Kate Collins's Blog, page 146
September 7, 2015
Alaska
by Maggie SeftonI wrote this post two weeks ago while I was still on an Alaskan Glacier cruise. To the right is Hubbard Glacier.
I'm presently sitting in a comfy chair in one of the many lounge sitting areas around the open atrium of the Norwegian Sun cruise ship and staring out at the sea. We're sailing toward the Alaskan Inside Passage. I boarded the ship at Seward, Alaska, and seven days later our destination will
be Vancouver, British Columbia sometime in the middle of the night. After disembarkation, I'll be joining a short 2-hour tour of Vancouver, and afterwards all of us on the tour will be delivered to the airport for our flights home.To the left is the rainforest near Icy Strait Point.
It's been a wonderful trip, and something I've always wanted to do---see the Alaskan Glaciers. The Hubbard Glacier which we saw at the beginning of the week is still my favorite. Huge, old, and reflecting blue from its depths. It appears that blue is the only color that reflects from a glacier. All other colors are absorbed. The next day I walked into the rainforest at Icy Strait Point around the gorgeous Spasski River. The salmon were spawning and having a high time---tail splashing and jumping. Alaskan Salmon are big fish, and that river was filled with them.To the right is the Mendenhall Glacier.
My next favorite glacier view was the Mendenhall Glacier up in the mountains above Juneau. Clouds were beginning to come in but they hadn't yet obscured the massive glacier which had taken over that
mountainous area. Another day, I took a marvelous 40-mile trip up into the mountains above Skagway on the White Pass Railway. Steam engine and an old-fashioned parlor car. I love, love trains, so I especially loved that trip. Skagway is a great old mining town. Alaska towns all have stories associated with them about their "high times" during the Yukon Gold Rush. Those of us who live in the Western U.S. know full well how those valuable metals---gold and silver---changed the histories of our Western territories. Yesterday we were in Ketchican where I enjoyed the town and the Lumberjack show and contest. Of course, the scenery was lovely---mountainous and green. Beautiful scenery everywhere I looked. Right now I see the land in the distance which tells me we're entering the Inside Passage. So, I'm going to get the "drink of the day" and relax and enjoy the view from my chair in front of the window. I'll be going into dinner at 7:00pm. I've done dinner every night at the later time so I can enjoy these great views as long as possible. Meanwhile, I'm sharing some of them here on the Chicks' blog so you folks can enjoy too. :)
September 6, 2015
EGGS-ACTLY WHAT I NEEDED
by Kate CollinsI met a friend for lunch the other day and ended up having a much bigger salad meal than I expected. Of course, if restaurants served "real people" portions, I wouldn't have had this problem. But that's a subject for a whole different blog. (But am I right about those portion sizes?)
Anywho . . . I wasn't very hungry at supper, so I looked for something tasty, nutritious, and easy. After casting about in my fridge for a few minutes, I finally eyed the carton of eggs. Actually, I reached for the carton of eggs, then stood there trying to decide what to do with them.
Ah. A frittata. Of course. When in doubt, make a frittata. You can put just about anything in it -- bacon, ham, sausage, onions, garlic, tomatoes, cheese, any vegetable you have on hand -- and end up with a satisfying meal. And you can wing it with amounts. Just figure 3 eggs per person and adjust the other ingredients accordingly.
I happened to have goat cheese that I needed to use up, plus a lot of baby spinach. So I sautéed the spinach in olive oil with chopped onion and garlic, threw in my garden cherry tomatoes chopped into quarters, then whipped up 3 eggs with a little almond milk and parmesan cheese, added it to the skillet, baked it for 12-14 minutes at 400 degrees -- and VOILA. If you want the top browned, you can slip it under the broiler.
I've heard asparagus is delicious in it, as are artichokes. The great thing about this dish is that it's simple and will help clean out the refrigerator. It's my fall back meal.
What's your fall back meal?
September 5, 2015
What I Thought I Left Behind
by Leann
I lived on the Texas Gulf Coast for a long time. I stayed in my home for a hurricane and several severe tropical storms. I learned staying was not what I wanted to do. The last hurricane to hit the area we lived, Hurricane Ike, was a severe wind storm as opposed to my first hurricane--Alicia. She was a rain storm. They are like unpleasant relatives, each with their nasty, unique characteristics.
