Soup for the Soul

As promised, I’m adding a little of the things I’m writing anyway to The Chronicles of Nani. This is the journaling page for 52 topix, Week 4, January 22-28.

Credits: In The Kitchen by Inspired Designs

The topic was soup. As always with this project, the journaling page takes me on a tour of my thoughts, opinions or memories as I pretty much free-form journal and clean it up a little later.

Soup For The Soul

There are all those “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books out. I’ve read some of them; Mom even got me “Chicken Soup for the Baseball Fan’s Soul” many years ago. They are all books of short inspirational stories. Actually, totally my kind of books! Mom got that about me.

A pot of homemade soup is like that. Aside from the ages old tales of chicken soup for colds or other illnesses, chicken soup is comfort food. It’s the most common and usually the first soup an American kid tastes. It truly does warm you from the very core; the soul. How is that?

I remember snow days where my brother and I would be outside playing in the snow that was some winters almost as deep as we were tall. I stayed out for a while, even though I never liked being cold, I did like building snowmen. Ours never turned out as good as the ones Pop helped us build, By helped us build, I mean he let us make the initial snowballs that he rolled into the body parts. He was usually home since if the buses couldn’t get to school, you sure couldn’t do outdoor construction work! After we finished our snowman, we’d go inside for something hot for lunch or a snack. “Something hot” always included soup. Most often lunch on a cold day for us kids included Campbell’s Chicken and Stars, which is my ultimate comfort soup today.

About those snowmen of my childhood, they were huge, they really were! I remember snowmen as tall as my dad decorated with everyday things Pop found in the house or garage that made our snowmen more lifelike than frosty. I don’t care what the lying photos say now; they were as tall as Pop, not just tall as us!

My mom made wonderful soup from anything! She made soup from leftovers that was a whole new meal and our favorite she made was Hot Dog Soup, which was pretty much potato soup with hot dogs in it. Noni would have a pot boiling half the day to make stock for her wonderful soups with noodles made from scratch. Pop makes wonderful thick and hearty minestrone starting with a prosciutto end. It’s no wonder that I can’t allow the carcass of a turkey or rotisserie chicken be the end of the meal! Our home is often filed with the aroma of soup turning the end into a new beginning for future meals!

Soup is warmth, comfort, memories and tradition; the ultimate food for the soul!

Luck O' The Hodge Podge

1. Do you play games of luck/chance for money? Have you ever played bingo for money? Visited a casino? Placed a bet on a horse? Bought a lottery ticket?

Not for big money, but I’ve bought a lottery ticket, usually scratch-offs, but I’ve bought or David and I have bought a Lotto ticket once or twice. I used to go to the harness races with my parents for a nice dinner and to watch the races. My Dad would place a $2 show bet for me and one for Mom for each race on the horses of our choice. I always picked the horse with my favorite name in the race. He let me keep anything I won. One night John and I were going to Canada the next day and I won enough to buy us a nice dinner. But that wasn’t my money doing the betting and I didn’t have to pay for the actual bets. I won decent sums in a few races, but nothing in a few too.

I’ve been to a casino a few times, including a few in Vegas. I brought the money I planned to lose, my entertainment budget for the trip, and brought home $100 of it, a net loss but I considered it winning because I didn’t lose as much as I planned. I did actually have a winning night in a casino once. John took me to the Motor City Casino with him for dinner; he was a regular player and got a huge coupon to a restaurant that he could only afford with a coupon and took lil' sis for a spoil evening. I brought $20 to lose after dinner and took $75 home. I love video poker!


2. Will you be preparing and/or dining on the traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage meal this St. Patrick's Day? Mashed-baked-hash browned-french fried...your favorite way to have potatoes?

I used to love corned beef but now I’ll likely never eat it again. Vertigo and subsequent porcelain hugging pretty much killed the taste of corned beef for me. It happened twice after eating corned beef when I had an inner ear infection in early 2004. I thought I’d become allergic to corned beef, but it was just coincidence that had the same effect.


3. What's the last thing you felt 'green with envy' over?

Envy is something I really never have, not real envy. I will say “I envy you,” but it really means “I’m happy for you.” I really don’t have a feeling of wanting something someone else has or a situation someone else has that bad. Maybe sometimes I grumble because someone “doesn’t deserve” a situation or good fortune because they didn’t earn it, or hurt too many people on the way. But I certainly don’t envy the karma they did earn to go with it!


