Archives - Weekly Update

Happy Monday! I never get to say that as our newsletters usually find their way to your mailboxes late on Friday. As you know from my brief email on Friday, this delayed newsletter was precipitated by our move to a new server over the weekend. This was something that we needed to address as our traffic has grown significantly over these past months. This will speed up the delivery of the content on our sites. We appreciate your patience during this server move, which was necessary but such a drag.

This week had me out three evenings for authors readings --- a really lovely week with very different programs. I started at Kristin Hannah’s event on Monday night where three members of our staff joined me. Kristin talked about what’s inspired her through the years and how she came up with the concept for HOME FRONT --- she knew she wanted to look at the subject of troop deployment --- and her research for the book. This book had a profound effect on her; she sees the world of soldiers in a whole new way. What was nice for her that evening was how many faces she recognized in the audience of folks who follow her on Facebook. Many book groups came and had their photos taken with her, which was nice to see…people making an event out of being at an author reading.

As I write today, there is a crew of arborists taking down trees in front of the house. One was an old oak dying too close to the house; another had been struck by lightning and died; and others just needed to be pruned after the storms. I am like a five-year-old child glancing out the window at the progress throughout the morning. The view from my home office where I write on Fridays will be altered, thus I am eagle-eye watching. Between this and the chopped-down wooden swing set, I am set for firewood and wood chips for a while.

For the record, Iceland cannot be known for their cakes. Last weekend’s Icelandic Jólakaka I made to celebrate Greg’s birthday was a disaster. I layered in chocolate pudding to try to improve it (see the photo above), and let’s just say the pudding was fine. Maybe we converted the measures wrong. Maybe I beat the batter too much, but I think for pastry we think of the French or the Italians, not the people of Iceland.