Hurricane Ike took down a tree in our back yard that was so huge I couldn't fit my arms around the trunk. Thank goodness it fell away from the house or it would have destroyed our home. Instead it only took off gutters as it swiped the garage. Once we cut up the tree and stacked it in our front yard for those who wanted some free firewood, the stacks stretched for about fifty feet.
Friday evening, here in South Carolina, we had a very mean thunderstorm--the kind that comes on suddenly. There was a lot of lightning and wind along with the rain. The animals were frightened and I was little nervous myself as we have so many windows.
Saturday morning, I got up early and let the dog out around 6AM. I could tell the rain had lasted longer than I thought and I even walked out down the driveway a little bit because Rosie doesn't like to get her feet wet and sometimes needs a little encouragement to get out on the grass. I was working on my next book when I got an interesting text message from our good friends: OMG. We're in your driveway. Now, I knew they were going car shopping so I thought they stopped by to show us what they'd bought. Instead, this is what I saw.
You can tell by these pictures how gigantic that tree was--a beautiful red oak. An hour earlier, before the text and while I was working, my husband was doing his laundry. I'd heard this tremendous noise. I went to the laundry room and asked him what the heck he was doing. He is a tad hard of hearing and looked at me like I was a little crazy. "Laundry. What does it look like I'm doing?" I told him it sounded like he was destroying something.
Turned out, that was probably when the tree, which had probably split the night before, finally fell. Mother Nature was doing the destruction. I couldn't believe it had happened again. We're
lucky we still have a truck and a garage!
I lived on the Texas Gulf Coast for a long time. I stayed in my home for a hurricane and several severe tropical storms. I learned staying was not what I wanted to do. The last hurricane to hit the area we lived, Hurricane Ike, was a severe wind storm as opposed to my first hurricane--Alicia. She was a rain storm. They are like unpleasant relatives, each with their nasty, unique characteristics.
Hurricane Ike took down a tree in our back yard that was so huge I couldn't fit my arms around the trunk. Thank goodness it fell away from the house or it would have destroyed our home. Instead it only took off gutters as it swiped the garage. Once we cut up the tree and stacked it in our front yard for those who wanted some free firewood, the stacks stretched for about fifty feet.
Friday evening, here in South Carolina, we had a very mean thunderstorm--the kind that comes on suddenly. There was a lot of lightning and wind along with the rain. The animals were frightened and I was little nervous myself as we have so many windows.
Saturday morning, I got up early and let the dog out around 6AM. I could tell the rain had lasted longer than I thought and I even walked out down the driveway a little bit because Rosie doesn't like to get her feet wet and sometimes needs a little encouragement to get out on the grass. I was working on my next book when I got an interesting text message from our good friends: OMG. We're in your driveway. Now, I knew they were going car shopping so I thought they stopped by to show us what they'd bought. Instead, this is what I saw.
You can tell by these pictures how gigantic that tree was--a beautiful red oak. An hour earlier, before the text and while I was working, my husband was doing his laundry. I'd heard this tremendous noise. I went to the laundry room and asked him what the heck he was doing. He is a tad hard of hearing and looked at me like I was a little crazy. "Laundry. What does it look like I'm doing?" I told him it sounded like he was destroying something.
Turned out, that was probably when the tree, which had probably split the night before, finally fell. Mother Nature was doing the destruction. I couldn't believe it had happened again. We're 
lucky we still have a truck and a garage!
September 4, 2015
Ready for Pre-Order!
The Chicks have put together a comprehensive tea book filled with menus, recipes, and fascinating lore about not only afternoon tea, but one of the world's most beloved beverages. We'll tell you what to wear, how to set your table, and share memories of our favorite teas with friends and family.
Tea Time With The Cozy Chicks will be released on October 6th. Soon after, we'll be hosting a launch party on Facebook, where we'll be giving away party favors, bone china teacups with silver spoons, and lots more. So stay tuned.Tea Time With The Cozy Chicks will not only be available as an e-book, but you'll also be able to order it as a trade paperback. (That's still in the works, so stay tuned!)
To order your e copy of the book, just click one of the following links.
