4th of July week

Yay 4th of July. The hubby and I went to his parents place to celebrate the 4th, and had a blast. We brought a couple snacks, of course found via pinterest, all of which were a big hit.

The first was a veggie tray, where I had turned the peppers into the dip holders. I don't remember where I got the original idea from, because I didn't repin it, and it now seems to be part of the Pinmarket. So to whoever came up with this idea- Thank you; it was awesome!

The second thing we brought was a fruit flag. I thought this pin was too easy and cute to pass up. The hubby actually made this one, and as he doesn't cook much I should be sure he gets the credit. It looks like the idea originally came from party city here. And below is our flag, which has the correct number of stripes, because we are anal like that. :)

The last of our treats was this recipe for chicken enchilada dip that I found here. I made some minor adjustments to the recipe, like using a tablespoon of canned prechopped jalepenos instead of chopping a fresh one because they scare me. I used the chicken breasts from a rotisserie chicken I got from the store and added taco seasoning and chili powder to the dip base instead of grilling them specifically for the dip. I also used neufchatel cheese instead of cream cheese and canola oil mayonaise instead of the full fat version. I still got thumbs up all the way around. Even my picky husband who doesn't like cream cheese or mayonaise and said he wouldn't try it when he saw what was in it, liked it. Definitely a hit that will get made again.

And because he's adorable I will include a pic of Meeko who turned three on the 3rd, and who I showed off to anyone who would look on the 4th. :)

After the fourth was kind of lazy. We did go to Seattle Internation Beerfest on Saturday. It was fun and we got to try a bunch of new beers for not a lot of money, which is always a plus. Especially when you don't like what you're trying.

And a pic of the hubby and I after Beerfest.

Last night I did get back to work on my soap making and made some lip balm, which I will take pics of once it's done setting up. In the meantime I will finally post a pic of my first successful (yes that must be specified) soap batch, and possibly successful (it looks a little different than the first) second batch.

All of that is to say that I got absolutely no writing done last week. We'll see how this week goes.... :)

Pinterest and Soap Successes

So I did get quite a bit of writing done Friday night while watching Pratical Magic and making soap. :) I forgot to take a picture of my soap so I'll have to upload that later. Luckily I made it all the way through the process with no exploding, and the final product looks like soap, so I think it's a success. We'll see in 4 weeks.

I did however take pictures of the garlic fries I made last night from a recipe I found on Pinterest. Every time I have made fries in the past they end up under or over cooked and just generally blah. I saw this pin on Pinterest though and decided that burgers and fries sounded good for dinner. You can find her recipe here. I made a few small adjustments. I added onion powder, because I tend to like it with garlic and I used dried parsley instead of cilantro, because that's what I had on hand. Because the parsley was dried, I also just added it to the mix before I baked them. And here's what they looked like:

I also finished part one on my crafts to make my entry way more functional. It is a picture frame, where you can change the picture without having to take the frame apart! I also found this craft on pinterest, and you can find the instructions here. I'm still making part two, which I should be able to add on Friday. :) In the meantime I will leave you with the pic of the frame before I added the binder clip.

I'm off with the hubby to a George RR Martin reading now.

Writing Challenge

So I've decided to make this blog more about my life while writing, than solely about the writing, because writing about writing is hard and uninspiring. Speaking of that writing, I kind of slacked Monday and Tuesday on my 10 minutes of writing, but I definitely made up for it Wednesday by writing for almost an hour and adding a couple hundred more words to my running word count.

As far as my non-writing life lately I've had serious motivation to be productive, so I am milking it for all its worth. :) My current goal is to get one big project done a night, and so far I have managed it for the last two weeks. We'll see how long it lasts.

I have also been working on my crafting and soapmaking lately so I can get my etsy shop up and running. I have been experimenting with different scents for my scrubs, as well as trying to diversify my products. I'm trying my hand at liquid soap again tonight (so far no exploding :) ). I'm also working on my labeling so I can take pictures and get the shop up and running. As far as crafting goes, I've been working on some projects I've found on Pinterest. I've become a bit of a Pinterest junkie...

Well I will post pics of the soap and and crafts when they're done. In the meantime I'm going to watch Practical Magic and write a little. :)

Birthday Weekend

So I had a lot of fun this weekend going out and seeing a movie. We saw Brave by the way and it good. I was also super productive around the house, but got no writing accomplished whatsoever. For some reason I just haven't been inspired lately. I have been talking to more people about my novel, and everyone seems to like to premise so far. So I'm trying to motivate myself to write. I'm thinking I might give myself a nightly goal or something to get myself writing again. I will try to write for 10 minutes tonight and let you know how it goes.

Second Chapter

So I've been slowly plugging away at chapter two, but haven't been feeling super inspired to write. In the meantime I have been working on creating my own homemade soap line for personal use and possibly sale on Etsy. My scrubs and candles have turned out good so far. I tried my hand at liquid soap making on Friday with semi-disastrous results. I think, having now read more recipes, that I figured out the problem and will be able to try again this Friday. I will update again this evening with my most recent word count, as I don't have it on me. I will try to write and post more later this week, but we'll see how it goes, as it's my birthday! :)

First Chapter Done!

So, it's been a while since I blogged, but I finally have a real, tangible bench mark hit. I finished the first chapter! I was so excited that I have kind of slacked off since starting the second chapter, but hope to get some work done on it this week.

Total Word Count: 3143

Writing has been happening

So I have been writing some lately, but mostly in my journals so it's harder to keep a word count going. I have gotten a little more into the computer though so I have made some progress there as well. I have also hit the point where I need to do a little research, so I've been spending my spare time reading up. I'm hoping to take this week to get all of my journal writing into the computer so I can have a more accurate (and much higher, thus happier) word count. So I will get off here and get back to it.

Current Word Count: 2519