Kate Warren

the condensed writer

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Excerpt

Super Sweet Blogging Award

3/28/2013

4 Comments

 
Picture
The lovely and talented, and also super sweet, J.M. Blackman has tagged me for the Super Sweet Blogging Award.

The process is quite simple.  Link back to the person who recommended you for the award, answer some questions about your favorite sweets, and tag a baker's dozen of other sweet bloggers.  Here are my answers to the decreed questions.

1. Cookies or Cake?   This is a hard one for me, but I'm going to have to go with cake.

2. Chocolate or Vanilla?  Usually chocolate.  Though I almost had a chocolate overload yesterday--a thing I did not think was possible before trying Culvers' Chocolate Oreo Volcano frozen custard.  The COV nearly had me convinced that there is indeed such a thing as too much chocolate.  Scary.  I shall avoid that flavor in the future.

3. Favorite sweet treat?  Um...other than chocolate in all its glorious forms?  Probably pie because there are so many variations.  And most are fruit-based, and fruit is good for me. :o)

4. When do you crave sweet things the most?  There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.  It really varies.  Except for a certain cyclical chocolate craving.  Regardless of what scientific experts say, that craving does exist, and it is triggered by hormones.

5. If you had a sweet nickname, what would it be?  Heck if I know!  I'm not very tall so maybe shortcake?  If anyone has any ideas of a good sweet nickname for me, please let me know. 

Questions answered.  Now it is time to nominate a baker's dozen (13, for those who don't know) of super sweet bloggers:

Teresa Cypher
Donna Cummings
Sara Barnard
Lauren Royal
Sarah Ballance
Emma Lai
Sandra Sookoo
Charmaine Gordon
Ann Swann
Carrie Crain
Joanne Stewart
Carrie-Anne Brownian
Kate Meader

That's it.  Now I must notify my nominees.  For this task I will use a combination of Twitter, blog comments, and Facebook.  Thank you for reading.  Please stop by again for a peek at my WIP The DeFord Chronicles, Part II for Weekend Writing Warriors on Saturday and/or Sunday.

Kate

4 Comments

Hospital Food

9/29/2012

5 Comments

 
It's your friendly Mayo Clinic, St. Mary's Hospital food critic coming to you live from the second floor atrium of, well I'm not quite sure which building I'm in.  Today's topic is food.  Why?  Partly because my son has started eating.  It's primarily Goldfish crackers, but it's a start.  If only we could get him to drink...  That's one of the hang-ups on getting him back home.  They can't determine his insulin dosage until he's eating at least semi-normally.

One other tiny thing is the 4 mm adenoma they found in his brain.  I've noticed that some of the doctors don't like to use the word tumor.  Probably because it scares people.  And it scares people even more when combined with the word brain.  The good news is, besides being in the tumor pee-wee league, this type of tumor is almost always harmless--heck, sometimes they even go away on their own.  The not so good news is that because of its location it could be causing or poised to cause a boatload of trouble.

The overall mood of the day has been a positive one.  And I'm pleased to report that Ben is happily watching SpongeBob DVDs from the Patient and Visitor Library, and even singing along with thte theme song.  I also found a fantastic children's book called Taming the Diabetes Dragon by Anne Dennis.  Her son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age two, and the book does a wonderful job of explaining the necessary care measures in a way children can understand.  Whether Ben will let me read it to him or not, I'm getting a copy.  It could help his siblings understand, and maybe his classmates.

On to the cafeteria food.  Pretty satisfied.  The pizza varies, depending on when you get there.  The pumpkin pie was a disappointment, but I do admit to being spoiled in that regard by a very old family recipe that leaves all challengers writhing in agony on buffet tables of despair.  The donuts are amazing.  Here at Mayo they apparently know that the secret to the world's best donut is to take your average, ordinary yeast donut, cover it with a thin film of standard glaze, and then add chocolate frosting. 

Concious of my decreased activity and my wish to be able to continue fitting into my clothes, I'm trying to make healthy choices (except for the occasional heavenly donut).  The produce here is great.  I ate broccoli the other day.  That's a big deal for me.  I have fruit every day, and I've been eating salad without being forced.  The nice ladies who work during the week have been rather unhelpful about the calories by heaping my plate and asking me if I'm sure I don't want something more.  I don't know where they got the idea that I need to gain weight, but their concern is touching.  Actually I think it might be the same lady each time, and it might be more of a "you're paying full price, you might as well get a full plate" mentality.  But I like to think she cares.

I'm getting tired and I've forgotten whether I actually had a point other than that the cafeteria food is pretty good, and things are probably looking up.  Still no word on discharge.  That all depends on Ben's stomach, and his head.  I'll keep the updates coming as I can.

