Linda Ly's Blog, page 22
February 19, 2016
Our Southern California Baby Shower
I really can’t express it enough. Will and I are ridiculously lucky to have the people in our lives that we do. We’re not the first ones in our group to have a baby on the way, and we certainly won’t be the last, but the outpouring of support we’ve received from all our friends and all the parents before us have been mind-blowing.
Offers to cook, offers to babysit, offers of hand-me-downs and hilariously honest advice have made our impending entrance into parenthood an exciting one. For that...
February 17, 2016
Snow Play, Sunny Skies, and a Cozy Cabin in Big Bear
With less than a month before mini Garden Betty makes her debut, the countdown has begun. I’ve made a list of chores to tackle in the coming weeks, from laundering all the baby clothes to decluttering the house top to bottom. One might say I’m beginning to nest, but I would counter that’s hardly the case; I’m cleaning because I have to, unfortunately, not because I want to!
But before all of that’s checked off, Will and I decided to take one last getaway as a family of two (four, if you coun...
February 15, 2016
Adventures in Pregnancy (Or, How I Balance an Active Life With a Growing Bump)
When I found out I was pregnant last summer, my first thoughts immediately flashed to what life would be like for the next nine months. A cursory browse around my blog paints an accurate picture of what life usually looks like with my husband: week-long road trips, backpacking adventures, snowboarding off summits, powering through whitewater.
And after hearing many a sad story from my mom friends about what they couldn’t do during their pregnancies, I’d sort of accepted that these types of a...
February 12, 2016
Five Things Friday
The five little things that made my week…
1. After resting all winter, the hens have gifted us with the first eggs of the season! (I won’t tell them we’ve been cheating on them with store-bought eggs though.)
2. Remember our tenacious tomato plant that hung on through the drought? Its first fruits are starting to ripen!
3. Spring may still be a month away, but my apple tree is already beginning to bud. (And the Santa Ana winds we’ve had all week are trying to trick it into thinking it’s s...
February 10, 2016
A Cocktail Party to Celebrate Our Baby (and… It’s a Girl!)
I’ve been invited to dozens of baby showers since my 20s, and almost all of them have been get-togethers for the girls to celebrate their friends’ forays into motherhood. I still think it’s a sweet tradition, but since it takes two people to make a baby, there isn’t any reason the fathers shouldn’t be celebrated too.
Besides, I have so many male friends that it wouldn’t feel right to exclude them from one of the biggest moments of my life. A boy/girl party was only natural for our group.
Whe...
January 15, 2016
Five Things Friday
The five little things that made my week…
1. This tenacious tomato plant was started from seed a year ago and left for neglect four months ago at the height of the drought. It stopped producing tomatoes but we were simply too lazy to pull it out. Now with El Niño in full swing (bringing with it more cold, rain, and snow than we’ve seen in several years), we’ve been getting dozens of little yellow blossoms and healthy green fruits! Here’s hoping they continue to ripen through the winter!
2....
January 13, 2016
Why Reader Reviews of Cookbooks Are So Important
There are two types of reviews when it comes to cookbooks: reviews written by the media (magazines, newspapers, and radio shows) and reviews by readers (bloggers, recipe testers, and home cooks).
Which reviews usually influence your decision to buy a cookbook?
I pondered this after coming across a blog post by author Dianne Jacob, whose new release made The New York Times‘ holiday roundup of the best books to buy. It’s a brag-worthy piece of press that hundreds of cookbooks vie for each year...
January 11, 2016
A Tour of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company
I’ve been a big fan of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company since the very beginnings of this blog. (I love looking back to that first year I started gardening, when all of the seeds I owned could fit into two vintage cigar boxes. Quite a difference from the multiple ammo cans I now keep them in!)
I devoured their seed catalog every winter, dog-earing pages of vegetables I wanted to try and marking colorful varieties that caught my eye. Long before Garden Betty was ever a brand, years before I...
January 1, 2016
Five Things Friday: New Year 2016 Edition
In 2015, I wrote a total of 20 Five Things Friday posts. The biweekly series started in 2013 as a way to share the random collection of thoughts and tidbits from my life that don’t warrant a whole blog entry, and also serve as a reminder to myself that no matter how hard things may be (or how mundane the day to day may seem), there’s always something to smile about. Even if it’s a small thing. Because sometimes, those are the best things. (You can read the very first Five Things Friday here....
December 31, 2015
The Best Year Yet: 2015 Round-Up
When I think of all the people I’ve met, the places I’ve seen, and the blessings I’ve had, this year did not feel real at all. As soon as the clock ticked over to 2015 just 364 short days ago, it’s been nonstop with the 3 Bs: book release, book tour, and (soon-to-be) baby!
Had you asked me last New Year’s Eve how I thought this year might turn out, I never could have foreseen just how incredible of a journey it’s been. Despite a slower pace on the blog because of my travel schedule (a total...
