10/13/13 10/13/13

Emma Michaels' Eyrie:Society of Feathers #2

Last October I shared my review of Emma Michael's Owlet: Society of Feathers Book 1. Well Emma is back with the second installment and it's available now (see below for links on where to purchase and for a link where you can enter to win an AMAZON gift card

About Eyrie:

Somewhere between falling and flying...you will find the truth.

The truth is being unveiled and Iris’ past is unlike anything she ever could have guessed. For Stryx, finding your missing half doesn’t always mean finding your mate. Iris has been missing a part of herself for so long that no one is sure she will be able to put the pieces back together and her ever reliable dreams may be forcing her astray. Coping with the death of someone she loved, she is forced to face the truth and break free from the lies that have caged her.

Scoop up Emma's latest work here: Kindle * Nook * iBookstore *Smashwords * Google * PDFYou can learn more about Emma on her website or follow her on these social media sites: Twitter * Facebook * Goodreads

Book 1 is now 99 cents on Kindle!

Add Book 3 to your Goodreads list!coming October 13, 2014Follow this link to enter to win an Amazon gift card for $10 Rafflecopter giveaway

10/13/13 10/13/13

Emma Michaels' Eyrie:Society of Feathers #2

About Eyrie:

Somewhere between falling and flying...you will find the truth.

Book 1 is now 99 cents on Kindle!

Add Book 3 to your Goodreads list!coming October 13, 2014Follow this link to enter to win an Amazon gift card for $10 Rafflecopter giveaway

10/8/13 10/8/13

Baby Yawn

Just after eight o'clock this evening as I was tucking my boys in, "snug as a bug in a rug", my son Evan asked me to lay down with him until he fell asleep. "Scoot over." I said, and snuggled in under the covers with him nose to nose. He draped an arm around my neck, as he's so often done and yawned. He opened his eyes and saw me smiling at him, and asked, "Mommy is it rude to yawn in someone's face?"I said, "I suppose, but it's OK when it's Mommy.""Is it because even though I'm big, I still have a baby yawn?" He asked, eyes and voice, already heavy with impending sleep."Yes, that's exactly why." I said, and snuggled in tight, hoping for many more shared baby yawns.My "baby" is five years old now, yet I can still remember seeing my sweet son yawning when he was just a little thing, cuddled in my arms. He melted my heart then as he still does, and I'm sure, forever will. xo,nicole

10/6/13 10/6/13

DIY Canvas Wall Art [Old T-Shirt UpCycle]

When we moved into our Italian home one of the first things I asked my boys was if they would like a particular theme for their bedroom. They did and with out question they proclaimed Star Wars!Yay. I love my little geeks!So I set about finding things for their room that would bring Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, aliens, and distant galaxies to life in their bedroom. It's definitely a work in progress as finding Star Wars themed items here in Italy is a lot harder than I anticipated it would be, so we are slowly deciding on things and ordering online.This summer as I was going through my youngest son Evan's clothes I came across an old Star Wars t-shirt I'd gotten for him at Old Navy. I knew immediately I had to incorporate it into their bedroom some how.As it turns out I had a few old canvases that were perfect for this project and this DIY Star Wars Canvas Wall Art Upcycle was born.Once I gathered my supplies it took me about five minutes to complete.So easy. So cute. My boys love it. I am even debating taking one of my Star Wars t-shirts and using it to make another.The best part about this project. It cost me absolutely nothing to make. You can easily make one of your own using fabric (think pillow cases, sheets, anything really) and even an old piece of wood or a cereal box would even work for this project. If you make one of your own please come back and share your creation with me!

10/5/13 10/5/13

Tortilla Española a.k.a. Cuban Tortilla -Spanish Omelet Recipe

This Spanish omelet is delicious at breakfast, lunch, or even dinner and is a staple in Spanish and Cuban cuisine.

IngredientsOlive Oil/Extra Virgina Olive OilVegetable or other cooking oil (for potatoes)4 Potatoes (small)Spanish Chorizo (fresh or dried is O.K. for this recipe I used dried Chorizo by Goya.1 Yellow Onion, finely chopped3 garlic cloves, (Crush them- best if mortar and pestle used)Salt8 large eggs7 green onions (scallions), use the entire onion (white and green parts), slice it thin (set some aside for garnish)Green/Red Bell Pepper 1/2 finely choppedOlives with pimentos. About a quarter cup or a small palm full. Thinly sliced.Preparation/Cooking1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.3. Warm vegetable oil in a frying pan.2. Wash, and peel potatoes (I used the red this time, so I left a bit of the skins on them but removed most). Thinly slice potatoes into rounds.3. Fry potato slices in oil until cooked/soft. A light golden brown is ok on some of them, but not necessary for all. While your potatoes are frying you can prepare the rest of the ingredients (chopping, slicing, etc.)As the potatoes cook take them out and lay them on a plate lined with a paper towel (to absorb excess oil).4. Cook the chorizo if using fresh whole - until skins are browned. Then remove from heat and slice on a bias. I use kitchen scissors to slice them in the pot and it works great. They don't have to be perfect. Continue cooking for a few minutes.*5.In a separate pan heat the olive oil and add your onion, and green peppers, saute for a few minutes, add the garlic and continue cooking.6. Add the chorizo to the mixture and continue cooking.7. On top of the mixture add the green onions - do not stir.8. In a bowl crack the eggs and beat them (like you would for scrambled eggs).9. Pour the eggs into an oven safe casserole dish. If you don't have one you can use a cake pan - just line it with aluminum foil first.10. Once your potatoes are all cooked, pat them to remove more oil and lightly salt...LIGHTLY salt.11. Add the potatoes to the eggs, reserving a few for the top.12. Stir the green onions into the rest of the chorizo mixture, then add to the casserole dish with the potato and eggs. Add the olives. Stir some more.13. Line the top of the mixture with the potatoes you reserved.14. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until the eggs are fully cooked.Let the casserole dish cool for a few minutes then flip it over onto another plate, or cut it out of the dish (which is what I've done) and serve with crackers or bread, garnish with reserved green onions. Sliced avocado drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt is also a great accompaniment to this dish.Enjoy! Buen Provecho!*You can omit the chorizo, or even add cubed ham to the mixture. Most Cuban cooks cut the potatoes into cubes, but I was taught to cut them into circles and that's the way I prefer it. But you can do it however you choose. If you're using a dried chorizo - sauteing isn't necessary, you can simply thinly slice it on a bias or into circles and add it to the mixture in step number six.

