H.A. Larson's Blog, page 66

Miso-Sauteed Green Beans

The other night, I made this killer meal (vegan of course). I made Miyoko Schinner's Unchicken which I smothered in mushroom gravy, bbq cauliflower, and some miso-sauteed green beans. The whole meal was delicious, but those green beans were my favorite. I came up with the idea after eating some miso-fried brussel sprouts at a restaurant one night. This side couldn't be any more simple or delicious.

Miso-Sauteed Green Beans
12 oz pkg of fresh green beans1 T cooking oil (I used canola)2 T miso paste1 T soy sauce
1. Rinse the green beans and steam them for about 7-10 minutes, until slightly tender.2. In a small bowl, mix together the oil and the miso. Heat up the mixture on medium-high heat for under a minute.3. Add the green beans and toss well. Cook for about 5-7 minutes until the green beans soften up a bit more and everything is well-heated through. Keep an eye on the pan and toss often.4. Turn off the heat and add the soy sauce, tossing to coat.5. Enjoy!

Weekend Getaway

This past weekend was the first weekend in a few months where I didn't work any overtime hours at all. My husband had a scheduled PTO weekend as well, so we decided back in January to secure a cabin for this past weekend. Between all the hours worked and not seeing the kids as much as we'd like (or each other) we had a fantastic time out in the woods. We relaxed, made a big meal, hiked, played lots of games, and plenty of fire was involved. It was a great weekend, where I didn't work in any capacity, and I feel like my batteries have been reset.


We got a cabin with a fireplace and ordered plenty of wood. The first night, we had a heck of time getting a bonfire going (we didn't have any flammable liquid and the wind was too strong) so we decided we should just stick with a fire in the fireplace. 



Besides UNO, Skipbo, and Phase 10, we played Magic the Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers. The nerd in us loved it, and we played it a few times. I lost...very badly. :)



So, everytime I try to take a picture of the moon when I'm outside, this is what it usually looks like. The moon did look fantastic this night, so I decided to post my picture of it anyway.



On the second day, we went into the nearest town to get a couple of items, including lighter fluid. Nothing was stopping us from making a big bonfire before we left! Besides, I brought s'mores things.



We got this huge ball when we were in town, and we all had fun throwing it around...outside and inside. 



Because you can never have enough fire when you're out at a cabin, I brought plenty of candles.



So that was my weekend, and it was awesome. I feel pretty renewed and have some great ideas going forward with my writing. I've given up a few other things in my life and so my main focus now will be on my author career. Have a great day, and watch for another teaser coming soon from The Box!

Ipsy's February Glam Bag

My February Ipsy bag arrived yesterday! Those of you who keep up with my website know what Ipsy is, but for those of you who don't, no worries. Just read on. I started using my glam bags to organize my big purse, so now it's filled with a few cute Ipsy bags. :)




The bag itself. Cute for Valentine's month!




All of the contents.




First is Seraphine Cosmetics Carrot + Rose hydrating cream. 





Jersey Shore Spa's Anti Anging Lip & Hand Polish. This cream is exfoliating and good for the lips and hands. Can't wait to try this one out!




naked cosmetics Sierra Nevada mica pigment.  Mine is #02 which is champagne/shimmering nude and is multi-use. This means it can be used for eyes, face, lips, nails, and just about anywhere else one can think of. 




I really should've taken this out of the box first! It's a rose-colored fingernail polish.





Last, but not least, is smashbox's Photo Finish Primer Oil. You rub this into your skin before putting on your makeup. I have some creme primer and it's a good way to make your skin ready for makeup, much like using eyeshadow primer which is usu religiously.

Thrifty Buys

I'm a thrifty person by nature. Unless it's a major purchase that I want a long life of good quality out of, I don't want to spend a lot of money on things. I love going to thrift stores and checking out clearance items at other stores. Here are some of the recent items I've purchased in a thrifty manner.



Look at this scarf! I'm into vintage items, so when I saw this scarf at a local thrift store for $1.99, I knew I had to have it. While it isn't vintage, it has a vintage look to it and I love it.



I admit it, I have a thing for scarves, and to that end I have many. I was at Target recently where I was looking for a darker scarf to wear with a certain jacket I own. I found this one in their clearance section for $7.49. It's the perfect length and goes perfectly with said jacket.



