run today, writing down what everything cost as I put it into the cart. This time, the total wasn't a surprise, and it was under what I wanted to spend for the trip. (I know! Call Ripley's!)
• I washed, sorted, and folded four loads of laundry. This is particularly notable. Plus, there's one load washed but not sorted. At least we have underwear.
• Bought kitty litter but didn't change the old stuff. I mean really, there's only so much I can be expected to accomplish in one day.
• Brought the vacuum to be fixed. It should be done tomorrow sometime. Fourteen and a half years ago, we splurged on a Kirby. For a long time, I thought it was a stupid thing we'd done, but in hindsight, I'm thrilled we did it. That's been the best vacuum ever. It really keeps the carpets nice and is sturdy. This is the first major repair we've ever needed. (And it's not on the motor or anything like that; the accordion tube split. Easy fix.) I didn't realize what a bargain it was until I realized that most people replace their vacuums every few years. Our Kirby will be running for years hence, I'm sure.
• Taught a daughter to grind wheat flour. She's decided that any time we need more, she gets to grind it. (Fine with me! One more thing off my to-do list.)
• Got to do some rewriting while eating cake with chocolate icing . . . made by my husband, not me. Oh, yeah.

And now I'm tired and want to read a little before bed.

Bad Blogger!

I've totally slacked off. I'm aware. I apologize.

I had a way cool idea for a post for Monday. Didn't have time to write it, because I was doing things like, oh getting ready for things like that big holiday that's coming next week (oh, and tackling that pile that suddenly multiplied in the laundry room).

Monday night I spent time with my family making pulla, a sweet Finnish bread flavored with cardamom. It's something we've had in the house at Christmas since I was a little girl, and I make it every year with my kids. (To see what it looks like, here's a post from last year with a picture.)

Tuesday night I had a ball taking some pulla to a Relief Society activity in my parents' ward (the same one I grew up in!). The young women were invited, so my oldest daughter got to come, and my two sisters were there as well. After treats and talking (and getting shushed . . . we were seriously SHUSHED! Okay, fine. Luthy women tend to be loud) my mom spoke about some Finnish Christmas traditions. So no blogging Tuesday.

I had a great idea for a Word Nerd Wednesday. Instead of writing it, I spent the day finishing an edit for a friend that I should have (and would have) finished earlier if it hadn't been for that pesky (albeit totally awesome) thing called Thanksgiving and then all those great Christmas preparations and other things like dishes and laundry that keep me getting sidetracked.

Bad blogger. Bad, bad blogger.

The good news is that I've still been lurking, even if I haven't been commenting much. And I already have Friday's post written (good thing, because no WAY would I have time to get it done otherwise).

Oh, and today I was mentioned at the Frog Blog because I'm SUCH a nerd. Thanks, Stephanie! (I take these things as compliments.)

Talk about a random post.

To round out the randomness, I'll add one last bit: my getaway last week rocked. I got a ton of revisions done on my current WIP (that's "work in progress" for non-writer folk). I also finished reading one novel and started another.

Oh, and I had room service for dinner and breakfast. Never did that before. It was seriously fun. (Who cares if that chocolate milk shake was four bucks? It was delicious. Plus, I didn't make it or clean up after it, and someone brought it to me while I was in my pajamas.)

One more thing: Thursday is my debut on the AML blog. I'll link over in the morning.

I'm smelling popcorn. I'm going to find out who made it and eat some . . .

Lessons from Random Stuff in My Head

Don't Be Judgmental, Because You REALLY Don't Know.

Today, my dear friend Brillig's post about put me into tears. Go read it. You'll be glad you did. (Her blog has had some techno-problems. I hope the link works.)

If Writing a Random Claims to Fame Post, Don't Forget Your Own Family.

Um, duh. Yeah, I'm feeling kinda stupid on this one.

If you live in Utah (or are LDS and shop in Seagull and Deseret Book), you have probably heard of the A Capella group VoiceMale.

Okay, so here's my giant claim to fame: The founder and vocal percussionist, John L. (there are 2 Johns in the group, so they really do use their last initials) is my dear cousin. He put the group together when they were at USU. They practiced in my uncle and aunt's home, and he often arranged (and still does arrange) some of their music.

And he's one of the most generous and sweet guys I've ever known, and that's counting all the years we had growing up together as cousins when he and my brother played Stratego in their basement.

(John's the one in the middle sitting on the couch arm. Can't you totally see the family resemblance? Kidding. Actually, he looks freakishly like my nephew. It's odd how genes jump around.)

So here's why I'm mentioning it right now: VoiceMale has an upcoming benefit concert for the Ulster Project, which has been going since 1974 to help sow the seeds of peace between the Catholic and Protestant sections of Northern Ireland. You can learn more at the Ulster Project site.

The benefit concert will be July 31 at Murray High school, and tickets are available at the Ulster website (see the link above). VoiceMale concerts are always a ball, and they're great for the entire family. And I'm not just saying that because John's my cousin or because the acrobatics he can do with his voice are mind-numbingly amazing.

Other random lessons I have learned recently:

Don't Be Overly Optimistic

I recently lost more than five (much needed) pounds. In Sunday's rush to get everyone ready for church, I grabbed a dress that used to be pretty tight on me and I haven't worn in awhile. But I've lost some weight, right? Surely it would fit now.

In the whopping 1.3 minutes I had to get it on, I discovered that I didn't quite fit into it. The buttons bulged a bit, and they ended in a place so I looked about 5 months pregnant. Ahem. No time to change into something else. I grabbed the requisite "church bag" and ran out the door.

Note to self: Do not even touch that dress until you've lost at least another ten pounds.

Six Isn't Enough, And Seven Might Not Be, Either. Because I Am a Masochist.

