tag:blog.barbaradelinsky.com,2008-07-25://20 2009-01-02T16:13:26Z Movable Type Open Source 4.12 tag:blog.barbaradelinsky.com,2009://20.1493 2009-01-02T16:01:23Z 2009-01-02T16:13:26Z

Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com While My Sister Sleeps is Kelly Victoria.  Congratulations, Kelly.  Your ARC will be in the mail ASAP!

But please, don't the rest of you despair.  We will be contacting you within the next week with a special offer, so keep an eye out for that email.
 
In the meantime, my deepest thanks to you all for participating in this contest. ]]> tag:blog.barbaradelinsky.com,2008://20.1102 2008-12-28T12:18:26Z 2008-12-28T12:21:34Z

Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com most often, if the truth be told), it has to do with diet - I resolve to lose those eight pounds that seem to be my yo-yo shadow.

This year it's different, which isn't to say that I'm better with regard to all of the above, just that this year I'm taking a different approach. 
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One day at a time.  I'm going to take life one day at a time.  I'm not going to stress over the big picture.  There is absolutely nothing I can do right now, today, about something that will not happen until May or September or even next December.  All I can do is to take life one day at a time and do the very best job I can on that particular day.  It's about yawning at the end of the day, tired but satisfied that I accomplished a little something at least.

Accomplished.  Now there's an interesting word.  As part of my New Year's resolution, I'm redefining it this year.  I'm resolving to add at least an hour each day for me-time.  I don't usually do that.  But I'm starting to feel the need.  So.  I resolve to spend an hour each day - OK, half an hour - doing something that may not have serious redeeming value other than to bring relaxation.  If I do that, I'll be in a better frame of mind to accomplish those other little somethings, right?
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Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com The Secret Between Us and I'll help you turn it into a one-of-a-kind gift.  Contact me with the recipient's name, along with your address, and I'll mail you a personalized bookplate ASAP.

Act fast! ]]> tag:blog.barbaradelinsky.com,2008://20.799 2008-12-09T01:38:07Z 2008-12-09T01:45:08Z

Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com
Being a knitter, I think about homemade gifts a lot.  Actually, how can I not? 
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I've been knitting hats this season.  I made ones for my grandnieces earlier this fall, but when I made one for my son's fiancee, I tried something new.  Last year, I fell in love with a store-bought hat that had been machine-knit in fine-weight wool.  I particularly liked the crown decrease, which called for SSKs and K2togs on either side of four 5-stitch panels.  So I sat down with my chosen yarn and imitated it.  I used sock yarn doubled to a light worsted weight, and there was some trial and error involved (with this slightly heavier wool, a 3-stitch panel was more than enough).  But it came out really, really well.

So now I'm on a roll.  I just knit one for another daughter-in-law.  And I'm doing four for my grandkids.  When I'm done with those, I may just go ahead and make another three for the grandnieces for next year.  Different pattern, different colors -- what could be better?

But maybe I'm getting carried away.  Maybe there are other things I could be making for family and friends.  What do you make?  What are some of the best homemade gifts you've received?  Care to share some ideas?  There's still time ...

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Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com By the time you read this, Chapter 1 of my new book, While My Sister Sleeps, will be posted here at the site.  If you're on my email list, you'll have received a note about this.  If not, feel free to take a look.
 
But wait.  Let's back up for some unfinished business.  Remember the squash I mailed frozen last Tuesday night? 
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But my bisque was only one small element in a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.  Cranberried brie, brined turkey, cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, blanched carrots, green beans almondine, pumpkin, pecan, and apple pie - everything was incredibly good.
 
By the time we finished eating, I was full enough (and feeling guilty enough for having done so little of the actual cooking) that I offered to do the cleanup afterward - and no small feat it was.  We had mounds of dirty dishes, pots and pans, leftover food, and a big, greasy turkey carcass in a rather tiny kitchen.  By the time it was done, with people wandering in and out chipping in, I was less stuffed physically and more sated emotionally.  How fortunate we were to have this food and this family!
 
BTW, I had no frozen squash in my carry-on, yet security did pull me over.  The agent took everything out of my backpack, examined this, scrutinized that, swiped a few things for trace powders, studied my knitting and my baggie of teas (I always travel with a variety of favorites).  Then he put everything back, wished me a Happy Thanksgiving, and waved me through. 

So what would he have done if I'd had that squash with me?  More to the point, if he'd taken it out and swiped the container with his moist little tissue, would I have wanted to eat the squash inside?

Probably not. 
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What do you do when you want to contribute to Thanksgiving dinner, but you can't just pile food in a bag, because you have to take a plane to get where you're going and you do not - I repeat,...

Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com
So here's the challenge. 
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Their markets sell squash, but it isn't pre-cooked.  One year I tried using frozen squash.  No good.  Another year, I cooked and mashed fresh squash myself, but I didn't season it the way, apparently, my supermarket does, so, despite many a frantic sprinkle and stir, I couldn't get it to taste like my traditional squash bisque.
 
