Joyce Harmon's Blog, page 3

New reviews for Passatonnack Winery mysteries

Cozy Mystery Book Reviews has posted reviews for Died On The Vine and Bidding On Death.

You can find them here –

Died On The Vine http://cozymysterybookreview.com/?p=3663

Bidding On Death http://cozymysterybookreview.com/?p=3709

(There’s a way to make these links prettier, but the link function in Word Press doesn’t seem to be doing what it’s supposed to do, and right now I’m too cranky to take the time to figure it out.)

Folks have been asking me if I plan to write more in the series. I do intend to return to Queen Anne County and the Passatonnack Winery, but right now I need to get this Regency moving again. To be honest, I’ve written less than a page since Maggie died. I’m trying to get back on track.

Memorial To Maggie

Friends, family and blog readers will know that for the past ten years, my home and life have been graced by the presence of a sweet and beautiful Samoyed named Maggie.

Now Maggie is gone.

It all happened so fast. Less than two weeks ago, we went to our Monday agility class. She ran and climbed and jumped and was bouncy and excited – she loved agility class. Three days later, I took her to the vet to try to find out why Maggie wasn’t eating. There followed a lot of tests and various treatments, but nothing brought her appetite back. Blood work was fine. The vet did xrays, and thought he might be seeing something. By now she hadn’t voluntarily eaten anything in a few days and was on an IV.

This Friday, eight days after her first trip to the vet, we went to a specialist for an ultrasound of that thing the vet thought he saw. The ultrasound also showed something, but it would take exploratory surgery to find out what it was. I left her there and came home. A few hours later, I got a call. The surgery found cancer, which had spread to the point where the condition was inoperable.

The surgeon closed her up with no further treatment, and I had the option of bringing her home or authorizing The Shot. At first I thought about bringing her home, letting her be in familiar surroundings for a few days before the end. But then I realized how selfish that would be. Not eating, she wouldn’t live long enough to recuperate from the surgery and have some good days before the end, but would have spent the rest of her life in pain. So I went back in to see her.

She was awake from the surgery but still on pain meds. They brought her into a room with me, and placed her on blankets on the floor. She got up and walked around a little, and then settled down beside me. I sat with her for an hour, petting her and telling her what a good dog she was and how proud of her I was. I managed not to cry until after the shot, so I hope I didn’t transfer my upset to her – she had a nice peaceful hour with Mommy before she went to sleep.

Then the vet came in and gave her the shot and she was gone.

I’m devastated. I’m a wreck. I miss her SO much!

But sad as I am that she’s gone, I’m more glad that she was here in the first place, so right now I want to talk about that.

This was the first time I saw Maggie:

The breeder e-mailed me pictures of puppies from the litter, marked with colored ribbon to tell them apart. From the bunch, I chose ‘Yellow Girl’. I liked that ‘Mona Lisa smile’, which she kept all her life. Later, we met at a dog show, where I met the puppies and verified that Yellow Girl was the one for me. So she became Maggie.

I picked her up at ten weeks, and took her home in a cat carrier.

She was the sweetest little thing!

She had a squeaky toy shaped like a Samoyed:

And she grew up. She liked to get under the table in the library.

But soon that became impossible.

She always enjoyed the view from the living room window.

And some days, you just need to shred something.

She was always an only dog, lived with cats her whole life. And that was fine with her. She loved her little buddy Sam.

And her other little buddy Liam.

Sometimes she wondered if maybe she was a cat. She liked to pretend that this was so.

We went to obedience class. Over and over again. Maggie was a smart girl, but being there with all those wonderful other dogs and people, she found it difficult to concentrate. She wanted to visit.

Then we discovered agility.

She loved that! It was so active! Running and jumping and weaving and dashing through tunnels. We went to agility classes for years, just for fun, and I got her some jumps and weave poles for the yard. We never showed in agility – she was certainly good enough, but I wasn’t. But it was an exciting activity that she loved to do, and she did it and enjoyed it for the rest of her life.

Maggie loved the snow.

Even when it got really deep.

Maggie loved everyone in the world. Her motto was “A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet.” (I borrowed that motto for a fictional dog in my last book, but I said it about Maggie for years.)