Kindle | Kindle Worldwide | Kobo | Nook | iBooks | Smashwords
Now, tea anyone?
September 2, 2015
My secret addiction ... sssshhhh!
By Mary Jane Maffini aka Victoria Abbott
Since we’re all good friends here, I’ll ‘fess up about my latest addiction. Just last week I realized that I’d developed a strange yet mildly compulsive behavior.
Of course, you have probably guessed that it’s baking cookies and brownies after nine in the evening, a time when normal people are knitting or reading or watching TV, perhaps even all three at once. I do that too, but only after I do this!
I should mention that I am not a morning person! At any rate, what is there about the dark outside and the kitchen being slightly dimmer than when normal people are baking?
Don’t ask me. I have no clue. But I have made Kahlua brownies four times lately and banana chocolate chip cookies twice:
And now I’ve reconnected with that tempting treat: roll-out chocolate cookies. Perhaps I can add a Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownie batch or two,
That’s good for a few more nights. As the fall will be here soon, chocolate gingerbread loaves will be calling to me. The recipe is already positioned for ease of access. Wrapped with a ribbon, they make great gifts at Christmas,
Oddly enough, I find myself surrounded by a number of food magazines and cookbooks (including the Cozy Chicks) kitchen.
Where and when will it end? I’m not supposed to eat sugar and have to go easy on chocolate (how excruciatingly boring, I know) and yet, chocolate and sugar seem to play a major role in these nocturnal activities.
Never mind. My family, friends and neighbors seem quite happy with the results and they don’t care when I bake them. I feel like I’m getting away with something, and yet …
How about you? Do you bake at odd times? Cook things you shouldn’t eat? What do you like to make? Other secrets to share?
Are you ready for fall…or not so much
I am such a summer girl!! I love summer! The sun, the heat, the humidity, the grilling, even cutting grass and I really love my garden. But summer 2015 is over much too fast and that’s downright depressing.
So to cheer myself up I came up with 14 reasons to get jazzed over fall.
First there’s pumpkin pie to look forward to. We even have pumpkin spice ice cream here in Cincy and it’s terrific and you can only get it in the fall.
And the colors! Lordy, the leaves chaning is amazing. It’s pure magic. And it’s now officially candy apple season. Yummm…
Then there’s hot chocolate with marshmallows, gotta have the marshmallows. Okay, you can have hot chocolate anytime but you have to admit it tastes best when there’s a nip in the air and nothing gets you warm like a cup of hc.
Halloween is just around the corner with all the decorations and kids begging for candy. Who doesn’t love sneaking a piece? And then there’s the clothes. Jackets, sweaters, scarves, new jeans and boots! Boots are fantastic and a change of season is a great reason to shop.
Thanksgiving is the best holiday of all. The family gets together and it’s the perfect kickoff to the holiday season. And the food!!! Lord have mercy nothing beats Thanksgiving food.
And it’s back to hot coffee instead of cold coffee, fires in the fire pit and in the hearth, and the beginning of all the new shows on TV. That is for sure a great reason to embrace fall.
So what about you? Are you a summer gal/guy? Looking forward to fall? What are you looking forward to most?
September 1, 2015
Ellery's Mystery Cozy Contest
Hosted By Ellery AdamsIt's the first of the month! Time for me to give away a $10 e gift card to the bookstore of your choice.
This is how it works: I post a few lines from a cozy mystery. You post the title and author in the comment section. Then, I'll draw a random name from the winning guesses and post that person's name on this page and on Facebook by 10 p.m. on September 2nd.
Okay, here we go! Here are the lines from this month's mystery cozy:
"But I had bigger things to deal with right now, I thought as I squeezed another jet of warm milk into the pail. Someone had murdered Nettie with a bratwurst skewer, and the local sheriff thought I was the prime suspect."
Ellery's helpful hint - In this book, the character makes cheese from milk she got from her own cow. Pretty impressive, eh?
August 30, 2015
V is for Victory -- Garden
by Kate CollinsI've been harvesting a crop of about 50 cherry tomatoes a day since mid-July. There are so many tomatoes that I practically feed the neighborhood, not to mention fill my own freezer with enough chopped tomatoes to make sauces for a year. I love it!
