Holiday Traditions

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Someone should have told me.
I didn’t realize that if I did the same thing for a few years
in a row, I was beginning an unbreakable tradition. But I did. And now, the
Mulherns have the same thing for breakfast every Christmas morning.
Not that I’m complaining. The recipes are easy and delicious
(unlike Ellison, the heroine of my novels, I can make a Bundt cake). I turn on
the oven when kids stir and pop the soufflé into the oven when we start opening
presents.
I pair the soufflé and cake with fresh fruit and lots of
coffee (of course).
Sausage Soufflé
·     
1 pound sausage –  browned and drained
·     
6 slices of best quality bread – cubed
·     
¼ cup cheddar cheese
·     
1 teaspoon dry mustard
·     
½ teaspoon salt
·     
4 eggs
·     
2 cups milk
Beat eggs, milk, mustard and salt. Add sausage and bread.
Mix well and pour into a greased 10 x6 ½ x 2-inch casserole dish and
refrigerate overnight.
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, covered with foil. Reduce heat
to 325, remove foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes.
Cinnamon Bundt Cake
            Filling
·     
½ cup light brown sugar
·     
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Cake
·     
1 package plain yellow cake mix (I prefer Duncan
Hines)
·     
1 package vanilla pudding mix
·     
¾ cup vegetable oil
·     
¾ cup water
·     
4 large eggs
·     
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I always use
Vain vanilla)
Glaze
·     
1 cup confectioners’ sugar sifted
·     
2 tablespoons milk
·     
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.
Lightly oil a Bundt pan, then dust with flour, shaking out the excess.
For the filling – combine ingredients in a small bowl (you
could add nuts – if I did my youngest wouldn’t eat it).
Place the cake mix, pudding, oil, water, eggs and vanilla in
a mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low for one minute. Scrape down
the sides of the bowl. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for two
minutes. The batter should look thick and smooth.
Pour one-third of the batter into the prepared pan.
Scatter half of the filling over the batter.
Pour another third of the batter over the filling.
Scatter the remaining filling.
Pour the remaining batter, smoothing it out with a rubber
spatula.
Bake for 58 to 60 minutes or until golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes then run a sharp knife
around the edges of the cake and invert the pan.
Cool an additional 30 minutes.
While the cake is cooling, make the glaze. Place all
ingredients in a small bowl and stir until smooth.
Place the cooked cake on a serving platter and drizzle the
glaze over the top.
This cake can be stored under a glass cake dome for up to a
week. It won’t last that long.

Wishing you and yours the merriest, jolliest of holiday
seasons.
Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders. 

She is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean–and she’s got an active imagination. Truth is–she’s an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.

The Times They Are A’Changin’ for The Stiletto Gang

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The Times They Are A’Changin’
for The Stiletto Gang
by Debra H. Goldstein

The times they are a’changin’
is both a song refrain and an accurate description of The Stiletto Gang. Happily,
all the changes are for the good.

Today is both a beginning
and an end for me and the Gang in that instead of personally posting twice a
month and being responsible for Clicking Our Heels, I will only be handling
Clicking Our Heels and the second Friday of the month post. Not a big change
for me or for Linda Rodriguez, who now will only post on the first Friday of
the month, but a positive change for you in that you’ll have the opportunity of
getting to know Shari Randall and Teresa Thorne on the third and fourth Fridays
of each month.  (don’t forget our other
newbies, Judy Penz Sheluk and Diane Staresinic-Deane). In fact, mark your calendars for this enhanced line-up:

Judy
Penz Sheluk- 1st Monday
Julie Mulhern – 2nd Monday

Paula Gail Benson – 3rd Monday
Dru Ann Love – Every other 4th Monday
Short story writers – Every other 4th Monday
J.M. Phillippe – 1st & 3rd Tuesdays
AB Plum – 2nd Tuesday
Diana Staresinic-Deane – 4th Tuesday
Clicking Our Heels (group post) – 1st Wednesday                           

Bethany Maines – 2nd & 4th Wednesdays


Kay Kendall – 3rd Wednesday
Sparkle Abbey – 1st Thursday
Juliana Aragon Fatula – 2nd & 4th Thursdays
Cathy Perkins – 3rd Thursday
Linda Rodriguez – 1st Friday
Debra H. Goldstein – 2nd Friday
Shari Randall -3rd Friday
T.K. Thorne – 4th Friday

I’m proud we’re such a diverse gang. For me, the
members of this blog are so impressive

that I am constantly challenged to write
at the highest level possible because they all do. For you, it means exposure
to different thoughts, cultures, genres and writers you might not readily come
across. I hope you enjoy this mix of writers as much as I do.     Debra

Movie Stars Merry & Bright

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by Sparkle Abbey

Judy posted earlier in the week about the traditions of holiday movies and we couldn’t help but add our two cents worth on the topic because we love holiday movies. Do you like holiday movies? Do you have a favorite (or two or three) that you look forward to each year as they start appearing in the television line-up?

