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With back-to-school season just around the corner, naturally I'm excited to start out the school year with attention to detail and enthusiasm! (Although admittedly, that does fade as the school year drags on, right?! But at least I'm Super-Mom from August through November. :) One thing I love to do for my kiddos is put sweet notes in their lunchboxes. But let's be honest, you don't always have time as you're packing their lunch to hand-write an entire index card declaring your love for them, right? So - hopefully this will help! I simply pre-make a bunch of lunch notes ahead of time, print them out on some white cardstock, and put them in a drawer in the kitchen. Then all I need to do throughout the school year is grab one and toss it in the lunchbox! I do make a bunch of blank ones to fill in for special days so they are extra-personalized, but otherwise the generic ones work for any day. Want to steal mine so you save even MORE time showing your kids how much you love them? Go ahead! Links below for printing! :)
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This is for my local mamas: I'm hosting a workshop on Monday, August 10th at 6:30p for back-to-school freezer meals! The cost is only $15 and that will make you more than 2 MONTHS worth of healthy freezer meals for your kid! I will provide all the supplies and I'll also give out some recipe cards, as well as a tutorial of back-to-school freezer breakfasts. Here's a general idea of what we'll be making: All of these items are made ahead of time and individually wrapped, then frozen. The night before my kids pick what they want for breakfast and lunch the next day and we lay it out in the fridge. The next morning the breakfasts take less than 20 seconds to heat up in the microwave and the lunch item is ready to be put in their lunch box! It couldn't be easier, my kids are able to pack their own lunches, and I know they are eating nutritious food every day. AND it saves tons of money to make these in bulk and freeze - and don't even get me started on how much time it saves you on school days.
So for you local mamas, I hope you all can make it! And for those of you who can't - I'll post pics and more info after the event so you can do this at home or organize your own event! :) If you're planning a big party or event, like a wedding, I want to strongly encourage you to stay away from numbered tables. Numbers are so.... BORING. (Sorry I don't share in your enthusiasm, 9th grade math teacher!) All you need to do is come up with some other theme - something that fits you, and roll with it. For example, let's say you met each other in college - you can use hot spot names from around campus as your table names and put a photo of you both posing from that location. Or perhaps you are book lovers or music lovers - you can use popular titles to name your tables that way. My husband and I are movie lovers, so for our wedding all of our tables were named after movies - and to take it a step further, every single guest's place card had a quote from their table's movie. We used mostly romantic movies (this was for a wedding, after all) but we also catered the movies to the guests at that particular table. So for example, my family was sitting at the "Father of the Bride" table, my bridesmaids were all at "The Notebook" table (because we're obsessed with that movie, naturally), my older aunts and uncles were assigned "When Harry Met Sally," the groomsmen sat at "Wedding Crashers," and so on. (Way more fun than just being table number 24, right?!) Each guest at that table had a different/unique quote from the movie, picked specifically for them. Sure, it was a bit of work, but if you really love movies (or song lyrics, or booze, or whatever theme you choose) then it doesn't really feel like work! My husband and I actually had SO much fun picking all of the quotes out for each movie. So here's an example: And here's an example of what the table cards looked like (they were just simple tent cards): Some of the quotes we chose were funny for people with good senses of humor, while others were sweet and sappy depending on the person. People had a great time reading their quotes and talking about them with their tablemates! Definitely a great topic of conversation too if you have people sitting together who may not know each other well.
So come on, get creative - if you guys are drinkers, you could have tables named after different drinks and reflect that in the centerpieces (or have that specific drink waiting for guests at the table - but that's only if you're as crazy as me... :) Or you can even go with wines if that sounds less daunting to you. Or try a location theme, or dog breeds if you're pet lovers (okay, that one sounds like it's going to far.... but I threw a "cat party" once, so it's not totally insane! :) But I promise doing something fun will leave a longer lasting impression that just a boring ol' table number, and it's something relatively simple and FREE (if you make your own signs, etc) so it's a great easy addition to spruce up your event. My favorite thing about summer is cooking outside. If you need a fun dinner idea, check out these Beer Can Chickens - hands down the moistest chicken you will ever eat! They actually make special holders for these and they're not too expensive (you can usually pick them up at a local hardware store, or anywhere with grilling accessories). The directions are pretty simple: 1) Clean the chicken, rinse out the inside/outside, then pat dry with a paper towel. 2) Rub lightly with oil and rub down your birds with any kind of meat rub (literally, you can't go wrong with meat rubs). 3) Here's the fun part - the beer can needs to be drained down to about half, so you'll have to drink some - yes, even if it's 10am. Once the can is about half full, put the cavity of the bird around the can. 4) Then COOK - I prefer these cooked on a smoker (about 2-2 1/2 hours over medium heat) or you can do them on a grill over indirect heat for about 1 hour fifteen minutes. Ultimately you'll want to make sure the temp is 165 in the breast, 180 in the thigh and the juices should run clear. Then pull the bird off (you may want 2 people for this... :) and EAT! (Yeah, they look a little creepy sitting there like that, right? Tiny little creepy bird bodies... But I swear it's kind of fun! :)
If you need an easy, fun, adult summer beverage, sangria is always a go-to for me. Although I must admit my definition of sangria is a little loose - to me that's basically anything made with wine and fruit. But there are endless combinations for this and every single version I've ever tried is pure deliciousness. So here's a simple tutorial: First, take some ice cube trays and fill them with fruit (seriously, any fruit works) and then pour in juice or water to freeze them: Freeze them overnight. For your actual sangria, start with a type of wine you already love. I prefer sweet and bubbly drinks, so I used 3 liters of peach Moscato for this one. Then I mixed in 2 cups of lime tonic water, and a splash of grenadine for some color and a little more sweetness. I cut up a bunch of watermelon chunks (I would also recommend lime slices as well!) and chill until you're ready for your party (or overnight if you're making it ahead of time). Then simply fill up your glass with your fruit cubes, pour in your sangria, and enjoy!
