Author: Karen

I am an RN, Author, Coach, and Speaker. I write novels about relationships to help people find insight into their own. I guide people to create comfort, clarity, and connection in their lives. By combining metaphysical tools with over twenty-five years of nursing experience, I infuse the 'art of nursing' into my practice by providing partnership and resources help people compassionately honor their health.

Homemade eggrolls with friends

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, friends, Marriage, quest for the best, relationships

Last spring (we finally agreed that it was in the spring; I thought it was in the summer) my husband and I got together with another couple of friends to make authentic homemade egg rolls. Our friends make them every 3 or 4 months at home, but were gracious enough to drive an hour and a half (in each direction) to come to our house and remind us how to make them too.

They arrived with some supplies in tow. This time we were better prepared with a borrowed Fry Daddy; last time we shared theirs. They also brought their Tupperware mixing bowl that is the size of a kiddie pool. It was almost big enough. I kicked myself one more time for selling my identical bowl at a yard sale years ago. Other nice to have equipment was the food processor that we bought last year for this occasion.

We took a field trip together to Hannaford’s for the produce: carrots, cabbage, onions (they were out of scallions) and the cellophane (I think) noodles. They brought the wrappers with them. Let me tell you that shredding all those vegetables, not to mention frying the egg rolls, makes one hell of a mess. Our friends cleaned up everything, including all the oil spatter from tandem frying in the Fry Daddy’s. It wasn’t pretty.

We made three varieties: chicken, shrimp, and an experiment: pork. My husband wondered what would happen if he mixed Ah-So Sauce with ground pork and stuffed them into the egg rolls. They turned out great! Next time we’ll drain them of some of the extra fluid prior to cooking because they turned out a little darker than the other egg rolls, but that did not affect the taste. 🙂

Here’s a slideshow of the fun:

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We can’t wait till spring so we can make them again! 🙂

Angels dropping a dime

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, good grief

I dreamed about my mother last night. We were in the house she grew up in and ultimately died in. We were standing together on the back porch, looking out at the snow-covered street. It was very sunny and bright, and we were watching a plow making its way through the snow drifts, clearing a path in the street. We didn’t talk, but I felt happy.

I woke up from this dream Christmas morning, and had a clear thought: thanks for letting me know that you’re with me today, Ma.

I was at my brother’s house for dinner later in the day for dinner. At one point, I stood up from the table to get a drink and we could hear something hit the floor. My sister-in-law picked it up and said, “Did you drop a dime?” so I said yes, and put it back in my pocket, not giving it much thought.

A little while later, after I had just finished telling my brother about the dream, another coin hit the floor. It was another dime. My sister-in-law said, “What’s with the dimes today?!”  I said, “It must be the angels letting us know they’re here.”  Another guest (who did not know about the dream) said, “It’s your mother!”

And so it was.

Coffee or tea?

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, friends, local fun

I love coffee.

I became a regular coffee drinker in college. My friend Diane and I would go to HoJo’s for late night breakfasts and bottomless cups of coffee. Because I drank it faster than the waitress could replenish the cream, I soon became a black coffee drinker. This worked well for us because then Di could have all of the creamers and I could have more of the straight coffee.

Life was good.

After I graduated from college (and from HoJo’s), I managed a restaurant for years so I had access to unlimited bottomless pots of black coffee, of which I took full advantage. I could make a fresh pot any time I wanted it and then just drink the first cup or two before the remainder was sold to customers, and then I could start another fresh pot. Repeat process.

Fast forward thirty (gasp!) years. I am still a black coffee drinker. I spent many of those years as a slave to Dunkin Donuts Medium Black French Vanilla. Too many. Currently my loyalties have shifted. I can enjoy a cup of whatever the local coffee shop is serving up, but I recently realized that I am now a slave to the Keurig. I can go through a half a dozen K-cups in a single day.

