K.M. Carroll's Blog, page 22
December 9, 2018
Plans for Christmas Present (Christmas blog hop)
Haha, Christmas Present, I crack myself up.
Anyway, I forgot to write a blog post last night, so I’ve missed a day of the hop. Bad llama! I got busy playing videogames with friends last night and just … completely forgot. The baby cooperated for once and slept on my lap. It was wonderful to goof off again.
I’ve been trying to think of something special to cook for Christmas Eve. When I was growing up, we always had the big family get together on Christmas Eve, and we’d do a big dinner and stuff. Since our family was so big (six kids), we kind of winged it every Christmas. Some years we did Mexican buffet platters. Some years we did do-it-yourself sandwiches. Some years we did clam chowder in bread bowls. I know that turkey and stuff is traditional, but man, it’s all the same food you eat at Thanksgiving. Why not mix it up?
I was thinking about the clam chowder bread bowls, in particular. As it gets cold, I have this insatiable appetite for soups of all kinds. I’ve made potato soup lots of times, but I’ve never made clam chowder, even though I love it. And the kids have never experienced the wonder that is bread bowls. Makes me think of the song from Willy Wonka: “You can even eat the dishes!”
We have no family or friends down here to do holidays with, so I’ll just be cooking for us. Fortunately, there’s eight of us, so it’s not exactly lonely, heh!
December 7, 2018
Memories of Christmas past (Christmas blog hop)
Today the new Super Smash Bros came out, so my husband and kids are in the living room playing that. I’m in my nice quiet room with my laptop and the baby, and it’s time for a blog!
Last Christmas, my oldest daughter started throwing up on Christmas Eve. The day after Christmas, the rest of them did. It wasn’t a fun holiday, let me tell you. I ran from kid to kid with a bucket. So, this year, I’m pouring the kombucha to them. (Kombucha is a probiotic drink, a kind of fermented tea.) I’ll be darned if we’re going to have another sick Christmas.
Not to mention having a month-old baby who I don’t want to catch germs. He’s already so sweet and cute, and getting fatter by the day. He’s starting to smile at everyone. The kids fight over who gets to hold him.
There’s been lots of Christmas babies over the years. Some were tiny, while others were big enough to want to crawl to the Christmas tree and bite the lights. All of our ornaments are made of either wood or plastic, to ensure they survive from year to year. One Christmas that stands out in my mind was the year we were between couches, for some reason. The living room was huge and empty with no couch and chair, and our Christmas tree took up such a tiny spot all by itself. But the kids LOVED having all that empty space to roll around in and fill with toys. It was almost disappointing to get a couch in January.
[image error]Christmas wallpaper by lucky008
God’s been so good to us through the years, too. We don’t deserve the grace he showed us over and over. I always think of that verse about him gently leading the sheep who have young, because that’s been how he’s dealt with me. And I’m so thankful.
December 6, 2018
Really big dollar bills (Christmas blog hop)
Earlier this evening, my son asked me, “Is there a bill higher than a 100?”
I replied, “I don’t know, Google it.”
We discovered that only the bills up to $100 are still being printed. However, there are also 500, 1000, 5000, 10k, and 100k bills. They’re still legal tender, and most are in private collections.
“So, who is on the biggest one?” I asked.
Apparently Woodrow Wilson is on the 100k. 10k has Salmon p. Chase, 5k has James Madison, 1k has Grover Cleaveland, and 500 has William McKinley.
[image error]
I will likely never see one of these dudes outside of the internet. But isn’t that fascinating?
This got the kids interested in the Presidents. So we dug up the Presidents song by Jonathan Coulton. It’s kind of rude and sometimes irreverent, but man, is it a quick way to learn the presidents and a little factoid about them.
Also, it’s pouring rain outside. Never let them tell you it doesn’t rain in the American Southwest, because this year, it’s rained a LOT. The desert is gloriously green.