But most of all, she loved me.

And I loved her back, more than words can say. Her ‘official’ AKA name was Winterfrost Magic Spirit, and the name described her perfectly. She was a Magic Spirit. She was pure love. I will miss her forever.

Making progress

I haven’t been doing a lot of updates lately, but actually that’s a good sign. The Book is most definitely unstuck. I’m at 42,000 words now with plenty of exciting events still to come. Hoping now for a summer launch, and already thinking about cover art.

I’m just a social butterfly…

You know the coolest thing about writing a Regency? You can plan an elaborate country house party and know it won’t cost you a dime.

Joyce’s Awesome High-Fiber, High-Protein, Low-Calorie, Low-Fat, Sugar-Free, Scrumptious Vegan Fudge

Okay, folks, here is the definitive recipe for my Basic Fudge. It’s the easiest thing in the world. No cooking, no baking, just blend the ingredients.

The ingredients are:

1 can (15.5 oz) chickpeas (AKA garbanzo beans), drained and mashed

5 tbs cocoa powder

4 tbs Truvia

1 tbs olive oil

3 tbs water

Mix, shape, chill, cut, serve ‘n eat.

But the devil, as they say for some reason, is in the details. So here’s how I make my fudge.

First, before draining the beans, I put the can contents, liquid and all, into a small pan and heat them up. This is an optional step; remember what I said about no cooking – the beans are already fully cooked. But I’ve found that the blending is easier with hot to warm chickpeas.

Then I drain the chickpeas and return them to the pan for blending. Take care in choosing your blending vessel. Too shallow and you’ll have chickpea bits flying about the room, but the tall mixing glass that my stick blender came with is narrow at the base, so the mixture turns into a quagmire. I use a small saucepan.

Get the chickpeas pureed, and then add the cocoa, Truvia, and oil and water, and blend everything together. Please note the recipe calls for four tablespoons of Truvia. If you buy it in the little paper packets, you do the math, but it’s quite a few. I buy the spoonable version. You can tinker with the proportions of oil and water if you wish, but I’ve found that 4 tablespoons of liquid overall makes the right consistency. If you want more oil, use that much less water.

When you’ve got the ingredients all blended, it should be smooth and, well, y’know – look like fudge. Now you shape it into a square and chill it. I have a small square plastic sandwich box that I oil and use for my fudge mold. When chilled, I slice it into four slices, which are a bit larger than a candy bar. Once chilled and hardened, you’ll want to wrap or cover the fudge; otherwise the top and edges will start to dry. (But if you get dry edges, don’t bother cutting them off; they’re still perfectly edible and chocolaty.)

Nutritional info

(per serving, 4 servings per recipe)

Calories – 145

Fat – 6 g

Protein – 6.5 g

Fiber – 6.5 g

Total carbs per serving – 19.5g

Cost

Cost will vary based on grocery prices where you live, but I costed these out to 54 cents per serving.

Other considerations

Now long will this fudge keep? I can’t say for certain, but I see recommendations to keep hummus (also chickpea based) in the fridge for up to a week. Just remember, this doesn’t have preservatives like commercial candy bars, so it won’t last forever. But if there are any chocolate fans in the house, I’d be mighty surprised if there was any of this left in a week.

This is the recipe for the basic fudge. If you want to add nuts or raisins or coconut, adjust the nutritional info accordingly, and blend the basic fudge first and then spoon in the additions, to keep them from being pureed.

Diabetics, this is a sugar-free recipe, but the total carbs are a smidge high for a diabetic snack. Almost all the carbs are from the chickpeas, so they’re ‘slow carbs’ with a low glycemic load, but watch your blood glucose – you might want to make your servings smaller. They’re very filling, all that fiber!

And remember, this is high in fiber. There’s the same amount of fiber in one fudge bar as there are in two small apples! And that’s great. The average American gets 10-15g of fiber per day, and ought to be getting 25 or more. But if you are one of those average Americans, adding too much fiber to your diet too quickly is going to create digestive upset. So try not to glom down the entire batch all at once. Just sayin’.

Fitness, Creativity – and Fudge!