So I'm trying something new this year.  Last week, I bought a load of that heat-and-serve squash and froze it.  Last night, I took it from the freezer, packaged it up, and dropped it at my local FedEx office.  My husband and I leave for the airport in just a few minutes, and I'm calculating that we'll arrive at our son's house at roughly the same time as the squash, which should be nicely thawed.

What's my recipe?  Easy, easy, easy.  I dump all that squash in a soup pot and dilute it with low-salt, low-fat chicken broth until it reaches a bisque-y consistency.  Then I season it with curry, just enough to add a little tang.  If I'm feeling decadent, I may add a pat or two of butter or - if I'm feeling really decadent - some brown sugar.  I can't tell you the amounts.  It's just sprinkle and taste, sprinkle and taste.  But it works.  My family loves the stuff.

Here's the tricky part, though.  I bought five containers of squash, but could fit only four in my large FedEx box.  So I'm bringing the last frozen one in my backpack.  Think it'll make it through security?  I mean, hey, if it's frozen solid, it isn't a liquid, right? Truly, is frozen squash much different from, say, lip balm?

Check back next week, and I'll let you know what happens.  In the meantime, have a Happy Thanksgiving!]]> tag:blog.barbaradelinsky.com,2008://20.713 2008-11-21T15:32:43Z 2008-11-21T11:59:16Z

Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com
I just did my annual fall migration, meaning that I pulled all of my scarves from their summer hideaway to a front-and-center winter spot.  Do I have a scarf collection?
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I have cotton scarves that are fringed, and wool scarves that are not.  I have hand-painted silk scarves and shawls that double as scarves.  Some of my scarves are solid color, some are striped or pied, some are paisley.  And, of course, I have knitted scarves, a whole drawer's worth of those, all made by yours truly.  It's a joke among knitters, the scarves we collect, but they do get worn, each of them, at least once or twice a season.

So now you know what to expect if you see me on the road during the While My Sister Sleeps tour in February.

But what really inspired me to blog about scarves?  Well, the economy.  Here we are in a downturn, pulling clothes from the back of the closet rather than buying new ones.  How to make those old ones look different each day?
 
You guessed it.  Add a scarf.
 
It's a remarkable accessory.  You can wrap it around your neck once or twice, given the length.  You can fold it in half lengthwise, wrap it the doubled scarf around your neck and pull the ends through the fold.  You can knot it like a man knots a tie.  You can throw one end over a shoulder, or you can just let both hang straight down in front.  If you get too warm, you can simply  tie it around the strap of your purse.

Got an interesting scarf technique?  Other readers would love to hear it, I bet.  Hey, I'd love to hear it, myself.  Cold's setting in ...
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Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com
I have a plan, but I need your help to carry it out. 
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I have a stash of good books, and I'd like nothing more than to donate them to lending libraries at hospitals across the country.  Here's where you come in.  If you make the phone call, I'll donate the books and the shipping costs.  There will be no cost to you, just a little bit of time spent on an act of philanthropy.  One phone call would do it.  You won't even need to leave home.

What do I want you to do?  Call your local hospital and ask to be connected to its lending library (or whoever runs it).  Once there, ask if they have room for a donation of books and, if so, how many they can use.  Then you contact me with the hospital name, your lending library contact, the shipping address (no PO Boxes), and the number of books they'd welcome.  I'll take it from there.

If you act now, we can send the books to arrive for the holidays, when hospitals in need are looking for ways of cheering up patients.  A free book could do it.  As readers, you all understand this.

Will you help?  Your generosity would be a precious gift.
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I knew I was fixated on the election, but that point was driven home this week when I suddenly realized that the publication of While My Sister Sleeps is coming up fast.  For those of you who don't know, this...

Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com While My Sister Sleeps is coming up fast.  For those of you who don't know, this is the title of my next new hardcover.  No reissue of an old book, this is a brand new one that I finished writing in May.  Read a synopsis of While My Sister Sleeps, along with a few author comments, in my Books page.
 
The official publication date is February 17, 2009.  But you, my dear reader, may be able to get an early copy of the book.
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All you have to do to enter the contest is visit my Contact page and mention the While My Sister Sleeps drawing.  Deadline for entries is January 1, 2009, after which I will put all entries in a hat, close my eyes, and pick a winner.  Bonne chance!
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Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com
While President-elect Obama hunkers down to pick his team and make the transition of power as smooth as possible in this remarkable democracy of ours, what are we back to doing? 
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But what fun is that?

I have a better idea.  If you're feeling a void in your life now that the election is done, fill it with a good book.  Specifically, fill it with the brand new, hot-off-the-press trade paperback issue of The Secret Between Us.

Now, honestly, I don't think my publisher was thinking "Post-Election Doldrums" when the powers-that-be selected November 4 as the pub date for this book.  I think it was pure serendipity.  But hey, if it helps to fill the void ...

Here's another thought.  Why not add a warm sticky bun to your time with the book?  Click here for the recipe.

O-K.  Got too many sticky buns to eat yourself?  Share them with a groups of friends who may also be feeling at loose ends.  Brew those friends some coffee, and while they eat those SoMa Stickies, tell them a little about The Secret Between Us.  Ask them what they would do if they were in Deborah's situation.  Make them think.