If you followed my Facebook whining, you'll know it took me a whopping six batches of chocolate cupcakes experiments to get ones that both tasted good and didn't sink in the middle.

(My kids kept telling me to just use the sunken ones in the cookbook and call them "chocolate ice cream bowls. Yeah . . . sure . . .)

This cookbook journey has been a massive learning curve in the chemistry of baking. (I feel like Dr. Seuss: "Oh, the things you can learn!") Recently I had an epiphany and realized two things that might make the cupcakes really great. So I jotted down two notes to try yet another batch.

Today I did batch #7 . . . but since I'm so tired lately and observant (Haha!) and lame, I noticed and applied only one of the two notes.

The cupcakes actually turned out pretty darn good. But there's that little part of me that wonders if they'd be even better if I tried one more time adding that other note, because ya know, what if it made all the difference and made them that much better . . .

But do I have it in me to make an EIGHTH batch when I'm not even halfway (and should be!) on the book? I mean really?

I need to wear make-up more often.

I've really let this one go this summer, something I've never done before. My daughter recently commented how much better I look with make-up, in her words, "not scary."

Thanks so much, cutie. I think.

In her defense, it's actually a little weird how different I look with and without makeup. Part of the difference is that my eyelashes are very long but totally blond, so without mascara, it's almost as if my face has disappeared. I've shocked people on more than one occasion with the difference. And then I have adult acne and a rather splotchy skin tone, and blue circles under my eyes. The list goes on. It doesn't take much to hide it all, but the result is very different than what we started out with.

Once I had to go to church for the first hour but was sick myself and had to leave after that to get home to a sick child. I deliberately wore very little makeup (but I did put on some mascara), because I knew people would assume simply by looking at me that I was sick (which I really was). If I wore the full face, they'd wonder why I left, and I'd end up having to answer more questions. I'd predicted exactly what happened. I had people telling me to go home because I looked so awful. All because I wasn't wearing the full eye shadow/liner/blush/lipstick combo.

Yet this summer I find myself going to the grocery store in the middle of the day having barely gotten out of my pajamas, taken a shower (If I'm lucky. I often have hair in a greasy pony tail or it's wet from the recent shower) and wearing no make-up to speak of. Not sure what my problem is. Maybe I just don't care anymore.

Regardless, I think I'm giving small children at the stores trauma. I mean, it's bad when your own kids start commenting on it. I hope I'm not embarrassing them, but I must be. Worse, they're at that age when they CAN be embarrassed by their mother.

Sometimes I Need Chocolate I Didn't Make

Like tonight. There are days I'm so sick of my "chocolate laboratory" that I just want some comfort chocolate that my hands had nothing to do with. So it was with great pleasure that I saw my husband walk in the door this evening with my favorite chocolate silk pie. I'm going to have a very large piece right now.

See you on the flip side!

Write Away Contest: Sweet!

The famous Scribbit, as you may know, holds a monthly "Write Away" writing contest on her blog.

Bloggers write a post on a theme of her choosing, submit it by a certain date, and a guest judge picks their favorite. The winner always gets some totally awesome prize.

This month the theme is "Sweet."

The prize (appropriately enough) is a selection of Modern Dweller's truffles.

And here's the reason I'm mentioning it:

I get to be the guest judge for March!

Want to enter? Visit Scribbit's contest page for all the details. The deadline is Wednesday, March 18.

Pulla? Must Be Christmas!

According to #2, it's not Christmas until she's smelled the pulla. Apparently, the Christmas season officially began in our house today, because we fulfilled our family tradition of making the Finnish sweet bread.

Pulla has always meant Christmas to me. We had it every December when I was a kid. Dad was usually the one who made it, and I have lots of great memories of sitting at the kitchen counter watching and "helping."

I'm no expert, but I do enjoy making pulla, and this year was extra special, because I had fresh cardamom straight from a Helsinki grocery store. This meant that the cardamom was not only mucho cheaper than the stuff in the States (a bottle here can run you around $15), but it has a stronger, better flavor. One whiff had my eyes rolling into the back of head.

Ooooh, yeah.

Lots of versions of the recipe are out there, but here's the one I use. The amount of cardamom listed assumes you have the fresh stuff. When I have to use a U.S. bottle, I double or triple the amount.

Pulla
1 TB dry yeast
1/2 c warm water
2 c hot milk
1/2 c butter
1 c sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cardamom
4 eggs, beaten
9+ c white flour

Dissolve yeast in water and let sit for several minutes. Add milk, butter, sugar, salt, cardamom, and eggs. Add 2 to 3 cups of flour and beat until you have a batter. Add 3 more cups of flour. Beat until smooth and glossy. Stir in remaining flour until dough forms a stiff ball.

[At this point you're supposed to let it rest for 15 minutes and then knead until it's smooth and elastic. I let my trusty KitchenAide do the kneading because I'm lazy like that.]

Put in a greased bowl and let rise until double. Cut into pieces to make 3 large braids or several smaller ones. Let the braids rise for another 20-30 minutes. Brush with egg wash. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes (large braids) or 15-20 (small braids) until they are golden brown.

Finns often put lump sugar on top of the egg wash before baking (something else hard to find over here).

Dad generally lets the braids cool and then drizzles a simple powdered sugar glaze over them. Sometimes he adds sliced almonds on top. I do it his way.

The kids love rolling out the dough and making the braids. I let them, because they love it so much. The resulting braids aren't as even as pretty as they could be, but the memories are worth it. We made the smaller braids this year, and the picture above shows a few of them.

One Finnish food I adore but have never tried to make is Karjalan Piirakoita (Karalian Pies). My new year's resolution is to learn to make them. Then my life will be a tad more complete!