I’m starting to come to the conclusion that there is a weight over which I can’t write.

Consider. Last spring I wrote Bidding On Death. I recall it moved along rather smoothly. In the summer, I started my current book, A Feather To Fly With. I wrote about 15,000 words and then got bogged down. I’m not sure what my weight was during those periods, since I wasn’t paying attention. But I do know that when I’m not paying attention, the weight creeps up. Then in the fall, I started the weight loss challenge. I hoped to get the book kick-started at the same time, but that didn’t seem to get moving till right before Christmas, when I had a brief flurry of creativity and made some more headway.

Then came Christmas, and over the holiday season I ran amok. Gained back a good portion of the weight I’d lost. Come January, I tried to get the book moving again, without much success. Until a couple weeks ago, when I got my weight back to where it was before Christmas, and once again, the book is unstuck.

Call it superstition, but I know that number now, and will endeavor to keep below it.

In fact, the creativity seems to be running off in all different directions, with more plot threads than I know what to do with, not to mention a number of ideas for new stories. But as a problem, this is a better one to have.

Another creative outlet I’m working on – I’m attempting to make chocolate fudge with chickpeas. No, wait, hear me out!

Chickpeas can be ground or mashed into a smooth paste; that’s the basis of hummus. But the chickpeas themselves have almost no flavor – what we think of as hummus flavor is actually the garlic, lemon, and tahini. I saw an article in O Magazine a while back about making different flavors of hummus, and one was a chocolate hummus. A lovely idea, but that got me thinking about fudge. Fudge would be firmer than a hummus; I’m looking for little squares you can pick up with your fingers and eat from your hand.

I’m not quite there yet. My first attempt is still too soft. It makes squares, you can pick it up, but there’s a mushiness I want to try to overcome.

Still, it is delicious! If you’re interested in Chickpea Fudge 1.0, I used a can of drained chickpeas, 5 tablespoons of cocoa powder, and 4 tablespoons of Truvia. I added half a tablespoon of olive oil and a quarter cup of water to ease the blending. Next time I’ll try less water and perhaps a smidge more oil. There’s no cooking involved, just get everything smoothly blended. I used my stick blender in a small pan, and then spooned the results into a small oiled square container. It was firmer after a night in the fridge.

I’m already thinking of fudge variations. Add peanut butter, for a Snickers effect? How about some grated coconut? Maybe chopped nuts.

Oh, but a word of warning. This is a very creamy confection, requiring no chewing at all, but don’t be deceived – it’s high in fiber. That’s good, of course, we all need more fiber. But if you add too much fiber too quickly to a habitual low-fiber diet, well, there could be digestive consequences. So don’t eat the whole thing at once. You’ll want to, it’s that good. But try to control yourself.

Fitness Challenge, Week 1

I’ve successfully completed the first week of the Fitness Challenge at the Y. I took three fitness classes this week.

Monday was Aqua Surprise, which is water aerobics. I took water aerobics ages ago, but after I learned to swim I got all superior about it, so I hadn’t taken a class in years. It’s a lot harder than I remembered! But when the class is over, the jacuzzi is right there.

Wednesday I took Muscle Pump. I knew it was a weights class, but when I got there and saw the folks setting up their areas with barbells, I almost walked right back out. For some reason, I find barbells a lot more intimidating than dumbbells. But I needed the signature on my fitness challenge card, so I gave it a try. It was actually… sorta fun. Not easy, no. But I did the warmup with just the bar, and then added the smallest weights to the bar and made it through the whole class. I had a bit of muscle soreness later, but nothing debilitating, so yay me.

Friday I took Beginner’s Tai Chi. This was the first of a new class, so we started right at the beginning. I’d tried Tai Chi before with videos, and never quite got it. Now it seems to me that the videos try to get you to do too many new things at once. In this class, we’d learn a move and repeat repeat repeat. I really enjoyed it.

So there are my three classes. When I started the challenge, I intended to do a lot of sampling around of the various classes, but I think I might just make these three my regulars. They’re nicely spaced, a good variety and at a good time of day for me.

I’m also doing the stationary bike in the fitness center for aerobics, so in six weeks I hope to see some real improvement.

