It’s been a long fall already.  The broken arm is healing nicely, but it’s not 100 percent yet.  Initially I was told to avoid lifting completely, but at my 6-week follow-up I was told to lift nothing heavier than a gallon of milk.  I will now and forever estimate weight in terms of gallons of milk.  My friend and I determined that an English saddle is about 2 gallons of milk, and a Western saddle is about 3 gallons of milk.  I guess I am not quite ready to ride, or at least not to saddle.  Also, I just figured out that cleaning out horse hooves with a hoofpick definitely hurts.  I know I’ll be ready to ride when I can properly groom my horse (plus lift two gallons of milk).

As if I wasn’t messed up enough, I had a planned eye surgery on Halloween.  That went well, however as the retina healed on my right eye, I was told not to lift anything (again), not to exercise, to avoid falling, and to avoid any jarring activities.  This included avoiding driving on bumpy roads.  The doctor clearly has never experienced our gravel road. Anyhow, this added more limitations to my already limited activities.  Sigh.    

Right before my eye surgery, our local library system had organized a small writers’ conference.  One of the classes I took was about podcasting.  After the class, I determined that I would never be a podcaster.  Too much new stuff to learn.  Plus, I’m a writer, not a talker.  But I did learn that there are more kinds of podcasts than I ever knew. 

Right after my eye surgery everything was blurry.  So even though my arm was healed enough to easily type and write, I could barely read.  Instead of reading or writing, I started listening to podcasts.  Lots of podcasts.  I listened to fiction podcasts, comedy podcasts, chick-lit podcasts.  I must admit that none of the fiction podcasts I found hooked me, although it was fun to explore the options.  But I did take time to listen to several writer and author podcasts.  They were helpful, interesting, and I learned some things about craft and process that I didn’t know. 

Here are the podcasts and radio shows I regularly listen to, and spent a lot more time with during the blurry time:

• A Way with Words (a show by two linguists, that discuss the origins and connectedness of words and phrases) https://www.waywordradio.org/
• This American Life (personal and other stories connected by a theme).  https://www.thisamericanlife.org/
• The Moth Radio Hour (where people tell dramatic or humorous stories on a live stage). https://themoth.org/radio-hour

I also listened to several writing and book podcasts and radio shows, and really enjoyed the following author interview programs:   

• The Write Question, from Montana Public Radio. https://www.mtpr.org/podcast/the-write-question
• The Page Turner Show on KYRS, our local community radio station.  Check out the archives links for past shows. https://kyrs.org/show/page-turner-show/
• Authors Over 50, by Julie Brewer Daily. https://authorsover50.com/
• The Equestrian Author Spotlight, by Carly Kade. https://www.carlykadecreative.com/podcast.html

Now my eye is better, my arm is improving with physical therapy, and I figure I’ll be ready to get out and ride just as the weather turns really bad.  Come on Spring!!!

[photo credit: pexels.com]

In late October I travelled to my hometown of Blaine, Washington, to read from my book at the local library.  Sixteen folks attended, 13 of them were family, one was a classmate, and two were strangers (that I now count as friends).  I had a blast! I felt loved and supported, and I sold one book.  To my cousin.

As always when I visit my hometown, memories flood back.  This time it was food memories. I must have been hungry. And it was desserts that I thought of.  Like Nanaimo bars, that originated in the town of Nanaimo, British Columbia.  Blaine is a border town, right next to Canada, and there are and were many Canadians in the community.  Therefore, at school functions and bake sales, Nanaimo bars would show up.  These rich 3-layered bars with chocolate and custard are delicious.  So delicious that when I started teaching my oldest son to bake, I pulled out an old grade-school recipe book and taught him how to make them.  We even made sure we had the correct custard powder to make them exactly as the recipe required.  They became my son’s favorite dessert, his specialty.  My son was a math geek at an early age, and one time he decided to calculate the number of tablespoons of butter in each Nanaimo bar square.  Trust me, you don’t want to know. 

Blaine also has a lot of people of Icelandic heritage.  Even we folks of Norwegian heritage learned the intricacies of making Vinarterta, a scrumptious Icelandic cake made with numerous layers of thinly rolled cookies, Italian prunes, and a light frosting.  It is cut into tall squares and is visually gorgeous with the dark and light stripes of fruit and cake.     

I also remembered these little spice cookies that my Icelandic-heritage friend shared with me in middle school.  They were tiny brown cookies that were perfectly round, the size of a thumbnail.  Months ago, I had asked my friend for the recipe, and she said she didn’t remember them.  My online searching at the time didn’t turn up anything that looked right.  But visiting Blaine reminded me of those little cookies.  I was on the search again.  I was pretty sure the cookies were called Pfeffernusse.  That’s Icelandic, right?

Turns out I was wrong.  They were not Icelandic.  I finally found a recipe that looked right, and the website said they were Mennonite/German cookies.  Woops. Pfeffernusse is German, and the translation is pepper nuts.  They actually have black pepper in them.  You know how sometimes we transpose letters or numbers and things come out kind of backwards?  My brain transposed the wrong friend into my memory.  It was my Mennonite-heritage friend who shared the lovely little brown spice cookies with me, not my Icelandic-heritage friend.  My sister-in-law helped me track down a family friend’s pepper nuts recipe.  I recruited my younger son and his girlfriend to help me make them once I returned to Spokane.  They are still good! 

We ate and gave away all the Pfeffernusse/pepper nuts cookies.  It’s okay though, because they are super small, and therefore have zero calories.  Now what am I craving?  It’s cold and rainy out, so maybe something warm… Clam Chowder is another classic Blaine recipe.  I remember clam-digging for horse clams at low tide in cold rainy weather. Just thinking about that is making me cold. A cup of hot cocoa sounds much easier right now.

P.S. A better blogger would have included the cookie recipes along with beautiful pictures of the baking process in a clean gorgeous kitchen with fancy gadgets like a stand-mixer. But that is not me. I found the classic Nanaimo bar recipe, linked below. I’m having challenges with the direct link to a Pfeffernusse recipe, but go to Thefrugalgirl.com, and search for Pfeffernusse. Or I can type up the recipe my sister-in-law found upon request. And finally, I don’t actually have a Vinarterta recipe, because other family members make this one. But if you really want it, send me a note and I’ll find a Blaine recipe for you.

https://www.canadianliving.com/food/baking-and-desserts/recipe/classic-nanaimo-bars