A Few Christmas Memories

1) Listening to Dad sing Christmas songs. Sometimes along with his reel-to-reel tapes. Other times just in the house or yard or car. In particular, I remember, "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." Dad has a great voice (was in a barbershop quarter in college). I was sorely disappointed when I grew up and heard the song elsewhere because almost no one knows the real opening to it.

("I just got back from a long, long trip across the Milky Way . . ." Know it? Bing does, of course.)

2) Making gingerbread houses with Mom. Many a year we did one beautiful one together and displayed it on the dining table for all to see. We weren't supposed to eat the candy and ruin the beauty until after Christmas. What we kids did, then, after the front looked pretty, was plaster the back of the house with tons of random candies and then eat THOSE all December long. It kept us happy, and the front of the house still looked nice!

3) My royal blue toy typewriter that really worked. Awesome gift! I wore the ribbon into the ground. (Shocker, right?) Right up there was the printer toy I got a few years later. I loved making posters and signs.

4) Finnish pulla. To this day, the smell of cardamom is Christmas. I've carried this one on with my kids. We make pulla every year. This time it'll be extra yummy, because I brought home some cardamom from Finland, which is much stronger than the weak stuff you get in U.S. grocery stores. YUM! We're making it this weekend. If I have two brain cells functioning then, I'll take pictures and post the recipe.

5) Christmas tree hunting. I think we went two or three times is all, going with a couple of families in our ward (who were cousins living next door to one another) who owned some land. Great memories of hiking through the mountains, cutting down the tree, and then warming up with hot cocoa and singing goofy songs. (Good times, right, Blondie?)

6) REAL trees. Sometimes even flocked ones. They were always gorgeous. Mom made sure of that: sometimes it was pink and silver on a white flocked tree, other times red and gold or some other theme on a regular green one. One year the tree had a Persian theme. This is why I insisted on real trees when we got married. REAL is Christmas. Fake is NOT.

When Mom and Dad became empty nesters, they bought a fake tree. When hubby and I walked into their house and saw it, I gasped in horror. Hubby laughed and laughed. Mom and Dad had a fake one. I now had no good argument. Today we have a fake tree, and we alternate real/fake every year.

And I have to admit, the fake ones have their perks: No need to water them. You can put them up earlier without worrying about them dying. No falling needles. If you have a bare spot, just bend a branch.

But I still prefer the pine smell of the real thing. A pine-scented candle doesn't quite cut it. This year is a real tree year. Yay!

You Want to Read This One--Oh, Yes, You Do!

I have 3 fun things to announce today:



1) The Her Good Name contest is now closed. The winner of a free, autographed copy of this awesome Josi. S. Kilpack novel is Cathy J!
Congratulations!

(I'll be sending a notice out to my newsletter subscribers soon in case she doesn't see her name here.)

Which leads me to:

2) A NEW contest is now up on my site. This time the winner will get the complete, unabridged audio book (on CD) of J. Scott Savage's new hit fantasy, Farworld.


(You know you want it! It's a great book!)

How to enter:

Go to the contest page on my website and read the instructions there. You'll need to find the answer to a trivia question on the Farworld website (you'll find a link to it from my contest page).

When you find the answer, type it into the contest form, click "submit," and you're entered!

One entry per person, and no one in far-off countries, please. My postage budget can't take it. :)

"Far-off" is defined as in another continent. Canada isn't "far-off" in my book, in case you're wondering.

Good luck!

3) Finally, THIS weekend, (Friday and Saturday, November 21-22) is the 5th Annual Utah Chocolate Show at the South Towne Expo Center. It's run by my older sister Mel, and in the first years of the show, I was her assistant director (until stuff like life as a writer got in the way).

The show is loads of fun for any chocolate lover. You want to go. Trust me on this one.

Find out more at the Utah Chocolate Show website.

Thanksgiving with the Apes

Since hubby's family generally went up to Idaho to visit both sets of grandparents for Thanksgiving, and since Christmas tended to be a bigger deal for my family, that that's how we split up the two holidays the year we got married.

November, 1994: The day before Thanksgiving, we leave our little apartment (complete with puke green appliances, aqua sculpted carpet in the living room and rust-orange shag in the bedroom) and headed for Shelley, Idaho.

We spend the night at Grandma Lyon's house with the rest of my hubby's family. I wake up bright and early Thursday morning, determined to have a good Thanksgiving with my new in-laws and to not miss my own family too much.

Grandma has cable. In our little apartment back in Provo, we have rabbit ears letting us view a total of one channel (we watched a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation that year), and the rest of the family is pretty stoked about the cable too, so the TV is on a lot.

We end up watching Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall in Planet of the Apes. Odd show, but I'm always up for a classic, so I hunker down to watch.

When the movie ends, the next one in the series, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, comes on. Turns out the station is running an Apes movie marathon. (There are something like NINE of them . . . bet you didn't know that.)

Everyone's in the front room watching the movies. And I'm wondering, At what point will someone start with the Thanksgiving feast? I wait for a cue, like my mother-in-law going into the kitchen, whereon I'd follow and help her with the meal. But no one's been in the kitchen since breakfast. And I'm not smelling a turkey.

Hmm, I think. Maybe they eat the feast later in day than I'm used to?

The third (or maybe the fourth) movie comes on. I imagine my family eating their Thanksgiving meal several hours to the south of me. Still no turkey in the oven, no potatoes getting peeled. No stuffing or gravy or anything like that. Nothing.

Confused, I finally lean in to my new husband and ask the burning question. "Shouldn't we be getting the Thanksgiving meal ready? It's getting kinda late."