Today I tried an experiment: I started the day with a cup of Tulsi Tea instead of the coffee that I am usually sipping no later than 6am, often as early as 5:30am. To my surprise, the caffeine headache didn’t surface until 11:00am, so I had my first cup (Spicy Eggnog!) of coffee of the day then. I held out until 6pm before I had a second cup.

The great thing about Tulsi Tea is that it comes in many flavors, just like my beloved coffee. Maybe I’m on to something?

To be continued…

National Cupcake Day

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, family, friends, Holidays, local fun, quest for the best

I just got this in under the wire…I can’t believe that I didn’t know it was National Cupcake Day today! I must be pretty darned distracted to miss this. I’m not even in any position right now to bake or obtain a cupcake to consume, so I must celebrate vicariously through Thoughts of Cupcakes Past.

Look what Jen is serving up at her bakery, Somethin’ Sweet in Sanford~sweet snowman cupcakes! They are just the cutest things ever! Of course, all of the cupcakes and treats here are amazing, so I hope you were able to get over there to buy some cupcakes to celebrate today.

If  you missed the boat (or had to work) like me, consider tomorrow a “Do-Over”!  At your earliest possible convenience, buy or bake yourself (and your family, and your friends….) some cupcakes to celebrate the day. After all, cupcakes make any day just that much nicer.

Consider placing an order for lovely baked goods for Christmas while you are there. Jen will be open on Christmas Eve (morning only, 9AM-12N) for pick-ups and last minute impulse (the best k ind of) buys.

Enjoy!

Stocking stuffers for the kids

by Karen, posted in Holidays, tweens

Just in case the edict “Write what you know” is true, I thought that just maybe it’s cousin, “Buy what you know,” may also be true. In this post, I’ll do both; it will be in relation to teens and tweens stocking stuffers. Okay, so my teen is recently promoted to “twenty-something”, but I still have a good solid history of stuffing that particular stocking for all of the years intervening from tween to twenty.

Here’s what’s worked for me in years gone by, in no particular order:

  1. Nail polish and remover; maybe a little manicure implement set (girls).
  2. Their favorite candy.
  3. Their favorite gum.
  4. iTunes gift cards: you can get the $10 ones in a multi-pack and split them up, maybe save some for upcoming birthdays.
  5. A game for their favorite handheld device (can you say Nintendo 3DS?).
  6. Boys: Beef Jerky; but make sure it’s the right flavor (P.S. Good luck with that!); in my house it’s Black Pepper. I think. Oh, shoot!
  7. Girls: Anything from Bath and Body Works (come to think of it, this would be good for Mom, too).
  8. An ornament: maybe something themed that fits in with an activity that they were interested in this past year: cheering, sports teams, favorite movie.
  9. (Speaking of movies…): Movie passes.
  10. Gloves, socks, hats, mittens, T-shirts, underwear…rolled up to fill the toe of the stocking if you’re getting short on cash and long on empty space that needs a-fillin’.
  11. Brand new Crayolas, fun pens, colored twisty pencils, purple glue sticks that dry clear.
  12. Post it notes shaped like hearts or stars or that say “BFF” on them.
  13. SD cards for their cameras, memory sticks for their data.
  14. You can get purse-sized planners from the  Christmas Tree Shop and the Dollar Tree for (you guessed it) a buck.
  15. A new CD (Now That’s What I Call Music 40).  Anyone? Anyone?
  16. Decent ear buds for their iPods/mp3’s/any audio/video/gaming device that you don’t feel like listening to 24/7…is that wrong??
  17. A Tide Pen. You’ll just have to trust me on this one.
  18. Books: The Eat This Not That 2012, or for the tweens there’s a kids version.
  19. Cute shoe laces: Kohl’s has neon colors, zebra prints, all kids of fun in the shoe department.
  20. Moms: troll your jewelry box for your tween girls. There must be something in there that you haven’t worn in a dog’s age that could be spiffed up for your t(w)een.
  21. Vitamin Water, lemonade zero calorie flavor. I don’t know why. For the tween girl. These are good because you can usually get them for about a buck and because they take up lots of space (see #10).

