Jennifer Apodaca's Blog, page 59

Late Edition of Friday Five

TGIF! I hope everyone in the states had a good Turkey Day, and everyone outside the sates had a good Thursday I’m late today because the last three days were a nonstop blur, but now it’s time to dive into sharing five random things about out week.

Wizard had his followup appointment for his oral surgery and is doing great. Healed enough to do anything he wants to now. Such good news!Our Thanksgiving was great and chaotic as always. However middle son and his wife couldn’t come. We really, really missed them. They’ve been a little under the weather, and stayed home as a precaution because much as we all are sick and tired of it, Covid is still with us. I wholly and sincerely respect them for thinking of others.Everyone pitched in big time to help by bringing food. AND! I asked for help as I needed it the whole day. Everyone jumped right in from cooking to the final clean up. I was proud of myself for asking and grateful to everyone else eagerly helping.Maggie was so tired by the end of the night, she literally couldn’t hold her eyes open and was falling asleep sitting up like a puppy. She and Turbo have soooo much fun together. Turbo was so tired, his dad told me he fell asleep in his car seat before they got out of the driveway, LOL. But I love how much Turbo enjoys coming over here.If anyone missed the cake on my FB, I’ll post a pic below. I ran out of time to do much, but what I did do was fun! This cake was chocolate with Nutella flavored whipped cream filling. A very decadent cake.

That’s five now I’d love to hear yours! Hope you all have a great weekend!

The post Late Edition of Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Happy Thanksgiving

To everyone in the U.S.:

In my typical fashion, I’m trying to do too much, LOL. I can’t seem to convince my brain that I’m not 25 or 30 anymore I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that though. Plus I really love Thanksgiving. It’s one of my favorite holidays because the emphasis is on having a meal with family and friends, and being thankful.

I hope everyone is spending the holiday with someone they love.

For all those outside the U.S., Happy Wednesday!

The post Happy Thanksgiving first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

Whew, it’s hot, dry and windy here. On the other hand, that’s a pretty small complaint to have since other parts of the country deal with real weather problems.

So the weekend was okay. Due to circumstances beyond all our control, we had to move Thanksgiving from my Middle Son’s house to mine. So Saturday I got semi organized on that. When I say organized, I mean I bought a turkey, delegated a few things and made some notes I’ll get there. It won’t be as nice as if I’d had more time to prep but it will all turn out fine. There’s no real pressure on me since everyone is more than willing to help and no one has unreasonable expectations which I sincerely appreciate.

I also made this barrel as a test to see if I could do it.

The barrel is fondant that I hand cut, pressed a wood grain into then painted. I used white chocolate to “glue” those fondant planks to a base of rice krispy treats. My plan was to make a barrel full of leaves spilling over onto the cake and cascading down the side. I cut a ton of leaves that I still need to paint, but now I realize that this barrel is likely too big for the cake size I’m making and will look odd. I don’t think I have time to make a new one. No big deal, I’ll readjust the plan. If all else fails, I’ll make a drip cake, those usually look nice. (Ignore the white stuff on the board the barrel is sitting on. That’s melted white chocolate I used. I should have cleaned it up before I took pictures, but I was losing the light.)

Sunday I met Special K and Turbo at the zoo. Wizard was racing and CPA boy had some work to do. Turbo spent the bulk of time on the zoo playground making friends. Preschool has been a game changer for him. Covid had narrowed his world dramatically, and this carefully researched and selected preschool has helped him develop amazing age-appropriate social skills. I truly loved watching him interact. Then we saw the animals, had lunch and played a bit more  before leaving. By the time I got home, the heat had drained me.  But it totally worth it for a nice day with my daughter-in-law and grandson.

How was your weekend?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF! Let’s get right to sharing five random things about our week

tt’s a bad news bear week. Four sick people, and a friend who had sudden major surgery. I’m very unhappy that people I care about dare to get sick or have scary surgeries. Let’s not do that, okay?Maggie “sneaks” to wake up Wizard in the mornings. If he’s still sleeping when I take a shower, I tell her to get in her bed and let him sleep. She does…until I actually get in the shower and can’t hear her. Wizards said she skulks over, puts her paws up on the mattress and watches him until he pets her. Then she looks over her shoulder to make sure I’m not there and nudges him to pet her again. Wizard said it’s pretty funny. I’ll take his word for it, because once I get out of the shower, she’s back in her bed pretending to sleep.I made cookies just because I wanted to.This week, I’ve had a bunch of errands, just typical stuff, but WOW it seems like there’s so much more traffic and crowds out there. Holiday shopping and errands? I don’t know. Also, why am I always running errands lately?I’m planning to meet Special K and Turbo at the local zoo on Sunday to hang out. Wizard has other plans, but he encouraged me to go and have fun. I’m looking forward to that.

That’s my five now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend, and remembers to stay healthy

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

A Wizard Story :-)

Wizard had some oral surgery on Monday. That went well. But Wizard is pretty funny coming out of anesthesia. On the way home, he’s giving me directions despite me knowing the way, but he knows how directionally challenged I can be so that didn’t surprised me.

