Author: Moriah

Comfort food: Chicken rolls

Moriah

Got a wild hare to be a real mom for a minute and a half, which involved preparing freezer meals of things I like but the TDs will not eat because it didn’t come from McDonald’s, Subway, or Sonic. What I have planned for the freezer are side dishes, not the entree, so for today’s entree, I made chicken rolls, which they didn’t like any better than they like anything else I make. Because I am not McDonald’s. (FYI: They went hungry.)

I have no real history with this dish to legitimately call it a “comfort food,” but goodness they were good!

6 crescent rolls (Pillsbury fridge type)
1 c chicken, diced
3 oz cream cheese
1 Tb lemon juice
1/2 c onion, chopped
3 Tb. soft butter
corn flake crumbs

Mix all ingredients but crumbs. Place mixture on a crescent roll. Roll up. Dip in melted butter and roll in corn flake crumbs. Bake at 350F for 25 minutes.

Next time, I’m going to up the cream cheese and not cook them quite so long. I served it (heh, only to myself) with green rice, which recipe used to be a comfort food, but one I now have little taste for. I don’t know why.

#writechatnet Update

Moriah

Here’s the balance sheet of one year’s cost for the chat room:

COSTS:

Linksky hosting: $59.40

addonChat software (Professional Plus): $125.00

TOTAL: $184.40

DONATIONS:

$50.00 $70.00 (thank you!)

Due to an unexpected and totally welcome (if a bit tiny) windfall, I’ll be working on getting this all set up this week. Donations are still welcome, but I’ll be working this into my business budget next year.

From the feedback I’m getting, I’m sensing a real need out there amongst writers to congregate, visit, and challenge in real time.

#writechatnet

Moriah

I’m going to open a chatroom. I want it to be available to all writers of all genres (and philosophies, faiths, politics, issues, etc etc etc) with the need to interact in real time for whatever (legal) activities they need. They would be able to create different sub-chatrooms on the fly, which would poof as soon as it emptied. We can host writing challenges and goal setting and anything else a writer might find helpful to do in real time with other writers.

The URL is writechat.net. It’s not hosted yet. In fact, it’s barely registered.

Now, to do this, it’ll cost a little over $200 a year for the domain name renewal, hosting, and chatroom software. I’m thinking about taking donations for it. I figure, if 200 writers would find something like this useful, each could donate $1.

But the fact is, I’m going to open it anyway. WHEN it gets opened is up to my budget, so the donations part would only speed up the process and give everyone a sense of investment in the community.

So let me know what you think about donating, either here or on Twitter, with hashtag #writechatnet.

By the way, I barely moderate. Anything. Ever. About the only thing I object to (that I can think of at the moment; there may be more) is sharing kiddie porn and/or links. I cut my internet teeth on the unmoderated newsgroups of UseNet and the chatrooms of IRC way back in the day and I have no stomach for telling adults how to behave. So it’ll probably be wild and woolly for a while until like wills to like.

UPDATE: Well, then, here we go!





I wanna fall in love.

Moriah

From Mrs. Giggles’s post today, this caught my eye and helped me define something for myself:

I know, some folks view “escapism” as a dirty word, because we get defensive when people portray romance readers as silly women who want to escape their real lives by indulging in romantic fantasies. But there is some truth to the insulting stereotype no matter how we try to prettify things – we read romance novels for the vicarious entertainment. Nobody reads romance novels to become a better person – those who claim to do so are either people trying too hard to defend their hobby to critics or academics forced to read those things as part of a research and not as a hobby.

I read romance novels because I get to fall in love over and over and over and over again, that rush of feeling you get when you first meet somebody and there’s this strange and wonderful and glorious attraction and it’s emotional and sexual and spiritual and intellectual (if you’re doing it right) and you happily-ever-after yourself with this person and have a wedding-and-babies epilogue.

But then, real life settles in.

The babies really do come.

But so do the bills.

And the doctor visits for this and that and some other thing, reminding you you’re not twenty-five anymore.

The 7-year-old XX TD won’t stop telling you what she expects to get for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, her next birthday (almost a year away), and Arbor Day, preferably an XBox, a Wii, an iPhone…

The honey-do list gets added to faster than both of you together can keep up with it because you have a 4.5-year-old XY TD that breaks everything he touches—because he can—and you’re stepping on random screws that…you don’t know where they came from.

I love my family, but love is built on history and defeat and triumph and hardship; it’s made for the long haul. Falling in love is the glamour that tricks you into thinking you want to spend enough time with this person and these babies you make together to build that kind of love.

It wears off all too soon.

I’ve had a hell of a day today. Dude doesn’t get off work until late. I have no Calgon in the house. TV doesn’t satisfy. I’ve no interest in immersing myself in one of my craft/sewing/refinishing/decorating projects. I’ve been coding all day and have worn myself out.

But what will help, what I can do, is go fall in love for three or four hours once the kids go to bed and I’m waiting for Dude to get home from work.

That’ll hold me over until tomorrow morning, when I awake and pick up where I leave off tonight.

Because I love my family.

I was wrong.

Moriah

I got a Kindle.

I know. Go ahead and laugh or faint or whatever. I’ll wait until you’ve got yourself back together again.

Long story told in bullet-point lists:

  • Saw a Sony at Target. The screen looked like a dot matrix printer (aka like crap). I decided eInk was not for me.
  • Amazon pulled some crappy things, which confirmed my opinion of crap.
  • My mother-in-law got a Kindle for Christmas and I fondled it. It didn’t look anything like the Sony at Target.
  • I couldn’t stop thinking about my MIL’s Kindle.
  • I had an increasing need to see what my formatting looked like on the device itself.
  • I couldn’t stop thinking about my MIL’s Kindle.
  • I had an increasing need to see what my formatting looked like on the device itself.
  • Amazon put up their refurbs for $110.

I’ve had it for about a week now. I love it, but I do have some issues and (surprise!) it hasn’t diminished my love for my eBookWise or my BlackBerry. They’re like children: All different, all equally loved for different reasons.

One of my issues with the Kindle is how light and skinny and fragile it is. I know this is supposed to be a plus, but after holding my eBookWise for the last 2-1/2 years, its weight and ergonomic design has spoiled me. The eBookWise feels like a book, only a lot more comfortable.

Anyway, I desperately needed a case for my Kindle to protect it, but geez, people $30? No matter how much I liked my MIL’s case, I figured I could do original-and-cheaper on my own. (Well, hey, that’s how I got into this book publishing business in the first place, my tendency to DIY…everything.)

I’ve made a prototype. I think there are better ways to do this and better designs. I’m going to live with this one for a while and see what I’d change, what other features I might like, a better/more efficient way to build it.

Here’s Prototype Number One (mouse over the pictures to see the commentary):

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