Of course, some of these are pricey enough to be wrapped up as bona fide presents. Do with these suggestions as you see fit.

I hope this helps! 😀

Alternative Christmas Songs

by Karen, posted in family, friends, Holidays

*I am republishing this list from last year. I haven’t heard any songs in 2011 that I feel compelled to add to it. Enjoy!

  1. The Waitresses: Christmas Wrapping
  2. The Killers: Don’t Shoot Me Santa
  3. Adam Sandler: The Hanukkah Song
  4. Sarah Silverman: Give the Jew Girl Toys
  5. Bob Rivers: The 12 Pains of Christmas
  6. Bob and Doug: The 12 Days of Christmas
  7. Blink 182: Won’t be Home for Christmas
  8. Ramones: Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)
  9. The Kinks: Father Christmas
  10. John Mellencamp: I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Why this list? Because sometimes, you just can’t stand even one more Mariah Carey song.

Full disclosure: my husband was a strong influence in the compilation of this list. 🙂

Christmas Music and other minutiae

by Karen, posted in family, friends, Holidays, quest for the best, relationships

Since I’m feeling all Christmas-y at the moment, and since (more importantly) I have a huge leg up on my Christmas shopping (and wrapping) this year, I decided to write a little more about Christmas.  Here are some random thoughts:

  1. When I was wrapping up the gifts I’d bought so far this year, I had the presence of mind (for once) to get out the Christmas CD’s and play a little mood music. My favorite is the one that my son made for my husband for his birthday last year, “Alternative Christmas Songs“. Best. Christmas. CD. EVER. Consider breaking out your own Christmas music this year…you know, before Christmas is over.
  2. Nothing beats a cup of mulled cider while you’re wrapping, unless it’s a cup of hot chocolate with tons of whipped cream crammed into the cup. If it’s evening and you’re done driving for the day, consider putting a shot of Amaretto in your hot chocolate…yay!
  3. What to buy? For me, this year is (essentially) a Gift Card Christmas. Yep; I gave the issue of gifting enormous thought and then decided that most people want either a) money or b) the equivalent thereof. How do I know this? Scientific research. Everyone that I asked said they wanted either money or a gift card to (fill in the blank). Be honest. That’s what you really want too, right?
  4. FOR YOUR KIDS:  Apart from the gift card strategy, which I am applying to (almost) all of the people for whom I am shopping, I have a sort of a formula that I use for buying for my two kids. After all: gift cards under the tree, even if it’s several hundred dollars worth (note to husband: It’s not! It’s not!) doesn’t look very impressive or generate much excitement on Christmas morn. Here’s my basic formula for the kids: a book, a new set of pajama’s, a new outfit, a game (for Wii, Nintendo 3DS, or whatever they have). 
  5. I like to have one joint gift for the kids to open on Christmas Eve, sort of a family gift, like tickets to an event, or a game that everyone (hopefully) will like. 🙂

Also this year: I am trying to just use what I have already for gift bags and wrapping paper. I have a roll of pink Santa paper that I bought to wrap my daughter’s presents and blue Santa paper to (you guessed it!) wrap my son’s years ago. Using this eliminates the need for name tags.

Making Gingerbread Houses

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, family, friends, Holidays, local fun, tweens

I admit it: prior to yesterday I was a Gingerbread House Virgin. Through twenty-plus years of motherhood, I’d managed to avoid ever baking, never mind decorating, a gingerbread house. The desire just was not there. I couldn’t have been less interested.

Then something incredible happened: I wanted to make one.  Something shifted inside me and I really wanted to do it…and then…

I got lucky.

🙂

Tip: do it for the first time with someone who knows what they are doing!

