Happy New Year!

January is almost over, but as this is my first blog this year, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year! I hope you had a good start to the year.

I need to work on a couple of my resolutions and goals, but trying my best every day.

One of these goals is of course this blog. Thanks to the topic calendar from OM Collective (www.omcollective.com) I had a blog post planned for each of the previous weeks of January. 

It seems, however, that I wasn’t that invested in the actual topics I selected.

For the first week of January, I wanted to share some mocktail recipes for Dry January, or Tournée Minérale next month (in Belgium) or just for any time where you say: “I’m not drinking (right now). I think the reason I haven’t posted this is that I rarely drink. I don’t think I have more than 12 glasses of alcohol a year. I would probably have some Christmas, New Year’s Eve, New Year, my Birthday, or a family member’s birthday (if I feel like it), or a very nice Summer day.

But back to the actual links or recipes, I wanted to share. As you might have gathered from one of my previous posts (https://kateshabitat.com/no-soda-challenge-with-waterdrop/) I’m a huge fan of waterdrop® to flavor my water and apart from the fact that the drop “clean” mixed with Tonic apparently tastes like a G&T they also have 3 recipes with the drop “vibe” on their blog https://www.waterdrop.com/blogs/magazine/vibe-summer-drink-recipes.
Another source for good mocktail recipes is https://whole30.com/mocktails/.

For the second week of the year, I had two blog posts options. The first one was for Monday, January 10th, namely Plough Monday (or in Dutch Verloren Maandag). The date for this varies as it is always the first Monday after Epiphany. And where we live in Flanders, especially the province of Antwerp, it is a custom to eat sausage rolls or “apple buns”. These apple buns are a cored whole apple with sugar and cinnamon encased in pastry dough, baked in the oven. As the pastry is typical for Belgium and the Netherlands, I didn’t find a correct translation for “Appelbol”. I also just looked up why we do this and this tradition seemed the have started in the late Middle Ages when functionaries were sworn in on that day and the city government distributed the sausage rolls and “apple buns” under their new employees. Resulting in a day of celebrating instead of working, so a lost day of work.
We celebrated this already on Sunday with my parents and sister (plus her husband and kids). Hence I tried to stay in the moment and don’t have any photographs.
Another option would have been National Sticker day, January 13th. While I have a lot of Happy Planner stickers (https://thehappyplanner.com/collections/stickers), I haven’t used much, if any of them this year in my work or home planner, spare for redating purposes. So while I wanted to share a somewhat decent spread in my wellness planner, that may be for another time.

For last week I wanted to dedicate a post to Popcornday, January 19th. Lately, I eat homemade stovetop popcorn, this seems to be quicker than popping it in the microwave and helps me with portion control. You just have to see that you have a non-stick pan or use enough oil if you don’t. Another plus is that you can top it with whatever you want, so you can make them sweet or savory depending on what you are fancying at the moment. If you remember I used Deliciou Nacho cheese seasoning in a previous post (https://kateshabitat.com/deliciou-review/). In the meantime, I already tried it with Bacon seasoning, vegetarian cheese, or Ranch. I must say that the Ranch dressing is my favorite so far.

This week, it is Poetry Day and on January 28th it is international Lego Day. My poetry writing days are behind me, and a post about International Lego Day will be hopefully for next year on that day. As I promised my nephew a trip to Legoland discovery center in Scheveningen (https://www.legolanddiscoverycentre.com/scheveningen/). Unfortunately, this C-situation is working against us.
Hence this week I wanted to do a new WWII book review. I still have a couple on my Kindle that I haven’t read. While I already read 9 fiction books this year a WWII-themed one, wasn’t among them yet.
However, the last one I read, I highly recommend: “Flirting with Fame” by Kaye Kennedy (https://www.amazon.com/Flirting-Fame-Bodyguard-Romantic-Suspense-ebook/dp/B09CLKRXVL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2SG5TT8SMROZT&keywords=flirting+with+fame+kaye+kennedy&qid=1643123889&sprefix=flirting+with+fame%2Caps%2C185&sr=8-1). It is a slow burn love story with some steamy scenes, laced with suspense. The heroine is a pop star with a stalker and the hero is a Japanese detective working for the SITF in New York City. The first chapter gives you a peek into the mind and memory of the stalker which might not be for the faint of heart. As a fan of CSI and Criminal Minds, I certainly could appreciate these parts, and this makes it possible to play detective yourself with the rest of the clues the SITF and private security gather and some other chapters. It is the second book in the “Flirting with the finest” series but can be read as a stand-alone. However, if you read the first book in the series as well as Kaye’s “Burning for the bravest” series, you will come across some familiar faces. It is her longest story so far, but as with all her books I finished it in 24 hours, it also “made me” crave Sushi.

The blog post for next week is already penciled in, hopefully, I can keep these posts consistent. Also, if you have a book recommendation or want to read more of a certain topic, just leave a comment or contact me and I will try to accommodate.