So that’s my week – gettin’ fit, gettin’ strong!

Oh, and I’ve also been tinkering around with Pinterest, which is Strangely Compelling – come take a look:

http://pinterest.com/joycelharmon/

It’s a whole new year!

Been a while since we chatted, huh?

So – news from here. I’m taking another 12 week weight loss challenge (I lost 18 pounds in the last challenge, if you recall), and also taking the Y’s 6 week fitness challenge. This will entail going to three fitness classes a week, with a fitness test at the start and at the end. I’ve already had the Initial Assessment, and surprise surprise – I’m not very fit. So there’s plenty of room for improvement.

The book progresses – slowly. Trying to get back into an office hours routine and speed up that process a bit.

The holidays? I ran amok. Not in an interesting way, all memoir-worthy Auntie Mame antics, just food. All the food I hadn’t eaten for a few months, and in quantities that were downright ridiculous. So yeah, I gained a lot of weight. The good news is, I’ve already taken most of the holiday weight off again, so – whew.

I also reminded myself once again that I really am gluten sensitive, as the gluten glut (you can’t spell gluten without glut – hmm…) brought back every ache and pain and sinuses and heartburn. That’s  abating too, as I’m back to eating sensibly again.

I got a wii for Christmas, which, in case you don’t know, is totally awesome for streaming Netflix.

I’ve made all the usual resolutions, weight and fitness, and The Book. And I’ve also decided to give up trying to have some Unifying Theme for this blog, so I’m just going to blog about whatever I feel like yapping about.  So – FYI.

 

The worst Georgette Heyer cover EVER?

The other day, I was talking with a friend. We both enjoy Regency romances. We’ve read scores of them over the decades. And we were joking about some of the horrid covers that some otherwise good books sport.

She pointed out something that I hadn’t thought of. The books usually feature the heroine on the cover, and while the cover artists wouldn’t dream of putting a Regency heroine in a miniskirt or blue jeans, the woman inside the clothes matches the period the book was published rather than the Regency period. So you’ll see a young lady from an era where only ‘lightskirts’ wore makeup, and she’s got bright pink lips and blue eyelids.

I went back and looked at my Regency collection, some bought new and some gleaned from the finest used book stores from coast to coast. And I came across what must be the all-time worst cover of a Georgette Heyer.

Now, when it comes to Regencies, Heyer is the gold standard. She invented the genre. She set the standard that a Regency is not just a romance set in a particular time period, but is a book with a certain tone, light-hearted and with a good seasoning of humor. The best of the rest are praised as ‘almost as good as Heyer’.

And among the Heyers, one of the best is Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle. To refresh your memory (because of course you’ve read it!), the heroine, Phoebe, is a shy young lady with mousy brown hair, whose London Season was an uninteresting flop.

My copy of Sylvester appears to be the first US paperback edition. Yes, from the 1950s.  And without further ado, here is the Worst Heyer Cover Ever:

Ummm… REALLY?

Mousy little Phoebe, a glamorous blonde in 50s era eyeliner? I wouldn’t call the clothes exactly Regency either – three-quarters sleeves? That’s 50s, not Regency.

And that… that… HAT! It’s not Regency, it’s not 50s – was there ever a time in human history when that Hat-like Thing was fashionable?

The whole thing reminds me of a movie poster from an alternate universe. Say – Breakfast At Tiffany’s – starring Doris Day.

Challenge Report

I was supposed to be blogging about the Weight Loss Challenge and my own personal book writing challenge – I rather dropped the ball on that, but can at least file a final report.

The weight loss part went very well, I thought. In twelve weeks, I lost 18 pounds and 9 1/2 inches. (Particularly pleased with the 2 1/2 inches off my waist!) And that’s with a very gluttonous Thanksgiving in the middle of the twelve weeks, so all in all, I’m quite satisfied. Another 12 Week Challenge starts in mid-January, so I’ll be signing up for that. Perhaps with no major Eating Holidays in that time period, I might do even better.

The book? Well, the results there are less impressive. The current state of the book is 42 typed pages and a bunch of notes scribbled in a legal pad. But… it’s moving. The progress might be glacial, but it is moving, ever so slightly.