"Oh, no. Not today," he says, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. He returns to the movie. My mind is racing. Are my days off? Is it not Thursday? I determine that no, it is Thursday.

I lean back in. "But it's Thanksgiving."

"The Lyon Thanksgiving is on Friday," he says then returns to Roddy in his ape costume as if he'd just said something totally normal, while my brain was swirling. Um . . . what?

I probe further to get a full explanation.

Turns out that since both sets of grandparents lived on opposite sides of Shelley, my in-laws split up the Thanksgiving holiday. The Jensen meal was always on Thanksgiving Day, while the Lyon meal was always the day after.

That year the Jensens were spending the holiday in Boise with one of their other daughters. But since the Lyon meal is always on Friday, they kept it there. That way all the other Lyon cousins wouldn't have to be told to come earlier. It was just easier to keep up the tradition of holding Thanksgiving . . . not on Thanksgiving.

Everyone saw this as normal. No one saw any reason to explain this to the new daughter-in-law.

At the time, I sat there thinking, "Wait. You mean I could have been with my family today and come up here for your family's meal tomorrow too?!"

I felt like the only ape in the room, the one person not getting that it didn't matter when you ate the pumpkin pie as long as you ate it. To me, it did matter. It was either Thanksgiving or it wasn't. Celebrating on a different day would be like ringing in the New Year on January second. It didn't really count.

Years later, I get it: the point isn't so much the meal or the day as much as it is gathering as a family, feeling thanks, and all that comes with it.

So it's all rather funny to me now to remember how I sat there staring at hairy apes talking to one another, confused for hours on end and trying to figure out why there was no turkey in the oven.

To this day, no one in the Lyon family understands why I thought this was even little bit odd.

And to this day, I can't see or hear anything about Planet of the Apes without a chuckle.

What You Don't Know: J. Scott Savage

My first contact with J. Scott Savage was when I was the chapter president of the Utah Valley Chapter of the League of Utah Writers. I found his contact information in the back of his first book and e-mailed, asking him to speak at the January meeting. He agreed.

A few weeks before the meeting, he came to our critique group's annual Christmas dinner as our newest member, and that's when I first met him. (At Brick Oven. How could I ever forget? Yum . . . .)

That was six and a half years ago, if I'm doing the math right. (I was expecting #4 then, and it was right before my first book was accepted. Yep.) He was a bit of a turkey when it came time for him to speak. I sent a confirmation e-mail to him, and he replied with something snarky like, "What? Was that THIS week? I totally forgot. . . . Just kidding."

I knew right then that he was a goofball, or, er, a riot to get to know.

It's been great having him in the same critique group (especially as the first male, someone to tell us when our male characters were acting, um, less than manly).

Today I get to have fun mentioning his latest publishing achievement, his upcoming book, Farworld: Water Keep, the first in a young adult fantasy series. The book will be on shelves in September, a mere two months away.

Since I agreed to be part of his cool blog tour before I hopped aboard the Whitney Committee and could no longer review 2008 books or publicly mention my opinion of them, I'll keep mum on what I think of the book itself.

Never fear; there are plenty of places you can learn about the book, as his blog tour is going for two months and is quite extensive. You'll be able to find great question-and-answer sessions, reviews of Farworld, and more all over the blogosphere.

However . . . since I can't review the book, I thought I'd have some fun. So . . . this may be the only place you get to find out about the real J. Scott. Here are six little-known facts I've learned about him in the six and a half years I've known him. I picked six because it's a fun number and not too big. I could have gone with twenty-six and had plenty to say. I've got a lot of dirt, but I decided not to mention the . . . oh, wait. :D

1) He enjoys being an anomaly.
For example, he finds it great fun to be the only bass in the room singing, "As Sisters in Zion" at Relief Society Literacy nights.

2) He's observant.
At last year's critique group Christmas dinner, he gave one member a miniature (toy) vacuum that actually sucked . . . that plugs into the computer. I think he knows we women ("The Ladies of Wednesday Night," as he so lovingly refers to us) do a balancing act between housewife and writer.

3) His biological clock is seriously messed up.
The poor man travels so much, my head spins. More than once as we're getting RSVP e-mails about meeting, he'll send a last-minute message along the lines of, "I was supposed to be flying in to SLC tonight, but there was an emergency in [Georgia, Las Vegas, LA, fill in the blank] so I'm headed there right now. Sorry; I won't make it tonight." Forget his biological clock; I bet that half the time even he doesn't know what time zone he's in.

4) Disneyland has played a part in his writing.
On a couple of counts. First, he once wrote a scene as an exercise of how to take a normal, happy situation and make it scary and creepy . . . using the "It's a Small World" ride. (Last time I rode it, my girls loved it, but I kept waiting for doll arms to reach up out of the water and kill me. Yeah. Thanks, dude.)

Second, since his sweet wife, Jen, adores the park, his family goes there a lot. On something like their third trip of the year, he once spent the day at Disneyland, writing, while his family played.

Talk about a writer's happiest place on Earth . . .

5) He feeds his friends.
Or maybe it's Jen who does it. Regardless, whenever he hosts critique group, there will be chips and salsa on the table. A good thing, too, because I often skip dinner as I race out the door. Therefore, most of the chips and salsa end up being eaten by me. Yeah, I know. Oink. (Oops. I think I just revealed more about me than I did about him.)

6) He gives the dreaded, "It's great . . . just two things," critiques.
Those two things are often something like, "I totally didn't buy the premise of the scene" or "The main character's motivation for doing any of this fell flat" or "It's just boring." Dang it all if he isn't right 95% of the time, but fixing his "two things" requires hours and hours.

(And he complains because I write all over his manuscripts. Sure I do, but adding commas and deleting adverbs doesn't take nearly as long as rewriting an entire scene . . .)