I love accessories in general (who doesn't?!), and am pretty much over what bracelets I do have. I decided I needed some new ones and I found all of these in a set in their clearance section as well. A steal at only $3.88!



I had to make a stop at Walgreens for some medicine, and, like I always do, stopped to peruse the makeup section. I have a eyeshadow kit that includes a primer and a white, sparkly highlighter that I really love to wear for when I go out. I found a tube of it for around $9, but didn't really want to spend that much. I left the makeup aisle, turned the corner, and there, on an endcap at the back of the store, were a whole bunch of $0.49 items. Yes, that's right, 49 cents! I found this tube of the white, sparkly highlighter thereby saving myself $8.50.



I also picked up this package of two nail files in the 49 cent area of Walgreens. You can never have enough nail files, and at those prices, why not?

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! I know for some people this means roses, chocolate candies, red stuffed animals holding hearts that say "I love you," and romance. For a few others, it just might involve candles and hot tubs, but I digress. I've never been big into Valentine's Day, and I eschew the traditional gifts that I've mentioned because I find the whole thing to be cheesy. lol Sorry, but this lady would prefer a beer, some alone time with her man, and some peace and quiet. That, to me, would be the ultimate way to celebrate a holiday centered around love. 
However you like to celebrate this day, I hope you get what you expected, or least got something nice, from the person you like most. For all you single people, don't let a holiday centered around love get you down. There are plenty of ways that you can celebrate this day...it's Sunday after all. Sleep in, drink coffee in bed, and hang out in your pajamas all day eating junk food. It's what I would do.
Have a great one! I'll be back to my regular antics this week.
-H.A.

A Fun Monday

With all the hours I've been working lately, I've barely seen my children, and I've missed them. Yesterday, since Mondays are my days off, I decided to give my daughter a 'mental health day' off from school and have a mother-daughter day. We went out for breakfast, made a stop at the drugstore for a few items, prepared her valentines for her Valentine's Day party at school, and then we took a trip out to the Strategic Air and Space Museum. They had a science exhibit, and since it was Monday, we were only a few in a handful of people that were there. My daughter loves science, and as we began walking towards the building, she grabbed my hand and said, "C'mon mom! Science is waiting!" It was a perfect day.



This was a great snapshot I took on the way back home. The black and white contrasts of Winter sometimes are really appealing.



The big plane that sits near the road by the SASM.



A view of the glass-paned walls of the museum. It's an impressive sight from the lobby and is 'watched over' by a massive fighter plane that you cannot fit into one shot.



Hangar B of the museum. As you can see, it's very large as it holds many planes, satellites, cockpits, and various other interesting items. There is a Hangar A as well.



In the science exhibit, they had many different stations and the theme was how art can help us understand math and science. Here are some origami pieces that my daughter and I tried our hand at. It was fun, even if they were hard to make.



This station was a fun water projection on a screen. You would stand there and the projection sensed your movements and acted accordingly. It was my daughter's favorite thing.



Jelly Bean Universe. Using jelly beans, this aims to show how the universe is 95% dark matter. The colored jelly beans show the other 5%.

Favorite Things - #1

Ever since December, I've been a very busy lady. I've been working a lot of overtime (that's the norm for everyone who works where I do, so kudos to all of us!), doing freelance writing, active in peer reviews, and writing my fourth book. With all this busy work, whatever time I have had left in my days has been spent taking care of things around the house, and spending time with my family. 
I decided to give up the monthly editorial I've been doing for over two years, as well as taking an extended break from the peer reviews. I need to focus on my household and my books for now as I'm eyeing freelancing as a real possibility. 
I know my postings here have been a bit more scattered, and those are the reasons why. Anyway, I still have plenty of things to share, and here is a new series I'm starting called "Favorite Things."









I admit it, I tend to do my nails on the fly. It's just the way it goes. For that reason, I always try and find nail polishes that don't need a lot of coats, and that dry quickly...a tall order I know! I was in the drugstore the other day, perusing the makeup aisle, when I ran across some Sally Hansen polish I had never seen before: Insta-Dri. It claims to dry in 60 seconds, and I was instantly intrigued, so I grabbed two of the colors: Cinna-snap, and Navy Fleet. Navy Fleet was put on that evening, and I have to tell you...this stuff is amazing! 
Last night, I put on the Cinna-snap, and as you can see from the photo, that was one coat. So score one for Insta-Dri as you only need one coat (Navy Fleet was just as perfect). Now, maybe if you held your hands under a fan would the polish completely dry in 60 seconds, but as it stands, I had to wait about 5 minutes. Still, 5 minutes is nothing in nail polish land and it works perfect for people doing their nails on the fly like me. 
Final verdict? This stuff is great and I recommend it. I'm definitely going to grab some more colors of these! 

