Posts

Showing posts from 2017

Reading Challenge: Third Quarter Update

Image
Everything seems to be moving so rapidly now! Since my last update , when I was one book behind the schedule, I experienced a rapid completion of a few categories, and have now completed 20 out of the original 26 categories, and a total of 39 out of the complete list of 52. That is 75%! Although now I have less than 2 months to go and quite a few categories to complete! One of the books I read left me in the odd position of not liking the main character very much.

Recipe Challenge: Make a risotto from scratch

Image
I had the house to myself at dinner time tonight, so I thought this would be the perfect time to attempt the 'dish of death' (according to Masterchef Australia), as no one else would suffer if I failed. I love risotto. I love the idea of it, I love the variety of flavours that may be included, but I have never attempted to make it before. And so I turned to a chef I trust to have wonderful recipes: Jamie Oliver.

Reading Challenge: Halfway!

Image
So, now that June is ending, and we have reached the halfway point in the calendar, how far have I progressed with the 2017 Reading Challenge? Since my end of the first quarter update , I have been able to check off another 3 categories on the 26 book long list, including a self-published book. And when it came to reading a book with a character who has the same first name as me, wow! What an odd reading experience, seeing my own name on nearly every page in a book! Definitely a first for me. Which makes me wonder how people who have more common names than I do feel when they read a book with a character who shares their name. Are you used to it? Or is it still a bit odd?

Recipe Challenge: Someone else's favourite recipe

Image
I decided to attempt a new recipe just for my friend's birthday last week. Apparently lemon meringue pie is their favourite, so I got hold of the recipe the family usually uses, and gave it a try. The recipe had three parts: the pastry, the filling, and the meringue. I had been told it was a pretty easy recipe, or was I told that it was straightforward? Either way, I was expecting the newness to be hard, not following the recipe.

Other people's pain

We all deal with pain differently, and we all respond differently to the pain of other people. I remember once sharing with a close friend about some of the things I was struggling with at work, and she responded to my pain with attempts to fix the problems. As a testament to how good our friendship is, I stopped her, and told her all I needed was for her to listen, to let me tell how I felt about the situation, because she couldn't help me 'fix' anything. As further proof of how good our friendship is, she did. Because I wonder how often I have had someone respond unhelpfully to my pain, and never said anything. I wonder how often I have deliberately chosen not to share my pain because I expect that the person's response will be unhelpful, perhaps even hurtful, even when they actually really want to help.

The Recipe Challenge

Image
As you may have seen already, I have taken up a reading challenge for 2017 (if you haven't seen this, you can read the first post , second post , and third post about it), and I am thoroughly enjoying approaching reading in a different, more deliberate way. This has affected how I think about other things in life, which led to discussing with a friend recently the idea of setting a recipe challenge. And so, over the course of walking to, ordering, and eating at a wonderful Italian restaurant, we outlined a recipe challenge.

Reading Challenge: End of first quarter update

Nearly two months have passed, so I thought I'd write an update on my reading progress this year. When I last wrote , I had started a novel with nearly 1500 pages. I was pleasantly surprised that in the end it took less than two weeks to read the whole thing! And it held my attention the whole time - I didn't start reading anything else until I'd finished it. Since then, I have read one other novel for the reading challenge, bringing the total to 11, just shy of halfway for the 26 book challenge. And then I diverted to reading books just because they were there, or I felt like reading them, while waiting for a book to be available from the local public library.

Reading Challenge: The experience so far

I have now read 9 books for the reading challenge - getting ahead of schedule, which is fun. I have just started the book I have chosen for the category 'a book with over 500 pages'... This one has nearly 1500! But the characters are fascinating, and I'm already drawn in. I have really enjoyed reading a wider variety of books than I would normally choose. While I enjoy quite a few different genres, I tend to read mainly classics, fantasy and detective fiction. I tend to avoid non fiction, especially biographies. So far through the books I have read this year I have read historical fiction, mystery, young adult fiction, a memoir, a biography, a glimpse into poverty in a particular time period, and a glimpse into deep grief and the impact it has on a whole family (contemporary fiction). So many new authors, or authors I haven't read in a long time! And stories set on four continents! A few of the books have been very emotionally wrought, and it has been important for

Family Recipes: Plum cake

Yesterday I used a recipe I've never used before, one from my great-grandmother. I have no personal memories of this woman, as she died when I was very small, and the main reason I chose the recipe was to use some of the huge amount of plums we have at the moment. My Mum has fond memories of this cake, so I was really looking forward to giving it a go and tasting it for myself. Only to find that it is difficult to follow a simple recipe if the woman who passed it on to another generation was the kind of person who deliberately gave less than the full information required...

Writing in another language

One of the habits I have started this year is keeping a diary. The main purpose of this exercise is to improve my writing skills in Spanish, rather than recording the events of each day, as I know that my speaking skills are far superior to my writing skills at the moment. I set myself what seemed a low target of 100 words a day, and was surprised at how difficult this was, especially for the first week.

2017 Reading Challenge

Image
A few friends have completed (or at least attempted) various reading challenges in recent years, and while I read a LOT of books, I don't generally have a reading plan in place. So I thought this year I'd have a go at one of these challenges, and while tempted to dive into attempting something like this in Spanish, I think I'll give it a go in English first. The challenge I have chosen to undertake is to read 26 books fitting 26 categories. I'll try to focus on some of the more difficult categories first. I have started a list with possible titles for a lot of the categories.