There you have it; six things I bet many people don't know about J. Scott Savage. But here's one more you may have figured out: He's a great friend who is willing to help out any way he can. That's something rare and valuable. I consider myself lucky to be one of the Ladies of Wednesday night.

Now for the (other) fun part: One of my blog readers will get an Advance Reader Copy of Farworld: Water!

To enter the drawing, simply make a comment on this post by midnight (MDT) on Sunday, July 6, 2008. I'll put all the names into a hat and have a small child draw the winner. I'll announce the winner here the next day, on Monday, July 7.

If the winner doesn't don't contact me with their mailing address within two days, we'll draw another name. Good luck!

Eagles Don't Make the Man

This has been an odd week for the family. Not only have we been working like mad on my daughter's new room, but she's been gone for all of it at summer camp. (We wanted to surprise her with the finished product. SO worth it! Pictures forthcoming.) She returned this afternoon and was thrilled.

For two and a half hours, the family was together again. We had a nice dinner, and then her brother left for a Scout hike and camp-out. It's like my family is fractured, and I have a feeling that the older (and more independent!) they get, the worse it's going to be.

But on to the point:

As I packed up my son's frame pack with the necessities, I was thrown back to the days when I went on Uintah hikes. I come from a family of campers. As in wilderness, roughing it, actual camping campers. None of this wimpy, drive-up-to-the-site-and-break-out-the-cooler stuff. Puh-leese.

My ward was the same. Every summer, the Young Women went on a week-long trip, leaving Monday morning for the High Uintahs, hiking every day to a new camp site, and coming home Saturday. Those were, quite literally, some of the most molding experiences of my adolescence. Some day I'll wax philosophical about the kinds of things I learned in the Uintahs, especially from our devoted leader, Brother T, but for now, I can't help but share a laugh.

Shortly after high school graduation, I went on a Uintah trip with some friends, along with an adult brother and father (neither mine) for supervision purposes. The group was mixed boys and girls, and I believe every male there was an Eagle Scout.

Hence, I assumed they knew what they were doing.

My first clue to the contrary was the fact that they were packing in at least half a dozen two-liter bottles of ice.

Two major problems with that.

First, do you have any idea how heavy ice is? There's a reason you're not supposed to try to carry more than twenty-five percent of your body weight. Duh.

Second, the Uintahs are covered with fresh springs. If you find a lake (and it's almost hard not to), you can find at least one, and likely several, springs running into it. Sure, you still boil the water to make it safe. You wouldn't drink it straight from the stream. But you sure as heck don't pack in your water when it's right there for the taking.

On the hiking portion, at every break, they'd take off their packs to rest. Okay, first off, that's a total waste of time (getting those things on and off is a bit of a pain). And provided you packed your trail mix in an outer pocket, you can either reach it yourself or have someone else get it for you without having to take off the whole pack.

But another (rather big) problem is that trying to put on a heavy pack while standing on a steep slope can throw your balance off and have you rolling down the mountain like an Oompa-Loompa. You just don't do it.

Then again, what do I know? I'm a girl. A non-scouter.

Then we reached the camp site. The Eagle Scouts got all dude-like and pushed us girls aside to let us observe their masculinity. They went in search of locations to set up the tents. I spotted several great spots, but none seemed satisfactory to them. In short order, they whipped out their camping shovels and began digging rocks out of the ground to make the site level.

In the Uintahs. Which is, by definition, a mountain with lots of angles. Where rocks practically grow on trees. You're trying to dig out all the rocks? Are you kidding me? Didn't you bring a foam pad to put your sleeping bag on? If you had, that would cushion the rocks, because I promise, you won't be getting any ground completely level out here without a bulldozer.

Meals were the biggest joke of all. They brought out heavy pans. (Again, um . . . is it any wonder big brother's hips and back were about to break? His pack must have weight ninety pounds!) They pulled out—and I only wish I were making this up—canned food. Why not pack gold bullion into your pack while you're at it? Might as well if you don't care about weight in a situation where every single ounce matters.

It was all I could do to keep myself upright and stop myself from crying out, "Anyone heard of Cup o' Soup? Ramen? Hot cocoa packets? Anything dehydrated? Freeze-dried? Lightweight?"

I almost looked around for the candid cameras hiding in the pine trees.

The trees had something else in store, though, because after dinner, the men decided we had to hoist all the packs into the pine trees, using ropes, to protect against the bears. I'm sure bears exist in the Uintahs, but I haven't seen any. And even if they do hang around camping areas, don't they, um, climb trees?

I shouldn't have been surprised when they pulled out canned peaches, actual eggs in their shells, and Spam for breakfast. Oh, golly. I had to bite my lips together into a tight line to keep myself from laughing hysterically.

All these years later (and we're approaching the two-decade mark), I still giggle when I think about that trip. They thought they were so darn cool, but in reality, they made the trip so much harder for themselves than they needed to. (I think there's a metaphor for life in that.)

To say I wasn't impressed with their Eagle Scout prowess would be an understatement.

So it was with great pleasure that I remembered my dad's classic know-how (Eagle, schmeagle; I have no idea if Dad earned his, although he probably did, but he knew what he was doing) on what to bring, how to pack it, and what not to put in the pack.

I even had my son stand on the home scale and weigh himself with and without the pack like we used to on the back porch to be sure it didn't weigh too much. We got it a few pounds under twenty-five percent. Perfect.

Scout leaders have the best of intentions, and I have no reason to believe that ours are the kind that lug Spam and ice into the mountains, but if my son's going to grow up to be a real camper—a real manly man—he'll benefit from Grandpa's tutelage.

