Category — Microblog Mondays

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I fully own that I sometimes choose books because I like the cover and sometimes avoid books because I don’t like the cover. I am likely missing out on good books and wasting time on others.

Recommend Me is the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen. It’s the first page of a book, but you read it without knowing the author or the name of the book. So you have zero preconceived notions of the book (unless you recognize a character’s name or the author’s writing style) and can experience it without knowing anything about it. If you like the book, you can click a button at the bottom of the passage and get the title and author. Or, you can skip to the next excerpt. It is amazing.

And sometimes it’s just fun to try to guess the title and author before pushing the button.

P.S. You can also go backwards, find a cover you love, and click to read the excerpt.

P.P.S. You can also submit a book to the database.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I rarely click anymore when lists for “your state’s most famous dish” pop up because I know that (1) it will be crabs, (2) I’ve never had crabs and never will, and (3) only know a handful of local people who do eat crabs. It just isn’t part of my universe.

But CNN Traveler lists our state food as Salvadoran, and I am totally here for that and agree wholeheartedly. It may be because we live in that mentioned area with plenty of Salvadoran options, but that IS the food I associate with my area much more than crabs. I’m aware I would have a different view of my state if we lived on the water. But since we don’t, and since every other cuisine-of-your-state list points to crabs, I’ll take this for a win.

If you live in the US, is your state accurate?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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If you want a fun distraction this week, hit the book trail. It’s a site where you can type in a destination and find books set in that place. Can’t get to the Faroe Islands? You can read two books set there. Interested in finding books where characters touch down in Thailand? There are pages of results.

I thought it would be fun to jump from continent to continent over winter break.

Where do you want to go?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Eater has an article about “house meals,” which are defined as “a dish that perhaps was once inspired by a recipe, but you’ve made it so many times, and riffed on it so often, that it bears little resemblance to any known dish. It is comfort food at its finest, a thing designed for your specific palate, with absolutely no thought paid to impressing anyone else.”

Ours is, without a doubt, this potato-and-Morningstar-vegetarian-bacon thing that Josh and I dreamed up years ago. It is so horrible-looking and horrible-sounding on paper. It is so good in your mouth. We have it at least once a month, down from once a week.

My other house meal is black beans and rice with roasted red peppers and an egg (over medium). It’s gooey and yummy and so easy to pull together without thinking.

My old house meal was a red sauce, but I’ve dropped it in favour of either Marcella Hazan’s red sauce or the one I learned from Da Mario’s last spring. So both real recipes, as opposed to the mess above which is unique to our home, and we’ll never serve it or give the recipe to anyone outside the house.

What is your house meal?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Back in August, the BBC had an article about the upside to worrying. As someone who worries a lot, I was happy to have any excuse to continue with my anxiety rather than fight it.

Worrying moves you to action. If you’re scared about something, you’re more likely to do something about it if there’s something to do. Worried about that tiger? Run from it. Worried about the direction of your country? Vote. Worrying gets you prepared. Worrying helps you problem-solve.

I like this article because it doesn’t put down worrying. Instead, it acknowledges there is a time and place for worrying, and if you’re going to worry, there are ways to make the worrying useful.

I pass this along in case you are as worried as I am right now about the state of things.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.