Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day here in the Mile High City. It was warm, clear-blue skies, and calm. I sat outside and wrote for awhile because it was such a beautiful day.

Our dinner turned out well despite a few mishaps. Our thermometer crapped out so we ended up overcooking the turkey a bit (I wanted to make sure it was cooked enough...) Then, when I was making the stuffing, I wasn't paying attention and forgot to boil the broth first, so we ended up having to bake it instead of doing the "stove top" instructions for it (no, we don't use the Stove Top brand, we use Pepperidge Farm). Then, when making the gravy, for the first time EVER in the years I've been making my mom's gravy recipe, it came out lumpy. And I don't mean like slightly lumpy. It was like a 70 year old mattress kind of lumpy. I was so distracted by the lumpiness that I forgot to add in the pepper. Whoops!  I was able to salvage the lumpy gravy, however, by putting it in my food processor and processing the crap out of it!  Other than the lack of pepper, it tasted pretty good! So, even though the outer parts of the turkey breast were a little dry from overcooking, it still tasted good. The stuffing was yummy and the gravy made the meal. Even the kids tried everything!  (Oh, I should add that Dan made his favorite Thanksgiving side - mashed potatoes mixed with mashed carrots. It came out uber-yummy.)

So now that the gorging part of the holiday is over, I figured I'd post my favorite post-Thanksgiving "what-do-I-do-with-all-this-leftover-turkey" recipe.  This is a family favorite and has been for many years now.  I hope y'all will enjoy it, too!

Turkey Pumpkin Black Bean Chili

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 cup chopped onion(yellow for a sweeter flavor, white for a stronger flavor)
  
• 1 cup chopped yellow bell pepper
• 1 finely chopped jalapeno pepper (add more if you want more spiciness)
  
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 1/3 teaspoons dried oregano leaves
• 3 cups beef broth
• 2 cans (15 ounces each) black beans, rinsed, drained
• 2 1/2 cups chopped leftover turkey
• 1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin
• 1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes
• 1 can (14.5 ounces) Rotel diced tomatoes and green chilis (we use the HOT kind for added spiciness)
  
• 1/2 cup dry sherry
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

1. Heat oil in large saucepan on medium heat. Add onion, bell peppers, jalapeno pepper and garlic. Cook and stir 8 minutes, or until onion is tender. Stir in chili powder, cumin and oregano. Cook and stir 1 minute.

2. Add broth, beans, turkey, pumpkin, both cans of tomatoes with their liquid, sherry, salt and black pepper; mix well. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low; simmer, uncovered, 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

The best thing about this recipe is that it's even BETTER the day after when it's reheated. Girlchild used to love spicy foods but lately she's become picky about it and has decided she really doesn't like spicy foods (this is the girl that used to eat the jalapenos off my nachos) but usually we like to make this really spicy by using 3-4 jalapenos. I'm not sure how we'll approach the spicy issue this year.

Either way, I hope you enjoy it and who knows, maybe it will become a family tradition for you, as well!

Happy Thanksgiving and much love to you all.

NaNoWriMo Update: 64,025/50,000

Yes, you read that right, I'm over 14k above goal. Yay! My new goal - my personal goal - is to hit 75k by the end of the weekend (not sure that'll happen - I'll need 11k tomorrow for that to work out) and if I hit 75k then I can go buy the book I want - the new Robert Jordan book (that was written by B. Sanderson with Jordan's notes and input). The Tattered Cover has a few autographed copies that I really want but I promised myself I wouldn't buy it until I hit 75k. It was hard to walk out of there today without it in hand, but that's what I get for having slacked off this week.

my ultimate goal is to actually have the novel finished by the end of the month. I'm not so sure that will actually happen since I'm only on Chapter 8 of 22 (yes, that's barely a third of the way through and I already have 64k words eeeeeep!) but that's my goal. Maybe it'll happen. I just need to get my characters to stop being so damned chatty!! I swear, you'd think I was writing a playscript rather than a novel with the way these guys talk talk talk talk talk!

Okay, so there's my update. Sorry I haven't updated much lately. Between NaNo and work and life, I just haven't had a whole lot of time. Once November is over I'll likely go back to updating my blog more frequently. Although, and this is fair warning to y'all, I'm thinking of moving my blog from the free sites of LiveJournal and Blogger to my own site using WordPress. It'll give me a lot more control over things which will be good, but I think I'll miss a lot of the community stuff that LJ and Blogger offer. We'll see what happens. If I do move, however, I'll post a note here with a URL of the new address.

Have fun everyone, and if I don't update beforehand, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

31,299/50,000

Almost managed 6k today... in about 2.5 hours. Eep! I said this morning that I was going to do at least 5k today... and then promptly hit a writer's block.  Well, not so much a writer's block so much as a writer's lack of motivation.  All day I sat here with my computer open staring at it and from the time I posted on Facebook until about 7 o'clock or so, I managed a whopping 286 words. I just had no motivation - and I kept getting distracted by the various football games that were on.  Finally I had the kids come in and watch some lame cartoon movie and that gave me the focus (or lack of real distraction LOL) that I needed and I just cranked.  I think I'm finally seeing where my novel is going, plot-wise.  It's ridiculously dialogue-heavy, though, and will need some major edits, but I'm getting through it and that's the important thing.

The only time I'll have to write tomorrow (assuming I don't wake up uber-early again) will be at lunch so my word-count for tomorrow will probably suck.  That's ok... that's why I got so far ahead while I could.

G'night peeps. I can feel the Lunesta starting to kick in.  Catch y'all later!

25,385/50,000

Wrote about 5k today. Woot.
Hitting the sack.

