The Wedding Vow BLACK FRIDAY 2023 PROMOTION!

Black Friday 2023 promotion event!

Book 1:  I Take Thee.  FREE 11/24/2023 ~ 11/28/2023

I TAKE THEE

Book 2:  From This Day Forward.  On sale for $0.99!

FROM THIS DAY FORWARD

Book 3:  To Hold & To Cherish.  On sale for $0.99!

TO HOLD & TO CHERISH

Book 4:  'Til Death Do Us Part.  Unfortunately I didn't make this on time for the sale.  Maybe Christmas.  Here's the preview for the book cover!

'TIL DEATH DO US PART

REDEMPTION, short story FREE PROMOTION for Thanksgiving 2023!

My short story, REDEMPTION, is free on Amazon 11/23/2023 ~ 11/27/2023!

Free with Kindle Unlimited!

He fell in love with her the first time they met, on her wedding day.  The more he got to know her, the more mistakes he made.  If he did not hurry to redeem himself, the others would sweep her off her feet!

This is a romance novella set in fantasy medieval time period. There are a few curse words, but no explicit sex scenes.

Redemption

The Wedding Vow series

19 November 2023 Update:  I finally finished editing book 4!!!  Now onto book cover design.  Will I make Thanksgiving Black Friday sale?  We'll see!

Original Post:

Book 3, To Hold & To Cherish, was published in April 2022.  I promised myself that the series finale book 4, 'Till Death Do Us Part, would be published by the end of 2022.  It didn't happen.

Four business trips and two personal trips in 2022.  Then grandfather passed away.  Now I'm in the process of moving and still without furniture after 2.5 months.  I'm exhausted.

No.  This is not allowed.  I've got to publish the last book by the end of 2023.  It's actually already written from the prologue to the epilogue.  I just need to go back to every chapter, edit, proofread, and add/delete background information such as weather, the character's clothing in the weather, etc.

In the meanwhile, I'd like to thank all the readers that gave me stars on Amazon and Goodreads.  Big promotions when book 4 is published, as an appreciation gift!

Book 1:  I Take Thee

I TAKE THEE

Book 2:  From This Day Forward

Book 3:  To Hold & To Cherish

Book 4:  'Til Death Do Us Part (coming soon!)

Married Life / 婚姻生活, #5

A guy in the office is quitting to go to another job.  The first response from Math Teacher after I told him, was, "Did your farts push him away?"  Ah, married life.

辦公室有人要辭職了

數學老師的第一個反應：「是不是妳的臭屁趕走人家？」

The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

Great movie! I wouldn’t call it a scary movie. It was suspense-laden. It kept me at the edge. I kept guessing wrong

The movie was very faithful to the book. This was how I imagined the ship crew gone crazy when I read the book. The movie added some characters and one dog, but it didn’t take away the real theme: Dracula was scary and would feast on you alive.

How I wish they would make Dracula into a miniseries. There’s enough sex and blood to keep everyone happy.  See my previous post about the book Dracula.

Work Life, #2

We were lucky or unlucky to be in an office that was old, like 1930 and before old.  It was renovated several times and we have a kitchen with a stove and oven.  So the boss brought in a casserole and put it in the oven to heat up.  She went about her work and meetings and stuff.

The fire alarm went off!  LOUD 📢📢📢!  She panicked.  Her boss panicked.  They looked around and found smoke coming out of the oven, but at least no fire.  The casserole somehow survived.  The two bosses hurried to call the police and fire department to cancel the fire alarm.  In the panic they forgot which one was the non-emergency phone number.

The police 🚓 showed up.  They were able to turn the fire alarm off.  They explained nobody used the oven since 1970s.  They were able to find the non-emergency phone number to cancel the fire department 🚒.

Amidst the craziness us worker bees walked in.  The two bosses looked extremely embarrassed.  We were laughing so hard 🤣🤣🤣.  One month ago the big boss implemented a new rule that someone must always be in to man the office.  We joked that was to make sure the office wasn't burned down.  Also when we came back from a long vacation, we liked to joke, "Is the office burned down while I'm gone?"

The two bosses almost burned down the office, when all the worker bees were gone.  It's always funnier when it's boss' fault.

