School lunches

I've been pretty anxious about what to pack for lunch for my five-year-old at school now that she's in kindergarten.
My father made my lunches growing up and while I ate them readily when I was little, I stopped when I got older.
Firstly my father used wax paper instead of plastic baggies to wrap the food so cheese in particular would get hard and in kid terms, gross.
By junior high school I had developed very bad eating habits by mostly not eating breakfast and lunch and gorging once I got home from school around 4:30 p.m.
For my daughter's first day I packed a jam sandwich on whole wheat bread, no crusts, cantaloupe, apple sauce, a small baggie of flavored water and a small blueberry muffin. There were also cucumber slices and grape tomatoes for her morning snack.
Since I was able to clarify this morning that I can give my daughter nuts to be eaten in the cafeteria, tomorrow she'll get a small baggie of almonds instead of the muffin or apple sauce.
The lunch bag isn't that big and everything except for the sandwich was in a container. I'll have to see how hungry she is when she gets home. My plan is to give her yogurt smoothies or a cheese stick for protein, but didn't get around to making the smoothie last night.
I'm also going to make breakfast bars, which are essentially oats, nuts and dried fruit, for her lunch because 1. She likes them. 2. She eats them. 3. They are filling.
I'm baking another batch today so I'll post photos then.

It took about 8 hours to upload that photo. Not sure what's happening with blogger and photos and videos but I  can't upload them half the time.


That is a big pan of the Nigella Lawson recipe for breakfast bar containing nuts, oats, dried fruit and held together with sweetened condensed milk. They are very high calorie, but the bar sizes are small.

Anyway, lunch update: My daughter came home with her lunch bag and -- shocker here -- she hardly ate anything. She still had the full sandwich, the apple sauce and most of the cantaloupe. I wasn't surprised by the sandwich and apple sauce, but sport candy cantaloupe? She ate the small muffin, a bite of cantaloupe and drank water for lunch.
She then proceeded to eat half of a cantaloupe, half a big round cantaloupe, for dinner along with her portion of chicken pot pie and veggies.
I hope she isn't inheriting my childhood eating habits.

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Writing update

For some reason I have not published Evolution yet.
I'm not sure why. I can't say. I have a cover. The book is done.
I want to do some final edits but I just haven't dived in.
I think I'm worried that it took me six years to write it and it might take me another six years to write the sequel.
I don't exactly have George RR Martin's following, so I can hardly take so long.
My other concern is something Hugh Howey wrote about on his blog recently. It was about marketing books and how authors are best served by putting up an entire series all at once instead of waiting time in between books. If someone likes the book, they'll go on to read others by the author.
I'm much more likely to finish the Tysseland Chronicles than Evolution.
So I decided to published book two and three of the Tysseland Chronicles later this year. I'm not sure if I should wait to publish Evolution once book two is written, but it's something to consider.
So that's the plan. Hope you enjoy.

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Unemployed get no respect

When you aren't working, people ask what do you do all day?
It's not hard to fill up seven hours. Let's take yesterday. I got up at 5:30 a.m. and drove five hours from Toronto, got home just in time to meet the noon to 2 p.m. Comcast arrival window.
I got food out of the freezer for dinner. I haven't been cooking much lately because frankly I don't have the time!!
Of course the technician actually showed up at 1:59 p.m. and stayed until 5 p.m.
I tidied up the house. Ate lunch. Went through my email, pulled out jobs to apply, wrote an email. Poof. There was two hours and the technician shows up.
Fold laundry. Put away laundry. Unpack my travel bag.
Tidy kitchen. Lead technician around the house. Call WOW to cancel services. Pick some tomatoes and strawberries. Got mail.
Try out Xfinity package to make sure I got the services I ordered. Found that On demand didn't work. Called Comcast to discuss the issue.
At this point it's 5 p.m., husband says he's coming home and we can pick up the goat and Chloe together. I text friends to come see the goat Peanut.
Unfortunately Blogger is not working well today. I have been unable to upload a pic and video.
Pick up goat and Chloe. We were supposed to take Champ, the lamb, but he was sick.
Make dinner while crowd gathers in our back alley to see goat. Feed goat bottle. Cut up carrots for goat.
Come outside with food just in time for Chloe to dump the goat on me so that she can go off and use her new scooter that she scammed Daddy into buying her.
Friends arrive to see goat.

Pick up goat poop. He refused to "do his business" as my grandmother would say on the grass so we had poop in the garage, on the driveway, on the patio, in the alley.

Another friend arrives with son, husband and muffins. Sky goes dark with storm clouds and gets cold so we put goat in his cage and go in house. Kids (ours not the goat's) too afraid to feed goat his bottle. He gets another before children go to bed. Me and hubby feed goat bottle. Try to give goat a walk.
Friends leave. Put goat back in cage with food and water. Close garage for night.
Get Chloe in pjs, read her a story.
It's now 9 p.m. My husband and I watch an episode of Major Crimes but he's too tired to watch all of it and goes to bet. I follow shortly after him.