Okay, enough double entendre. My friend Kristen (see her blog here) is a fabulous baker and she invited my daughter and me to be part of her (tenth, I think) annual ritual of baking and decorating a Gingerbread House with her son, something I’d never done with my own son in his childhood (but hey, we did make dozens—dozens!–of Christmas cookies over the years! Just sayin’.).

Our jobs were to bring something flat to put the house on the day prior, and to buy some candy to contribute to the stash of building supplies.
Oh, and to show up. 🙂

The end result? Amazing. The ideas the kids came up with were so creative–it was just wonderful to watch their minds working. Plus, my friend and I got to chat virtually uninterrupted for at least an hour.

This is definitely an activity I would like to do again next year.

The irony? My son was making his first Gingerbread House at the same time at his girlfriend’s house with her family. Go figure.

Watch the slideshow that follows to see what we used for materials. 🙂

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Angels and the creative process

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, tweens, writing

Instead of writing my blog post and examiner.com article and more NaNoWriMo words yesterday afternoon (and well into the evening…), I helped my tween daughter with her project for school.

The assignment was to make a collage that showcased the following:

  1. Your career aspirations
  2. Your interests
  3. Your talents
  4. Something else that I can’t remember (*midlife disclaimer)

She had already made a good start on it. We spread out the construction paper on the extra kitchen table that we brought up from the cellar and put in the living room for Thanksgiving (yep; it’s still there taking up every bit of extra space there is in that room. Don’t care. It’s very useful for… collage projects and such).

As we went through the stack of pristine magazines (that I had been too busy to read in November) looking for images to fill up the page, we talked about what her likes, talents, aspirations are. Want to get to know your tween better? Spend three hours making a collage with them.

As an aside, maybe it will help you get to know yourself better too. I started cutting out images to make my own collage as a result of this process!

Anyway, as I staring at a page, some words caught my eye: Joy, Peace, and Noel. I started cutting them out and then remembered the angel picture I’d seen on the previous page, which reminded me of an angel message I received from Stacey (Mainely You Massage) a few weeks ago.  She said that a Christmas angel had come through for me and my daughter, and was showing her the words “Joy” and “Noel” for us. There we were, sitting at that table, looking at those words in the presence of a (print) Christmas angel.  Oh my gosh!!! 

I suddenly felt that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

As an added bonus, all that cutting and pasting fired me up to write. I have notes all over the place containing story ideas that came to my during and after our project.

**In the collage, the Christmas Angel is toward the bottom left corner, and the words “Joy, Peace, and Noel” are toward the top right corner, just above the raccoon..

Thoughts on writing

by Karen, posted in books, family, friends, my one word, no fear, Work from Home, writing
My first book written during NaNoWriMo 2010

Okay, I was going to entitle this post “On Writing” but didn’t want to piss Stephen King off. This is my second year participating in the NaNoWriMo challenge. For those of you that wonder what that alphabet soup of letters stands for, it’s National Novel Writing Month and it takes place annually in November. Basically, we commit to writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

Seriously.

Why did I participate this year when the book I wrote last year is still languishing on the shelf, so to speak? When I asked not only my husband but my Angels (at the Clay Hill Farm Angel Reading in October) if I should do it and they said, in a word, “No”?

I don’t know. But here’s something that I do know: as I sat here on November 27, and I typed my 50,000th word….it felt freakin’ fantastic!!!

So now I’m going to borrow one of  Oprah’s favorite sayings: “What I know for sure” on the evening that I finished my second NaNoWriMo and my second book (draft):

  1. Writing flourishes when you have deadlines.
  2. Writing is prolific when you stop editing yourself and just write.
  3. Writing gets done when you commit to doing it publicly (to me, NaNoWriMo is sort of the writer’s equivalent of Weight Watchers).
  4. Writing begets writing. The more I write, the more I write.

I also wonder if the fact that thousands of other writers are taking part in their own personal NaNoWriMo Vision Quest somehow results in a metaphysical momentum (you know, being part of something larger than yourself?)  that carries us all forward to reach the finish line.