Every day in December bloggers
Brad: https://notallmindsthatwanderarelost.blogspot.com/
Kessie: https://kmcarrollblog.wordpress.com/?wref=bif
Kim: https://my-field-of-dreams.blog/
Melissa: https://boyett-brinkley.blogspot.com/
Granny Marigold: http://grannymarigold.blogspot.com/
Karen (Happy One): https://lifeisgood-smile.blogspot.com
MK: https://mkatchris.blogspot.com/
Elizabeth: https://eroosje.blogspot.com/
Gretchen: https://gretchenjoanna.com/
Janet: http://thethreeprayers.blogspot.com/
December 5, 2018
Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies – Christmas blog hop
Today was cloudy and dark, and we’re beginning to run out of snacks around here. So I decided to bake some cookies. But I was tired of chocolate chip cookies …so I present to you, courtesy of Pinterest …
[image error]Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies From Crispy Crunchy Sweet
Mine didn’t turn out nearly this pretty. In fact, they were so ugly that my second batch, I did the hash marks with a fork just to make them look a little less like hardened splatmarks.
No, I will not show you a picture. You’ll just have to imagine it.
Anyway, they tasted great, and the kids summarily devoured them. My hubby asked for them to be included in his lunch. So I give this recipe the Stamp of Approval (TM).
December 4, 2018
Christmas blog hop day 4
It’s been another gorgeous day here in Tuscon, but it’s begun to cloud up. We’re supposed to have a big storm by the end of the week. I’m glad. Big storms make me want to bake Christmas goodies.
As I write, my husband is playing a puzzle game as the kids watch and give suggestions. The baby is asleep in my lap. It’s just a pleasant, peaceful evening. My favorite!
The baby is a month old today. I feel like my brain is slowly coming back. I’m able to make jokes again and enjoy life. All these things that had become super hard when I was big and pregnant are easy again. As I’ve been cleaning house, I find that I’d let so much slide–like mopping floors. I swept, but I didn’t mop, and boy are my floors bad. But now I have energy and I’m not in pain. Watch out, floors. You’re next!
Sorry this post isn’t very Christmasy. Mostly, today I was occupied with drilling math facts into the kids. Hopefully I’ll have better Christmas blog ideas tomorrow.
December 3, 2018
Babies and Jesus (Christmas blog hop day 3)
I’m trying to muster up some Christmas cheer today, but all I can think of is Monday. House cleaning. School. Juggling a baby who wants to be part of things but is only a month old.
Speaking of which, I’ve spent a lot of time holding him and thinking about baby Jesus. I’ve seen people argue about how old Jesus was before he knew who he was. Well, watching my little fellow, I think the answer is: birth.
My little guy knows exactly who he is and what he wants. He just can’t express it because his body isn’t developed enough yet. He watches me talk to him and moves his mouth in talking motions, imitating me. He studies his siblings and daddy, learning their faces, and he smiles in recognition. He’s a somber little guy, very serious and detail-oriented. I think we’ll get along just fine.
The point is, Jesus knew who he was. All babies do. They just can’t do much about it. And they really do hate being babies. I think it’s one reason they cry–out of sheer frustration. My little guy watches the other kids play, and he wants to play with them so BADLY. Especially his three and five year old sisters. He watches them with such longing.
Those are my thoughts for today–it’s Monday, and I’m mostly thinking about my dirty house and who will be assigned what chores. Hard to feel very Christmasy on a Monday. 
December 2, 2018
Christmas blog hop day 2: Cinnamon roll cake
This past year, I discovered the glories of Pinterest.
Pinterest is like having stacks of magazines on any topic imaginable. Any time you want, you can pull them out, flip through them, and admire the gorgeous photography. This is especially true in regards to recipes.
Every so often, I’ll go on a pinning spree and collect all kinds of recipes I’d like to try someday. One of these was called cinnamon roll cake.
Cinnamon roll cake is a coffee cake with caramelized cinnamon sugar swirled through it. It’s delicious, especially if you add sliced apples to the bottom. My mom made it for me right after I had the baby, and it was the best thing I ever ate.
