There Are Days Just Meant For Fun! A Holiday Review

 As Mid-March arrives, if anyone asks what your favorite color is, the answer better be GREEN!

Why?  Well everyone knows that on the 17th of March, the whole world seems to be Irish!  St. Patrick's Day is the one day of the year where GREEN is the mandatory color in everyone's attire or their accessories!

It doesn't matter if its Kelly Green, pale Green, Bold Emerald Green or any combination, the most important part is that it belongs to the family of Green! 

Now let's get down to a bit of history!  St. Patrick became the Patron Saint of the Green Isle when he was sent to proclaim Christ to the people in the 5th century.  Yes you read that right, he is a very old Patron Saint. He was born in Britain and at the age of 16 was taken from his village and placed into slavery in Ireland.  Yes, the times he lived in were barbarous and slavery was not uncommon. He did manage to escape, but felt a calling to return to Ireland. 

He was a very spiritual man, who during his travels around Ireland, baptized many people into the Catholic Christian Church.  He was very careful to keep the peace with all the chieftains in the region so that he was welcomed by all.  He gave gifts and took none in return.  Many legends surround St. Patrick, the most popular is the Shamrock which helped Patrick explain the concept of the Holy Trinity. 

St. Patrick is also credited with getting all the snakes, demons and practitioners of magic to leave Ireland.  These "miracles" cannot be authenticated, but many still believe them.

But let's get to the fun part, current day celebrations of St. Patrick's Day are attributed to the European immigrants in the 18th century.  Boston celebrated the first St. Patrick's Day parade in 1737.  The large Irish population enjoyed the celebrations so much that many new ways to celebrate the day came about.  The color GREEN not only celebrates St. Patrick, but rather is a way to celebrate the country of Ireland.  

Today we see everyone as Irish on March 17th and many people enjoy adding to the mirth and merriment of the day by adding something GREEN  to their clothing.  People will enjoy Irish foods and even color their beer for the day. 

Now I've given you fair warning that this holiday is coming up shortly and to that end have furnished you with a page from Amazon.com where you can find anything your little heart could desire to make this St. Patty's Day fun for you and your family. 

Just imagine a day without any strife and everyone wishing everyone else a Happy St. Patty's Day!  A little fun goes a long way. 

Here's an Irish Blessing Just for You!

May love and laughter

light your days

and warm your heart and home,

may good and faithful friends be yours 

wherever you may roam,

May peace and plenty bless your world 

with joy that long endures,

May all life's 

passing seasons 

bring the best

to you and yours!  

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY TO ALL!  MAY YOU ENJOY YOUR IRISH ON THE 17TH!

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Air Fryer Lightly Breaded Haddock Fillets

 These air fryer haddock fish fillets are crispy on the outside with flaky, tender fish on the inside. Here is proof that you don't need your oven to make a delicious healthy meal.

Air Fryer fish fillets - Reviewed

A couple of weeks ago the bottom element in our oven blew out leaving us with no oven. Fran picked up these haddock fish fillets at our local grocery store. They were already lightly breaded and ready for the oven.

Since we didn't have a working oven and didn't want to fry the fish on our stovetop, we decided to use our air fryer and cook the potatoes in our microwave. The Fish came out so crispy and tender that we have since made these again.

Since then, I have replaced the bottom bake element on our oven, so it is in working order again. However, I don't think I'll ever use the oven to bake fish again.

If your local grocery store doesn't have breaded fish fillets ready to cook, the following is a recipe for lightly breaded fish and our method of air frying.

Ingredients:

• 2 haddock fillets fresh or thawed, or your favorite fish fillets
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (use panko for extra crispness)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 egg beaten
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil or cooking spray
• Lemon wedges
• Tarter sauce or your favorite for dipping

Instructions:

1. In a shallow bowl, mix breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, paprika, salt, and black pepper.
2. Dip the fish fillets in the beaten egg mixture. Then dredge the fillets in the breadcrumb mixture, pressing lightly to make sure you coat the fillets.
3. Lightly spray the air fry basket with cooking spray.
4. Preheat the air fryer to 325 degrees. Place the fillets side by side, not touching each other. Air Fry for 12 to 15 minutes, turning them halfway through.

Our haddock fillets in the air fry basket, We added a lemon slice while they were cooking for some added flavor.

The air fryer is an excellent tool for achieving a crispy texture with minimal oil. In fact, all we did was spray the air fry basket with cooking spray. Air frying reduces fat and calories while still delivering a satisfying crunch. It's also known that an air fryer uses less energy than an oven.

We have a combination Ninja Foodi Grill and Air Fryer and just love it. You can find a large selection of Air Fryers on Amazon.