Ggnith@

A Non-NaNo-related post

Update on the sleep medication.  I took a Lunesta last night.  I was told it would take 10-15 minutes to kick in - it took more like 30 minutes for me to really feel sleepy.  I still didn't sleep through the night - still woke up twice - but I fell right back asleep both times, unlike many other nights where I have trouble going back to sleep.  It may be one of those medications that needs some time or something.  I guess we'll see how the rest of the week goes.

I don't, however, feel all groggy and out of it this morning, so that's good, at least.  I do have a headache, but my neck is really tense, so the headache could either be from that or my sinuses.  Again, I'm guessing it's a wait and see thing.

20,200/50,000

Only logged a couple thousand words today and I'm taking the evening off. 

That said, I wanted to update on my post where I went off about my insurance company denying me the medication that my doctor prescribed.  They finally approved it!!! Yay!  I picked it up tonight and will try the Lunesta for the first time this evening.  I'm really looking forward to a good night's sleep - I hope it works!

G'night peeps... tomorrow is two write-ins, back-to-back, so hopefully my word count will jump dramatically.  Wootles and poodles. Or something. ;-)

18,123/50,000

Not much on the word count front today, unfortunately. A little over 3,000 so I guess I can't complain, but I had hoped to get to 20k by tonight. Ah well. Dan's company is having a chili cook-off tomorrow so we made our "famous" turkey pumpkin black bean chili to take in and I also made my Guinness chocolate cake for him to bring for dessert (they've been bugging me to make one for awhile, so...).  At any rate, the cooking and baking ended up taking a couple of hours all said and done so no real time to write.  It's all good... I'm nearly 40% done on day 5 so I really shouldn't complain.  Though I must say, I probably wouldn't be so hard on myself in Sabrina hadn't already hit 51k. Grrr! I'm probably going to have to concede to her... she's just too far ahead.  BUMMER!

Anyways, g'night folks. Catch ya later!

15,054/50,000

Oops! Forgot to update last night before I went to bed. I was a bit tired. I woke up around 4:30 and laid in bed trying to fall asleep and I finally gave up a little after 5 and decided to sit up and write.  I managed to get a couple thousand words in before I had to get ready for work.  I also managed to get another couple thousand words written over lunch, too, which was nice.  I didn't, however, get as much written during the write-in last night as I had hoped. It kind of ended up more as a social meet-up than anything. I think that was partially because some of us were meeting others for the first time and others of us were reuniting and getting caught up with how the rest of the year has been.  I think next week will be better and certainly the Highlands Ranch Tattered Cover write-in will (hopefully) be productive, as well.

At any rate, I've got to run to work.  I wrote some more words today but they're not included in the above total since that total is for yesterday.  Look back later to see today's progress!

9,832/50,000

Only 1,321 words written today, but in my defense, I wasn't able to do anything at work (not at lunch and I didn't get any breaks today) and I was just downright exhausted today when I got home.  I've been sitting here with my laptop open for 2 hours and I'm just finding that every little thing distracts me.  TMI moment - I actually got more written in the bathroom than I did when I was actually curled up in bed all comfy and ready to write.  Go figure. LOL

Tomorrow shall be a better day.  Tomorrow night is the first Lone Tree, CO write-in at Panera - I urge anyone participating in NaNoWriMo that is in the southern part of the city to come to the write-in.  I will have schwag and candy - what more could you ask for?  And Panera has some freaking awesome chicken noodle soup.  Can anyone say YUM?  Hope to see you there!!!

Over 8,500 words now!

I logged nearly 2,200 words today between lunch and tonight after I got home from rehearsal.  I want to write more but I'm just physically exhausted so to bed I go.

G'night y'all.  Pleasant dreams to ye.

6,323/50,000

I'm calling it a night at 6,323 words. Hopefully I'll have some time to write tomorrow but I gave myself a big enough cushion, just in case I'm unable to.

The story is coming along, but I have no clue where it's going. All I know is each chapter will be named after a card in the Major Arcana of a tarot deck.  It was a challenge that a fellow Twitter author came up with and I took him up on it.  We'll see where it leads!

Until later...

NaNoWriMo: Day 1 (and also NaBloWriMo: Day 31)

I didn't write a post last night for the last night of NaBloWriMo. I was going to and then I got caught up in the kick-off party and, well, yeah.  So this post will double for NaBloWriMo (the end) and NaNoWriMo (the beginning).  Woot!

First, Halloween festivities.  The kids had an absolute blast going ToTing.  Girl-child was Cinderella going to the winter ball.  Boy-child was Batman - and amazingly enough, he actually wore his costume this year.  Woot!!!  Dan took the kids around and I guess after a mere two blocks, boy-child was exhausted and wanted to come home.  They came home and boy-child stayed in with me while Dan took girl-child out for more fun and candy-hunting.  Boy-child helped me hand out candy to the trick or treaters as they came to the door.  He enjoyed that although it was really funny that he would say "Trick or Treat!" to them while giving them the candy. LOL!  It was incredibly cute.

I headed out for the NaNoWriMo kick-off party at around 8:30.  I was stoked that I was able to get one of the highly-coveted parking spots right out front of the house where the party was being held.  We played some games, socialized quite a bit, and at midnight we dug right in!  I left around 1:30am with just shy of 3500 words under my belt.  I came home and crashed.

So now I'm sitting here wanting to expand my Day 1 word count and I am having a hard time getting motivated.  I guess I was figuring to myself that I should at least finish up NaBloWriMo so that I can have a fully clear conscience in going into NaNo mode.  Or at least that's what I'm telling myself. LOL!

So, I'm officially signing off of NaBloWriMo with the end of this post and I'm also officially welcoming NaNoWriMo back into my life for the month of November, 2009.  Happy writing folks!!!