So Dad, I can't wait until you're home again and we can take my two oldest on a real Uintah camping trip now that they're old enough for it. I'm counting down the days.

Thrifty Fun

A few months ago I learned about The Grocery Game from fellow blogger Jenna. I'm always on the look-out for ways to pinch a penny, but this web site has brought it to a whole new level. My grocery bill will never be the same.

The basic gist:
Pricing on grocery store items goes up and down in relatively predictable patterns. When laundry detergent is on sale, chances are that cereal or whatever else is not. Plus, all sales are not created equal. Sometimes an item may be marked down by only a matter cents, but if you wait a few weeks, the price will drop much more.

Clipping coupons always helps, and in years past, I could save a bit with my weekly coupon stash.

But what if you could take the rock-bottom prices when they arrived and combine them with coupons to get screaming deals?

Holy cow, that's what.

The Grocery Game does just that. It does the tracking for you. Your job is to clip the coupons from your weekly Sunday paper (doesn't hurt to find some on-line too) and then check out the weekly list they provide for your local grocery stores to see when to spend which coupons to get the best deals.

The service is subscription-based. You get one store's list for the regular (low) subscription rate, plus any additional stores for a small additional fee. I get the lists for two stores, because they often have very different items at rock bottom prices. It's worth the extra effort to visit two stores when I'm saving so much money, and I don't mind paying for the fee when I'm saving a boatload more than I'm paying for the list.

Every week they have color-coded items based on basic sale prices : black (it's on sale, but it's not rock-bottom, so buy the item only if you really need the thing), blue (a great deal--stock up!), and green (FREE!). The goal, of course, is to eventually buy only blue and green products.

You stock-up on the low-prices items even if you don't need them now so that when the price goes back up, you won't be paying the higher amount, and you'll already have enough on hand to wait until the next time the price is blue.

This is affecting my family in dramatic ways. For starters, we're eating a bigger variety of foods. If I find a great deal on certain products, I'm more likely to dig up recipes to go with them. If I get produce at a great price, I want to be sure I use it before it goes bad. A lot of things on the list are pre-packaged goods (think Hamburger Helper and the like), but I've found a ton of of healthy things as well (frozen vegetables, great deals on lean meats, and much more).

It's also been helpful to stock up on household items that we all use, like laundry detergent (I got an 8-month supply of a good brand--for our family of 6--for about twenty bucks), toilet paper (gotten a ton of it for FREE), toothpaste (GOOD brands for about a buck a piece) toothbrushes (found a good brand toothbrush recently for TWENTY-FIVE CENTS), deodorant, make-up, hair products . . . the list goes on.

I've also stocked up on basics like vitamins, cooking oil, sugar, and flour for general food storage.

The freezer is bulging. Our storage room shelves have had to be reorganized three times to accomodate all the new food. Another bonus: we eat out less now, since there's always something I can whip up for dinner in the house, so it's less tempting to grab take-out.

Every week I leave the grocery store feeling like I'm getting away with something sneaky. And if I don't save at least 50% off the bill, I feel let down. Yeah, it's that effective!

If you're interested in trying it out, you can get a 4-week trial for a buck. And since I'm all into FREE stuff, I have to mention that I can get free weeks on the The Grocery Game if you put in my e-mail address as the one that referred you: annette [at] lyfe [dot] com

Try it out and see for yourself how much you can save!

Wisdom at 5 Years

Today's post is brought to you by the sweet little mind of my 5-year-old. She is a joy in so many ways, not the least of which is her determination to give the best hugs anywhere and "permanent" kisses that can't wash off.

I almost feel guilty for enjoying this stage with her so much, because when her three older siblings were this age, I was so busy taking care of everyone else that I don't think I had the luxury of reveling in the sweetness like I can with her as the youngest.

Some of her most recent nuggets:

1) Maybe they should add this one to Merriam-Webster:
"Some boys get their ears pierced because they’re dudes. Dudes wear earrings."

2) In her efforts at keeping the family's manners in check, she insists on hearing, "You're welcome," any time she says, "thank you."

I pour a glass of milk, and she says, "Thank you . . . " If Mom doesn't respond fast enough, it's, "I said thank you!"

3) A word escaped her, so she described the object in hopes that Mom could help her remember it:

"What do you call that thing that’s like ice but it isn’t? And you eat it and you hold it? And it’s got a Popsicle stick and . . . oh, wait. I remember!"

4) And here's my personal favorite. The other night she excused herself from dinner to visit the little girl's room. While there, she belted out her current favorite Christmas song for all the world to hear.

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer (Reindeer)

Had a very shiny nose. (Like Monopoly!)

I about lost my dinner through my nose.

At some point today, I hope, I'll be hitting some more of the revisions for Manti. Right now, however, I need to get prettied up. My sisters are taking me out to lunch because I'm just that cool and they love me. Well, that, and I was born 34 years ago as of this morning. :-D

Thinking of Christmas

With December (and the first big snowfall of the year) here, my mind is turning to Christmas. This will be the third one in a row that I'll be an ocean and a continent apart from my parents, and it's making me sentimental.

As a child, I enjoyed Christmas more than any time of year. Now as a parent, I try to pass on some of the same traditions that made the season so special for me.

What I'm thinking about in particular right now:

1) Bing Crosby and company.
Bottom line, folks: It ain't Christmas if there isn't any Bing. My dad is of the Rat Pack generation, so I grew up listening to all the greats on his reel-to-reel tape set, almost exclusively during December. Our first married Christmas, my husband bought me a Bing Crosby Christmas CD, knowing that I'd need it to feel at home that year. I still have it, and we listen to it more than any other Christmas music.