We love It’s a Wonderful Life, Holiday Inn, Miracle on 34th Street, The Bishop’s Wife, The Holiday, and oh so many others. Such great stories and so many wonderful stars!

There’s nothing like Zuzu Bailey proclaiming, “Teacher says, ‘Every time a bell rings, an angel get his wings.'” Or Bing Crosby singing White Christmas. Or Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jack Black, and Jude Law and all the madcap mixups in The Holiday.

But we have to tell you, there’s a new kid on the block. A new entry in our favorite holiday movie must-see list. The Man Who Invented Christmas with Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) as Charles Dickens, and Christopher Plummer as Scrooge was a surprise as we hadn’t heard much about it. But this telling of how Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol did not disappoint!

Perhaps some of the charm for us was the protrayal of Dickens, the writer, and the difficulties he encounters as he tries to work out the plotline and get his characters to behave. And deal with real life difficulties at the same time. We won’t give away any details, but if you get a chance, check out this new movie that’s on our list of favorites.

Speaking of stars, we’ve been busy with the launch of our latest installment in the Pampered Pets mystery series, Barking with the Stars, and we’d love to give away a special holiday gift packet to celebrate. Just leave a comment below before midnight December 9th and we’ll draw from among those commenting for a free Sparkle Abbey book and some other Christmas goodies.

Please share your favorite holiday movie, if you have one. Or if you’re not into holiday movies, is there a movie that you re-watch each year?

Wishing you all things merry & bright and a great holiday season!
Sparkle Abbey

Sparkle Abbey is the pseudonym of two mystery authors (Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter). They are friends and neighbors as well as co-writers of the Pampered Pets Mystery Series.


They love to hear from readers and you can find them on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. And if you want to make sure you’re up on all the Sparkle Abbey news, stop by their website and sign up for updates at sparkleabbey.com.

Clicking Our Heels – Movies That Makes Us Laugh and Cry

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Clicking Our Heels – Movies That Make Us Laugh and Cry
Like books, movies impact emotions.
The Stiletto Gang thought we’d suggest some of our favorite films for a good
laugh or cry.

Dru Ann Love – Imitation of Life made my cry. What’s
Up Doc made me laugh.

Paula Benson – During times of stress,
I have three go-to-movies that always life me up with laughter and make me
ready to face the world again: Legally
Blonde, Bridget Jones Diary, and Shakespeare in Love.  Then, I have to admit a real fondness for Sneakers, due to all the wonderful
performers, the puzzles, and the conclusion.
Cathy Perkins – Collateral Beauty (made me cry). I watched this one on the plane
coming back from a business trip. Will Smith stars in this movie about a parent’s
grief over losing a child.
Juliana Aragon Fatula –  Gone With
the Wind – Don’t listen to Miss Prissy. She don’t know nuttin’ bout birthin’
no baby. Yellowbird and Blazing Saddles always make me laugh.                                                                                                                     
Linda Rodriguez – Songcatcher is a movie I’ve loved that didn’t get a lot of
attention, but it’s a superb little film about the Great Smokies, the original
homeland of my people, and always makes me cry.
Bethany Maines – Clue – A movie based on a board game should never work, but not
only does Clue work, it succeeds
brilliantly. The dialogue is razor sharp and delivered at a machine gun pace by
actors working at their best. Tim Curry anchors the movie with a wicked grin
and the rest of the cast from Eileen Brennan, to Christopher Lloyd, and
Madeline Kahn fill the screen with enough shenanigans that it needs multiple
viewings to catch all the jokes.  Added
to the acting is some brilliant editing that operates the movie in real time (a
character says “the police will be here in thirty minutes” and you can time it
yourself, the police do indeed show up in thirty minutes), and gives the viewer
a multiple choice ending. It makes me laugh EVERY time I watch it. I wish more
people were aware of it, because it’s truly a classic.
Kay Kendall – French Kiss (starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, released in 1995)
has several scenes that make me laugh out loud, no matter how times I watch it.
Kevin Kline is a delightfully sly Frenchman forced to turn crook, and Meg Ryan
plays his unwitting accomplice, an American tourist running from her fiancé who
two-timed her.
Debra H. Goldstein – No matter how many
times I see it, the subtle and not so subtle lines in Miss Congeniality make me laugh. Similarly, as hokey as the movie
can be, there is a moment in An Affair to
Remember that always make teary eyed.
Sparkle Abbey:
  Anita
– There are so many!  Movies that make me
laugh in no particular order: The Princess
Bride, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Airplane,
The Great Outdoors, Steel Magnolias (it makes me cry too!), and
Some Like it Hot.  Movies that make me cry: Imitation of Life, An Affair
to Remember, Penny Serenade, Marley and Me,
My Dog Skip, Old Yeller.
  Mary
Lee – Oh my, Ditto on all of Anita’s list. I cried for a couple of days
when I saw Old Yeller. Another for me
is Toy Story 3. I know it’s animated
but it always makes me cry. It is so funny and great for kids, but also
extremely poignant. The main “toy” story and the human sub-plot is all about
growing and changing. As far as movies that make me laugh: All of Me, Birdcage, Miss Congeniality, Airplane, and I loved The
Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Jennae Phillippe – So many! The one
that comes to mind these days is Swing
Kids about a group of rebel kids in Germany that listen to swing music and
go to dance halls – until they get caught stealing a radio and two of them
start to get indoctrinated into the SS. Only one manages to resist. The end of
that movie makes me cry every time, even if I only watch the last 15 minutes.
A.B. Plum – Wonder Woman – the hero’s reaction to WW
catching him naked coming out of a hot springs bath is laugh-out funny and
sweet and innocent. The scene that made me cry was Wonder Woman’s arrival at
the front line near the end of WWI.  That
was a gruesome war that definitely should have ended all wars given the number
of deaths, lives destroyed, and nightmares suffered by shattered survivors.

