Monthly Archives: June 2014

Summer Writing Challenge

Beautiful tropical beach with the word summer written on the san

 

Ahhh Summer… My hubby has a weather gauge in his office and I just checked. It is 93 degrees outside, and 85 in the house. All is humid in sticky in Charm City Baltimore. We had a wicked winter, and I’m waiting for one of my friends who pined so longingly for Summer to complain about the heat so I can whack them with a Fla-Vor-Ice freezee pop. (NO I wouldn’t really do that.)

 

Fla-Vor-Ice

Fla-Vor-Ice (Photo credit: PakaLoeff)

Anyway, before I melt away I should give you today’s prompt… HOT.

 

 


Seven Hundred “club”

700 BlogsHad to put my party hat on to do a bit of celebrating yesterday when I realized the last blog I posted ticked the counter over to #700.

That’s a lot of muffin recipes, bioBlogs, secondary characters, writing challenges, and random crap that’s crossed my mind and you’ve had to read about! Thanks for hanging in there with me!

I’m wondering… what was your favorite post?

Do you miss the bioBlogs? I miss the cool people I found out about. But, I don’t miss the crunch of trying to find some one interesting to write about every day — thank goodness that experiment is over! It was a terrific education journey to learn about all those people, but it was tough to find birthday boys and girls who sparked my interest on a given day. And then I had to research them, and write what amounted to a  500-1000 word  report  on them. EVERY DAY. My goal was to do that for a year and I went for like 18 months, so I think the experiment was a success, but it was really hard, and my fiction writing and other work got short shrifted.

Muffin Mondays are going strong (although I often don’t get to post the results until Tuesdays).

At the top of the school year I got a job teaching voice at a local performing arts studio. It is a real job with a pay check and everything! And I love the kids (and adults) I get to work with. I also love finding music for the students. Whether it is something they suggest or something I remember singing 30 years ago that will work with one of their voices it is a lot of fun looking for and prepping the songs. I’m thinking of slipping a day into the schedule that focuses on music. How does that sound?

Any way I really want to thank those of you who stop by and read now and then.

Cheers,

Rita

 


Muffin Tuesday: Strawberry Pecan Buckwheat Muffins

 

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INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 cup Buckwheat Flour
  • 1 cup regular Flour
  • 2 tsp Baking Powder
  • 3/4 cup Brown Sugar
  • 2/3 cup Skim Milk
  • 1 stick Butter
  • 1 Egg
  • 1 cup fresh Strawberries, sliced
  • 1/2 cup chopped Pecans

 

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and Prep the 13 medium-sized muffin cups

2. In a large bowl combine the Flour, Baking Powder and Sugar.

3. In a microwaveable measuring cup melt the Butter.

4. Add the Milk to the Butter, then add the Egg.

5. Mix the wet into the dry and stir until combined.

6. Fold in the Strawberries and Pecans.

7. Divide evenly into the baking cups.

 

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8. Bake for 20 minutes. Muffins are done when they pass the toothpick test.

9. Cool for 10 minutes before enjoying.

 

These muffins are moist and don’t keep long in a hot summer kitchen so eat them with in a few days of baking (or freeze). I would have liked a crunchier top to these muffins. Next time I make them I might pull back on the milk a bit.

They went over well with my family. The Buckwheat gives them a hardy, earthy flavor, and the Strawberries give them a kiss of sweetness and freshness.

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These muffins are NOT Vegan.

 


Summer Writing Challenge: Day 16

Beautiful tropical beach with the word summer written on the san

 

When I write I like to curl up in my super comfortable La-Z-boy lounge chair with a pad of paper, a couple of extra sharp pencils, and a nice tall glass of ice water. There are two problems with this. 1.) The dog, my beloved cockapoo, Honey, has a Pavlovian response to my kicking back in the chair, and always needs to go out just as I settle in to write. 2.) The chair is so comfy that it often lulls me to sleep if I am not actively writing. That is to say if I’m thinking about what to write next… or noodling out dialog in my head… or trying to get character A to location X I have a tendency to get very drowsy.  Usually a gulp of ice water will bring me back in focus, but in honor of my La-Z-boy  I give you today’s writing / creative prompt: SLEEP.

Saturday afternoon chillin'

Saturday afternoon chillin’ (Photo credit: gillicious) Writing Challenge? What Writing Challenge? I just want to talk a little nap.

 

 

 

 


Summer Writing Challenge: Day 15

Looks like yesterday’s post didn’t go through so I’m doing it again today. Sorry!

Beautiful tropical beach with the word summer written on the sanIt is Day 15 of our Summer Writing Challenge, and since it is Father’s Day I’ll keep it simple and use FATHER as our prompt for today.

Happy writing every one… And Happy Father’s day.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY

HAPPY FATHERS DAY (Photo credit: Insight Imaging: John A Ryan Photography)


Summer Writing Challenge: Day 14

Beautiful tropical beach with the word summer written on the san

What a beautiful summer day! I hope you got outside to do some of your writing today.

For Day 14 I choose something from the great outdoors that I wish would stay that way (OUT DOORS) for the prompt: our friend, the ANT.

Ant

Ant (Photo credit: sanchom)

 


Summer Writing Challenge: Day 13

Beautiful tropical beach with the word summer written on the san

 

Lucky  Friday the 13th. Hope no bad luck has  kept you from your creative goals today. Speaking of creative goals… Here’s today’s  prompt….  FAILURE

 


Summer Writing Challenge: Day 12

Beautiful tropical beach with the word summer written on the san

‘Twas a dark and rainy night last night. Hope your pages didn’t get wet. We had quite the storm in these parts.

Anyway… I don’t know why but today I’m choosing STORMY WEATHER for the creative prompt is. (You might want to think metaphor.)

 

Rain

Rain (Photo credit: Moyan_Brenn DeLight (back again))


Summer Writing Challenge: Day 11

Beautiful tropical beach with the word summer written on the san

 

Good morning my creative darlings. Today’s word prompt is CHANGE. I chose it because I had to change the way I did the banner — I’m coming up on some numbers that are too long to spell out (I’d run out sand) — but change can mean so many things. I thought it was a good starting point.

 

 

 

American coins (also a jigsaw puzzle )

American coins (also a jigsaw puzzle ) (Photo credit: uhuru1701)