Caridad Pineiro® Romance Author
NY Times & USA Today Bestselling Romance Author
I am so so excited to have three different books available for free on Kindle Unlimited. If you love charming K-9 stories, there’s Decoy Training. Want to read a passionate story about a wealthy Lord trying to end an ancient Egyptian mummy’s curse? Pick up Nocturnal Whispers. Ever wonder what romantic encounter might happen on an overnight train ride to Prague? Then check out Her Vampire Lover. You can get them at https://amzn.to/3xPxnfl.
We didn’t get to take much out of Cuba when we left but many years later we were able to recover some old family photos. I love seeing how my parents and their friends looked. They all seemed so elegant in how they dressed. I especially love seeing photos of things like my mom’s First Communion and other big events. I’ll share some of those in the future. Today I’m sharing a photo of my parent signing their marriage license on their wedding day. My mom was so beautiful and my dad looks handsome as well. If you have photos of your parent’s wedding photos, take a moment to share and let me know a little about them!
One of the hard parts of being a published author is all the work you have to do for promotion. It takes time to think about what to write and what images to share. I have to say that Canva has helped a lot with the images part of it since it makes it easier to design the images. But then there’s also thinking about what conferences to attend and what to do at those conferences, like being on panels or hosting parties. You also have to think about what to bring to a conference to give out to readers! This year I’ve made some new koozies and bookmarks. What do you think? Would you like to get one of these? If you’ll be in the NJ area in April, you can catch me at the Liberty States Fiction Writers Conference Book Fair on April 1 and the Day of Wine, Romance, and More on April 29 and 30! Check out the events page for complete details on these events!
I’m doing really well with my lifestyle change. I try to get up and move during my hours-long writing sprints. I’m also taking a nice walk every day in addition to going to the gym to do the elliptical. I’ve also started lifting some weights! Yeah! Last but not least, I’m eating healthier. Unlike some past diets where I eliminated carbs almost entirely, I’m not doing that this time. I’m allowing myself some carbs because I don’t want to put the weight back on once I have carbs in my diet again. To date I’ve lost 15 pounds in about 6 weeks or so. One of the breads I recently made was this Cast Iron Beer Cheese Quick Bread from America’s Test Kitchen. It’s versatile since you can change up what cheese to use (I had cheddar!) and even though the recipe calls for chives, I didn’t have any and used scallions instead and it worked! So here’s the recipe for you. It’s quick, easy, and tasty!
2 1/2 cups All-Purpose flour
2 cups shredded Gruyere cheese
1 1/4 cups beer (no hoppy IPAs, just plain beer)
1/2 cup minced fresh chives (or scallions)
4 tsp baking powder
3 Tbsp melted unsalted butter
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Place rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Mix all the dry ingredients. Add half of the cheese and toss it together. Add the chives/scallions and the butter. Mix.
Grease a 10 inch cast iron skillet. Put the bread mix into the skillet and flatten the dough. Top with the remaining half of the cheese.
Bake for about 30-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the bread comes out clean. Let rest for at least 15 minutes in the skillet and then remove from the skillet onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
It’s hard to find the motivation to do things sometimes. Whether it’s writing, cleaning, losing weight (now 15 pounds down!), or something else, finding the oomph to do it can be rough. The thing I tell myself is: I can do it! It may take me a little longer to get up the energy to do it, but I can handle whatever comes at me this week. This week I’m working on hitting my 10K steps daily and tackling #3 in the South Beach Security K-9 spinoff. It’s called Killer in the Kennels and the story revolves around the SBS’s new K-9 training center. In this story you’ll get to meet Jose “Pepe” Gonzalez who is one of the Gonzalez cousins. Pepe has never wanted to be involved in any SBS business but in Killer in the Kennels, he finds himself drawn into a complicated case involving the new SBS K-9 trainer and a serial killer. For more about the South Beach Security series, please visit https://amzn.to/3GYWSAo.
As you may know from following me on Facebook and here, I’ve been trying to eat better and also wanted to do my part to eliminate food waste. Because of that, I signed up for Misfits Market. I’ve gotten two orders using a 40% off the first $25 coupon so that made it easier to buy more to meet the $35 dollar minimum (now $39 due to an increase). But there was also a $6.99 shipping fee (now $7.99). I still have one more coupon order to go and have to make a decision whether to continue at what will be a higher price. Because of that, I headed off to my local Aldi’s and purchased $35 dollars worth of produce to see how it would compare (see below). My impression was that I got a little more at Aldi’s and didn’t have to pay for the shipping (which was more than the cost of gas to Aldi’s). Also, once the coupon goes away, I’ll get less produce for the same price. So what’s my decision? After I use this last coupon, I’ll just be shopping locally and come June 4, I’ll be getting a delivery every week from a local farm as part of a CSA I joined. What’s a CSA? It’s Community Supported Agriculture and by joining that group, I’m helping a local NJ farm and buying produce that doesn’t need to get shipped all across the country (or world!). That’s a win-win. As soon as the CSA starts, I’ll share how that’s going.
TGIF it’s Friday! I thought that after I left my full-time job to write Fridays would lose some of their WOO HOO IT’S FRIDAY vibe, but nope, Friday is still special. I still look forward to the weekend, especially since I’m going to spend some time with my daughter on Sunday. That’s always fun. As for Saturday, I’m hoping for a pretty day so I can take a long stroll on the boardwalk. Writing, of course! I’m working on #3 in the South Beach Security K-9 Division spinoff. That series will be out in Summer 2024 but you can read the first three books in the series right now at https://amzn.to/3GYWSAo.