Frustration and Counting Your Spoons

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by J.M. Phillippe

I have had a very frustrating week, followed by a frustrating weekend. I suppose part of this is the nature of the holiday season — too many things squeezed into too little a space of time. Part of this is connected to my day-job and what feels like a never-ending and overwhelming work load. And part of this is just vicarious frustration as so many of my clients are also feeling their ire rise.

In simple terms, frustration is the feeling of being upset or annoyed, especially because of inability to change or achieve something. Frustration tolerance is the idea that we have a capacity for how much frustration we can tolerate without having some sort of emotional breakdown.

What I try to get my clients to understand is that everyone has limited daily energy. That energy is being used up by all sorts of things. I have people picture a battery — throughout the day, every task they do takes energy from that battery. The lower their battery level, the greater the percentage of what they have left each new task takes. In short, the more you have on your plate, the less energy you have for each thing, and that includes emotional energy. The end result is that your frustration tolerance goes down, and those little things that you might be able to brush off with a full battery — like traffic, rude people, or even dropping your keys — suddenly feel like really big deals because you have so little energy left to deal with them.

Other people use the spoon theory to describe what life is like with chronic illness (physical or mental) or chronic pain — the idea that your battery (or in this case, the number of spoons you have) is already lower than someone else not dealing with that condition:

The point of both analogies — batteries or spoons — is to recognize when your levels are low. Because when your levels are low, your irritability will be higher, your problem solving skills will be impaired, and your emotions in general will be closer to the surface.

So as we move forward into the holiday season, and the multitude of things that comes with it, please be sure to keep track of your battery levels. You will need to recharge them — with rest, with time for yourself, with delegating tasks to other people, with turning down obligations. And more importantly, you need to practice self kindness when you start to lost it — snap at your loved ones, get emotional over small things, or feel too drained to do as good a job as you want to. It just means your battery — and your frustration tolerance level — is low.

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

Christmas movies (and a holiday giveaway) by Judy Penz Sheluk

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I don’t watch a lot of TV, I’m not particularly romantic or sentimental, and yet, every December I find myself inexplicably drawn to Christmas movies. Maybe it’s because as a kid, my mom and I would always watch White Christmas. I can remember dreaming of getting married in the red cape and dress that Vera Ellen and Rosemary Clooney wore in the final number. Later on, in high school, I would sing the song, Sisters, with my friend Patti. We were almost certainly out of tune, but we felt like sisters.

Years later, my husband, Mike, always a trooper, started watching White Christmas with me every year (although he insists on fast forwarding through the Danny Kaye “choreography” scene, not that I blame him). The trade-off was that I shared in the Sheluk family tradition: watching It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol (the original 1951 version with Alastair Sim; no other versions count).

