Life Update: Changes Galore!

 

 

Hey, everybody! Life has been WILD for the past couple months. I’ve had a hard time doing any blogging apart from my weekly recipe posts, but now that things are settling down, I want to touch base with you all and let you know what’s new!

First things first…

 

We Moved!

My husband recently took a job in a town about 90 minutes north of where we were previously living. In the last week of August, we closed on a house and moved up to our new home town! This is the first house we’ve ever owned (up until now, we’ve always rented), and we are SO excited about it. Things I’m loving about our new place:

• It. Is. HUGE. We wanted something we could grow into, so we found a house with 2600 sq ft (4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and a full unfinished basement). It’s more than twice as big as the house we were renting, and I’m still shocked at how much room there is. I can actually achieve my dream of keeping all my kitchen stuff in the kitchen, instead of parceling it out to different areas of the house and garage for storage.
• Pantry!!!! I have a pantry! This is not a drill!!! * runs around screaming *
• The kitchen has a black, white, and gray motif with oak cabinets, which means all my red kitchen tools and Coca-Cola decor look killer.
• The kitchen came with a fancy refrigerator that has a water/ice dispenser, and I now drink 1,000% more water.
• Ok, enough about the kitchen.
• The Little Mister has twice as much room to roam around and a whole neighborhood of kids to play with. Also a dog next door. He gives the new place an enthusiastic round of applause.
• I cannot adequately express the joy I feel at having more than one bathroom.
• We can walk to the downtown if we want, which has TWO ice cream shops and a candy store. * fans self * I think I moved to heaven.

 

Giveaway Winners

Back in May, I hosted a giveaway of my new cookbook, A Literary Tea Party. I never officially got a chance to share who the winners were, so here they are: Congrats to @Iylila101 and @Culinary_Cam on their winning entries!

@Iylila101’s Honey Nut Banana Bread

@Culinary_Cam’s Cracked China Deviled Eggs

 

P.S. Don’t worry, I let them know right away and got their prizes to them ASAP. But I was right in the middle of house hunting, so I didn’t have a chance to write a post sharing it here. Many thanks to everyone who entered! I LOVED seeing what you made! 🙂

 

Author Events

Speaking of the cookbook, I just finalized plans to host an author even with Prairie Fox Books in Ottawa, IL on November 17th! There will be giveaways, and I’m making goodies from the cookbook to share. I’ll share more details on social media as they come available. Be sure to stop by on Nov. 17th if you’re in the area!

 

National Novel Writing Month

Is now the best time for me to start a new writing project? Ummm probably not lol, but with all these new life changes and even more on the horizon, now might be the ONLY time I can do it. I’ve had a story developing in my head for the past several months, and it has that shine to it that makes me feel like it’s got the potential to be truly special. I outlined it and did all the preliminary research, and on September 1st I started NaNoWriMo! Technically I’m a month early, but November wasn’t going to work due to my author event.

Writing has been going great so far. I’ve met or exceeded my word count goals almost every day, and I love how the characters are coming to life. I’ve been really loving the Writeometer app (#NotSponsored), since it allows me to track myself and reward my progress…and as someone who is cripplingly addicted to updating my word count chart during normal NaNoWriMo, that’s a big deal to me.

My reward for finishing my first draft by Oct. 1st will be starting my Halloween read for this year: A Bloody Habit by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson. It’s Dominican friars vs vampires in Victorian England, and I COULD NOT BE MORE EXCITED!!! 😀

 

A Surprise!

There’s one bit of news that’s so important and special, it really deserves its own post. I’m working on finishing it now, so I’ll have it up for you ASAP! 🙂

A

Anyway, that’s all for now! I’m bursting at the seams to share the BIGGEST NEWS OF ALL, so hopefully I’ll have that post ready by the end of the week. Fingers crossed! 😀

A