Review: Heresy by S.J. Parris

I don't read many thriller or mystery books but I really enjoyed Heresy, by S.J. Parris.

The Italian Inquisition is after Dr. Bruno, a monk, for reading a banned book but he escapes to France.  When there, he gains the favor of the French Court and the king sends him to England, where most of the story takes place.  Bruno gets drafted as a spy into the service of the English court.  His personal quest to find a book thought to be lost leads him to Oxford, where the English court wants him to discover hidden papists.  It's in Oxford that Dr. Bruno takes on a third title, detective, to solve a few murders.

Just when you think you've got the plot figured out, a wrench is thrown into your imagined plan and you have to keep turning the pages to create a new plan.

Hidden Tomato Smoothie

Fresh strawberries and cantaloupe were super cheap at the grocery store tonight so I thought I'd make a super fruity smoothie!  I already had blackberries, oranges and peach yogurt at home.  I made a meatball-stuffed tomato for dinner so I had the insides of the tomato too.  I hadn't ever put a tomato in a smoothie but thought I'd give it a try!  It turns out you can't even taste the tomato - hence the name!  Someone who doesn't like tomatoes could drink this, have no idea tomatoes are in it but still get the vitamins from the fruit!

Look at the color of this smoothie!

Here's what I had in my smoothie:

1 peach yogurt
1 orange
1 big handful of blackberries
4 strawberries
splash of orange juice
1/2 cantaloupe
1 tomato (whole or the insides)
pinch of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons of honey

Do you have a favorite smoothie recipe or ingredient combo?  I'd love to know what it is!  Smoothies are one of my favorite parts about summer!

Why Millennials Celebrated

September 11, 2001.  I was in Mrs. Kiser's 7th grade English class when I found out what terrorists and the Twin Towers were and that the Towers had fallen.  And, I was 12 years old.  Osama Bin Laden instantly became "The Bad Guy."  Soon after, Saddam Hussein was "The Other Bad Guy."

Jump forward to May 1, 2011.  My classmates and I have grown up with two wars, the death of The Other Bad Guy, and the ongoing search for The Bad Guy.  We learned about our grandparents' bad guys (The Axis Powers) in history books.  We heard about our parents' bad guys (Cuba, USSR and Communism) from their stories (and the occasional textbook).  Our grandparents had big celebrations on VE Day and VJ Day.  Our parents celebrated the fall of the Iron Curtain.  When word came that Bin Laden was killed, my generation celebrated because now The Bad Guy had joined The Other Bad Guy.  We know the wars aren't over, but this is a major victory, for our country, for our military, and for the world.  America's big-name enemies from our lifetime have been defeated, giving us a reason to celebrate.

The Future: Decided!

I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the KENS 5 news team in San Antonio in June!  I visited the station earlier this week and accepted the 6 p.m. producer position on Friday!  I'm looking forward to heading back to Texas and getting to know the San Antonio area and audience!

Convenience of the Kindle

Santa brought me a Kindle for Christmas and I've been reading on it since then.  I didn't realize how spoiled it made me until I started to read Cutting for Stone, which is thick in paperback.  It's nice to go back to a real book, but at the same time, it's bulkier and heavier than the Kindle.  And I didn't realize how much I had come to rely on the instant dictionary!  I found myself wanting to know what a word meant and looking for the arrow to navigate to the word for the dictionary.  But, I had to pull the word up on my iPhone dictionary app and wait for it to load.  It took so much time compared to the Kindle dictionary that I eventually gave up and used context clues to find the definition.  To say the least, I'll be sticking with the Kindle for a long time!

That spontaneous roadtrip I mentioned?  It happened!  Three of my puppy-crazed friends and I headed to Texas and spent the weekend playing with Cowboy (the puppy's name).  I'm sure that puppy was always being held or being pet!  We also lucked out and had beautiful weather so we played on the lake too! 

A Google A Day

Have you played agoogleaday?  It's Google's new interactive trivia game released this week.  The question gives a few sentences that serve as clues.  The player uses the first sentence's clues as Google Search keywords and explores the links to find the answers.  Each answer helps figure out the next sentence's search words, until the player finds the answer to the entire trivia question.  I think this is a fun way to learn random facts.  The first one I tried was about Robert and Rohan and their musician father.  In the end, I learned that Bob Marley had a ton of kids.  The creators are smart because they include links to let people share the question on Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, and email and to follow the question on Facebook and Twitter.  This allows them to stay in contact with the users who might forget to keep playing after their first try.

But, this game leaves me with questions about Google's motives.  Are they trying to increase their site hits or is it a way for them to interact with users?  Will they eventually give in to the pull of more profit and let the trivia question be sponsored (publicly or secretly) so that the answer ends up promoting a product, company, event, or person?  I'm sure that over time Google's motives will become clear and only time will tell if this becomes a popular game or not.

Fulfilling Week

This week, I gave myself the goal to keep the live recap in my 5 p.m. show.  In the past, my reporter either forgot to write it or the show got heavy enough to drop it, so I've never had the live recap in my 5 p.m. show.  I was determined to keep it!  I went into my show 27 seconds light, and dropped only four items.  I was so excited when I finished the show with the live recap that I was shaking when I walked out of the control room!




Tuesday's 10 p.m. show was the first election coverage I'd ever produced.  I was nervous at the beginning of my shift because I wasn't sure how our station planned on covering it (special reporters or graphics, etc).  As the day went on, I worked with my executive producer and we figured out how we were going to get the election coverage into the show.  What you don't see when you watch the show is all the manpower that was in the newsroom.  We had a team of people calling cities in the surrounding areas for the outcome or progress of their elections and the news director and another girl putting the graphics together. So much effort went into making our election coverage great.

A new addition was added to my family today.  Meet Cowboy Boots (he'll go by Cowboy).  He's an 8 week old yellow Labrador Retriever.  I haven't even met this puppy yet, but thanks to technology I feel like I'm getting to know him.  My dad and brother have been sending me pictures and videos all afternoon - but it still doesn't fill my desire to hold and pet this puppy!  Maybe a spontaneous roadtrip is in place?