Then a car in the next lane nearly swerved into us. I swore and Wizard pipes up with, “You’re a crazy driver.” I rolled my eyes. Trust me, that was just nonsense stuff. He drives like a Nascar Driver, so…yeah…I ignored it. He rambled on with more random stuff then suddenly decided that he needed a plastic bag out of his pocket and took off his seat belt.

I yelled at him to put it on.

He argued that it wasn’t a big deal and I was being weird about a seatbelt.

Finally he gets the danged plastic bag and holds it up like a prize and spends another minute trying to put the seat belt back on with his other hand. I was looking for a place to pull over, fix his seat belt and duct tape his hands to his sides. Just kidding, I didn’t have any duct tape in the car. But he finally got the seat belt latched.

Then started looking for the plastic bag. He searched the center console frantically for the plastic bag and was very worried about this plastic bag.

I rolled my eyes so hard, I didn’t need my rearview mirror to see behind me.

A moment later, Wizard discovered the plastic back that he was still holding up in the air like a prize and laughed.

Then he fell asleep and pretty much slept the rest of the day. At dinner, he had no memory of any of this, LOL!

Guys he only had light sedation. It’s too funny. I’m sure I’m just as loopy, but it’s more amusing when it’s him and I can tell this story on my blog because he never reads my blog FYI, he seems to be doing fine.

Happy Wednesday! How’s your week going?

The post A Wizard Story :-) first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

I’m writing this while drinking a glass of wine. It’s last night people, not this morning. Mornings are for coffee In fact, anytime is for coffee, but mornings REQUIRE coffee.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, my weekend.  Let’s go day by day.

Friday was awesome. We went to our niece’s wedding. It was gorgeous; She was radiant and sweet, he was handsome and charming. and seeing them marry is a true joy. Turbo also looked handsome in his dark gray pants, white dress shirt and suspenders. Too freaking adorable. I got lots of kisses, especially when I snagged a piece of chocolate cake for him   All our kids and spouses were there, and that made it all the more special. Poor Youngest Son ended up a designated driver from the venue to the hotel they are staying at. He sulked. And a sulking youngest is hilarious. We all had fun teasing him.

Oh and I asked Youngest what smallish dessert he wanted for Thanksgiving. I’m making a cake he can’t have, so I offered to bring something else for him. He said peanut butter balls, and I made a face because I don’t feel like making those. He’s like, “Oh that’s right, you do, cakes so I want a Viper Cake” (a car). He’s so evil, really, guys. E.V.I.L. He knows darn well a Viper cake would be a major challenge that I can’t possibly do while doing the other stuff I’m making for T-day, so now he’s getting his stupid nondairy peanut butter balls.

But his birthday is in February, and now he’s getting a Viper cake whether he wants it or not.  He made be E.V.I.L., but I am the mother of evil, LOL.

So Saturday…boring. Only good thing was the movie we watched. Which I can remember the title of… I’d blame the wine, but I never remember titles, so it’s just me. Ha! I asked Wizard and the two of us together remembered the title! RED NOTICE. It’s like a spoof of spies and thieves, and we found it entertaining.

Sunday. Oh Sunday. I innocently pulled the salted caramel cake out of the freezer, having no idea that this was cake crazy. No really! It’s the truth. This cake did everything it could to ruin itself like a kamikaze cake (If that’s somehow offensive, sorry, I just don’t have the brainpower right now to worry about it.). Long, LONG story short, two and a half batches of icing, one awesome double batch of caramel sauce and three fricking attempts to decorate this cake–which means me literally scraping down the cake and redoing it to try to save it’s sugary self-destructive ass–and this is the result:

https://jenniferlyonbooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/1114211612b.mp4

The cake is GLOATING at my decorating failure. But I have a message for this Salted Caramel Cake–I will ultimately win! One day, I will have an amazing salted caramel cake that tastes and looks amazing. Or I will default to a kick ass chocolate cake, because–obviously–chocolate fixes everything.

Right now, I just need my single glass of wine to soften the frustration of the day, and the pain from standing in the kitchen for 8 hours of torture battling a demented kamikaze cake. Again, sorry if that’s wrong, I just…the cake was mean to me and all I wanted to do was make it pretty

So that was my weekend, how was yours?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF! Let’s dive right into sharing five random things about our week.

This week had much less stress than last week.The reaction to Wednesday’s announcement of a writing hiatus stunned me (we blanketed my social with the message). I think I was so focused on  making myself face facts and letting readers know what’s going on, I didn’t think about how kind and thoughtful everyone would be. I’m so touched by it. And of course, I have mixed feelings. This wasn’t something I *wanted* to do. However, I think it’s necessary.I adjusted to the time change pretty effortlessly. But Maggie is sad that her dinner has been pushed back a whole hour. Which means I get 60 minutes of sad puppy eyes trailing me around the house.I made some caramel sauce and used that to make a salted caramel cake to test the recipe for Thanksgiving. And also test my new cake pans which baked them exactly as I hoped. But I then immediately froze the cake because I don’t have time to do the frosting and attempt any decoration. Wizard can’t believe I would tease him this way He’s getting used to the abundance of cakes and treats, LOL.Today we’re going to my niece’s wedding, and it’s a quite a ways away. We originally were going to stay the night as all our kids are doing. But there’s been too much going on in life, and we decided to come home. It doesn’t matter, though, we’ll have fun and I’m thrilled for my niece and her soon-to-be husband. These moments are so important to celebrate.