MORALS of the story:

1. What a great way to test the fire alarms in the office!  However, we don't have sprinklers.  Don't know if that's a blessing or a curse.  If the sprinklers had gone off, all of our work, paper or electronic, would be ruined. 🌊🌧
2. Doesn't matter how many Public Service Announcement posters they put around the office, in a panic, everything was forgotten.
3. Can't imagine if it were us worker bees burning down the office.  We would be fired or at least be written up for disciplinary actions.  The boss and her boss, they were fine.

Mushroom Bourguignon

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp butter 
• 4 large portobellos, ends trimmed, brushed clean, cut into bite size pieces 
• Salt & black pepper
• 1 tbsp olive oil 
• 4 shallots, peeled, thickly sliced 
• 2 carrots, thickly sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced 
• 1 stick fresh oregano 
• 2 tbspns tomato paste 
• 1 cup red wine 
• 2 cups water, or more as needed 
• 1 bay leaf 
• 2 tbspns balsamic vinegar 
• 1 tbspn honey 
• Parsley, for garnishing 

Steps:

1. Heat 1 tbspn butter in a large stainless steel pot over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and lightly season with salt and black pepper. Cook until they begin to release their juices and brown at the edges, stirring frequently. Transfer to a bowl. 
2. Add 1 tbspn of olive oil to the pot. Add the shallots, carrots, garlic, and oregano and lightly season with salt and black pepper. Saute over medium heat until the vegetables begin to soften. 
3. Add the tomato paste and stir to coat ingredients and cook the tomato paste. 
4. Pour in the wine and deglaze the pot, stirring up any brown bits, then add the water and bay leaf. Return the mushrooms to the pot. They should be just covered with liquid; add more water to cover if not. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer for about half an hour. 
5. Stir in the balsamic vinegar and the honey, and taste for seasoning. 
6. Ladle into bowls and garnish with parsley. Serve with rice.

I've had beef bourguignon before, and it was delicious.  This was my first time attempting French cuisine.  I always worry that French cuisine is too complicated and time consuming.  However, my gosh, this recipe was idiot-proof.  I didn't even follow it exactly, but half an hour of simmering, the whole place smelled wonderful.

The most difficult part was shopping and cutting up the ingredients.  After that, it was more or less dumping one ingredient into the pot after another.  The next difficult part was waiting.  Half an hour?!  I usually have no patience.  This recipe is definitely a weekend project.  While waiting for the stew to reduce, I was able to clean the kitchen.

This is what's called "depth".  I could taste the wine, the herbs, the vegetables.  French cuisine is amazing at layering flavors.

Mushroom Bourguignon

Sick / 生病

生病了
真不好受

而且不知道生啥莫名其妙的病

一邊流鼻水

一邊流鼻血

Being sick was not fun.  And I didn't even know what kind of sickness this was.  Cold?  Flu?  Allergy?  Today I had runny nose and nose bleed at the same time.  WTF!  How was that even possible?

🤧🩸

The scariest thing was, while I had a tissue paper stuffed up my nose to stop the bleeding, my iPhone could still unlock me with face recognition.

The Twins Effect / Vampire Effect / 千機變 (2003)

只想看一個爛但有趣的電影，但這片簡直爛得不能看。

我是看美國版的，為了賺錢，美國版的封面放成龍，害我以為成龍是主角之一。結果不是，是那兩個女生。

演技太差，這電影只是為了捧她們偶像而已。鄭伊健那麼帥的也只是配角。成龍出現沒十分鐘，但那卻是這片最好看的十分鐘。

劇情也莫名其妙，以為是殺吸血鬼的動作片，半個小時以上卻是談戀愛。陳冠希演吸血鬼王子，竟然忘了自己不能曬太陽，約會約在中午十二點。結局是那兩個女生大戰吸血鬼，殺了壞蛋，陳冠希躺在地上裝死，但最後一幕卻是他擺中間兩個女主角在旁邊，真不公平。

28 Days Later (2002)

Artsy zombie movie. Can’t believe that was the description. I knew it was artsy when they got a big name star like Cillian Murphy to be naked.

The movie started with beautiful shots of London. Then it moved onto beautiful English countryside. Was this movie sponsored by bureau of tourism?

It was predictable as in who would die and who would survive. Math Teacher got bored at the end.