4. What's at the end of your rainbow?

A big cup of good coffee! :)

My Ginger Scraps signature this month

Credits: It Happened This Year by Connie Prince, 

coffee cur (slightly recolored) from Where’s My Coffee by Aprilisa Designs

5. March 12th marks the anniversary of the death of Anne Frank (June 12, 1929-March, 1945). Anne's diary detailing her time spent hiding from the Nazi's during the war ranks as one of the best selling books of all time. Besides your blog, do you keep any sort of diary or journal? Was this a habit you developed as a child or is journaling something new for you?

I kept a personal journal as well as a couple for classes in high school. Stupid me, I threw out all of my high school journals in my 20s because I thought they were silly “kid stuff.” I’d love to be able to go back and read that kid stuff now if just for the laugh. I started keeping a journal again in 1994, trying to be more formal about it, but I found that I had lots of personal notes in with my papers. Today, the Chronicles of NanI file on my computer and extended hard drive contains yearly documents that include my blog posts, papers, some message board and Facebook posts and my personal entries. Remember that I write when I’m angry, depressed or worried because if I just write, the actual cause of my negative emotions comes out and I can resolve them. Sometimes that takes a few days and 30 pages, but it works for me.


6. What's an item in your home or closet that contains every color of the rainbow?

Jelly bean jar

7. Write a limerick with you as the subject. You can do it!! Just remember this is a family friendly blog...don't make me get out my wooden spoon.

Nani likes coffee from Nantucket… hehehe

I suffer from creative blocks
For writing a limerick that rocks
The meter and rhyme
Though often sublime
Is messed up from changing the clocks


8. Insert your own random thought here.

I admit that I struggled with the fourth line of my limerick and I have to credit David for it. Sublime isn’t a word in my regular usage vocabulary, I just know it when I read it in context. That means all on its own, I had to get the definition before I used it because it’s not a normal Nani-word. The definition tells me David has a much higher opinion of my poetry than modesty allows me to have.


I haven’t been blogging as often as usual because I really have had blogger’s block, even for witty or informative answers for some of the memes. That may be in part to just time and the amount of writing I do for my Project 52 this year! What I think I’ll do is post the main journaling part of each week as a blog post. Hopefully that will kick my blogger’s block in the butt. I’m going to start posting some of the layouts and journaling I’ve already done, since I’m working on the week 10 layout right now and haven’t posted all of the layouts for the first 9. Also, Week 10’s topic is Smash Books and the main journaling is pretty much things I already said in the Smashing Defined…Sorta post from October. So I may start with posting the journaling as I go with next week. But look for a 52 topix post this afternoon.

Book Review: Torn (Trylle #2) by Amanda Hocking

Book Synopsis from Good Reads

Torn (Trylle 2) by Amanda Hocking

When Wendy Everly first discovers the truth about herself—that she’s a changeling switched at birth—she knows her life will never be the same. Now she’s about to learn that there’s more to the story…

She shares a closer connection to her Vittra rivals than she ever imagined—and they’ll stop at nothing to lure her to their side. With the threat of war looming, her only hope of saving the Trylle is to master her magical powers—and marry an equally powerful royal. But that means walking away from Finn, her handsome bodyguard who’s strictly off limits…and Loki, a Vittra prince with whom she shares a growing attraction.

Torn between her heart and her people, between love and duty, Wendy must decide her fate. If she makes the wrong choice, she could lose everything, and everybody, she’s ever wanted…in both worlds.

As a special gift to readers, this book contains a new, never-before-published bonus story, “One Day, Three Ways,” set in the magical world of the Trylle.


My Review on Good Reads

4 of 5 stars

So my reaction to book 2 ending was pretty much the same as the end of book one; “NO! It can’t be done, I have more questions!” Which is of course how a book 2 should end, right? I’m really looking forward to giving book 3 5 stars, when the story is complete. At least I hope I’ll feel it warrants five stars!

In this books Wendy becomes stronger, in many ways and I really like her even more! I also got to know the character Tove better and I like him quite a lot too. Tove is an "acceptable" love interest for the princess, well, according to the Trylle class system he’s acceptable. How two who have become good friends become more, well… This is a non-spoiler review, but I will say “read this series!”

As the Finn character has developed I like him less and less. A new character, briefly introduced in the extra short at the end of book one, Loki, is from the court of the Vittra, who are at war with the Trylle, I find Loki to be quirky, but I really like him. I like the portrayal of the hope that the next generation can fix what generations before them have broken. Isn’t that a modern hope among us humans as well?

