get busy living or get busy dying

Had a couple of baking fails this weekend, so I guess it's granola bars for breakfast this week! Oh well. Eventually I will bake those myself too, but for now, store-bought is fine. *g* Luckily, this hoisin garlic chicken (NYTimes gift link) turned out well. I added soy sauce in place of salt, and also a sprinkling of Chinese five-spice powder instead of red pepper flakes, and it was delicious. And I have leftovers enough for a couple more meals. I also made bacon this morning, so it'll be another week of chicken bacon ranch wraps for lunch. Uh, not the hoisin chicken, though. Perdue short cuts roasted chicken strips.

And I had the first plums of the summer this weekend and they were so good. Plums! I love them so much! Cherries have also been good, but are much more expensive. And I figured out a use for the leftover seltzer for when Friend L was here - it's a good vehicle for the electrolyte powder I otherwise don't end up using, and this weekend it came in handy.

In other news, this morning, my cleaning service texted me asking if they could come tomorrow. I responded promptly saying, no, but I was available on these other dates. They have not responded. So now I'm like, are they coming tomorrow? Do I have to be ready? Because I am not ready and that is why I said no. Ugh. So now I will scramble to get ready and they won't come. Bah.

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I finally caught up on the last 3 episodes of this season of Abbott Elementary and ( spoilers )

Also, my internet and cable went out for several hours this afternoon, I'm guessing because of the heat? but I was able to use my phone as a hotspot, so it didn't deter me for long. *wry* I took today off because originally I was supposed to be dog-sitting at my sister's before plans changed, and I decided to keep the 4-day weekend. I'm glad I did. I like my job and I mostly like my coworkers, but I am so tired of people asking me for things. Hopefully, I can get a bit of a respite and a reset.

I hope you are all staying cool if you're in the heatwave. <3

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Tall Ships!!! So beautiful!!!

Wednesday reading, also beautiful!

What I've just finished
Six of Crows: A Darker Shore: Letters from Ketterdam by Leigh Bardugo. I don't know why the title is longer than the short story but I loved it! It's an epistolary story, using an investigation of the mysterious captain of The Wraith (tall ships!!!) as the framework, and letters between Kaz and Inej make up many of the documents the investigators are using. Ugh, I love them so much! ( spoilers )

I really hope this isn't the only time Bardugo chooses to revisit the Dregs and Ketterdam, because I would pay full hardcover price for a full-length, getting the band back together heist novel.

What I'm reading now
Radiant Star by Ann Leckie. I'm enjoying it but I only have a very vague recollection of what happened in the main trilogy, so some of it is probably going over my head. And I also realized I haven't read Translation State so hopefully that is not to relevant to this one. I do enjoy how Leckie plays with POV though.

What I'm reading next
As always, who can say?

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So I did finish season 5 of The Bear last night - instead of the episodes being shambolic and overly long, they were mostly a tight 22 minutes (there were 3 I think that were longer, out of 8) and ( spoilers )

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In other news, my sister and brother-in-law took Baby Miss L and her parents to Disney World this week, and I've already gotten adorable photos of them with Winnie the Pooh! Hopefully there will be many more where that came from. *g*

Also, I forgot it was a short work week and made myself a big tray of chicken cutlet parm for lunch/dinner. Oh well, it will still be delicious.

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I slept in this morning, but I am still so tired. Luckily it's a short work week and I have a 4-day weekend next week for the 4th.

I got a late start, but I did make blueberry corn muffins and they turned out well, but I think maybe I just prefer to have blueberry or corn muffins? Idk, but I still have corn meal so maybe I'll just make corn muffins next weekend.

I also have cherries which I am excited to eat - there is so much fresh fruit now and all of it was on sale this week, so I had to choose, because I can't eat all of it before it goes bad. And last night, I set up the first coffee granita of the season, and had some earlier and it was so good.

Now I've started watching season 5 of The Bear and will probably try to finish it this weekend so I don't get too spoiled. I also watched that one-off episode Gary but did not enjoy it much. Bernthal and Moss-Bachrach have great chemistry, but ( spoilers ) It had some good needle-drops, though. Anyway, hopefully they stick the landing. I'll guess we'll see!

After that, I have so many other things to watch, so I will probably just end up rewatching something I'm already familiar with so I don't have to make a choice. *wry*

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