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Announcement: My Career Decision

Before I get into the purpose of this message, I want to thank all my fans and readers. Romance fans are the best, but you guys take that to a whole new level of awesome!

So I’ve been quiet for a while because I’ve been struggling. A lot of you know that I had cervical spine surgery at the end of 2018, and that went well for the most part. Unfortunately, nothing is ever perfect, and I’m left with tinnitus (ringing in my ears). I managed to finish one more book, and began writing PRIMAL MAGIC when the tinnitus got worse. It’s playing havoc with my concentration and ability to write. And so, after months of agonizing, worrying, and being furious at myself, I’m going to take a break.

I’m officially announcing a hiatus from writing until I can get a handle on this and resume doing what I love—telling stories. Which means that at this time I won’t be finishing the Wing Slayer Hunter Series. I’m truly sorry for disappointing you. I seriously hung on, trying over and over, because I care about all my readers. But this is the point where I need to step back and take care of myself a little bit too.

I sincerely appreciate your understanding and support. I hope we can all keep in touch through social media, and I’ll send out another newsletter when I have more to share. Writing and stories will always be a part of my life, and so will the amazing readers to love great books as much as I do.

~Jen

*Please note: While I’m putting my professional career on hold, I will still be here posting on this blog. I’ll continue to talk about writing, reading, dogs, life, family, cakes, yoga, or anything that comes up–including this struggle of make such hard choices if anyone is interested. I hope you’ll stick around! Stepping back from writing is painful enough, I sure don’t want to lose my blog-friends too!

The post Announcement: My Career Decision first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

It was a quiet weekend, which given last week stress dump, I’m grateful.  I did make a decision on my writing, and I’ll talk about that a little on Wednesday.

Saturday was our anniversary, and we celebrated as well as we could with Wizard’s mouth issues. We made some lobster at home, and I made a cake. We plan to do a nice dinner out once Wizard’s mouth gets sorted out

I tried this “one bowl” chocolate cake recipe. I adjusted the recipe by 1) sifting all the dry ingredients, especially flour and cocoa powder. 2) I added a 1/2 tsp expresso powder to cocoa powder and 3) I used hot coffee if place of hot water. That both deepens the chocolate flavor and adds a bit of mocha taste. We both loved the cake. I didn’t get to try some decorating techniques I hope to because I was experimenting with chocolate icing. I still haven’t found the right one yet, and so I ended up doing a quick drip cake decoration, but that’s fine for us. But seriously, I loved that cake!

Saturday afternoon I got my Covid booster shot. Sunday, I felt okay, just a mildly sore arm and a slight headache but I took the day slow as a precaution. I did a little local shopping and found one warm pullover sweater which is all I’ll probably need for “heavy” sweaters. And we looked at the model homes being built by our house. We have the floor plans (we got them off the planning commission website) and we able to walk right into the newly framed structures. Nothing is gated off yet, so that was nice.

So how was your weekend?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF It’s been a week. But now it’s time to share five random things about our weeks, so here’s mine:

Wizard’s Tricky Tooth Saga goes on.  I won’t bore you with the details, just sum it up with: Every attempted fix had uncovered a deeper problem. No one’s fault, they really couldn’t see how deep it was on the x-ray. Sooner or later, we’ll get it resolved. This has not been Wizard’s idea of a good time, now he’s on antibiotics and waiting for an appointment with a third dentist (two are different specialists).Our anniversary is Saturday. We had dinner plans and cancelled them. Wizard isn’t going to be able to eat, and we’ll celebrate once he’s feeling better. And honestly, there’s just other stressors going on.I baked a new-to-me mocha chocolate cake yesterday and immediately froze it–trust me this keeps them fresh. Then I made a big batch of buttercream and made part of that buttercream in chocolate mocha flavor using melted chocolate. I’m going to see how “soft” it is when I decorate the cake. If it’s too soft to decorate with, then I’ll use it for filling between layers. My plan was to make the cake tomorrow or Saturday if Wizard feels like eating it in a mini-anniversary celebration.  It’ll be a simple design because…life In good news, we have Thanksgiving planned at middle son’s house, and I’m really looking forward to that.  It’s nice when the family pulls together. I love that.This week, we got to see Wizard’s sister and brother-in-law that we haven’t seen since Covid began. He’s a doctor working in a major hospital so he’s  been understandably cautious about exposing others. We’ve really missed them. It was so wonderful to see them, catch up on our lives and how our kids are doing. That was a true highlight of the week!

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.