Lisa Hendrix

Cherie Priest has put together the links you need in order to help with the BP catastrophe. Please visit her site and find one thing you can personally do, then do it. Follow through. Don’t be like BP and try to pass responsibility, because we are *all* responsible. Every time we start our car, use an unnecessary plastic bag, or drink bottled water*, we are responsible.

What you can do about the oil spill

______

________

Young Adult author Lisa Mantchev came up with such a fun idea to celebrate the release  of her latest book Perchance to Dream that I just had to play along. She invited bloggers/friends/sugar-holics to bake cupcakes and photograph the process and results, and then send her the links, which she’s collecting HERE.  Since I’m still (still!) thrashing around with the last few chapters of Immortal Champion (which, btw, is now available for preorder at Amazon!), I’m not about to start baking fancy cupcakes. But Lisa, being the kind, accommodating sort that we Lisas always are, gave me special dispensation to use my cupcake post from last year.

Perchance to Dream is the second in Mantchev’s Theatre Illuminata series. If you’ve read Book I, Eyes Like Stars, you’ll recall that the fairies who inhabit her story world are extraordinarily fond of cupcakes. And thus…

Cupcakeathon!

(originally posted 5/8/09) The theater department at Child1′s high school raises a little extra change during play runs by selling mom-made goodies at intermission. It was my turn this time, and the timing couldn’t have been better, as the play was Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. And of course, my Immortal Brotherhood books are Beauty and the Beast, too (NOT the Disney version).

Now, I’m an okay baker, but I don’t do it often. But I rolled up my sleeves and set out to make my required three dozen cupcakes. And in the process, I learned a few things—minor things, perhaps, and probably old hat to those who bake more often than, say, once every two years, but new to me. They are presented below in the order in which I discovered them.

1) Wilton cupcake liners are better.

I’ve always used the cheap ones from the grocery store (Reynolds, typically) but since I had to pick up some specialty sprinkles at the craft store, I decided the convenience of grabbing the Wilton liners that were right there far outweighed the few cents I would save by ducking into the grocery next door.

Enlightenment. The Wilton cups were sized properly and pleated more tightly, so they actually FIT my pans and didn’t sproing up out of the cups. (See pic. Wilton is on the left, sitting there politely waiting for batter. Reynolds is clearly trying to escape.) Nor did the Wilton get those funky, annoying wrinkles when I filled them.

Result: easier to fill, prettier cupcakes.

I will never go back.

2) Chocolate cake is harder to frost than white cake.

As I said, I don’t bake all that much, and have never made both chocolate and white cakes/cupcakes at the same time (really). So I always thought my occasional trouble with getting frosting onto chocolate cake evenly was due to differences in weather, different cake mix, different frosting, my mood, whatever. But this time, I had the same brand of cake, the same brand of frosting, the same day, same oven, same knife. In other words, it was a controlled experiment, with only two variables: the cake flavor and the frosting flavor.

It turns out chocolate cake actually does have a slicker surface than white cake. Combine that with its propensity to crumble more easily, and you have a (slight) mess.

No wonder wedding cakes were white back when the bakers were in charge instead of the bridezillas.

3) If you don’t have enough Tupperware to carry your cupcakes, the donut shop will sell you boxes.

Well, mine will, anyway, and for just $0.25 each. Yep, I got three snazzy boxes for just $0.75. (See right) Not half bad. That little cutie leaning against the boxes is one of the 2 dozen brownies I made—and DECORATED—in addition to the 4 dozen cupcakes. Hey, if I’m going to bother, I’m going to go whole hog.

4) Baking makes me happy.

I’d forgotten (probably got washed out of my brain after the last effort when I had to clean up).

It’s probably really that having baked makes me happy, kind of like my feeling about writing (it’s not so much that I love to write, but I like having written and am crazy in love with the book I get at the end). And really, who wouldn’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling over a boxful of these lovelies.

See, those are the specialty sprinkles I had to pick up at the craft store, which led to the Wilton cupcake liners, which led to this post.

But if you want to know what really led to this post, check out Child1, below, as Cogsworth. (Note my success at finding handlebar mustache.)

That’s not a commerical costume, btw. One of the moms made it. Which leads to:

5) Moms can do anything.

Remember that on Sunday, as you wish your mom Happy Mother’s Day.

(To participate in Lisa Mantchev’s Cupcakeathon,

check out the rules here.)

________

I apologize for being so delinquent about posting here. I have an excuse that’s both good and bad.

The good part:  I’m writing my brains out on the third Immortal Brotherhood book, IMMORTAL CHAMPION, which will be hitting the shelves in January 2011. It’s the story of Gunnar the Red, who was briefly mentioned in Immortal Outlaw.

The bad part:  I’m overdue getting the manuscript in. I got way behind last fall when the whole family fell victim to H1N1 and haven’t every managed to catch up. That’s bad news, because I have the fourth book due soon too.  That’s really why I haven’t been posting here, because I have trouble justifying time spent blogging when I need to be doing my paid writing.

To help make it up to you and tide you over, here are a couple of pics of the lovely Steven Waddington, my major model for Gunnar.

I am closing in on the final chapters, so I’ll be back here on a more regular basis soon.