I also grow my own herbs and lettuce, and this year I even planted sunflower seeds in a big pot. The sprouts are super nutritious and delicious eaten raw, in salads, or cooked in stews. As you can see in the photo, I let two of them grow and my little yellow headed guy is standing tall -- with a brother coming up on his right.
I came across a helpful article just yesterday on how to make a home garden grow like crazy and realized I'd been doing some of what was suggested by accident.As it turns out, tilling the soil is a big fat NO NO! Tilling destroys valuable soil life and promotes weed growth. When you till, you break up the aggregates, waking up bacteria that consume the organic matter that acts like a glue in the soil and help retain water. So tilling is profoundly counterproductive.
You can also look on YouTube, which is a fantastic resource. There you can such things as how to optimize your garden and grow your own food. Search YouTube using the keywords "no-till garden."
Instead of tilling, mulch the soil or grow a cover crop. I didn't realize that certain plants grow better when another plant grows with it. The next book I'm going to buy is, Carrots Love Tomatoes: Companion Planting for a Healthy Garden, which teaches you how to do intercropping of vegetables.
The other benefit of growing your own veggies is that you can make sure they're organic by NOT spraying them with pesticides. There are other remedies that are safe to use, such as 20% vinegar mixed with water. Or look on You Tube for ideas.
As you can see in the first photo, I have just a corner of my space devoted to vegetables. It doesn't take a whole lot of room. If you don't have soil, use containers. It's fun and oh, so rewarding to harvest and eat your own crops.
I'd love to see photos of your garden. I think you can share them here. Please do!
August 29, 2015
Reclaiming the Quilts
by Leann
At the time I was learning to write fiction--and believe me, it was a steep learning curve--I also took on something else--quilting. Who knew that years later those two important aspects of my life would merge in The Cats in Trouble Mysteries?
I probably took more quilting classes than I did writing classes. Problem was, I didn't even know how to turn on a sewing machine when I decided I wanted to create quilts. I'd been a reader all my life, so writing, though far more difficult than I imagined, came a little easier. Like with my first stories, my first quilts were pretty awful. But I found the two crafts similarly complex and immensely satisfying.
Writing a novel and making a king-size quilt probably take about the same amount of time. I jumped into both with enthusiasm because,well, they offered me the freedom to be myself. A troubled childhood never quite allowed that before. Then the illnesses came. The Lyme, the fibromyalgia, the multiple chemical sensitivities, the asthma, the Epstein-Barr, the hypothyroidism. They all have one thing in common: tremendous fatigue. I couldn't focus, my vision was affected, my stamina was gone. I only had room in my brain for writing the books. I mourned the loss of me. I had to take early retirement from my nursing job because I feared I might harm someone inadvertently. See, at 3 PM each afternoon at work, I more often than not found myself unable to do more than rest my head on my desk. Thank goodness I left when I did because it only got worse. It was the right decision.
It has been a long journey to accept these invisible thieves. The medication for the newest diagnosis, myasthenia gravis, has brought some relief. For the first time in at least three years, I picked up my hand quilting and stitched. Did I get tired? Yes. Did it feel wonderful? Yes. I doubt I will ever finish all the projects I had planned. Like writing, I can only take joy in the process. And that is what life should be, anyway--joy in the day to day. Nothing is promised.
At the time I was learning to write fiction--and believe me, it was a steep learning curve--I also took on something else--quilting. Who knew that years later those two important aspects of my life would merge in The Cats in Trouble Mysteries?
I probably took more quilting classes than I did writing classes. Problem was, I didn't even know how to turn on a sewing machine when I decided I wanted to create quilts. I'd been a reader all my life, so writing, though far more difficult than I imagined, came a little easier. Like with my first stories, my first quilts were pretty awful. But I found the two crafts similarly complex and immensely satisfying.