Stop being greedy

I find it very annoying that television producers have adopted this trend of splitting up seasons of very short run series.
The Walking Dead does this. The Closer did it and now Mad Men have followed suit.These are series that have about 10 to 13 new episodes a year -- half the number that major networks make for other shows like CSI or NCIS, garbage shows I never watch.
 Has no one told the show heads how annoying fans find this ploy?
It's the same as splitting up what should have been one movie into two. Breaking Dawn, part 1 and 2, now Mocking Jay, part one and two. I understand the concept behind the movies, greed.
How does this strategy bring more money to television? The only reason I can think they do this is to stretch out the viewing. Instead of losing a show in its final season in 2014 - as Mad Men was supposed to do - the remaining episodes will air in 2015, extending the season into a another year. Does this strategy bring in more money? Does it bring in more viewers?
This grumpy watcher says no.

Game of Thrones

Before I get into the HBO version of Game of Thrones, I would like to tell you that my book Cursed is now available at Scribd!


Scribd! is a newish service much like Netflix for books. You can read as many ebooks as you like for $8.99 a month. I've already read a couple like Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell and The Selection by Kiera Cass.


I only discovered the service after Smashwords announced an agreement with Scribd! and moved its collection over.


Also on the Smashwords front, they now have an agreement with Overdrive, the mammoth service that allows library patrons to borrow ebooks and electronic audiobooks. I use it often. My book has not been sent yet to the service, but it's waiting to be shipped.


I think those two deals are great news for independent publishers and helps authors reach a whole new market, especially library patrons.


Of my two books, Cursed does OK everywhere but at Amazon, while New Parent Survival Guide is only available through Amazon because I wanted it enrolled in the KDP Select program. I had lots of people borrow the book through the Amazon Prime program rather than buy it, which netted me more money. But I am now considering making it available on other sites as it is no longer a Select choice.


My next announcement is I am doing final edits on Evolution, my epic dystopian novel that reads a bit like Stephen King's The Stand mixed with the now defunct television show Heroes. You can read a sample on my website.




And lastly, Game of Thrones.

 I've read all the books by George RR Martin and am now caught up with the television series. I am conflicted. I think HBO did a fabulous job on season one, that's what got me to read the books. The episodes stuck very close to the book and so I assumed the rest of the seasons would too. That hasn't happened as much and maybe that's a good thing.


By deviating from the books, the television producers have accelerated some storylines (Sansa in the Erye) and slowed some down (Joffrey's assassination).

The fourth season is still comprised much of book three, a Storm of Swords, but has chunks from book four, A Feast for Crows.


I will be completely honest here. I can't remember everything that happened in the books. It's been three years since I read A Dance with Dragons and Martin's books are so full of intricate details, it's hard to remember what happened when.

I want to say that everything going on with Jon Snow and the Night's Watch happened in book four and that Snow didn't even make an appearance in book three, but again, I can't really remember. I do know that Snow never raided Craster's nest to kill the rogue Night's Watch members. I thought they were all dealt with by the Others/White Walkers.

With the producers changing stories and making up new scenes, it helps make the series a little less predictable for book fans and I think that's good. It makes some plot turns unexpected and that keeps me watching, waiting to see what's new. That can only be good for the show and its fans, book or television.

Netflix's House of Cards

I am a terrible procrastinator. I haven't done much writing and instead have indulged in my TV addiction.
Ok. I'm exaggerating. I don't watch that much TV. I have deleted shows off the DVR that I just don't have time to watch. I'm thinking Glee will head that way. I watched half of the first episode of this year - can you say boring?
I don't have time for boring television, like I'm sure many of you don't either.
Anyway, my coworker was telling me how much she liked Netflix's House of Cards and since I have the service and don't use it for myself, I thought, what the heck. I'll try it. 

Holy cow what a great show!! There were a few episodes that I could have done away with, but man, the pace of the show is lightening quick. It's super clever and has great evil characters.
I was very surprised - and blow away - when Mr. Evil decided to send Zoe to the subway cleaners. Up to that point I was wondering why ABC's Scandal has lots of murders and yet House of Cards, a show that is so much better, did not. Was House of Cards too pure for murder? Were the writers too good to stoop so low? And then it happens and it didn't seem cheap. It wasn't expected and if anything, it seemed sophisticated in its simplicity.
If you do not like political thrillers, House of Cards isn't for you. It's like an insiders game to politics. It's all about maneuvers, out-maneuvering people, even the simplest snags are planned in an over-reaching storyline of getting Francis Underwood into the White House.

Since Underwood is a very ambitious man and doesn't seem like the type to wait for his turn at the presidency, I can see President Garrett Walker getting bumped off and then Underwood can brag about being in the presidency and not being elected to that either.
I have always loved Robin Wright since she was in Santa Barbara with her hair so long she could sit on it. She is perfect as Claire Underwood and frankly I am surprised. I've never seen her play this type of character before but she's doing a great job.

And then there was Kevin Spacey. This guy is fantastic. I became his biggest fan with Usual Suspects, still one of my favorite movies.  I think he always does best when he's the lead.
I'm only a few episodes in to season two but already I'm dragging it out so that I can savor the show before the next season is released.