Ninja Foodi 4qt 5-in-1 Indoor Grill and Air Fryer - AG301Check the Price

 

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Book Review: Edge of Collapse: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller by Kyla Stone

The Edge of Collapse series is a binge-worthy, 7 book set in the post-apocalyptic genre. After the attack on the US, knocking out the power grid, communications, planes, vehicles, and most everything that is modernized, the big picture focus for everyone is to shake off the confusion and try to survive. Edge of Collapse Book One narrows in on a much more personal level. This national crisis presents Hannah a slim opportunity to escape her captor years after her abduction. Hannah's broken, pregnant body is no match for the sociopathic predator but her need to return to her son is strong. This moment is her only chance to return home.

Hannah is a devoted mother to a beautiful 3 year old son and was living a good life in a small Southwest Michigan town. She loved her husband, Noah, but they had been having some minor bumpy spots in their marriage. Then Hannah suddenly disappears.  Of course, everyone had their theories. Maybe her husband murdered her. Maybe she just ran away. Perhaps she was dead. People who knew her well knew that she would have never left her child. Regardless, the years passed without her return.

Now. Maimed and nearing the end of her pregnancy, the locked door of her basement prison unlatches. Hannah has tried to mark the days, months, and years in chalk marks on the wall but she is not sure of what month it is. She is sure that it is winter and brutally cold outside. Trying to push past her physical difficulties, paranoia, and panic attacks she intends to leave. Doing so means entering the forested area during a snowstorm with no idea where she is and how to get back home.

Edge of Collapse series Book One by Kyla Stone on Amazon

Gavin Pike is a hunter. A hunter of humans. Shortly after he put her in the basement, and during the time she was still trying to actively defend herself, he brought a photo to her on his next visit. A photo of her son and her husband in his Fall Creek patrolman uniform, standing in front of their home. This monster knew where her family lived. And knew her husband enough to obtain a current photo. With that unspoken threat, Gavin Pike had effectively ended her desire to physically fight back. A county correctional officer, Gavin wore a uniform and carried a badge that he often used to obtain things, power, and women. 

Liam is a sullen, loner Veteran who lives in an isolated cabin in the forests of Michigan. He had been visiting his twin brother and pregnant sister-in-law when the attack occurred.  With cars crashing and planes falling from the sky, Lincoln and Jessa die. Liam's sole focus is to return to his cabin as soon as possible.  During his trek toward home, in a remote wooded area, he encounters a pregnant women who hysterically screams at him to stay away from her. Liam is initially relieved to obey her and continue on his journey alone.  

But Liam is a good guy despite his stoney exterior. And he returns to retrieve her. Which places him directly in a predators sights. A predator who views killing others as a game which he always wins.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention the dog. The monster, Gavin Pike, keeps a large guard dog chained up at the cabin. Presumably to keep Hannah from being discovered in the rare event someone would come to the remote cabin. Terrified of being bitten, but empathetic, Hannah releases the huge Great Pyrenees from it's own prison. And, as guardian dogs do, this dog decides to actively protects his family. 

Author Kyla Stone paints a vivid picture of the conditions and the risk. The chapters are written in the voice of each individual character, telling their own version of the events. She does this beautifully.  Other reviewers use phrases such as "unputdownable", "intense", and "nonstop action". These phrases are often over-used in book reviews but in this case, the praise fits.  I have difficulties feeling as though I adequately describe the really good writing of others. If you are at all curious, I hope you will consider reading the reviews others have written about Edge of Collapse: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller, Book One. If this isn't your usual genre, don't be put off. This story was more Silence of the Lambs with Buffalo Bill than a doomsday prepper's guide to beans, band-aids, and bullets. 

One final thought, fans of the Reacher series on Amazon and of the author will enjoy these characters; flawed good guys fighting against bad guys. If you aren't familiar with Reacher, you might want to take a peek at my Reviewing Reacher The Book and the Amazon Series  

Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN), Esty (Awin), and/or Zazzle Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”

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Gracie's Edge of Knowing - A Flash Fiction Story

My Flash Fiction Short Story

This story is about Gracie, an 82-year-old woman who reflects on the choices that shaped her life, wondering if she unknowingly chose hardship over ease or if each struggle was a lesson meant to expand her soul.

Gracie's Edge of Knowing

Gracie rocked gently on the front porch, the creak of the wooden boards beneath her chair keeping time with the rhythmic chirp of the crickets. The air was thick with the scent of earth and wildflowers, the sun dipping below the trees in a lazy surrender to dusk. 