Writing a novel and making a king-size quilt probably take about the same amount of time. I jumped into both with enthusiasm because,well, they offered me the freedom to be myself. A troubled childhood never quite allowed that before. Then the illnesses came. The Lyme, the fibromyalgia, the multiple chemical sensitivities, the asthma, the Epstein-Barr, the hypothyroidism. They all have one thing in common: tremendous fatigue. I couldn't focus, my vision was affected, my stamina was gone. I only had room in my brain for writing the books. I mourned the loss of me. I had to take early retirement from my nursing job because I feared I might harm someone inadvertently. See, at 3 PM each afternoon at work, I more often than not found myself unable to do more than rest my head on my desk. Thank goodness I left when I did because it only got worse. It was the right decision.
It has been a long journey to accept these invisible thieves. The medication for the newest diagnosis, myasthenia gravis, has brought some relief. For the first time in at least three years, I picked up my hand quilting and stitched. Did I get tired? Yes. Did it feel wonderful? Yes. I doubt I will ever finish all the projects I had planned. Like writing, I can only take joy in the process. And that is what life should be, anyway--joy in the day to day. Nothing is promised.
August 28, 2015
THE WONDERFUL, WACKY WORLD OF DREAMS
by Mary Kennedy
Anything can happen in a dream. You can take on a new persona, explore lands both real and imaginary and have adventures worthy of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. Since dreams are not subject to time and space constraints, you can share a plate of marrons (two closely related species of crayfish in Australia) with Marie Antoinette (“Let them eat cake!”)
or you might be part of the first space mission (“Houston, we have a problem.”) .
But what are we to make of the strange dream images that flit through our minds as we sleep? They seem so real while we’re experiencing them, and sleep studies reveal that our bodies react to dreams with real-life physical stress.
Are you climbing a mountain in your dream or swinging from a zip line like Angelina Jolie? Your blood pressure may soar, your heartbeat may rachet up a notch and your chest may feel tight. If you awake and take a few deep breaths, everything will return to normal in a few minutes.
On the other hand, what if you’re dreaming of lounging in a meadow, taking in the sweet scent of honeysuckle as you thumb through a book of poetry? Your body will show signs that you are indeed, at rest. Your heart rate will rachet down and your breathing will become slower as your mind enjoys this respite from the cares of the day.
In any case, it’s fun to explore our dreams and what they really mean, as the characters in the Dream Club do. The members like to think that they're uncovering clues to solving murders in Savannah and they seem to have had some success. They combine intuition with solid sleuthing skills and some dream work. But do clues from their dreams really solve crimes? Is it luck, or coincidence or a combination of the two? I leave it to the reader to decide.
Book 2, Dream a Little Scream, is out right now. If you're interested in dreams and like mysteries, why not give it a try! Book one, Nightmares Can be Murder, is pictured at the top of this blog. Here is book 2.
Sweet dreams and happy reading!!Mary Kennedy
Anything can happen in a dream. You can take on a new persona, explore lands both real and imaginary and have adventures worthy of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. Since dreams are not subject to time and space constraints, you can share a plate of marrons (two closely related species of crayfish in Australia) with Marie Antoinette (“Let them eat cake!”)
or you might be part of the first space mission (“Houston, we have a problem.”) .
But what are we to make of the strange dream images that flit through our minds as we sleep? They seem so real while we’re experiencing them, and sleep studies reveal that our bodies react to dreams with real-life physical stress.
Are you climbing a mountain in your dream or swinging from a zip line like Angelina Jolie? Your blood pressure may soar, your heartbeat may rachet up a notch and your chest may feel tight. If you awake and take a few deep breaths, everything will return to normal in a few minutes.
On the other hand, what if you’re dreaming of lounging in a meadow, taking in the sweet scent of honeysuckle as you thumb through a book of poetry? Your body will show signs that you are indeed, at rest. Your heart rate will rachet down and your breathing will become slower as your mind enjoys this respite from the cares of the day.In any case, it’s fun to explore our dreams and what they really mean, as the characters in the Dream Club do. The members like to think that they're uncovering clues to solving murders in Savannah and they seem to have had some success. They combine intuition with solid sleuthing skills and some dream work. But do clues from their dreams really solve crimes? Is it luck, or coincidence or a combination of the two? I leave it to the reader to decide.
Book 2, Dream a Little Scream, is out right now. If you're interested in dreams and like mysteries, why not give it a try! Book one, Nightmares Can be Murder, is pictured at the top of this blog. Here is book 2.
Sweet dreams and happy reading!!Mary Kennedy 
