Friends Lunch

My girlfriends came over for lunch by the pool today.

It's been a while since I've seen them, and it was so nice to catch up. 

On the menu: 

Ham and havarti sliders on Hawaiian rolls 

(Yum! I've never made these before and will definitely do it again. Pagosa? 

But I won't put additional mustard on the bread. A little too much of a good thing.

Also subbed everything seasoning for the poppy seeds which was delish.)

Peach, cucumber (garden!), avocado, pecan, feta salad.

I'm never sure how much one container of lettuce will serve and usually end up buying too much.

Today I counted out handfuls when prepping, and a small container is 5 oz. -- about 8 servings. 

(You know what would be cool, an "Encyclopedia" app that you can add the info you'll want to reference regularly in the future. It would be different than the Notes app, because it would just be a sentence or a few figures. I think it would be a hit. I'll have to tell Nick, he's always thinking of app ideas.)

KT was the only one who could stay after lunch and swim and then Annie showed up

so we had second lunch and had fun hearing about everything in her life.

When KT left, Annie stayed a bit longer and helped me take all the food in.

Then I realized I had no place to be and just because everyone left didn't mean I couldn't hang out by the pool!

I started Hell of a Book by Jason Mott. It's been on my shelf for a while, recommended to me by a writing group friend, but I wasn't sure if it was going to be a heavy, depressing read so was reluctant to start.

Mott was a keynote speaker at the Writer's Digest conference I went to in New York and

was entertaining, funny, inspiring and down-to-earth. He talked a lot about his career and his first science fiction books then pivoting and writing this book and how it was originally two different books.

One a humorous book about an author on tour. But it was kind of fluff and too silly. 

And another about the atrocities of a black child killed in a hate crime and it was super depressing.

And then he combined the two and added hope and it ended up winning the Book List Award for fiction.

So ever since then I've been dying to read it. 

So far it's living up to the hype. Loving it. Humor and heart.

When the pool got shady and cool, I sat in the hot tub and fell asleep for 30 minutes.