She watched the world settle, the sky shifting from gold to deep violet, the colors blending like the years of her life—some vibrant, some shadowed, all layered upon each other.

Eighty-two years had come and gone, each one filled with choices—some deliberate, some made in haste, some dictated by circumstance. They all brought her to this porch, in this moment of reflection.

She had never been unhappy, not truly. Even when life was at its hardest, when the money ran thin, when loss hollowed her out, when the weight of responsibility pressed upon her shoulders—there had always been a quiet joy inside her. A knowing. An acceptance. 

But tonight, as the twilight deepened, a familiar question lingered on the edges of her thoughts, like the echo of a song she could never quite forget: Had she chosen wisely, or had she simply chosen difficulty? Had she spent her years intentionally growing or foolishly suffering?

You see, Gracie had never been one to take the easy road. Even as a girl, she felt drawn to the winding paths that made her think, feel, struggle, and stretch. 

Some had said she married young, too young. But she and Jack had built a life together, one of hard work, sacrifice, and victories that only they could fully understand. 

Jack had been gone for five years now, but his echo still lived in the walls of their home—a presence that whispered through every corner and crevice, like the wind moving through the trees.

Their children had grown, as children do, into lives of their own—busy lives, full of their own choices. She was never upset when they couldn't visit. She knew how it was; she had once been them, caught in the whirlwind of a young, on-the-go life. 

And she was not lonely. Loneliness was an emptiness, and she was not empty. She was simply wondering.

Had she wasted this trip to earth?

Her hands, wrinkled and wise, rested in her lap as she reflected upon her life. 

She had lived at the edge of outer peace, always on the periphery of the easy life. But inner peace? That she had. A deep well of it, a knowing that everything—every heartbreak, every struggle, every joy—had led her to an understanding that could not have come any other way. 

She had not walked the simplest path, but perhaps she had walked the one that mattered most for her needed life lessons.

Maybe that was the point of it all: To arrive at the end with a soul that had stretched and softened, that had learned love beyond self, that had carried burdens only to lay them down with grace. To have gathered wisdom not from ease but from experience.

She exhaled, long and slow, as if releasing the weight of the question into the evening air. The answer was not hers to fully grasp, not yet.

Perhaps she wouldn't understand until she left this place, until the universe whispered the truth into her soul as she crossed into whatever came next. And that was fine. She could wait.

For now, she lived with love in her heart, and that was enough. The night deepened, the stars blinking awake one by one, and Gracie rocked on, peaceful in the not knowing.

___________________

I hope you've enjoyed my attempt at flash fiction 🕮

If you're into a longer story, I've penned this short story, The Gift of Knowing (can you sense a theme here?).

___________________

50 Years of Poetry - We Will Have Morning Smiles, Available on Amazon (A lifetime of my personal poetry).

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Identity Unknown by Patricia Cornwell

Book Review of Book 28 of 28 in the Kay Scarpetta series.

Patricia Cornwell sold her first novel, Postmortem, in 1990 while working at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia. 

During that same time period, I was working for a Medical Examiner in Mid-Missouri and found the whole subject of the work of medical examiners fascinating and interesting. Thus, Postmortem appealed to me. After reading it, I immediately became a fan of author Patricia Cornwell. As a matter of fact, during that time my boss attended a medical examiner meeting on the East Coast and actually met Patricia Cornwell. 

Cornwell has written several series, but her most well-known one is that featuring Kay Scarpetta, a Medical Examiner in Virginia, as the main character. This is my review of her latest book in the series, Book #28 ~ Identity Unknown. 

Synopsis of Identity Unknown

Identity Unknown (Kay Scarpetta)

The plot begins as Dr. Kay Scarpetta is summoned to an abandoned theme park to retrieve a body. She is devastated to learn that the victim is a dear friend; well-known astrophysicist, Sal Giordano. 

The  murder scene is very strange. The body appears to be atypically red and is found lying within a crop circle of petals. Examination of his fatal injuries indicate that he was dropped from a great height from an unidentified flying craft. 

The subsequent autopsy and investigation reveals suspicions that include an otherworldly force or perhaps something Giordano himself was involved in. 

Kay Scarpetta, along with her niece and her husband (both who work for the Secret Service) search out an explanation closer to home, which is possibly far more evil. 

Summary

Outstanding storytelling, with characters who feel like family after twenty-eight books in the series, Identity Unknown is an excellent addition to the Kay Scarpetta Series. I highly recommend it to fans of the series and of author Patricia Cornwell.

Related Review:

• Autopsy by Patricia Cornwell

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*Book Review of Identity Unknown written by Wednesday Elf

 

Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN), Esty (Awin), and/or Zazzle Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”

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