I'm a bit like my older sister in that for years it was hard to listen to contemporary artists singing the "classics." I'm sorry, but Nat King Cole OWNS "The Christmas Song." Don't even try roasting chestnuts to anyone else.

As part of the Bing phenomenon, I watch White Christmas every year. My middle daughter has caught the bug, and it's one of her favorite Christmas traditions.

2) Pulla.
A Finnish sweet bread flavored with cardamom, pulla is not strictly a Christmas food (you can buy it at any bakery all year long). When I was growing up, December was the one time of year Dad always made pulla in beautiful braided rings. (Ironically, Mom is the Finn, but Dad was wearing the apron. Go figure.) Now I always make pulla for my family during December. The kids look forward to it, begging and pleading for the day to come when we can make pulla and they can create their own braids with the dough.

3) My first Finnish Christmas.
In 1984 my family headed over to Finland for three years on a church assignment. That first Christmas, we tried to hold onto some of our U.S. traditions while incorporating some of the Finnish ones. My biggest memories from that year: the straw and wood shaving ornaments covering the tree (gotta get me some of those one of these days) and opening half our presents Christmas Eve and the other half Christmas morning.

For the uninitiated, Santa makes his Finland stop on Christmas Eve, when everyone has big family parties. He comes in person, hands out presents, and after he leaves, they're opened. This makes for a very long day for kids; it's much easier to just wake up and open them. Splitting the unwrapping into two days was our attempt at keeping both countries' traditions.

The timing for the Finnish Christmas Even may be due to the fact that Santa's official headquarters are up by the Arctic Circle on a mountain called Korvatunturi. (I'm not making this up; check it out. I've been to Santa Land and seen the reindeer.)

4) My blue toy typewriter.
One of the best presents I ever got; I was about 8 at the time. The royal blue manual typewriter had a real ribbon and it worked just like the real thing. I ran that ribbon into the ground. Preview of coming attractions, for sure.

5) Mom's Better Homes and Gardens Trees
Our trees were always stunning. Mom would buy ornaments on clearance after Christmas, planning for next year's tree, which always had a theme. Sometimes she had Dad flock the tree, such as when we used the silver and pink decorations (a stunning tree, seriously). Whether we had Asian fans or gold garland, the tree was a sight to behold.

I struggle with what to do with our tree each year. I love the beauty of the trees I grew up with, but at the same time, I also want to showcase the Popsicle ornament my son made in second grade. We compromise--it's sort of color-coordinated (two alternating schemes), but we always slap on all the fun homemade and special memory ornaments on top of that. On top is my gorgeous bronze star hubby bought for me several years ago.

6) Moments of quiet solitude throughout my life.
I can remember sitting in the living room as a kid, the only lights being the white glow from the tree. Or the years when I had little babies and would sit and rock them by the tree. There is something mesmerizing and calming about turning off the lights, plugging in the tree, and gazing into the boughs.

I'm already making a list of the must-do traditions for this year. You can bet that everything above will be on that list, plus a few more.

Mom and Dad, wish you were here.

Chocolate, Chocolate, Everywhere!

For Utah chocolate lovers, the time is almost here. Next week is the 4th Annual Utah Chocolate Show! Woohoo!

Read part of the press release here, and then continue below it for a chance to win TWO VIP EVENT PASSES, worth $95.00!!!

(I usually don't indulge in lots of bold type and exclamation points, but this is a moment that warrants such enthusiam).

About the show:

Chocolate lovers of every stripe have waited all year for what has become a fixture on the state’s holiday event calendar: The Fourth Annual Utah Chocolate Show, November 16 & 17 at the South Towne Expo Center, with more to do, see, learn, and experience than ever before.

Some of the best chocolate that Utah and the U.S. have to offer will be there, including V Chocolates, Utah Truffles, See’s Candies, and Utah’s own bean-to-bar creator, Amano Artisan Chocolates, plus many others. Attendees can sample chocolates and enjoy show-only specials as they get a jump on their holiday shopping.

Specialty Classes that require pre-registration—a long-time attendee favorite—are back, as are free how-to demonstrations on the Gygi Culinary Solutions Chocolate Stage.

A Woman’sHeart.org, the show’s support platform for benefitting The American Heart Association in Utah, benefits their initiatives for women. The “I Love my Heart” 5K run/walk takes place Saturday, November 17, before the show opens that day.

Other new show features include a chocolate wedding cake competition display gallery and the Utah Loves Chocolate Photography contest, sponsored by V Chocolates. Young show-goers will be delighted by a special appearance by the Chocolate Princess on Saturday from 2 to 4.

An exclusive VIP opening celebration will be Thursday, November 15, the night before the 2-day main event. That evening, the “An Introduction to Fine Chocolate” tasting class will be free, and after judging by three of Utah’s foremost pastry chefs, chocolate wedding cake competition winners will awarded. A live-action Jeopardy!-style game featuring local celebrities will benefit the American Heart Association in Utah. Vendors will offer VIP night-only specials.

Main event show tickets are $7.00 each and are good for both Friday & Saturday. Children 5 and under free. VIP passes are sold only in pairs for $95. Tickets and passes can be purchased on the show’s website www.UtahChocolateShow.com, as well as at the door at their respective events.

###

Back? Good.

So here's the deal: One of my main jobs with UCS is writing the Weekly Chocolate Fix, a free electronic newsletter with fun chocolate trivia, recipes, show updates, and more. We award show tickets each week and chocolate prizes each month (the one for November is worth $50.00!).

Every so often, I throw in true chocolate confessions and funny chocolate stories--such as times when a mother steals from her kids' Halloween stash or licks the chocolate off her kids' toe. You know, the things real chocoholics do but don't really want to admit to.

That's where you, dear readers, come in.