The Station has been Revised!

After reading some recent reviews of "The Station", I knew it would be beneficial to go back over the entire book and change a couple of minor things as well as fixing any grammar things I missed the first time around. I also uploaded it to a different writing system in hopes that when I converted the book to html that it would look better. Converting from Word to html can look like crap more often than not. 
Anyway, I finally got it done and I uploaded the improved version to Kindle yesterday! So, go out and grab a copy of it here. Only $2.99, or borrow free with Kindle Unlimited. Better get it read now before "The Box" comes out.

A Warm Saturday

Yesterday was in the 40s, and during this time of year (and considering how the weather has been) that is a heatwave! I was itching to get outside pretty badly, so, since my husband and son were gone, I decided it would be the perfect time to get my daughter out for some much-needed mom-daughter time. We grabbed a light lunch, and then headed down to Fontanelle Nature Center. They have a very long boardwalk that I figured would be perfect for getting in a good "hike" since whatever trails might be free of snow would just be a sloppy, muddy mess. It was gorgeous out, and I feel like I got my batteries recharged.


A view off the farthest end of the boardwalk. You can see all the way across and just make out the Omaha skyline, including the Desert Dome at Henry Doorly Zoo.




A cute turtle inside the nature center, where we spent over an hour after our long walk, which was my daughter's favorite.




While my daughter played with other kids inside the nature center, I relaxed in the bird watching room. I literally sat here for over an hour just watching the squirrels and the birds eat. I felt so connected to my favorite of favorite places to be: outside.

The Box - First Look!

Hey everyone! It's January, and it's time for me to give you a first peek into my fourth book "The Box". A small sampling for you to enjoy! Let me know what you think by either emailing me, or commenting below. Have a fantastic day!




        She moved into the living room where she had been sorting some of Liam’s things. She sat down on the couch, determined, now that she would be gone over the weekend, to pack up the remainder of his things and leave them on the front porch for him to collect. She was on vacation until the middle of next week, and she needed to get these things done. Besides, the last thing she wanted to see when she got home from her grandmother’s house this weekend was a reminder of her failed marriage.
She sighed, and the urge to cry was strong. She would have cried too had she not seen something else out of the corner of her eye. This time it came from her left, over by the front door. She felt uneasy and quickly jerked her head in the direction of the door. She closed her eyes, began to count, and chanted: “It’s not real, there’s nothing there. It’s not real, there’s nothing there,” over again until she had counted to ten.
When she opened her eyes, she looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want any of that nonsense to start all over again. It had been a long while since she had seen the shadows, and she sure didn’t want to go down that road again.
Memories of childhood flooded her mind, taking her to another time and place. She could see the ceiling of her old bedroom as she stared at it in the dwindling daylight that streamed through the window. She lay there, unable to sleep, as she listened to her parents argue and fight somewhere within the house. It was there, in her childhood bedroom, that she first saw the shadows in her peripheral vision.
She continued to see the shadows periodically as she grew up, especially when things weren’t going well. As her parent’s own marriage deteriorated and their arguments escalated, so did her anguish, and the presence of the shadows increased. In time, Heidi blamed the shadows for her parent’s divorce. 
As she grew older the shadows would return whenever the going was tough, and, as such, she began to acknowledge the shadows with dread. Wherever the shadows were, bad times were sure to follow. She kept the shadows a secret until she was 19 when she made the mistake of telling her mom. Her mom thought she was crazy and committed her to a mental hospital for a month.
      When she left the ward, she promised herself two things: she would never mention the shadows to another person, and she would never talk to her mother again. The only good things that happened on the ward were meeting her friend Sandra, who she still talked to weekly, and having Dr. Mansell for her psychiatrist. Dr. Mansell helped her understand that the shadows weren’t real, and gave her better ways to cope with her stress. It’s where she learned to count to ten with her eyes closed and tell herself 'the shadows aren’t real'.