Thicken the plot by printing out the Reading Group Guide for The Secret Between Us and schedule another meeting when everyone will have read the book.  Better still, if you'd like me to visit that group meeting by speakerphone, I'd love it!  Click here for details.  And look at it this way.  We'll be killing two birds (or, in this case, filling two voids) with one stone - yours and mine.

I'm Barbara the Writer, and (though I promise this is the one and only time I'll say this) I approve this message.
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Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com  
Weekend before last, I was at a library event and had the pleasure of meeting two dynamic women.  Bear with me, here.  I'm still talking sticky buns.  ]]> The Book Club Cookbook.  It's a fabulous cookbook shaped around the theme of book groups, the books they read, and the authors of those books.  Even beyond the book itself is its website, which offers lots of goodies, not the least being recipes from the aforesaid authors.

Getting back to sticky buns, those of you who've read my latest, The Secret Between Us, will remember the sticky buns sold in Jill Barr's bakery, Sugar-On-Main.  They're called SoMa Stickies, and if you're interested in baking some yourself, Judy and Vicki offer the recipe on their site.  I don't often send you to other sites.  But if you do love sticky buns like I love sticky buns, click here.

Dangerous stuff, these SoMa Stickies.

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Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com
And the things it allows me to do? 
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In the ten years I've had this site, it's been through several renditions.  It started with a piece of folk art on the home page.  Remember that?  Then it went on to have art that rotated each month.  For the past two years, it's had a picture of me standing in front of a landscape with brooding clouds overhead.

Now, with the impending publication of While My Sister Sleeps, It's time for a change.  That's what my recent photo shoot was about.  It went really, really well, by the way.  These pictures are going to give an entirely different feel to the site.  I'll be formally receiving the images today, and once I pick my favorites, my web designer will start recrafting the site.  He and I have been discussing lots of possibilities.
 
Hence my question.  What's your magic carpet?  Uh, how do you surf the web?  Oh, dear.  Well.  WHAT MACHINE DO YOU USE?

Why do I care?  With this redecoration of my site, we're thinking of expanding the site's footprint by 25%.  That'll give you more to see.  But, increasingly, the instruments we're using to view the web are smaller.  So I'm curious.  Do you visit this site on a desktop?  A laptop?  A BlackBerry?  An iPhone?  Something else entirely?


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Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com
So what do I do? 
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Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD), a.k.a. winter depression, comes in all shapes and sizes.  I doubt I have it.  But boy, there are times when I detest the early morning darkness.

This year, thanks to Congressional action and the way the calendar falls, we turn the clocks back the first weekend in November.  We morning folks will be thrilled.  For a little while at least, until we hit those short-short-short days of December, we'll have light.

You night owls whose sleep may be disturbed by that streaming early-morning sun?  Sorry.  It's our turn.  Just for a bit.

Seasonal Affect Disorder.  Fact or myth?  What's your thought?
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Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com
What did I catch reading While My Sister Sleeps?  I caught a single "hydrangea" that should have been the plural "hydrangeas" to go with the verb "were."  I caught one spot where "daughter" was supposed to be "son."  I caught a couple of places where the quotation mark was missing at the end of a line of dialogue. 
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I say this because there are always those readers who love catching typos.  Granted, most of what they see as typos are really instances either in dialogue, where a character doesn't speak correctly, or cases of house style, where, say, a comma is or is not used.  Still, the occasional typo does get through.

But hey, it isn't for lack of diligence on my end.  And it isn't just me reading this final version of my book.  It's the publisher's proofreaders, me, and my sister, whom I recruit every year for this task.  Helen is amazing with details.  If there's a typo, she finds it.  A grammatical mistake, she finds it.  An ill-advised page break, she finds it.  Not having read the book before, she sees everything with a fresh eye.

BTW, she loved While My Sister Sleeps and imagines you will as well.  ☺

Next up?  Planning the book tour.

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Barbara Delinsky http://www.barbaradelinsky.com
I'm asking for a reason.  When my kids were little, I had colds constantly.  Then they passed the constant-cold phase, I started taking Vitamin C, and I had no more than one cold a year or two.  Now the colds are back.  If this is the price of being a Grammi to very young grandkids, I'll gladly pay it.  But how to deal?

Here's the immediate problem ... 
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A writer writes.  Right?  She doesn't have to talk.  Wrong.

Here I am, heading off on a plane this afternoon to talk at a Friends of the Library event tomorrow in Ocean City, New Jersey, and I have a cold.  It started five days ago, and I think I'm through with the worst of the red eyes and the sneezing.  The stuffiness is still there.  But I'm worried about my voice.  I'm the main event tomorrow.  I'll be talking for an hour, then doing a question-and-answer session, then signing books, which means talking with each reader who comes by.  Laryngitis is only one problem.  The other is feeling like Typhoid Mary and giving this cold to everyone I see.  I'll be Purelling my hands often.  And I spent the weekend resting, not talking, and I'll talk as little as possible today.  So far my voice is holding up.  But I'm worried.  

Any hints you all have - even homemade remedies for preserving a voice - are welcome.  Please tell me.  What do you do to treat a cold as we wait for a cure?
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