Hang in there, Viking lovers.

Look what my barrista made me to drink while I write my next Immortal Brotherhood romance…

That’s a Bella Tazza (espresso, half&half, and ground chocolate).

I’m all aglow.

No, I’m not becoming one of those bloggers, but I found this wonderful post on The Best Times to Buy Anything, All Year Round at Lifehacker and figured everyone could use the info.

Each new year comes at us encumbered by advice on goal-setting and list after list of resolutions just aching to be broken. Instead of adding to the burden, I give you these hopes:

That you say yes more often; that you open your mind to something new every day; that at least once during the year you make time to sit in a swing and spin until you’re dizzy; that you learn to believe the compliments people give you; that someone who loves you knits you something by hand; that you have more color in your life; that you smile more; that a child hugs you with reckless abandon; that you love.

Welcome 2010.

I admit it: I’ve been a total flake about posting. I had a legitimate excuse, at least at first. I returned home from the Emerald City conference (back in the first part of October) to find my husband and Child2 both in the grip of H1N1.  I shifted into nurse mode and ignored everything else. They started to get better, then both got pneumonia.

Then I got sick.  Just for a variation, my H1N1 decided to turn into bronchitis, which took two, count ‘em two, rounds of antibiotics to knock down (the second one was a big gun—one of the drugs of choice for anthrax). Even after the drugs worked, I spent the next six weeks alternately sleeping and coughing like a coal miner. When I finally got back on my feet, I told myself I needed to ignore the blog and start writing.

Because, you see, while I was up north way back at the first of October, before all the sickness, Igot the call—Berkley picked up the next two Immortal Brotherhood books!  Yep, Gunnar and Torvald are getting their turns.  I was actually in a parking lot in Tacoma, getting ready to attend the biggest readers group meeting I’ve ever seen, when my agent called my cell. It was a blast getting to go in and tell the ladies the news.

IMMORTAL CHAMPION (Gunnar’s story) will be out in January 2011. IMMORTAL WHATSIT (no, that’s not the actual title, I just haven’t thought of the right one yet) in October 2011.

Yeah, 2011. Not 2010. My fault, entirely. (I warned you I’m not a fast writer). That’s a heck of a wait between books, but I already have plans to keep you happy by Read the rest of this entry »

I learned this morning that Kate Duffy, long-time Kensington editor and extraordinary friend to romance, has died. I met Kate the first time in 1993, and although I never had the opportunity to work with her, I learned a lot from her over the years.  She will be missed.

For those who never had the chance to hear her quick laugh, or those who just want to hear it again, here’s a glimpse of the amazing Kate:

Ah, the joys of summer. Lazy days, hammocks under the maple tree,  corn on the cob, poison ivy…

Wait. I live in southern Oregon. We have poison oak, not poison ivy. Everyone knows that. Well, everyone except the bird that apparently flew in with a gut full of poison ivy seeds and planted them in the pachysandra.

A while back, I noticed we had some new plant growing in the front side yard, between the mulberry and the cherry. It was pretty and green, and other than a vague idea that I needed to figure out what it was, I didn’t think much of it at the time. Then I got that debilitating crick in my neck I mentioned and wasn’t doing much of anything, particularly gardening, so the pretty green plant grew and spread, looking quite lovely in the shade and filling in a bare patch in the ground cover that needed something anyway.

Then my neck got better and I went out to take a closer look. Leaves of three. Oh, crap. The leaves weren’t shiny, like I remember from summers in Kansas, but I knew.  I came in and fired up the laptop just to check.

We’ve got poison ivy, a patch about 10′ x 15′ that bleeds into the pachysandra and the lilies of the valley (also poisonous, btw, but not in quite the same way). I scooted off to buy Tecnu and Marie’s Poison Oak Soap, and then hubby and I geared up for the attack. But the woody root is well buried in the pachysandra and intertwined with those of the mulberry, and it quickly became obvious we were never going to succeed that way. So hubby headed off to the armory (garden store) while I scrubbed the tools with Technu. (Here’s a great site with info on poison ivy, how to recognize it, and what to do about it.)

Thank goodness Steinarr and Marian (IMMORTAL OUTLAW) didn’t have to worry about poison ivy (imagine that scene under the tree at the collier’s camp if they discovered they’d been sitting in the wrong plant!), It’s not native to England,  but unfortunately, modern English practitioners of love al fresco have to look before they lie. The plant is so beautiful in the autumn that some fool brought some in to enhance his garden. Somebody, presumably, immune (about 1 in 4 is, although that can change with continued exposure).

The bird that made us a gift of the seeds was likely a downy woodpecker, who loves the creamy white berries. I’ve seen way more woodpeckers in the neighborhood than usual this year, including one I think was a downy. But it could have been anything, because the only beasts NOT immune to poison ivy are primates — like us. So there you go.

Anyway, chemical warfare has been launched. Leaves are beginning to wilt (not to include the mulberry or cherry, we hope). We’ll still have to grub up the roots this fall while wearing exposure suits, but at least we’ll know they’re dead when we do. And then we’ll have to replant. Something pretty and green…and non-toxic.

We’ve avoided rashes so far, but I bet some of you haven’t.  Care to share your itchy story? Got pix?