AUTHORS NOTE: I decided to repost this recipe when I made this dish recently for my family, complete with updated photos. Original post date 9/6/09

9/22/13 9/22/13

Sunday Morning First Day of Autumn

Hello remember me? I'm the one who is suppose to pop in and share what's up with her world, writing, and anything really...I could try to explain why I've been away. I have a ton of posts laid out in my head. Photographs even taken. I've just been otherwise engaged, which to my mind is such a rude thing to say, esp if you're here using up your valuable time to read this.However today is the first day of Fall. It's a Sunday morning here and my little Evan has a cold so we're keeping our germs away from Church and his RE classes and opting for a quiet Sunday at home. The hubster is stateside on TDY and we're content with a peaceful Sunday morning occupied with things we enjoy. The boys are in their playroom and I sit here at my desk.Happy Fall and I hope you have a great Sunday!To celebrate I thought I'd share this poem by Wallace Stevens it's a poem I've found difficult to read in the past but I like to go back and reread things as I get older and wiser. It's all about perspective I think...

Sunday Morning

1Complacencies of the peignoir, and lateCoffee and oranges in a sunny chair,And the green freedom of a cockatooUpon a rug mingle to dissipateThe holy hush of ancient sacrifice.She dreams a little, and she feels the darkEncroachment of that old catastrophe,As a calm darkens among water-lights.The pungent oranges and bright, green wingsSeem things in some procession of the dead,Winding across wide water, without sound.The day is like wide water, without sound,Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feetOver the seas, to silent Palestine,Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.2Why should she give her bounty to the dead?What is divinity if it can comeOnly in silent shadows and in dreams?Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or elseIn any balm or beauty of the earth,Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?Divinity must live within herself:Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;Grievings in loneliness, or unsubduedElations when the forest blooms; gustyEmotions on wet roads on autumn nights;All pleasures and all pains, rememberingThe bough of summer and the winter branch.These are the measure destined for her soul.3Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.No mother suckled him, no sweet land gaveLarge-mannered motions to his mythy mind.He moved among us, as a muttering king,Magnificent, would move among his hinds,Until our blood, commingling, virginal,With heaven, brought such requital to desireThe very hinds discerned it, in a star.Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to beThe blood of paradise? And shall the earthSeem all of paradise that we shall know?The sky will be much friendlier then than now,A part of labor and a part of pain,And next in glory to enduring love,Not this dividing and indifferent blue.4She says, 'I am content when wakened birds,Before they fly, test the realityOf misty fields, by their sweet questionings;But when the birds are gone, and their warm fieldsReturn no more, where, then, is paradise?'There is not any haunt of prophecy,Nor any old chimera of the grave,Neither the golden underground, nor isleMelodious, where spirits gat them home,Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palmRemote on heaven's hill, that has enduredAs April's green endures; or will endureLike her remembrance of awakened birds,Or her desire for June and evening, tippedBy the consummation of the swallow's wings.5She says, 'But in contentment I still feelThe need of some imperishable bliss.'Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreamsAnd our desires. Although she strews the leavesOf sure obliteration on our paths,The path sick sorrow took, the many pathsWhere triumph rang its brassy phrase, or loveWhispered a little out of tenderness,She makes the willow shiver in the sunFor maidens who were wont to sit and gazeUpon the grass, relinquished to their feet.She causes boys to pile new plums and pearsOn disregarded plate. The maidens tasteAnd stray impassioned in the littering leaves.6Is there no change of death in paradise?Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughsHang always heavy in that perfect sky,Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,With rivers like our own that seek for seasThey never find, the same receding shoresThat never touch with inarticulate pang?Why set pear upon those river-banksOr spice the shores with odors of the plum?Alas, that they should wear our colors there,The silken weavings of our afternoons,And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,Within whose burning bosom we deviseOur earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.7Supple and turbulent, a ring of menShall chant in orgy on a summer mornTheir boisterous devotion to the sun,Not as a god, but as a god might be,Naked among them, like a savage source.Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,Out of their blood, returning to the sky;And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,The windy lake wherein their lord delights,The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,That choir among themselves long afterward.They shall know well the heavenly fellowshipOf men that perish and of summer morn.And whence they came and whither they shall goThe dew upon their feet shall manifest.8She hears, upon that water without sound,A voice that cries, 'The tomb in PalestineIs not the porch of spirits lingering.It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.'We live in an old chaos of the sun,Or old dependency of day and night,Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,Of that wide water, inescapable.Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quailWhistle about us their spontaneous cries;Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;And, in the isolation of the sky,At evening, casual flocks of pigeons makeAmbiguous undulations as they sink,Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Wallace Stevens

8/31/13 8/31/13

How do I set up the navigation menu?

See the video above to help you understand how to set up your navigation menu for the first time.