This is the carrot cake that won me 2nd place in the dessert category at this year’s Halloween Party. It’s more picturesque than the chili that won me 3rd place in the chili cook-off, but I have to say, I was super proud of both!

I had the chance to see my favorite band perform last weekend, and it was really such a good concert. I’ve always loved the Counting Crows’ lyrics, and of course their melodies, too.

And so we’re adjusting to a much more backyard-filled life. One where the patio door is almost always open. One where we sit together in the sun (under an umbrella) instead of on the couch. And honestly, I think it’s been good for both of us.

Well, after avoiding it for 4 years, I finally caught Covid.

It surely looks different for everyone, these ideas of home and family, but I do hope each of you gets whatever form of home and family you are needing this Christmas.

This is all to say that I am enjoying this test and learn approach to growing things, and equally enjoyable is celebrating small victories, even as small as a single flower blooming. I’ll close with a mention of writing, which is something I enjoy doing outside by the way, with the scent of jasmine and roses wafting over from the planters.

It’s funny how even with something as regular and inevitable as seasons that there is still variation. Living so close to the Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch, I am very familiar with how they come together each year. And when. There is, in fact, a particular weekend each year when I make my paid visit and take some pictures. It’s the weekend that tends to be, in my opinion, the most peak. The weekend where the most number of flowers look their best and fullest.

One thing I do have my sights set on is running, as one of my 2022 goals had been to run a race. I ended up running 3 of them in 2022, all 5Ks, and when I’d set out as a new runner early in the pandemic, being able to run a 5K was really my only eventual goal. Having met it, and really having enjoyed the process, I found myself gradually increasing the distance of my runs. To the point that I knew I wanted to tackle a 10K in 2023.

I think I heard it as a U2 album title before I heard it as a National Park, but it’s hard to avoid Joshua when you live in California. People go there. People camp there. People talk about the times they camped there. And it makes you want to go yourself. Which is why this was on my list for 2022.

I enjoy cooking. I do. I like having a reason to cook, making a list of the ingredients I’ll need, going to the store and buying those ingredients, seeing which of those ingredients have any coupons I can apply, and so on. It has to be said, however, that the cooking doesn’t always go the way it’s supposed to. Usually it’s not a problem because I’m either cooking for just me, or for me and one other person who cares about me and really doesn’t care what I cook or how it turns out. Where I have absolutely no confidence is in my ability to cook food that actually looks good. Good enough to serve to others, perhaps in a dinner party type of setting. I just don’t know how to present the food, how to serve it, what to serve it in, and ultimately how to make it look like more than a sad green salad and a pot of soup, for instance.

Last time I talked about reading, which I confessed I didn't devote as much time to as I wish I did. I have to split this time with writing, see, but that means I don't devote as much time to writing as I wish I did either. Especially in the early months after one of my books comes out, I become a bit lax. (Although Yuppie came out in October, soooooo I'm not sure I can keep using this as an excuse.)

This is one of those times that I quiet the inner voices of frustration and panic over how ridiculously expensive it is to live in San Diego County and consider that the financial premium is sometimes worth it. Because it's just so damn beautiful here. The ocean, the weather, and, more specifically, the Flower Fields in Carlsbad that bloom each spring.

There's a children's song that likens apricot blossoms to popping popcorn, and I have to say, it really does kind of look like that. This is my first blossom season as the owner of an apricot tree, and the whole thing is pretty charming. I now own three different types of fruit trees, and it's interesting how it makes me more aware of the seasons. Or maybe it's the passage of time. Or maybe it's that the passage of time is now more formally segmented in these seasonal cycles. Don't get me wrong, fruit trees are a bit tricky to figure out, and I'm still learning. But overall it adds a new element to the year based on where the trees and their crops are at any given time.

I didn't realize an entire month had gone by since my last post, but before we discuss anything else, we simply must discuss this chicken. Er, this not chicken. As a vegetarian, I've been thrilled with all the fake meats that have become so prevalent (and dare I say...popular?), but chicken is notably harder to imitate than ground beef. That said, I was pretty excited about KFC getting in the Beyond Meat game. Admittedly, I was a teensy bit less excited after eating it, only because I guess I had hoped somehow that the texture would be more chicken-like, but coated in that delicious coating and dipped in a tangy sauce, it's another solid non-meat option when opting for fast food. (Word to the wise, 6 of these "nuggets" are MUCH more filling than 6 standard chicken nuggets. And in more wise words, Quorn has my favorite meatless nuggets. Try them if you haven't.)

What you're looking at is chicken. Vegan chicken, that is. It's a recipe I recently got from my sister-in-law that has become a regular staple for me. It requires ingredients like Vital Wheat Gluten and Nutritional Yeast (both of which I had previously never heard of), although what I can't get over is the way the recipe produces a dough...a dough that then gets steamed into a solid state and somehow becomes these, for lack of a better term, blobs. Honestly, when I'm making it I can't help but feel like I'm some kind of scientist in a laboratory, you know, just growing chicken blobs from dough. As you do.

I recently took a week off of work to stay home and do nothing. Well, I did sneak out to check out the Carlsbad Flower Fields (where I snagged the blooms pictured above). So I didn't entirely stay home. And I did go through my new manuscript 4 times to re-work some paragraphs and transitions after getting it back from my editor. So I didn't entirely do nothing. But I honestly couldn't remember a time where I'd ever done that before...took a week off work and didn't actually go anywhere.

Considering I've lived just a few blocks from the ocean for the past several years, it is perhaps a bit disgraceful that I've spent so little time at the beach. It's safe to say the novelty wore off relatively quickly, and equally quickly my life became full with new friends and pursuits that cut into my beach time. (I also write books. Have I mentioned that?) I can think of other reasons, too. My fair skin that burns easily, the incessant and annoying tourists that crowd this little beach town between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and, of course, COVID-19. But it's there, the ocean. And every time I see it, I have to remind myself that it's real. That I live here.

Because my cat likes to remind me that she doesn't get nearly enough face time on this blog. And because this is literally where she positions herself every time I get out my laptop to edit. Which I'm doing a lot lately as I prep my new manuscript. I thought I pretty much had it the way I wanted it but recently decided to make some changes to the final chapters that potentially affect the overall structure of the storyline. So now I'm needing to read through the whole thing several more times to figure out if it works. Which is all to say that my cat has really been having to fight with my computer for my attention. Not that she has anything to complain about. COVID has been the best year of her life. (I'm sure your pets would agree.)