So, yesterday, as the kids were decorating the Christmas tree, I whipped up another one. And, oh man, was it good. I had to beat the kids off it so my husband could have some when he got home.
So if you’re looking for a tasty, easy-to-make treat for the holidays, here’s a good one.
[image error]Cinnamon Roll Cake by liluna.com
Other blogs in the hop:
Melissa: https://boyett-brinkley.blogspot.com/
Granny Marigold: http://grannymarigold.blogspot.com/
Karen (Happy One): https://lifeisgood-smile.blogspot.com
MK: https://mkatchris.blogspot.com/
Elizabeth: https://eroosje.blogspot.com/
December 1, 2018
Christmas blog hop: The problem of candy canes
I’ve just something crazy. I’ve agreed to write a Christmas blog every day in December. Feel free to join me!
Wow, where did the year go? How is it already December? I was pregnant all year, I guess, and the baby arrived just in time for the holidays. I can’t even cry along to Sixpence None the Richer’s Last Christmas Without You.
(Although I might anyway, because that song always gets me.)
Anyway, today we’ll put up our Christmas tree. It’s just a little plastic four-footer, but it makes the living room so festive and colorful. The kids love it.
Then there’s the problem of candy canes.
[image error]Candy cane on a tree via Wikimedia Commons
Every year, I buy a big box of candy canes. We hang them on the tree. Then, over the next week, they vanish one by one. I find ghostly wrappers drifting around on the floor.
“Who ate a candy cane ten minutes before dinner?” I’ll demand.
From the negative replies, nobody ate a candy cane. Nobody at all. But there will be sticky fingerprints on the light switches and door knobs. Maybe we have peppermint-addicted elves. Or gremlins. Knowing our house, probably gremlins.
By the end of the week, all the candy canes will be gone. And usually I would have been planning to make hot chocolate and show the kids how to stir it with a candy cane … which I can’t do because they’ve all vanished to Candy Cane Heaven.
But I haven’t learned my lesson, because I still buy them every year.
Other blogs in the hop:
Melissa: https://boyett-brinkley.blogspot.com/
Granny Marigold: http://grannymarigold.blogspot.com/
Karen (Happy One): https://lifeisgood-smile.blogspot.com
MK: https://mkatchris.blogspot.com/
Elizabeth: https://eroosje.blogspot.com/
November 11, 2018
Writing books of the heart
Writing books of the heart
This past week, Kris Rusch addressed writers burnout on her blog. She had just finished teaching a workshop to professional authors. She said that over and over, they lamented not being able to write what they wanted.
One of the comments I heard the most at this year’s Business Master Class was a bit wistful. And the comment usually came in a discussion about something else.
I sure would like to get to the place where I can do what you folks do: where I can write what I love.
As soon as this [insert detail] is over, I might be able to write what I love.
Writers who write what they love are really lucky. Sure wish I could get there.
Over and over and over again. Those phrases have been going round and round in my head, partly because I have a lot of compassion for the speakers, and partly in conjunction with other things that have happened this past year.
About a year ago, I wrote a blog post on burnout. It, and the subsequent posts, got reprinted in the magazine for the Romance Writers of America, the Romance Writers Report or the RWR. I got a lot of email from the original blog posts and from the RWR reprint. I had hit a nerve.
I was aware of the nerve, but not thinking about it too much, except to realize that so many writers were on the hamster wheel of doom—trying very hard to write more and more and more to make the same amount of money they had made a few years ago. We’re in a mature market now, and the highs aren’t as high (and the lows aren’t as low). Things do change, sometimes daily, in this new world of publishing, but the business models remain the same.
What happened was that people start writing books that sell. And at first, they’re marginally interested in them. Say an author hits it big in contemporary romance. They keep churning out romance because they’ve gotten used to the money. Writing indie is particularly killer, because you’re encouraged to write books and release them as quick as you can–a month apart, ideally. In traditional, you release books a year apart, at minimum.