There are three “after chapters” at the end of this book too. As the books are told in first person by the princess, Wendy, the extras get into the minds of three key characters. It solidified my opinion that I am starting to NOT like Finn and really like both Tove and Loki.

So far, it’s a great trilogy; not super deep, it’s young adult section reading, but it definitely makes some statements and gives some thoughts to ponder. But most of all, it’s just a fun escape from our more common reality.

The Answer is Orange

March is MS Awareness month. We went to the Toledo Walleye MS Awareness day game, which, by the way they lost just seconds into overtime after they tied the game with a last minute goal. It was still a fun day. I’m not a huge hockey fan, but I like to watch a good game now and then. It just would have been nicer if the home team had won.

I was troubled with my wardrobe. Orange is the color for MS Awareness and I just don’t have a lot of orange clothes. Even my favorite MS Awareness shirt is gray with orange in the design. I want a couple more MS shirts, an MS bracelet or two and a pin. I also want a coffee mug; of course I need that! That’s what I want to do personally. I want to own my own situation a little better.

Now let’s join Heather at Acting Balanced and Wayne at Touristic for the Monday Quiz!

1. Which are you better at: Reading, Writing or Math?

Much as I hated the idea when I was in sixth grade, I’ve always scored best in math. I was the only sixth grader in seventh grade accelerated math. Kids hated me and called me the most horrible names and I hated that I scored so well. I refused to tell my math classmates what my grade were because some of them were struggling... I wasn’t.

I finally dumbed myself down in seventh grade because, even though I just barely missed the cut to be put in algebra, they put me in algebra anyway. I didn’t do well because I didn’t apply myself. I also never did algebra homework.

I am so thankful that smart kids aren’t as tortured today as they were 30 years ago! I coulda been a contender…as a mathlete! :)

So, today, while I love to read and comprehend and retain what I read well, functional math is still something I do well without trying hard…and even without a calculator!


2. Tell us a good 'come back' story. Where you were down but were able to reverse fortunes and come out on top.

I kinda think I AM a comeback story every day!


3. Which would you rather do: dine or eat?

Dining is okay once in a while as a treat, but eating is eating. I either feel like cooking and then I make an attractive plate that I munch while I’m reading or doing something on the computer or I just grab something, make a quick sandwich or nuke a can of soup. If I made an event out of it all the time it wouldn’t be special and I prefer dining to be special.


4. What is one thing that someone close to you does that just annoys the heck out of you?

People close to me, even David, do little things that make me roll my eyes maybe, as I’m sure I do for them, but annoy the heck out of me? No one really annoys the heck out of me and stays close.


And don't forget to add a 5th Question on your own blog so we can answer as we hop around!

5. What was the last sports event you went to? (any level of play)

Well, the last sports event I went to is the one I mentioned above, Toledo Walleye hockey. The Walleye are the minor league affiliate for both the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks.

Of course, the sport for which it’s not a guarantee that a week later I won’t have seen another game since then starts official in a month! The Opening Day holiday is April 1 this year.

Book Review: Antiques Roadkill by Barbara Allan

Book Synopsis from Good Reads

Brandy Borne and her mother Vivian find themselves investigating the murder of a crooked antiques dealer who just happened to take Vivian for all she was worth. Now they are in a race to find the murderer before he or she strikes again because they could very well be next!

My Review at Good Reads

4 out of 5 stars

This was such a fun read! Told in first person by Brandy Borne, a recent divorcee who really did "go home to mother," leaving Chicago and returning to her small hometown on the banks of the Mississippi to try to put the pieces together again. It was like you were reading a story being told over coffee with the story teller, including all the parentheticals and side note opinions and remarks. It's a serious story, there is murder, there are priceless antique heirlooms and there is definitely some mental imbalance, but don't be so quick to point a finger at the crazy ones or the murderer.

I though the book was interesting as a murder story, but just as entertaining as listening to an amazing story as told by my best friend. I felt like Brandy was a friend by about half way through the book, that is she was likable and I was shocked at what shocked her, mistrusted those she didn’t trust and felt the same "AH-HA!" moments she did, right or wrong. The end of the book made perfect sense, in a fiction sort of way, and I never tried to figure it out before the end because I was just enjoying my "coffee with Brandy" too much.

With the exception of the real psychos, I know or have known a lot of the characters. It made a lighter side mystery very real and a pleasure to read.