Writer's Block Challenge #2

 Today we are back with another Writer's Block Challenge. As we said last month, these challenges don't have to be done as they are released. If you aren't having writer's block more power to you! Save it for a rainy day. These are just fun little activities to keep the creative juices flowing. And they don't have to belong or even lead to anything. Sometimes the best medicine for writer's block is to just keep writing.

So today's challenge is simple. Take an idea that you have had floating around for a while and write about it. Just get it out there, get it down on paper. Even if it is just a few sentences. It is a starting point. And maybe you will come back to it later, and maybe you won't but it gives you something to think about.

Personally, I did this and I will share a little of my experience with you. (Not too much, don't want to spoil anything.) But it started with an idea about a serial killer that had never been caught. I believe one of the most unfair things in life is that it isn't like a movie. Bad guys don't always get caught, and they don't always admit to their crimes. Which kind of sucks. And I want to take that idea and run with it.

I don't really know much about this idea. And in fact, I have never written an all-out crime drama before, or anything to do with a serial killer. Unless you consider the Crime Romance Novels I am currently working on, but even those are different to this. This would be something completely out of my comfort zone. But I have an idea in my head and I need to explore it.

I know the Prologue is going to be of a murder. I think I am just going to show a killer on the loose (sometime in the past), and make it obvious that he wasn't caught. That is the key to this story. Chapter one is going to focus on an elderly man. He is writing a book and he is dying. I am going to make it clear that he knows his time is running out. Maybe even show him going to a few doctor's appointments. I assume it is cancer that is slowly killing him. But anyway, the point is he is going to start by telling the story of his life. How he grew up in the city (I am thinking New York), how he joined the military and served in the war, and things like that. I know he was married but I am not sure if he had any children or not. If he did it would be one son.

All Rights Reserved by A.L. Keegan (2020)

I went on to write more for my exercise, but even this was good enough. Just as long as you get something out there and something to think about is a great start!

Basic Theme #2 - Week 4 (Month Long Special)

 This week is our last week of our Salad Theme. And today we are dealing with "odd" salads. This would be the fruit salads, or the Taco Salads, or anything that just shouldn't be a salad but work. One that we love especially is Corn Chip Salad. Corn Chips shouldn't be in a salad! But they are and they are delicious. You simply grab a bag of Corn Chips (Original or BBQ), dice up some peppers, some red onion, and add Catalina Dressing to it all (more details below)!

So the final challenge for this month is to make a weird salad, whether it is something that shouldn't be in a salad to a weirdly named ingredient (or weird to your area, like Bulger, I had never heard of that before!), or a fruit salad! Come up with something weird and delicious!

Freebie Friday - Bulgur Salad

 Today we are sharing a brand new recipe! This is a Bulgur Salad recipe. I had never heard of Bulgur until I had it in a HelloFresh. According to Wikipedia, "Bulgur is a cereal food made from the cracked parboiled groats of several different wheat species, most often from durum wheat." It also says that it originates in Middle Eastern Cuisine. So it isn't surprising that it isn't a popular ingredient in North America.

So this recipe was inspired by a HelloFresh recipe I had before. I had never had a Warm salad before but it opened up a world of possibilities for me.

New Paint by Numbers (Review / Information)

 I posted a few paints by numbers in my Throw Back Thursday posts and today I have another. This isn't really a throwback, I just recently painted this one as a Christmas present for 2020 but I wanted to share it and the process I went through with you guys. So this one is called the LIUDAO DIY Oil Painting for Adults Kids Paint by Number Kit Digital Oil Painting on Canvas Horses Animal 16 x 20 Inches (Without Frame). Now I must confess that I didn't read the title, I didn't read the description. I was just excited to find one with horses, I bought it right away. Now I have never painted on a canvas before. I have never done paint by numbers like this, and I have no idea how to frame them. But we are still going to try it! Now, this kit came with a lot of stuff to make it even easier.

As you can see it came with instructions. Which were pretty straight forward, it talked about making sure to clean the brushes, and making sure the lids were snapped shut on the paints. That type of thing. Just the basic instructions for any paint by numbers. I noticed, and I am so happy, that they don't have any mixing involved. Some paint by numbers you have to mix your own colours using two colours they give. And that is such a tricky thing. You have to mix enough paint to do all the mixed numbers and when you miss one (and you always miss some), you have to try to mix the right combination to make the same colour. It can be very hard to do.

Along with instructions they sent a paper printout of the pattern, this is in case you paint over a number and you forget to do the whole thing or something like that. I don't see any in this one but in some paint by numbers need these more than others. This comes in handy when there are small sections, they will have arrows pointing to the area, and they sometimes get painted over. It also comes with a magnifying square. I don't really see the need for it with this one, but again some have small sections that you can't see the numbers on or even if you are painting in bad lighting it can be hard to see where the lines are, so it could come in handy. It also comes with three paintbrushes. They are pretty good brushes, there is one larger one and two smaller ones. If you do a lot of painting, I suggest buying better brushes that are more to your liking. I have a very small one with a small tip to do the smaller sections that I love. I always end up cutting up the brushes they send because I find they are never small enough. But you can buy brushes at the Dollar Store and experiment with them and see what works best. It also came with parts that you can add to the back of a canvas frame to hang it up.

And finally the paints. You can see in the photos there are 24 colours. Now sometimes the colours get thick. This could just be because they got cold or because they have been sitting around for a while. You will know if this is the case when you open the little pot. They usually will be stringy or you will notice a large amount on the cap. What I do is I dip my brush in my water, and then mix the paint together. This may be all it needs to loosen up. Also, I do this while I paint in I feel it needs it, however, I wipe some of the water off first if I am actually painting at the time.

So here is what it looks like with nothing on it. You will notice the creases on it. It came folded up like that. The instructions said to iron it out and that it should be fine. Surprise surprise, they didn't come out even after ironing for a while. So this is the best I could get it. But it should be fine.

Below is the finished product. It was fun to paint for sure. In the beginning, I was very worried about it. I was concerned it wouldn't come out properly that it would just look terrible. But I think most paints by numbers go through that and then once you add more and more to it, it starts to take shape. If you want to see the day by day process I will upload those photos to our Instagram page!

Review Wednesday - HelloFresh (Week 6)

 Today we are on week six of our HelloFresh adventure. We had released these posts last year (2020) and we are re-releasing them now so that everyone can see them from the beginning. This week was about experimenting for us and we picked two items we had never even heard of before! You can check out the introduction post for that here.

Day one: Chicken Yakitori-Style Bowl

Day two: Pan-Seared Steak with Potato Hash

Day three: Mediterranean Falafel Bowl