This Week in Trish News

My gemstone and bead order came in today!

I've mentioned before that one of my side hobbies is jewelry making.  After all, we artistic folks are a fickle bunch.  Yes, I love writing above all, but it's healthy to exercise the brain on several artistic endeavors--and just plain good for the soul.

And, for a rare occasion, I'll actually be selling some of what I've made at Pi-Con!

In particular, I'm making bookmarks and Decorated Divinations.  Don't know what a Decorated Divination is?  Don't worry.  I made it up.  Remember, I've also been reading Tarot for 15 years and will be running a Tarot & Writing workshop at Pi-Con.  Still curious?  Then you better come to the convention and I'll be happy to sort you out.

As an added note, that is one fabulous pile of gems that I only paid about $36 for, including shipping, so I'm happy to recommend Black Market Minerals for anyone else interested in gemstones and beads.

xx

Besides exploring my non-writing artistry, I'm knee-deep in edits for UnCONventional. 

I'm glad Kate and I picked stories we really liked and writers who we knew were good; it makes the reread-edit-reread-edit pattern much easier.

Arisia is also definitely holding a reading for us, and we will be having a fabulous release party!  Be prepared… because weird is getting weirder. :)

xx

Other work:

Press release deadlines.

New trainees.

Restaurant review.

xx

I cannot forget the other Big Thing that has me running this week.  Broad Universe is having our first Open Meeting on Sunday, August 14th, at 7PM Eastern Time (which is GMT - 4 hours)

Part of the problem is we're an international organization and we have members at all different technology levels, so we want to find something that is inclusive and free for anyone who wants to join.

Not as easy as you might think.

Morven Westfield, general tech goddess for many Broad Universe projects, is working on this.  We're doing another test meeting tonight.  Fingers crossed!

xx

Now, I need to return to work.  Happy Monday!

Feeling Overwhelmed, Fur-Filled Friday

Guess what?  I'm still working on deadlines!

Please enjoy a cute tired kitty picture in lieu of a blog.

Thanks!

It's already Tuesday…

… my Manic Monday blog post got eaten by the mania.

A bunch of deadlines this week, team reviews (late), and taxes.

Tomorrow I have a riding lesson in between all the writing.  :)  It's good to get outside, at least, and spend time with my horse. 

Yesterday, (and most of the weekend), we celebrated the Husband-of-Awesome's birthday.  Without him, I wouldn't be half the writer and businesswoman that I am.  I call him Husband-of-Awesome for a reason, and that should be sufficient explanation for why I gave him the weekend.

So, forgive the missing blog post.  I need some sleep so I can work more.

Gifts of time-machines can be sent to my address. 

Conbust was Great!

And I'm exhausted and have work to do.

Enjoy the following pictures. :) 

More Food, and More Feminism

Foodie deadlines were about to usurp my Friday Blog, but then I read this great article on Copyblogger, and decided, "Damnit, I'm doing my blog!"

So, my blog:

I have 2 cool food deadlines today. One is about the packaging of dried fruit & nuts in the produce section, and how that caters to different demographics who buy these products. J That should be out in Produce Business in May. The other one was a most excellent food review that you can catch in Worcester Magazine next week. Hint: I refuse to use the Wii Fit until Monday due to the caloric intake.

xx

A quick, fun cooking thing to share: Dessert Pizzas.

I don't cook pizza often, and I seriously cheat with dough. The only dough that works for me (and no, they aren't paying me to say this) is the Pillsbury pizza dough. Even when it rips (like it did last night), it's the easiest to manipulate for me. I can easily spread it out in a foiled and oiled cookie sheet with minimal effort.

I made 2 pizzas last night. One of leftover deli meats, Easter dinner, peppadews, hot peppers, red onions, mushrooms and cheese. (Wicked delicious; pizza is great for leftovers in general!) The other was a dessert pizza, which I'll share with you.

1 package strawberries
2 lemons (I happened to have Meyer lemons, which are extra sweet)
handful oats
a few tablespoons vanilla sugar (sugar in which I keep vanilla bean pods for flavor).

Slice strawberries, zest and squeeze lemons into strawberries, add sugar to sweeten to your preference. Let sit about 30 minutes. Prepare pizza crust, spread strawberries and juice over pizza crust, sprinkle with more sugar and oats (to catch some of the liquid), and bake per crust instructions.

You can play with this with just about any fruit-pie filling you can dream up… and possibly plenty of others. (I can imagine a very simple cinnamon sugar topping with dollops of cream cheese.)

Surprise someone you love with dessert pizza!

xx

And for the Feminism Friday Alliteration, next week is a week's worth of guest blogs!!

Several of my wonderful colleagues and friends from Broad Universe are joining me for a great Broad Blog-Out!

I mentioned it already, but I'm all for promo-ing the **** out of this because it's so awesome, so here's a sneak peek - once again:

Jaleta Clegg will kick us off on April 11th.

"I live in Utah with a horde of my own children, my husband, and one elderly, toothless cat. Cats are required for SF/F authors, aren't they?"

Lynn Flewelling will appear on April 12th.

"The weirdest fan letter, if you can call it that, was definitely one I got from a man who wrote to tell me, at length, in tiny hand printing, over six sheets of paper, how I was 'destroying the fabric of the American family.' The return address was a state prison."

Brenna Lyons will appear on April 13th.

"Starting at about age 11, my teachers insisted on me entering anything they found for me. One even took my work to a local newspaper without telling me and suggested they publish me. […] I’d been published in recognized venues since I was 13."

Tracy Morris will appear on April 14th.

"My best known work is the Tranquility series, which is sort of what you would get if Jeff Foxworthy wrote the X-Files and set every episode in the town of Cicely, Alaska."

Pauline Baird Jones will appear on April 15th.

"I had so much fun writing Doc, my kick-butt genius heroine. And my hero is a redeemed, semi-bad guy from THE KEY. I did NOT plan that. He wouldn’t leave me alone until I gave him a girl to love. What’s an author to do?"

Kaz Augustine will appear on April 16th.

"I also cook. I love cooking, I adore cooking, although I don't have enough time to do much of it. In our library at home, we must have at least 200 cookbooks and I sit down and read through them in much the same way as I read a novel, from start to finish."

Now, each of us crazy Broads has a different style of giving good blog (as Indie Biz Chicks says). A few of us came up with our own questions we wanted answered, and others of us (like Tracy Morris) have fabulous journalism backgrounds, so they outright turned the interviews into even cooler articles.

Please peruse around and check out a little bit about each of us bodacious Broads!