What I Thought

This is Maria V. Snyder’s second series in the same world and the characters from the first series are well established and some continue on in this series – so be aware! Start with her Study Series then move to this one – that’s a fantastic series and why I even decided to start on this series.

I actually really liked this book even thought I guessed what was going to happen most of the way through the book. The setting of this story are the kingdoms of Sitia and Ixia – naturally two polar opposites when it comes to magic use. Sitia embraces it and Ixia loathes it. The characters and how they were portrayed was decent if not a little frustrating. At times they seems a little flat or slow.

Even with the minimal funkiness the rest was really good. The theme of grief and loss play heavy into most of this book and Snyder manages to not have it be melancholy.  My favorite quote from the book is actually about grief:

Everyone grieves in different ways. For some, it could take longer or shorter. I do know it never disappears. An ember still smolders inside me. Most days, I don’t notice it, but, out of the blue, it’ll flare to life. — Opal Cowan

I think that another centeral theme to this story was confidence adn trusting in your abilities. The protagonist Opal spends most of the book hemming and hawing about how she’s only a one note magician and that she’s not special at all while every other character in the book is telling she’s something special. It does get old quick but I think that it was necessary and I think that theme will continue on into the next book in the series.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I’ve also gone through all of the old posts and updated them as well as getting a new Archive working properly, updating my About page and adding in a Quote page with some of my favorite lines from the books I read.

This week on DE expect:

• Book reviews!
• Recipe post
• Plus more MPM posts!

What do you think?

Via The Stone Soup

It’s already been a week apparently! A new Menu Plan Monday is here! Just note that I’m a pescatarian and my boyfriend/partner in mischief is vegan preferred. We’re not going full slow carb yet but we are doing really well with omitting carbs where we can. This week there’s only noodles 1 night  and we’re upping our bean intake. We’re both pretty happy with this menu and I think that we’re both excited for the lemon cake. We haven’t had a homemade treat in a long while [since baking and I seem to fight] but this is a pretty easy cake and since it’s winter lemons are cheap and easy to come by. I’ll probably serve the cake with coconut ice cream, whip cream or soy whip. It should really help us out since I know that we’ll be missing the carbs. I am also happy that our greens intake is upped this week as well. We’re doing much better with getting in those leafy greens and it helps we both love them. He’s more of a fan of cooked greens and I prefer them raw so it’s a good mix of the two this week.

This week’s dinner plans include

• Buffalo Tofu + Simple Green Salad - Buffalo tofu is his favorite meal – forever.
• 2 Minute Noodles with Bok Choy & Oyster Sauce
• Chorizo with Chickpeas & Tomato - Our favorite vegan chorizo is from Trader Joe’s – it’s crumbly and not meant for slicing but delicious. We’ve had a lot of terrible vegan chorizo and this stuff is amazing.
• Warming Onion & White Bean Bake + Simple Green Salad
• Homebaked Beans + Wilted Greens with Parmesan - I’ll have real parmesan and he’ll have vegan parmesan.
• Black Pepper Cauliflower with Tofu

This week’s breakfast, lunch & treat plans include

• Tomato Tofu Scramble + tortillas – for him!
• Chickpea & Rosemary Baked Fritatta - for me!
• Pumpkin Seeds, Walnut & Cherry Muesli with almond or coconut milk if we want something sweet
• Butter Bean & Salmon Salad – like this recipe only with salmon instead of tuna
• Super Light Slaw with Salmon
• He’ll be eating leftovers for his lunches – he’s a better sport than I am [unless it's a soup or salad!]
• The treat this week is this super simple lemon cake.

From The Stone Soup

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]ow! First Menu Plan Monday of the year! We are in the process of getting all our ducks lined up to really dive into The Four Hour Body. The plan right now is to start in February when things will be better planned for some big changes.  I’ve decided that to make things easier for when we do start to start including more beans [something we both love and eat a lot of anyways] and lentils [something I love and he tolerates] into our menu. I’ve been lucky to stumble on the great blog The Stone Soup and have purchased The Tired and Hungry Cook’s Companion eBook as well as Mastering the Art of Cooking on a Budget eCourse. We’ve been eating really amazing from these and I highly suggest them. I love that there are vegetarian and vegan options – amazing. There are multiple ways for each recipe so let’s say you eat meat there is a way to add meat to the meal or if you are gluten free there will be a way to make the meal gluten free. I love that most of the food is ready within 15 minutes and only 5 ingredients are necessary. It really has streamlined our eating. I’m currently looking for some lunch options. Breakfasts are easy – tofu scramble for him and a piece of frittata for me. Lunch is always hard unless there is leftovers. We’ll see how this week goes!

This week’s food plans include

• Warm Cauliflower Salad with Lovely Lentils
• Simple Soba Noodle Soup
• Butter Chickpeas on Lovely Lentils
• Simple Tofu Laksa with Bok Choy with Miso Dressing
• Roasted Mushrooms with Creamy Mushroom Sauce [we're just going to use coconut milk for the cream] with Simple Greens
• Simple Sausage Supper with Winter Veggies [We're using field roast sausages and potatoes, onions and carrots]
• Pesto Cauliflower

I am really excited for all of this. It’s been really nice eating in this post week with lots of veggies. We had been eating out a lot during the holidays and it’s nice that now we are back on budget and eating not garbage.

What are you eating this week?

A book with a lot of claims. I am excited to start implementing some of this ideas of this book into my life. Here is a quick rundown of what I’ll be adding [and subtracting!] into my life:

• Slow Carb Diet [Pescatarian skewed]
• Small bursts of exercise right before and 90 minutes after I eat something
• Eating every 4 hours
• 15 minutes a day of Kettleball action
• PAGG [Vitamins and Supplements]
• Ice pack on my neck for 30 minutes a day

That is what I am starting with for the 4-Hour Body. I think that hardest will be the diet since I’m kissing carbs good bye for a bit and I think the easiest will be taking the supplements and eating every four hours. I’ll be starting on it a bit after the new year. I hope it works out great! I plan on doing to for 6 weeks.