What Am I Doing Here

 Chapter 4 of my short story is now live! *********** The sun was just starting to set as James wandered through his neighborhood. Hands in his pockets, he took everything in, but he couldn’t feel. Was it a warm night, or was it chilly? He couldn’t tell. He paused outside the window of a home where the family was sitting down to dinner. It was the Johnsons. Mr. Johnson was looking a bit more grey-haired than he remembered. That little boy must be Tommy , he thought. He was just a baby. Now he’s all grown up. He kept walking. Neighbors running past gave a slight nod in his direction. So far, he had not seen a single familiar face. He kept walking. Before he realized it, he was at the church on the edge of town. He looked up at the stone edifice and strong wooden doors. This was the last place he remembered. He woke up right there on the concrete steps with nothing. He grabbed the handle and gently tugged. Locked. With a little chuckle, he walked around the side of the building t...

August 31st marked the last day of England's Eat Out to Help Out scheme. On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, many eateries, franchise, chain, and independently-owned, participated in a government-funded scheme to help boost the suffering hospitality industry where customers who dined in would get half-off food and non-alcoholic beverages, with a max of £10 per person. As someone who worked in the hospitality industry, and yes I say worked because I have no desire to return to it for the foreseeable future, I get why this was needed. During lockdown, a lot of restaurants either closed dine-in completely and did takeaway only, or they just closed down. Several large chains have since gone into administration. Wetherspoons, one of the largest pub chains in England, closed its doors completely. Factor in small businesses, and that is thousands of workers who don't have jobs anymore. Hopefully a majority were furloughed rather than laid off completely. Then lockdown lifted, and th...

  In the land of tea and biscuits, I've been dying for some homemade chocolate chip cookies. The store-bought versions are thick and dry, and Pillsbury and Nestle Toll House are not a thing. While I'm sure England has their version of these treats, nothing beats the taste of homemade cookies. I've made lots of different chocolate chip cookies. Some made with only white sugar, some with a mixture of brown and white. Some use melted butter, some use softened. Every "family recipe" has its own tips and tricks for the perfect cookie, and while I am still in search of a recipe that I would like to keep and perfect and eventually pass down, I think this recipe is the perfect place to start. Amanda's Chocolate Chip Cookies Made approx. 15 cookies with a 2 oz scoop Original recipe  here  (because this bitch gives credit where it's due) Ingredients 100 g granulated sugar 165 g dark brown sugar 1 tsp salt 115 g browned butter 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla extract 155 g all-pu...

 Part 3 of my short story! I'm hoping to get it to a suitable conclusion very soon, so I hope you like it. *********** It took several minutes for James to process the information. He sat in silence, occasionally sitting back in his chair like he wanted to speak, then changing his mind at the last second. I led him to the living room and he sat down beside me on the sofa. I could see the puzzled look on his face as he looked around the room and saw furniture that definitely wasn’t there when he was still alive. A look of defeat clouded his eyes and he slumped into the sofa.   “Babe, what happened to me?” he moaned.   “Heart attack. No one saw it coming. We were just getting ready to go out to dinner, and you just…collapsed…” I took a breath, shaky from the sobs I tried to hide. “And I relived that nightmare every night. Anna stayed with me because I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. I didn’t want to live without you anymore.”   A fire lit in his eyes at the...

So, I know I said I would make a recipe post on Fridays, and I missed last week's. Due to life being what it is, I did not have the energy to pull something together until Saturday night. But I will leave you with this little teaser: it was super yummy, and it's going into my recipe book so I can make it again. Now, we are back to our regularly scheduled programming. Monday is my designated "what have I been doing" day, where I share things I've done or places I've been. To be quite honest, we haven't gone anywhere interesting in quite a while. BUT...I have been keeping quite busy. The boredom has been unbearable lately. Everyday I get rejections for jobs I've applied for. I'm not even making it to the interview stage, and I'm even applying for cashier jobs. A lot of jobs want someone with a full driving license, and the department that handles that stuff is backlogged from all of the tests that were cancelled during lockdown. I guess you can...

As promised, chapter two of my short story! If anyone has any suggestions for titles, comment down below. ************** CHAPTER TWO How do you tell someone who’s been dead for the past ten years that they’ve died? Typically, it isn’t a condition that someone recovers from. There is no “remission” in death. As I sat there, cup of Darjeeling in hand, I pondered these questions while my husband stroked my hands lovingly as he did when he was alive. This was my husband. Of this, I was certain. But how? Apart from being very confused as to how he ended up in front of the old church with nothing on his person except the clothes we buried him in, he seemed to have no awareness that he had been dead. “James, honey, what is the last thing you remember before waking up in front of the church?” His brow furrowed. “I can’t remember anything. I just…woke up. I didn’t have anything on me, and the first thing I thought of was to come home.” I nodded and took a sip of my tea. “Gen, will y...