Sunshine on a cloudy day

There's nothing like opening your curtains first thing in the morning to see a beautiful sun shining down on the lake. Here's to a lovely day!

Dear Jamie, I Love You

So by now, if you've read past entries of my blog and especially the Transatlantic Tastes section, you must know that I'm a big fan of Jamie Oliver. I've been an admirer for quite a few years, always tuning into his different television series on the Food Network and buying a number of his books (I've lost count but I have at least five, I'm sure of it.) I even had the pleasure of meeting him five years ago while living in Toronto!

I've cooked my way through a number of his recipes and shared them with friends and family. Some of my favourites include a classic Tomato Soup, delicious Crunchy Garlic Chicken and my absolute favourite that I make on a regular basis, Cherry Tomato Sauce with Cheat's Fresh Pasta, the first recipe I tried out of one of Jamie's cook books and one that has remained in my recipe box for years.

Are you a fan of Jamie Oliver? Have you tried any of his recipes? Let me know in the comments below!

NaBloWriMo, here we go!

In the writing world, November is NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, where participants spend the month of November writing a novel. Even though I know every year that October is always followed by November, it always catches me off guard and I never have an idea for a novel prepared. 

This time three years ago, caught in the same cycle of forgetting about it until it's too late, I undertook a blogging challenge instead. For every day in November of 2012, I wrote a blog entry. Some were long with a bunch of pictures while others were only a couple of sentences. Regardless of how tired I was or of how blank on what to write I was, I wrote an entry every. single. day. And you know what? It was hard! But, I did it and I felt a little bit better for it. 

So, after a few failed attempts at restarting my blogging, I thought that this would be a good way of trying to get back into it. Instead of NaNoWriMo though, this month is going to be NaBloWriMo - National Blog Writing Month. Apparently I'm not the only person who's tried this before - there's even a hashtag on Twitter about it! It's kind of nice to know that I'm not the only one who's going to be attempting this. 

Okay. One down, 29 to go! Wish me luck!