Add your chocolate confession/story of no more than 150 words to the comment section (or email it to me: annette at utah chocolate show dot com).

You've got two big things going here:

1) If I select YOUR story to include in the next issue of the Weekly Chocolate Fix, you get the two VIP passes that are good for the VIP opening night celebration (which has tons of fun stuff not available at any other time--visit here for the low-down on the fun), but they'll also get you into the two-day show. And they're worth NINETY-FIVE BUCKS.

2) If I don't pick your story now, but DO decide to use it in a future issue of the e-letter, you'll receive FOUR free tickets to the 2008 show.

Really, folks, it's a no-brainer.

Now for the technical stuff: All submissions become property of the Utah Chocolate Show and may be edited for length and/or clarity.

To subscribe to the Weekly Chocolate Fix, click here. After the show, we always take a holiday hiatus before starting up again in January.

But please join us (both on the Fix and at the show next weekend)!

If you come, be sure to find me and say hello. And then give me chocolate. :)

Writing Challenge

About a week ago I joined Tristi's Book in a Month Challenge. For me, I'm not trying to finish a book, just keep plugging along at a steady pace and hit the homerun stretch by the time we're done.

So I'm calling it my 4-Week Challenge, and to keep myself motivated, I'm reporting my progress on the sidebar: The date the challenge ends, my beginning word count, and where I am so far. With any luck, that kind of accountability will make it happen.

When it's over, I might do another 4-Week Challenge to actually get the book finished.

On a different note, my foodie side has to pass along a recipe I used last week. On Friday I had the opportunity to visit the South Pointe Deseret Book store with author Gale Sears. The two of us brought breakfast. We met the staff, ate food, and talked about our newest releases. Lots of fun.

My contribution to breakfast was homemade muffins, and if I say so myself, they turned out great. But I have to give credit where credit is due. I got the recipe from Luisa at Novembrance, using her "Mother of Invention Muffins" recipe. I highly recommend you check it out and play with it. She had three substances you can switch around.

Here's what I used:

Substance A: Grated zuchini.

Substance B: Sour cream.
The options in the actual recipe are buttermilk, milk, or water. Since I sometimes use sour cream as a substitute in another recipe, I thought I'd give it a shot here as well.

Substance C: White flour.
I personally would have preferred at least half whole wheat or all whole wheat, but I know not everyone does. As I was making these for other people, I thought I'd play it safe.

Another change that I made shouldn't be a huge shocker for anyone who knows me. Instead of dried fruit or nuts, I decided to throw in chocolate chips.

Great for curling up with a good book, especially now that fall is around the corner!

What Is REAL

A new Best Foods mayonnaise commercial touts that their brand is "real" and that we should all eat more real foods.

Whether Best Foods tastes any better than other brands, I don't know, but I certainly agree with the sentiment. We live in such an over processed, nasty food world, that sometimes I ache for tomatoes just picked from the garden instead of their red, cardboard-tasting counterparts at the grocery store.

I'd give a lot these days for a bite of my dad's famous rainbow trout, caught and cooked the same day with his own special recipe. (Beats any freeze-dried halibut you're trying to pass off as food.) And for birthday cake? Mom's Finnish cake recipe, complete with moistening the layers with lemon juice and filling them with fresh jam. (Forget that artificially-colored atrocity at the grocery store bakery.)

I grew up with a mother who was way ahead of the health-food curve (and by way ahead, I mean something in the neighborhood of light years). My family was pretty much seen as the freaks of the neighborhood, and it wasn't unheard of for Mom to tell us not to mention that we ate raw honey instead white sugar, because people will think we're weird. (They did.)

She had read enough scientific literature to know well before the general public did that butter is better for you than margarine. (If I haven't mentioned it before, Mom is a bibliophile, only not so much with novels. The woman reads and reads every piece of non-fiction, especially about nutrition and health, that she can get her hands on.)

We never had margarine growing up (and I still can't stand the taste of it—I can hardly believe there are people in the world who can't tell the difference between butter and that nasty goo). But I had friends (even as an adult, I've run into them) who insist that margarine is better for you.

But we didn't even buy Crisco. "Shortening" to me meant butter. Most people I knew thought we were crazy.

It wasn't until about five years ago that the term "trans fat" became common when referring to the fat in margarine and shortening. At last, Mom was vindicated.

Like most of the country, Hubby grew up on margarine. It was cheaper and, as far as the family knew, healthier. For special occasions like Christmas, his mother would indulge in butter—and what a treat it was! So you can imagine his reaction when he married me and I put my foot down, insisting we'd always have butter, thank you very much. (Butter all the time?! Score!)

Recently, I asked a neighbor if I could borrow a cube of butter. She said yes, and I sent one of the kidlets to pick it up. He came home with a cube of margarine. I had half a mind to call her back and say, "I asked for BUTTER, lady! This isn't BUTTER." I didn't use the cube; I couldn't. We just made something else for dinner.

Same goes with other "real" foods. The fake variety just doesn't cut it. In addition to real butter, I grew up on homemade whole wheat bread that was so hearty it broke our toaster. (Dad, child of the Depression, jimmy-rigged the thing so it still worked. But you had to poke a homemade "key" into a special hole he drilled to make the toaster go down.)

Another real food I prefer is brown rice. It is real. White rice, while tolerable, is FAKE. You have to strip all the good stuff off the brown rice to make it white, just like you have to strip all the good stuff off the wheat kernel to make white flour.

My manic protestations to the contrary, hubby still prefers white bread and white rice. But I've converted him to other things over the thirteen years we've been married.

My biggest success has been getting him to genuinely appreciate—of course—REAL chocolate.

Whoops. As if one chocoholic in the family weren't enough.