LETTING GO OF HER

/ Erin Kettle / Leave a comment

A Mystery that brings the heart and the chase

Possible book jacket blurb?

Secret Service or not, there really are no secrets in a small town, when people are alive to tell them.

Secret Service Agent Isa Campos returns to her stifling childhood hometown to recover from taking a bullet to save the first female president. Instead of recovering, she begins to spiral into an obsession with confronting a past secret and identifying the president’s shooter, bringing unwanted attention right to her doorstep. Isa’s past and present collide, threatening to devastate Isa, her town, and her country.

Down the Rabbit Hole

/ Erin Kettle / 2 Comments

I love this quote from ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND Author Lewis Carroll:

“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Seeing as many days I don’t eat breakfast, that means I have all day to dream. It also means that dreaming big is what gets you to the place you need to go.

Where will you be?

My heart belongs to Palm Springs

/ Erin Kettle / Leave a comment

Last time I was here I was reading “Guncle” by Steven Rowley and chuckling to myself on the very rooftop of the same hotel that was mentioned in the book. And now I’m back at that same spot, trying to create a master plan of how to stay here forever…

I should say my heart belongs to that hotel, because it’s so amazing, from its design to the food. You’re hearing from a Portlander that has seasonal depression from September to July, that she loves Palm Springs. Not shocking.

I’m taking the time to write, a new WIP, and double check some final edits on Letting Go of Her. This is my inspo this morning.

What is Immersion?

/ Erin Kettle / Leave a comment

I’m reading this volleyball book that’s written for my 7th grader, and it talks about all of the stages of fear to anger, and it’s so interesting.

It makes me so interested to think about what we do in life, work and with our kids when we decide it’s all or nothing. Before I went freelance, I struggled with not doing all or nothing. Looking back, I wonder who that person was and how she lost her way. Yet, I work with some exciting clients, and I feel that same pull. Is it completion? Success? Either way, I’m happy to be at a different crossroads than what I was before.

I look at my daughters and see the same struggle. I don’t want my kids to fall to the same people pleaser mentality that our generation did. One is an empath and one is a teenager so…what’s that? Unhappy? Kidding.

My husband has decided he needs to do daily cold plunges in our tub. And we’re buying bags of ice to make this happen. I mean, it’s good…no I’m sure it is. To hear some solid research, listen to the Huberman lab.

I guess I just falter in that everything in moderation.

Night and Day

/ Erin Kettle / Leave a comment

Once we got through the ice storm, finally got electricity after a week, and our kitchen was finished…I never looked back.

Here are the final pics!

Going from very dark and closed in, to LIGHT, shapes a lifts my soul ❤️.

Tales from the Garage Kitchen

/ Erin Kettle / Leave a comment

We kicked off a kitchen remodel in January and have spent the last three months making food out of our cold, dark garage. Here are some key lessons I learned:

Don’t do it in the winter, it’s really cold in the garage. Even peanut butter gets frozen…

You can microwave nearly everything, and you can even try the things you shouldn’t. Not having used the microwave much, this was like a science experiment to the detriment of my children…

Washing dishes in the utility sink, in the cold, was not my favorite.

I figured this would force us to use the crockpot, Instant Pot, and more, but we’ve only used them a handful of times because the prep in a garage is not very exciting.

When we lost power for a week, and literally were in a dark garage with headlamps, we were fine not eating (much).

Put the peanut butter in the house.

It’s very enticing to order take out. How will we go back to cooking when the kitchen is back?

There are so many microwave meals out there. Like tons! It’s a whole marketplace…never fear (or do if you decide to partake).

We took a few trips to stay in a cabin at the Mt. Hood during the renovations, and found out what a special thing is was to get away in the winter to a winter wonderland. It’s something we hope to do next year, too!

You can also BBQ everything, even deep dish pizza. Pizza is a required part of the diet, so this was a necessary discovery.

You can cook an Easter meal using the Instant Pot, BBQ and microwave, on paper plates. It was one for the books.

Three months actually goes pretty quick at the end of it. But yeah, it was a cold, interesting few months of food…

Kitchen prep/garage area in the beginning.

What Feels like Forever (with antagonist COVID)

/ Erin Kettle / Leave a comment

Reflecting on the past ten months, it’s like the never ending story, Groundhog Day, but instead of trying to change our lives, we’re yearning to remember what the old normal was. Simple pleasures of eating at a restaurant, being able to connect with newer friends or new business colleagues in person, and traveling

…oh to travel again!

When people begin to come out of their shells, the landscape may look much differently and the old haunts we love so much may not be around. There are ways to support them, especially with Takeout Tuesday.

Do you have a bucket list? Is the vaccine on one of them? Sadly it seems that this pandemic has become political, but at the end of the day, I think we all want the same things. This past year will inadvertently give us the space to try new things, for life to take on a new meaning or possibly offer up a different path.

My bucket list:

Kids get back to sports (everything is shut down here), EAT IN EVERY RESTAURANT, hug friends, host dinners, work out in a gym, in-person school…our last day in person at school was last spring, get to Thailand since it was cancelled last March, not fearing illness and burn the mask, and travel travel travel!

What’s your bucket list?

What are you Reading?

/ Erin Kettle / 2 Comments

It feels like December gets sooo busy, it’s nice to shake things up with a good book.

What’s caught your eye?

Take a look at these amazing free neighborhood libraries. I think we might need one….

Here’s your ticket to holiday survival…#read

No Tragedy in Finding Hope

/ Erin Kettle / Leave a comment
I love the conversations happening around Selma Blair’s “Good Morning America” interview and her Vanity Fair piece on having MS. She is so courageous to show the raw, unpredictable and scary (generally not even medically understood) parts of the disease. And what comes after…the fear of its impact on your body, your career, and personal life.
As someone that struggled with these same questions when I was diagnosed, I was moved watching her, her struggles, and then to find hope.
Above all, it’s hard to feel lucky when you have a disease, but watching her had me in tears. I do feel lucky for what it’s worth, and I’ll take every one of these years in remission.
Throughout our lives it’ll be our job to decide which way to go at a cross road, sometimes this choice may come several times in our lives. There is opportunity in every new story, and just because it may not match the older version, doesn’t mean it isn’t brimming with hope, love and fulfillment.
It can be whatever you want it to be.

green wooden chair on white surface

Photo by Paula Schmidt on Pexels.com