Quick Review: Harmony Black Series (Urban Fantasy, 2 books out so far)

I binged the first two books in the Harmony Black series by Craig Schaefer over the course of two days (one book each day). To be fair, I had half-days of work, which meant I was done by 10:30 AM (I start super early) so I had a lot of time to kill those days. The …

Vegan Gingerbread Cake

I did a trial run of vegan baking a few weeks ago. The resulting muffins tasted delicious! But they were really gummy so that consistency wasn't working for me. Quite a few of my friends are vegan, and I like it when they visit, so I want to make sure that they have enough to …

Quick Review: Ayala Storme Series (4 books, completed Urban Fantasy series with queer women)

Over the past several months, my partner and I listened to the audiobook versions of the four-book Ayala Storme series by Emmie Mears. The ebook versions are available for free via Kindle Unlimited, and you can purchase the Audible version for an additional $1.99 each. The Audible version is narrated by Amber Benson, whom you may recognize …

Vegan Muffin Experiment

Quite a few of my friends are vegan, and some of them have parties and ask us to bring vegan dishes for the potluck. I have one great vegan recipe that I use pretty often for those kinds of situations, but I wanted to add some other options to my arsenal. Especially now that my …

Blowing my 2016 reading goal out of the water

I won my Kindle Paperwhite a little over a year ago from Chipotle during their Super Short Book Report promotion. It is the best thing I've ever won in my life. It helped rekindle (pun intended) my love of reading. I'm pretty sure that bringing this hobby back into my life has played a major …

Reclaiming hobbies is great for your mental health

I've always been a super crafty person. It probably has something to do with my paternal grandmother being a seamstress. My mom was also bitten by the crafting bug and always made us the most amazing Halloween costumes while we were growing up. I have vivid memories of hand sewing little bears and other items …

Completed MCPL 2016 Reading Challenge!

I finished MCPL's 2016 Reading Challenge! I was a little stuck on #12: An award winner, until I pulled up the 3rd book in the Chronos series (Time's Divide) and realized that the first book in that series won the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Grand Prize. I'm thisclose to finishing Time's Divide (portions of which …

The Wedding Shawl, Part 3: The Finish

My kid brother got hitched! I still need to get a good photo of the bride wearing the shawl, but she did post this picture once she got home from the wedding! They had a "couch" set up at the wedding, made up of felt blankets on top of hay bales, and the bride actually …

Delicious blast from the past

My partner lived in Africa for a few years during her childhood. Her father is an economist, and worked for The World Bank for a while. She has a ton of fun (and some kind of scary!) recollections from that period even though she was pretty young. While we were watching Sense8 something jogged her memory. …

The Wedding Shawl, Part 2: Almost to the finish line

I bound off on The Wedding Shawl last night, with a cat in my lap. The plan is to block the shawl this weekend (probably Sunday since I have So Much Stuff To Do on Saturday). Good stuff, but so much of it. There's the cider festival from 1 - 4 pm in DC and …