I did it. I wrote a novel! I have no idea if it’s any good or if it will ever be published, but it feels pretty great to be able to say that I wrote a book. These are some of my thoughts on the fact that I finished the first draft of my novel and how my first go at revisions has been progressing so far.
My bridal shower was a couple weeks ago! I had only really been to one before and I wasn’t really sure what to expect, to be honest. There were plenty of days when I was talking to my mom and she had to go because she needed to do “shower stuff”, but I was never quite sure what she was doing. And I love surprises, so I was happy to keep it that way. And when I walked into the room on the day, it was lovelier than I ever could have imagined.
I’m not really on Twitter, so I’m not as familiar or obsessed with Chrissy Teigen as a lot of people are these days. But I obviously know of her, and I had heard lots of good things about her cookbooks. So I was pretty excited when I received her book Cravings for Hanukkah, and I was eager to try one of the recipes. With a chilly, rainy Sunday on the horizon, I settled on her Zucchini “Lasagna” Bolognese, a recipe that required simmering a homemade bolognese sauce, roasting zucchini into noodles then layering and baking a lasagna. That might sound like a lot, but most of it was pretty hands-off and the result was incredibly delicious.
Well, I did it! I made it through a year of working as a freelancer. A year of working from home. A year of setting my own hours. And I am happy to report that I am still very happy with how it’s going. A lot of my day-to-day has changed since I first started doing this (and started this blog) a year ago, and while some of those changes have been overwhelming they have mostly been exciting.
One of the first memoirs I read was the first of Ruth Reichl’s three, Tender at the Bone. I was immediately entranced and quickly inhaled her other two, Comfort Me With Apples and Garlic and Sapphires, followed by her 2014 novel Delicious! Reichl went on to be an incredibly important figure in food media, and her memoirs were written through that lens; we already knew where the story ended so she was showing us how she got there. The recent memoir of another important figure in the food world, Alice Waters’s Coming to My Senses, was also very interesting, but in a very different way.
I’ll admit, these steps in our wedding planning process took place a couple weeks ago. I’ve been having some difficulty finding time to blog lately; I guess as I’m getting deeper into my novel I’ve been prioritizing that in an effort to ensure that I’m writing a little bit every day. But I love blogging and sharing here. So without further ado, some more of the progress we’ve made with wedding planning! Continue reading
I recently read two Christina Lauren romances back to back: her newest, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, and one of her bestsellers, Dating You/Hating You. After reading both, I certainly understand the hype. Lauren’s books are fun, breezy, modern romances. I flew through both and really enjoyed them. Continue reading
I love quiche. It’s one of my go-to recipes to make at the beginning of the week and enjoy for lunches over the course of the week. I usually make one big one in a pie plate, but I recently decided to try mini ones instead and they came out great! Continue reading
When we decided to book a wedding date only eight months away, one of the things I needed to do sooner rather than later was get a wedding dress. They say that you have to give at least 6 months for the dress to come in and then alterations will take about a month, so we needed to get moving. So a couple weeks ago we headed up to Kleinfeld in New York, and I found a wedding dress! Continue reading
When I decided to get more serious about writing a novel, Jeff had the brilliant suggestion that I read Stephen King’s On Writing. I’m not a big Stephen King fan—horror isn’t my thing—but I had heard of On Writing from an episode of the podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour. They did an episode about Stephen King and devoted a surprisingly small amount of time to his commercial fiction, instead spending time talking about this book. If I remember correctly, one of the panelists even said that he thought On Writing was King’s best work. So I picked up a copy, grabbed a highlighter and eagerly dug in. Continue reading
Lyss on Life 