From the second floor atrium, I'm Kate Warren with half-rambling news.

5 Comments

Traditions

12/7/2011

4 Comments

 
Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I find myself a little sad.  The boards are becoming more desolate, the frantic energy that kept me writing has disappeared, and the weather has turned cold.  Normally the weather would have already been cold.  It's been an odd fall.

I still have the novel to finish.  52,000 odd words wasn't the whole story.  But I'm exhausted.  Things have been nuts at my house.  We have a puppy, who is adorable, but takes plenty of supervision to assure he does not chew the house down.  The kids have various projects coming up for school.  The holidays are coming up.

We don't have a lot of traditions.  There have been some I've tried to start that didn't work out--more about that later.  We have our fake tree (not my first choice, I can tell you) and some decorations we put up around the house.  We have ornaments that hang from the light fixtures in our kitchen year round actually.  I like to bake a few different kinds of cookies and treats to share.  I give a plate to our mail lady, and to the kids' bus drivers. 

We also have a birthday on Christmas Day so we used to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve but our son who has that birthday has requested that we merge the two.  There are a few movies we watch leading up to the big day.

A question for my readers...what are your favorite holiday traditions?  Do you put up a tree?  Light the menorah?  Watch special films or read certain stories?  Do you put up stockings or leave cookies and milk out for a certain man in a red suit?  Is there a particular ornament or song that means a lot to you?  Please share your stories.

Kate

4 Comments

Headaches, Applesauce, and Cookies.

10/25/2011

0 Comments

 
I'm writing tonight with a headache.  I get them frequently.  Sometimes I get mild migraines.  Not the curled up in a ball screaming in pain kind, hence my use of the word mild.  Life's been a little crazy since I posted last.  I'd like to be able to blame the weather, or the full moon, but the fact is life just gets this way some times.

A few days ago my youngest son, who will be turning eight soon had a mishap with some applesauce.  I happened to be upstairs reading to his brothers and came down to find him slipping and sliding on the kitchen floor--mostly slipping.  In fact, he couldn't stand up because his feet kept going out from under him.  Who knew applesauce would be so slippery on linoleum?  We got him cleaned up and wiped up the applesauce, which took a while, and then the floor was really sticky so a mopping was in order.  The things that come up when you are raising children!

Today the same boy found the powdered sugar I bought for frosting for his birthday cake.  I don't usually make my own frosting but he requested German Chocolate Cake (not actually German, by the way) and I happen to loathe coconut, which is in the traditional German Chocolate Cake frosting.  So I searched online for over an hour looking for a German Chocolate frosting recipe that was coconut-less.  I finally found one and it was attributed to a cookbook that was sitting in my kitchen the whole time (I really must include this in a book one day). 

At any rate, I bought all the necessary ingredients and the powdered sugar went in a standard cupboard rather than the lockdown cabinet where all things powdery usually go.  Apologies for the rambling, I have a point, I swear!  Those things have to be locked up because my darling red-headed angel loves to watch stuff fall, usually white or chocolate stuff. 

This time he refrained from making a very sweet mess in the kitchen.  Instead he saw the picture of cookies on the bag and wanted the cookies.  He used to think that boxes with pictures of brownies and cakes actually had ready-made brownies and cakes in them.  Luckily he is past that, but he does think that bag of powdered sugar is a cookie mix.  He keeps trying to get me to make the cookies he knows are in that bag.  Poor kid.  I told him we'll make cookies tomorrow.  Then I started singing the lullaby I wrote for him.  He likes that. 

Well, readers...I'm going to put my kids to bed, take some more medicine for my headache, and go to bed.  I wish you all a pleasant and restful night.

Kate
0 Comments

International Women's Day

3/8/2011

0 Comments

 
Are you a woman?  Do you know a woman?  Are you perhaps related to a woman?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, you may now join in celebrating International Women's Day.  Now I hadn't really heard of this before last week, but I'm willing to bake something delicious anyway and raise a cupcake (or perhaps a cookie) to my fellow women.

Women face unique challenges.  We harbor new life, we give birth to said new life, we often raise the new life (a frequently thankless task),  all while maintaining our homes and selves.  Some of us work outside the home.  All of us work inside the home.

Take a look at the women around you.  What do you see?  Friends, family, a few rivals?  Misunderstandings and sometimes perfect understanding can get in the way of sisterhood.  This is a day to let go of any grudges and respect the challenges we all face everyday, a day to support each other and lift each other up.  Celebrate International Women's Day.    If nothing else, be glad you're not a man.

Kate
0 Comments

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