So here’s this author who has written five to twelve books in a year. They’re getting tired of contemporary romance. An idea has been percolating for a hard sci-fi. But they’re riding the tiger, dependent on that income from the romances. They don’t dare switch genres for fear of alienating their readers and losing that dough.
Kris Rusch calls this the hamster wheel of doom. You run and run until you burn out and take up selling cellphones at a mall kiosk. Anything but writing.
This “writing to sell vs writing what you like” thing is debated constantly in my own writing circles. We’d all like to make a little dough, right? But then we also want to write about space elves fighting space dragons in space. Who in the world would buy that?
Someone, apparently.
Switching gears, here. Last weekend was Blizzcon 2018, where the game developer Blizzard Entertainment courts its fans and investors with sneak peeks of upcoming game stuff.
One of the games they announced was a HD version of Warcraft 3. You know, the old real-time strategy where you command an army of orcs or elves and beat on other armies of such.
[image error]
The man announcing the game remarked that Warcraft 3 had invented whole new genres. That stuck in my brain, because I saw it happen.
My siblings were big RTS players. And while Warcraft 3 was fun, the map/scenario editor became the hottest thing of all. People invented a game mode where you run around with just your hero character, and maybe a few minions, and beat on other heroes, Diablo-style. This gave rise to the game type called a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or MOBA. Games in this new genre include League of Legends, DOTA 2, and Heroes of the Storm. None of these games would have existed without homebrew maps in Warcraft 3.
In the genre arena of books, certain authors invented genres, too, simply by writing books of the heart. John Grisham started the “lawyers in trouble” thriller subgenre. Joe Nobody invented the “prepper thriller” genre. And those are just the ones I know about–there’s lots of others. If they had “written to market” (that is, wrote what everybody else was writing because it was selling), those new genres would never have been invented.
If you write a book that you love but doesn’t sell, what does it hurt? You’ve produced something you love. It’s no worse than writing a fanfic that gets zero hits. And if you keep writing books in your little niche that nobody reads, eventually somebody will read it–as long as you’ve created something of good quality. And you may create a whole new genre by accident. This happens all the time.
As a reader, I can spot a book miles away that the author loved, vs a book the publisher made them write. The sparkle disappears. Just compare the earlier Mitford books (Jan Karon) to later ones. The characters are grouchy and the adventures are awful, compared to the wonderful stories and characters of the early books.
Or try to find anything worth reading on the Kindle free book list. “Shovelware” books, written overnight with no revisions or editing, aren’t worth the electrons it takes to deliver them to your device. Often I’ll download ten different books, and all but one will be badly-written tripe. Sometimes I don’t even get one good one.
Point is, there’s a lot of reasons to write what you want to write. Indie publishing has removed the barriers between you and your audience. Kris has a lot of good advice for people already on the hamster wheel of doom who want off. I hope this gives you courage to write that book that’s been gnawing at you.
November 8, 2018
A season of breaking
I just had my sixth baby this past week. And it was quite the learning experience.
This entire past nine months has been a slow breaking process for me. I was so sick with morning sickness, then I just couldn’t do things I used to do, like long walks and fun outings with the kids. Finally, I could barely even walk. I’ve had to rely more and more on my family, because I couldn’t take care of everything myself.
I pride myself on doing everything. Having to be broken slowly has been very hard. It’s why I haven’t updated this blog, because I knew that all I’d do would be to whine. And who wants to read whiny blogs?
I was terrified of labor and delivery for the whole nine months. Surprise, labor and delivery wasn’t too bad. It was the postpartum hemorrhage that almost did me in. (And it was the doctor’s fault for the placental abruption, even though I begged him not to. Snarl.)
Here I am, four days later, and I still get shaky from the blood loss if I move around too much. So I sit. And nurse the baby. And have to let other people take care of things. This is very hard for me.
But it’s made me rely on God more, which I suppose was the whole point. His strength is made perfect in my weakness, after all. But having my pride beaten down has been so hard. And humiliating. I suppose I needed it, though.
Anyway, I’ll be back to creating things again … soon. Whenever soon might be. :-p