Oh yes, we love a good theme movie party. Although we celebrate the occasional new release (especially if it's a sequel of some kind) but doing an older movie is probably even more fun. So we decided to throw a Goonies party! (And yes, it was totally worth it!) So of course we make the movie into a drinking game (it's just the right thing to do after you put the kids to bed, trust me). Everyone received a card with their "instructions" on it (see above!). We had some snacks laid out (don't forget the rocky road marshmallows and Baby Ruth's of course) and then we kicked off the party with some Goonies Trivia! The loser had to do the Truffle Shuffle in front of everyone (the poor girl had never seen the movie so she didn't stand a chance, but she shuffled amazing well! :) Here are a few pics as we set up the party: I spent less than $10 at the dollar store for some props (pirate costumes, skulls of course), made a few signs and that was it (the real fun is watching the movie, so you don't need much set up). The Fratelli Family Punch can be anything you want, but you'll want it to be something that goes down easy because you'll be drinking plenty of it (this is just a Malibu, pineapple, orange juice, grenadine mix - it was a hit!).
I wouldn't exactly say I'm a "camper" really - I usually only get out about once a year (although I have epic plans for more backyard camp-outs in the future) and the places I camp always have bathrooms (they're not exactly luxurious, but they're not a hole in the ground either). Once-a-year camping means I only have the basics - a tent, one lantern with original batteries, some old comforters (yeah, I'm not even sleeping bag worthy yet) and some coolers. No pudgy pie makers, cooking tripods, or anything fancy, which can make cooking a bit challenging. But, as a foodie and an extreme meal-prepper (that's a thing, right? Probably? Come on, if there's extreme couponing, there must be extreme meal planning enthusiasts! :) I am all about food I can make ahead and then just reheat over a fire pit. Every year we go with other families, so we split up the food responsibilities, which is nice. This year we were assigned breakfast. Of course we're bringing Amish donuts, fruit, yogurt, that sort of thing. But we've gotta make SOMETHING on the fire. That makes it legitimate camping food. So, I've pre-made our meals - French toast and breakfast burritos! These are so easy to prepare ahead of time, and all you need to do it wrap them up well and keep them in a cooler until ready to cook. I made 40 pieces of French Toast, let them cool, then stored them tight in large Ziplock bags. For the egg burritos, just cook up a batch of eggs - throw in meat, peppers, cheese, etc and wrap them up tight in foil (then place in large Ziplock bags with a label on them if you're making multiple kinds of burritos).
Then when you're ready to cook - simply heat the French toast over the fire grate (on foil or baking trays you brought) and keep the breakfast burritos in their foil wraps until heated through (the nice thing about these is they stay pretty warm while wrapped up in their foil!) and then serve! So really, aside from heating, there isn't much prep involved at all and you have no dishes to clean afterwards either (my kind of camping!) yet you still have a wholesome, hot, nutritious breakfast that everyone will enjoy. (Kind of makes you want to go camping more often, right?!) So the #1 question people ask me about my romance novels is about the setting of the books - they always want to know if "Mountain Ridge, Nevada" really exists. The answer is YES - sort of. It's a fictional name, but it's really based around Lake Tahoe. I was so fortunate to grow up around that area, and it's one of the most beautiful places in the world. I had the chance to go back for a visit recently, and it was like I was in the setting of one of my books - catching crawdads at Lake Tahoe, watching people run around the paths near the lake, even a hang glider jumping off the mountain - yes, that really randomly happened (so if anyone thought that seemed unrealistic in my book Six Days, you'd be surprised at how common an occurrence that is out in that area! :) This is why I use this area in my books: How beautiful is that, right?! The water at Lake Tahoe is some of the clearest I've ever seen. And yes, on your drive up to Lake Tahoe, this isn't that unusual of a site: People are always hang gliding, base jumping, etc around that area. Growing up we even had some of those folks land in our yard. Kind of an odd memory, and one not many people have, but that was my childhood. Anyway, back to the lake - I was so excited for my own kids to learn about catching crawdads - just get a little lunch meat (in this case it was bacon) and they'll come right out to you! Here's my daughter catching her first crawdads: So if you're one of the people wondering why I use this location for my books, this is just a tidbit of why I love this area, although there is so, so much more! But these recent pictures reminded me why I write about these things, because this is the way I grew up and I have such fond memories of this area even though I feel like Lake Tahoe is somewhat indescribable. But if you were wondering about "Mountain Ridge, Nevada" - here it is - a real spot, just with a different name. :)
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AuthorI love writing romance novels, editing other people's novels, planning parties (heavy on the theme food!) and watching movies. Cooking has also become a passion of mine (because you can't have a proper party without food!) and I love finding new hobbies when I can squeeze them in. Archives
December 2020
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