Since then, we’ve added Home Alone (the first one is a must; the one in New York usually lands on our radar). Mike’s also added Die Hard to his list, though I’m not convinced it’s a Christmas movie! Then again, Mike doesn’t like my all-time favorite Christmas movie, Love Actually. That doesn’t stop me from watching it at least once (and sometimes twice) in the season. Come on, who can resist Bill Nighy as Billy Mack? And when Emma Thompson opens that Joni Mitchell Greatest Hits CD expecting the heart-shaped locket…

My Christmas movie viewing isn’t limited to these holiday “Classics.” Whether it’s a made-for-TV movie like Borrowed Hearts with Roma Downey, or a more recent theatrical release—The Holiday with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet, or Four Christmases with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, come to mind—or the “Harlequin” types with the paper-thin plots and the B/C-list actors (Boy Meets Girl,They Don’t Like Each Other, They Fall in Love, Happy Ending), I find myself donning my polar fleece pajama pants (the blue ones with the black snowflakes), making a cup of hot cocoa (okay—sometimes a glass of white wine), and settling in for two-plus hours of mindless entertainment. It’s all part of my holiday tradition, right along with drinking my annual glass of rum-laden, nutmeg-sprinkled eggnog and eating too many shortbread cookies. After all, January—and reality—will be here soon enough.

Do you have a favorite Christmas movie? Post a comment and let me know! 


HOLIDAY GIVEAWAY: Sign up for my newsletter before December 8, noon EST for a chance to win an Audible audiobook (US residents only). Winner’s choice: The Hanged Man’s Noose OR Skeletons in the Attic. Here’s the link.  The winner will be notified by email by December 11th. Good luck!

Keeping a Writer’s Journal

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by Linda Rodriguez
I
have kept journals for many decades. Even before my creative writing
professors encouraged me to keep them, I kept writer’s journals
after reading that writers I respected, such as Virginia Woolf and
Madeleine L’Engle, had kept writer’s journals. I have stacks and
stacks of them, and periodically I wade through years of them,
reading and mining for ideas and memories.

You
will notice I did not say I’ve kept diaries. A diary is an account
of your day-to-day activities. A writer’s journal is the artist’s
sketchbook of a writer. It holds the raw material, the thinking on
paper, that goes into learning how to write better and into creating
minor and major projects.

A
writer’s journal may have accounts of daily activities in it, along
with discussions of current events, descriptions of the striking
woman seen at the coffee shop, the idea for a new novel, the first
few paragraphs of a short story, lines or whole stanzas of a poem,
descriptions of the sound water makes dripping from trees into a
fountain at the park, pages of location or historical research, a
scary near-miss turned by what-if into the germ of a story or novel,
lists of words I love, scenes recaptured from my childhood or other
past moments, and much, much more. Writing exercises. Lists of
possible titles. The initial sketches of characters. Accounts of
dreams. Rants and complaints and a good bit of whining, as well.

Now,
I also keep computer journals as I write each novel. This is where I
go deeper into character, work out plotting difficulties, set myself
goals for the next chapter or section of the book, and keep track of
things that impinge on the writing of the book. Older versions of
this are what I turn to when I need to find out how long I think it
will take me to complete some phase of the new book. Also, it’s
where I look for encouragement when going through tough times on a
book. I almost always find I’ve made it through something similar
before. I keep my journals in bound books between novels and in
addition to the novel journals kept on the computer.

I
can’t tell you how many times I’ve found ideas or characters or
settings for stories, poems, and books while going back through these
journals—or found ideas that connect with other ideas I have to
complete the concept for a novel or poem. Also, as I look through
them, I can see on the page how my writing has improved over the
years. I consider these journals necessities for my continuing growth
as a writer. Just as a musician continues practicing the scales and
more ambitious exercises daily, just as a painter continues sketching
constantly, I keep opening my journal and writing down a description
or an idea or a question I’m wrestling with or a character I’m
exploring. Madeleine L’Engle called her journal work her
“five-finger exercises,” comparing this work to the concert
pianist’s practicing scales.

I
often tell young students to keep journals, even if they don’t want
to become writers. I believe it will help them navigate the fraught
waters of adolescence. I know it helped me come to terms with a
damaging, abusive childhood and write my way out of the anger, pain,
fear, and shame it engendered in me. I’ve used journaling as an
effective therapeutic technique with incarcerated youth, and I
believe it’s something anyone can do to help them work their way
through emotional pain and problems.

I
have plain spiral notebooks, composition books, three-ring binders,
and an assortment of bound books of many sizes and appearances. I
have heard some people say they could never write in a really
beautiful bound book because it would intimidate them, but I write
even in the gorgeous handmade ones friends and family give me as
luscious gifts. The act of writing is what keeps me from becoming too
intimidated to write.

If
you’re a writer, do you keep journals? In notebooks or on the
computer or both? And if you’re not a writer, have you used a
journal before to work through thorny issues?


Linda Rodriguez’s Plotting the
Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The
World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East,
an anthology she co-edited, are her newest books. Dark Sister:
Poems will be published in May, 2018. Every Family Doubt,
her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief,
Skeet Bannion, will appear in August, 2018, and Revising the
Character-Driven Novel will be published in November, 2018. Her
three earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every
Broken Trust, and Every Last Secret—and
her books of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and
Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com