I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
Captain’s Log, Stardate 03.18.2006
Blog Book giveaway:
My Monday book giveaway (STEALING ADDA) is here.
My Thursday book giveaway (DIE BEFORE NIGHTFALL) is here.
You can still enter both of them. Just post a comment on those blog posts.
On Monday, I'll draw the winner for STEALING ADDA and post the title for another book I'm giving away. Stay tuned.
Mochi: On the way home from their China trip, my parents had a layover at Narita Airport in Japan, and of course they headed straight for the Duty-Free shop. The both love mochi and bought some there. The mochi made in Japan is so much better quality than the stuff made here. It’s also ten times more expensive, even bought IN Japan.
After saying there was no way in hell they’d send me some of their precious stash, Mom and Dad relented to my whining and sent me a package of this mochi.
Talk about heaven in my mouth.
The Japanese have this thing for cute little packages. The mochi is individually packaged in little ice-cube sized plastic tubs wrapped with soft linen paper. The type of mochi my parents bought is kinako--sweet rice dumplings covered in fine beige-colored flour made from soybeans. The flour is a nice contrast to the sweet mochi, but this particular brand had these postage-stamp sized packets of sauce to pour over your mochi. The sauce is to die for—mapley and thick and dark and oozy.
Yum to infinity, man.
Bible in 90 Days: Day 65. Oops, I haven’t read my Bible yet today. I’ll do it right after I post.
Writing: Got some done after youth group meeting tonight, and hopefully will get a little more plotting done later.
Diet: Went for a 75 minute walk today with my husband dragging his grumpy butt with me (just kidding, we had a good laugh over that). But it was one of the kids’ birthday tonight and I had two of these fabulous German chocolate cake cupcakes. I’m such a sucker for German chocolate cake. I ended the day at around 1700 or 1800 calories.
Blog Book giveaway:
My Monday book giveaway (STEALING ADDA) is here.
My Thursday book giveaway (DIE BEFORE NIGHTFALL) is here.
You can still enter both of them. Just post a comment on those blog posts.
On Monday, I'll draw the winner for STEALING ADDA and post the title for another book I'm giving away. Stay tuned.
Mochi: On the way home from their China trip, my parents had a layover at Narita Airport in Japan, and of course they headed straight for the Duty-Free shop. The both love mochi and bought some there. The mochi made in Japan is so much better quality than the stuff made here. It’s also ten times more expensive, even bought IN Japan.
After saying there was no way in hell they’d send me some of their precious stash, Mom and Dad relented to my whining and sent me a package of this mochi.
Talk about heaven in my mouth.
The Japanese have this thing for cute little packages. The mochi is individually packaged in little ice-cube sized plastic tubs wrapped with soft linen paper. The type of mochi my parents bought is kinako--sweet rice dumplings covered in fine beige-colored flour made from soybeans. The flour is a nice contrast to the sweet mochi, but this particular brand had these postage-stamp sized packets of sauce to pour over your mochi. The sauce is to die for—mapley and thick and dark and oozy.
Yum to infinity, man.
Bible in 90 Days: Day 65. Oops, I haven’t read my Bible yet today. I’ll do it right after I post.
Writing: Got some done after youth group meeting tonight, and hopefully will get a little more plotting done later.
Diet: Went for a 75 minute walk today with my husband dragging his grumpy butt with me (just kidding, we had a good laugh over that). But it was one of the kids’ birthday tonight and I had two of these fabulous German chocolate cake cupcakes. I’m such a sucker for German chocolate cake. I ended the day at around 1700 or 1800 calories.
Comments
My sister-in-law took a sabbatical from teaching about 3 or 4 years ago and went to China with a travel-agent friend. They first went to a school close to Korea with which her pupils had exchanged letters. The whole school had put up a big production to welcome Donna and Donna. She took them things from Canada and even got them a couple of government things as well as a greeting from either the prime minister or the then governor-general. She had a great time there.
Then the headmistress and some of the other teachers took them around the area for about 2 or 3 days. The introduction to the school came through Donna's former pastor whose family had gone to the area as missionaries.
They also saw Peking, the Chinese Emperor Chin's clay army, some tributary of the Yangtse before it was flooded. In total they really enjoyed their stay there.
I'm hoping to see my friend, Grace, in Hong Kong sometime. She just sent me some postcards of Discovery Bay, the area in which they live. The area is totally stunning. I'm hoping that if I ever get there, I'll get a chance to go to China as well to see some of the sights. Grace set up some quite profitable businesses when she headed back to Hong Kong after going to University in Manitoba with me, at least the last year. Her husband-to-be was studying physics and is a professor. Their son is one of the premier neurosurgeons in HK. He studied medicine at the U. of Edinburgh. Their daughter also went to school in England. They felt that if things got really bad again in China, they wanted their children to have the option of having dual citizenship (or something like that).
You were talking of kids' birthdays. Now your profile says that you don't have any. So who are these kids? Call me "Curious" but not nosey.
Is it fattening???
:)