Even a Little Bit is Progress and A Book Review~

Hi! Friday night, ending a very unproductive week here at the beach. We had two big storms, with lots of storm prep, shopping, cooking. Stress inducing if not threatening. (and another maybe this coming Monday?)

I'm so sleepy tonight, just want to crawl in bed with my Kindle to read my latest book. A new mystery by Peter May: I'll Keep You Safe.
I have just finished the six books of his Enzo Files series. The Enzo Files were hard to get going on, unlike his Lewis Man series, but then something clicked and the characters came to life for me. My criticism is that the underlying plot resolution was entirely hidden from us through all six books and the finale all seemed a bit rushed and makeshift. I think if well written a mystery should at last feature the bad guy[s] so we can say, Aha, I knew it!  And indeed as each book also had its own singular mystery to solve, those plots were glaringly obvious most of the time. But by then I had gotten to like Enzo, we share taste in clothes if nothing else. The Enzo Files  Lewis Trilogy  And a beautiful companion photography book of The Lewis Trilogy locales: here

The new book is I think a stand alone, more modern, with lovely Hebridean tweed aspects, plus a possible terrorist attack. I just started it today, chapter two only.

For storm meals this week I made a slow cooked stew, in my le Creuset dutch oven, not in a slow cooker. Three hours at 320*.
The recipe is Best Stew Ever! It was/ is---just like every other stew you ever ate---brown gravy, onions, dry-dry-very dry meat. Not bad but not BEST. I used a top round London broil at $2.99 a pound. Pre-cubed stew beef, aka top round, was $9.99/ lb. For the difference in price I can cut the cubes myself!recipe

I was  going to bake bread---intriguing recipe, HERE. But I tried three stores and never found King Arthur flour (yes, ok, Gold Medal would be fine, but), but I couldn't find any yeast to buy. Isn't that odd.

I like to bake during storms because using the oven helps warm the house.

We had a lot of snow for Storm Two. And the rather fun oddity of ''thundersnow'', a lightning and thunder storm along with heavy snow.

Mo didn't so much as twitch an ear.

He doesn't mind thunderstorms, only the wind upsets him. Probably the wind has a high piercing sound that humans do not hear, but dogs, even lazy pugs do.

The second storm brought a lot of beach flooding, full moon/ high tides, winds from the south that push the water up onto the beach. The waves went up to the highest dunes, but not over.

The dark horizontal line near the bottom of the pics is the ocean where we usually have sand [and those big trucks!].

Waves crashing up on the high dunes to the east, flooding the swales that are at a much higher level than the beach itself.

I spent a lot of sewing room time working on stupid projects and mending, or looking for items put away during stupid cleanup. Where's my vintage velvet stash? Where are the pinkeep bits and pieces? Does the new Rolls Royce printer really need a cover? [yes].
I made very small progress on Schoolgirl Albums.

This is the blue and white version so far. [The pinky spring flowers are my ironing board cover, not the quilt block.]

And I had a very nasty run in with a woman on FB.

Ah the good old old days, just like on Yahoo Groups. Time to drop out again? I feel so fortunate that my blog readers here are friends, not antagonists. Nine years blogging in October, imagine that.
How about you, did you gets lots done this week?

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

Map My Walk, Feb stats.